Title: “Balancing Business and Family: Lindsay Sharma’s Path to Financial Clarity”
Episode: 221
This episode of Profit First for REI podcast will give you more hope. Wherever you are now, there is a way out of it!
Lindsay Sharma, a mom and wife, has been in real estate for a year, but she is doing a great job! In this episode, she tells her journey in the real estate world and the money struggles she has gone through.
Listen as she shares how Profit First has helped her in this real estate journey. Enjoy the show!
Key Takeaways:
[00:55] Introducing Lindsay Sharma
[02:30] Being a real estate investor and a parent at the same time
[05:48] Money struggles
[09:05] Burn out as a real estate investor
[11:12] Transition from working for a real estate investor to becoming your boss
[13:40] Introducing Profit First
[21:01] Being strategic and proactive about finances
[24:34] Her advice for people starting their real estate journey
[26:46] Connect with Lindsay Sharma
Quotes:
[03:14] “You have to be extremely organized and efficient as a business owner and mom, so I’ve learned to delegate, communicate my needs, and be very organized and prepared. Always thinking one step ahead.”
[13:00] “Starting a business or jumping full time as a real estate investor, you wouldn’t believe how fast you can spend your money on everything to operate a business.”
[24:40] “Be patient, and don’t try to scale too quickly.”
Connect with Lindsay:
Website: https://www.lspropertybuyers.com/
Tired of living deal to deal?
If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think the implementation and the accountability piece is what I was having a hard time doing on my own. Like many CEOs and entrepreneurs, I don’t know if I’m necessarily strong on the implementation side, I’m more of the visionary. And so I wanted somebody to help me take this system system and put it into place. And so simple, CFO, having a fractional CFO really helps me do that.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
If you’re a real estate investor who’s sick and tired of living deal to deal, then welcome home. Hear from everyday real estate investors just like you, and discover how they’ve completely transformed their business by taking a profit First approach. This is the profit first for REI podcast, where we believe revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. It’s time to start making profit a habit in your business. So here’s your host, David Richter.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, we have Lindsay Sharma here today on the Profit first, RII podcast. She is a mom and wife and she has three kids at home. Got you even, I don’t know if we edited out, but one of ’em walks in, but she’s honestly doing a great job. She’s only been in real estate for a year, but kicking butt and taking names. And she also tells her journey in the real estate world, but then also her money struggles that she’s gone through and how profit versus helped her. And just if anything, I want this episode to give you more hope wherever you are now that there is a way out of it and she really walks you through some of those steps of that helped her as well. Thank you for listing and enjoy the episode. Enjoy. Hey Lindsay, I’m super excited to have you on here. We have Lindsay Sharma here and she is a client of Simple CFO, so disclaimer there, but that’s where we get to go into her as a real estate investor, also as a true crime addict on the social and on Netflix and all that stuff. Just kidding. We don’t have to go there unless you want to. But Lindsay, thanks for being on the podcast today.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Thanks, David. I’m excited to be here. Really love your content.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well, I appreciate that. Well, one of the things that popped up, and it popped up several times when you sent me your bio, I never read anyone’s bios. I feel like bios are boring and I have to read it and sound robotic, but I love that in two places, two things popped up, you being a mom and then also you are also a true crime lover like the show. So I’m like, how does that play into it? I do want to know, okay, on the serious side, maybe we’ll be serious. And then funny first, but serious, how is being a real estate investor and being a parent at the same time, has that affected your journey as you’ve been a real estate investor?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, you know what? I think there’s definitely some carryover from being a mom and also running a business because as a mom a lot of times you’re running your household, you’re managing all these personalities. I have three kids, four and under, so they’re learning emotional regulation. And me as mom, I have to teach them things. I have to teach them how to communicate, to name their feelings, to manage the meltdowns. And sometimes you see that in business too, just dealing with tough personalities, dealing with a lot of people, managing expectations. Also, you have to be extremely organized and efficient, I think as a business owner and mom. So I’ve learned to really delegate to communicate my needs and just be very organized and prepared, always thinking one step ahead.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Okay. Well that’s awesome. I love hearing that and how that’s translated. I feel like that does give you a leg up if you’re the one doing that and teaching that emotional regulation at home. So right. There are so many personality types that you run into, especially in the real estate world. So I did want to ask what brought you down the real estate road? Was it the same thing? Was it the purple Bible that everyone has, rich Dad port had, or did you get into it by some different gateway drug?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So I would say the purple Bible, I love that you call it that. That’s hilarious. That’s true. For me, that was a mind shift and paradigm shift for me just to learn about assets and liabilities and what the difference is. So that did get me started on the path, but really what kind of fueled it more is, so I’ll kind of give you a little bit of a backstory. I grew up in the Midwest, so northwest Ohio, kind of what you would call the rust belt. And I was growing up in a time of sort of economic downturn. The auto industry was very important in my area and it provided a lot of great jobs for families. Well, as we know, a lot of the factories shut down in the nineties, two thousands, that sort of thing. So I saw a lot of decline around me and I was fortunate enough to go to college.
(04:51):
I graduated with a degree in graphic design and I graduated in 2007, and of course financial crisis happened in 2008, so I was kind of living in an area where there was a lot of economic difficulty, and it really took me a long time to get a job in my field. I mean, it was probably six, seven years before I got hired as a graphic designer. And it wasn’t for lack of effort because I applied to hundreds and hundreds of jobs, but I started freelancing on the side just to get some clients some money and get some practice as a designer because I loved it. And eventually I had my own business where it was more, I use the term business loosely because I didn’t know much about running a business at the time, and I was kind of just having a job for myself and then just working with all these different clients.
(05:45):
So when I was doing that, I struggled a lot financially, but fortunately I was single at the time, so I only had to take care of myself, and I just didn’t know what I didn’t know. And I starting to learn about passive income and about financial literacy and how do you get ahead, how do you build wealth, that sort of thing. While I was working for myself, because I was like, there’s got to be something easier than what I’m doing here or something’s not working. And so that’s how I got on the path to real estate. And interestingly enough, when I was a designer, I would create digital products. For example, I had an Etsy shop where I sold resume templates and I would create the template once and then just sell it over and over again. And I was like, this is great. And that’s how I kind of got turned onto the idea of passive income, which we all know in business that nothing’s truly passive, but it’s that idea of investing in something, whether it’s time, money, and then reaping income from it or whatever over time, once you’ve kind of front loaded that work.
(06:52):
So I loved that idea. I knew that you could build that through real estate as well. So I started learning about real estate. I think BiggerPockets was getting really popular at the time that I was kind of learning all of this. So I listened to a lot of BiggerPockets, but I was still at the point that I’m like, okay, I’m learning this stuff, but how do I get started? Because I was scared, scared and I didn’t have any money either. So I thought, well, what if I switch careers and try to find a job working in real estate so that I can just get my foot in the door somewhere? And I actually found a job for a real estate investor, and I worked for him for three years. I was his executive assistant and I was involved in every part of his business, which was such a great learning experience for me. And I actually bought my first investment property while I was working with him and kind of under his mentorship and guidance. And then from there I started my own real estate investing company.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Okay. Okay. Good grief. This is pretty cool. That took a lot of courage. You went to college for graphic design. You were doing that on the side, you had your Etsy shop, but then you were like, you had a job and then you said, no, maybe I should find something in the real estate space. This is what I want to do. That’s what I heard. That was like, yes. Were you married at that point? Were you married at that point when that
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Happened? Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Okay. How did that go down at home? Hey, I want to do real estate investing. I’m thinking we’re going to go work for this guy over here. Was that a good conversation and yes, let’s do this, or are you sure? Because it’s like a lot of us have those people in our life.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, my husband was very supportive. He just wants me to be happy and to pursue the things that I want. And he saw as a person who was freelancing for a long time and in the design industry, I really burnt myself out and I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. And so I was kind of looking, what’s the next thing? And so yeah, he was very supportive.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Well, good. I’m glad this was not the beat down for your husband, but I’m glad he was there supporting you. Sounds like too, you were ready to take that plunge to something else you were getting burnt out, which I don’t know any real estate investors that ever burn out. Have you ever felt on the edge of burnout as a real estate investor up until this point?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
So I’ve only been in business around, I’m coming up close to a year, but I haven’t felt burnout because I’m very intentional about self-care, balance, managing stress. And I also, I have a very limited amount of time that I can work on the business because I have three little kids, they go to daycare during the day, but I still have to pick them up. I have to take them to appointments and then when they’re home in the evening, can’t, a lot of business owners sometimes when they’re starting their business, they work those really long hours and I just don’t, it’s not available to me nor do I want it to be. That’s not how I’m designing my life. So I’m very intentional about managing all of those things. So I’m happy to say I have not reached burnout yet. However, I have reached, I’ve gone through some really difficult moments and one thing I do have a coach that I work with and having kind of a support system and somebody who’s also been in the trenches has been where you have been, makes a huge difference. And I didn’t have that in my graphic design business because again, I didn’t really know, I didn’t invest in myself the way that I have this time around. So I was kind of alone and I didn’t have a network. I didn’t have anyone to help me out with these things. I didn’t have a model to look up to either, which I experienced a lot. I received a lot kind of a blueprint when I was working for the other investor to see how he ran his business. And that’s exactly how I structure Martin now.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Well, that’s awesome. So it sounds like you were able to learn while you earned, you learned while you earned with him, and then learned, sounds like you learned a lot during that time. And then were able to make connections and build this network and be able to step into the real estate. Well, man, there’s so many ways I could take this. There were so many good things there. You set a mentor, you set the people in your life. You said you were working with him. Okay. I do have a bigger question. How was the transition working for a real estate investor to becoming your own boss and your own company and yourself as a real estate investor?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
So I feel like I had a lot of advantages in the sense that my learning curve was maybe reduced somewhat just because I already spent time in that industry. But on the flip side of that, I expected all these things to happen so quickly in my business that I forgot the guy I was working for spent 10 years building his business. He had 10 years of experience and I’m trying to, I’m shooting for certain revenue goals and things like that, and I’m like, why isn’t this happening? So I sort of forgot that it takes a long time, even though maybe I have the knowledge, you still need the experience, you need to put in the work, you need to put in the time. And some of it’s just time.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah. So that’s a great sentiment. It’s like, oh man, this seemed like I was just going to get the short path. But it’s like you still got to get through some of that stuff, but you did have that advantage of working with someone. So would you suggest that to people like that, if they’re looking to get into the real estate journey and on their own path, would you suggest for them to link up with someone maybe in their market like you did or sounds like it helped a lot? Absolutely. But I’d love to hear your feedback on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I would highly recommend it. And even if you can’t work directly for an investor, if you’re trying to make a career shift and you don’t have real estate experience, even if you’re working in something adjacent, maybe the mortgage lending or for a title company, whatever, even if it’s taking a step back in your career, maybe doing administrative work or something, you will learn so much just from being in the industry that’s going to help you, especially if you want to start your own business. And it’s also beneficial if you need an income because starting a business or jumping full time as a real estate investor, you wouldn’t believe how fast you can spend your money on all the things to operate a business or just accumulating and purchasing properties. There’s a lot of money involved with that as well. Closing costs and renovations, all of the things.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Okay. Yeah, for sure. So it sounds like you’re endorsed working for someone else, seeing all that it goes on there and then jumping into it, then it gives you a much greater advantage. But then you were talking about the money too. Okay. What got you first excited about profit first or where did that even enter your sphere in this real estate journey?
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So going back to, I had this experience, I worked, the guy I worked for, the other investor, his name was Justin. I worked for him for three years. And like I said, I was involved in everything. So I learned about acquisitions, I learned about marketing. I was even involved in some of the bookkeeping and financial tasks, things like that. So I had a pretty good picture of the different parts of the business and what needs to be done. And so again, kind of going back to my ignorance of, oh, this is going to be easy. I know all the things. Of course that didn’t happen. And I started scaling my business too quickly. So I was spending all this money on marketing. I was getting all these leads in the door, and I had a team in place. I had two acquisition managers working for me, but I didn’t train them very well, and they were leaving a lot of opportunities on the table.
(14:33):
And I also wasn’t, I was doing all of these different things in my business that I wasn’t really focused on the most important thing, which would be getting them really highly trained, really tightening up the acquisition side of my business. And I just started spending too much on money. We were leaving leads on the table and I started looking at my finances and I’m like, oh, I’m not really making much of a profit here. Where’s all the money going? I’m not able to really measure my marketing results because my business was new, and this was probably around six months in business that I started to see this sort of crunch. And I did have a little bit of money saved up to get my business going to spend on marketing. In the beginning, that money went very quickly, and then I kept saying to myself, oh, I’m spending all this money on marketing.
(15:23):
I’ll just get more deals, more deals will come in, even I’ll start to be profitable. And after a few months of that, I’m like, well, this isn’t really materializing. What’s going on here? And I started to get a little nervous, stressed and fearful, and then I came across your book, David Profit First for Real Estate Investors that I read that book and I was like, it just really resonated with me because a lot of us, we read books, we listen to podcasts, but people aren’t really talking about how difficult managing your cashflow can be and how problematic it can be. And so that really helped me and your stories in the book just made it so relatable and real. And so I was kind of hooked at that point, and I started listening to your podcast, and then of course I heard the ads for Simple CFO, and I thought, well, I would love to have somebody that can help me make sense of these numbers and get financial clarity so that I can better make decisions in my business.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Awesome. Well, I appreciate that, but I wanted to go back a little bit. You said that before all this, it was like, okay, where’s all the money going? We’re not making a profit. A lot of the stuff that I write about in the book that probably resonated with you probably saw that, and I want to commend you, thank you, number one for saying that, because sometimes it’s difficult for people to admit that. But then number two, I think it’s very interesting you started to say, okay, this sounds like something that I need to grasp onto. So then you sought out the other ways of information like podcast or whatever, because that’s where I feel like a lot of people, if they’re in the real estate space, you find the book or something and it’s like, hopefully they have something else. I need more of this. So then talk about that then you’re less than a year into your business and then you’re like, okay, you have to call with simple CFO and then you come on board. What’s the difference between reading the book and having someone simple CFO working with you, if you don’t mind going into that?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, I think the implementation and the accountability piece is what I was having a hard time doing on my own. Many CEOs and entrepreneurs. I don’t know if I’m necessarily strong on the implementation side, I’m more of the visionary, and so I wanted somebody to help me take this system and put it into place. And so simple C, having a fractional CFO really helps me do that as well as holds me accountable. Because what some people do is they’ll set up their profit first account, they get it all organized, they open all the accounts, they put the money where it needs to go, and then two weeks later they’re stealing money from not stealing, but they’re transferring money from accounts where, where it sort of defeats the purpose of the system. So if you don’t have anyone looking at this with you looking over your shoulder coaching you, then it’s easier to lose that discipline, I guess.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah. Okay. Well, I love hearing that for sure. So then before it was like, gosh, where was it going? What did it look like after in your business? Now that you have it set up, what does it, I guess, is night and day difference or is it more like, okay, this is what I know in my business, I’m just trying to paint the picture. Here’s where it was before, here’s what it looks like after.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So I’m not out of the woods yet, because sometimes it can take a year, two years, three years, just depending on what your business looks like for sure. But I’ve been working my fractional CFO, his name is Tony, he’s awesome. Been working with him. I would say probably, I want to say we started working together in October, so it’s maybe even five, six months now. So he helped me get a new bookkeeper, a new CPA, really clean up my books so I can see how things are categorized clearly, see my properties were not coded correctly from my previous bookkeeper. So a lot of things like that. We use this dashboard that just has all these different metrics so that again, I can easily see where things are. It just keeps me a lot more organized. And then we just talk about a lot of different things.
(19:44):
Whenever I’m struggling with something financially in my business, I’ll bring it up with Tony and we’ll go over it and we’ll kind of walk through some different options. One also thing he set up for me, which has been really, really helpful is it’s basically like a cashflow tracker. So you can see if you’re working on a flip or you have some wholesale deals, you can kind of see what money you expect to come in and what money’s going out the door. And that was really hard for me to try and manage that on my own, but this dashboard that he created, it’s just really easy to use. So that’s been super helpful.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Awesome. So then going through this process, I guess, did you see, this was one of the things where you were like, oh, I thought this would be easier, right? Because you had even mentioned that upfront like, oh, I was in the real estate world and knew all this stuff. So then do you think that this helped, I guess at home, maybe not even, it could be with your husband or whatever, but do you think having a system for the finances, how does that improve the relationships or the time? Does this help you with time at home too, just knowing and stuff or financial peace of mind? I’m just looking for how it affects you when it comes to the home life as well.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, it definitely provides a lot of peace of mind just knowing that I’m being strategic and I’m being proactive about my finances. It just kind of takes the burden off. And then I do actually manage our personal household finances as well, just because, yeah, I’m more of a spreadsheet person and I’m the one who learns about investing and wealth building and all those things. So I’ve just kind of taken on that task in the household. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Have you transferred any of that from the private first? I don’t know. Or did you already have the envelope method set up on the personal side?
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah. No, we don’t really use that because we really just have an automatic amount of money that just gets pulled out of our checking and thrown into our savings. And we use what’s called a CMA cash management account, which is kind of like a high yield savings account. It’s pretty much the same thing, and we put our savings in there that way. Ours is making about 5% right now instead of the 0.5 or 1%. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, we try to keep it pretty simple. We try to live below our means, always save money every single month, and I’m starting to learn about infinite banking and I’m thinking about getting some insurance policies for my kids so that they can start having this account as they get older. Yeah,
Speaker 3 (22:44):
No, that’s great. Well, I love that. So we could do a whole episode on that. I set it up with my family and all that stuff, and I like that being liquid. But I like what you were saying. It sounds like you have some of the core concept already baked into you as a person. Just don’t spend more than you’re making. It’s at home. And then in the business feel like it’s a lot easier to spend more than you’re making. A lot of times, especially in the real estate world, are these deals going to close or not? So it’s good. I like that you not only have read about it, but you’ve actually taken action and done something with it and getting that peace of mind. Okay. Well then what would be your advice be to someone who might want to set a profit first in their business then?
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, I would say definitely read the book. There’s a lot of really practical things in there that’ll help you get started. You can definitely do it on your own, but again, if you have weaknesses in implementation or you need some accountability, I would definitely recommend working with a company like Simple CFO. It’s just really, I think finances can be the most confusing, but it’s also the most important part of your business. And to invest in having someone help you manage and sort all that stuff out, it’s just really going to pay back tenfold in your business.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. I did not pay Lindsay to say that, so thank you Lindsay for saying that. That was good stuff. And then to end, and what’s one piece of advice or maybe the hardest lesson or whatever that you’ve learned and that you’re either overcoming or have overcome in the last year in the real estate investing world?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Gosh, I think there’s so many of ’em. I would say the biggest one is just being patient and not trying to scale too quickly because I think we all get a little, we listen to podcasts. We’re looking at all of these really successful investors, and people are talking about how much money’s in their portfolio or how much it’s worth and how many doors they have. And so we all feel like that’s what we should be doing. I need to grow my portfolio. I need a hundred doors in two years because those are the stories we hear. But what you don’t hear is when you’re over-leverage and your tenants aren’t paying and now you negative cash cashflow, those sort of situations can happen very, very quickly. So I think you just have to be careful and scale at a level that you’re comfortable with. You need to make sure you have a solid foundation for your business. You need a solid team. You need solid financial understanding before you start expanding and growing. You need to kind of start at step one. And that’s a big lesson I learned. I was trying to go to 100 really quickly and it proved to be very stressful and challenging. So now I’m taking it slower and I’m okay with that.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Yeah. Well, that’s really good. I think that’s great advice. So many people are out there hustling and then they’re hustling themselves right into the dirt, so it’s like, please don’t do that. So I like that a lot, being patient and not going against the mainstream a little bit where you just have to grow, grow at all costs. That’s very much the mindset we try to pass on. So this is really good stuff. Okay, so this has been awesome. You’ve helped people in a lot of different ways. I love your journey. I think they could just get, if they’re looking to get into real estate, you gave great lessons there of okay, find someone who’s in it and get help, and then now you have a mentor and a financial coach. It’s like you have these people in your life for the things that you need that help on. So I think this was really good, just giving some very practical steps. Is there any way you want people to connect with you, I don’t know, social media or email or website or if someone wants to reach out?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Sure. I love when people reach out to me. I love to talk to other investors and I love to answer questions for people, especially busy moms who want to make career changes. I get a lot of questions from people in those situations. So yeah, you can find me on Facebook. It’s a Lindsay Sharma. I spell my name with an A, so it’s LIN dsa y. You can just look me up, should find me there. My company is Lindsay Sharma, property buyers, and my website is, it’s ls property buyers.com.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Awesome. So there you go. There’s her website. That’s how you could find her on the socials. And if you have ever felt like, Lindsay, where the heck is my money going? We’re making this money, but I don’t know what’s happening. Or like she said, if you need help with implementation, someone holding you by the hand, helping you down this road can reach out to simple cfo.com. We can get on a call there, see if we’re the right fit or if we can at least point you in the right direction. But we want to help you as well too. If at the very least, go by the book, listen to it, start to implement it like she had mentioned as well too. And then make sure you follow Lindsay and just especially if you’re in that situation where she was talking about if you’re a mom and trying to go through and do all the stuff that you’re doing and adding business to it, it’s like that’s a great community to be a part of and other people that are on that road with you. So if you can do that, that’d be great. I know that she would love to help you. If there’s anything else, thank you so much, Lindsey, for being on this podcast and for providing a lot of value here and for being a great guest today.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Thanks, David. Thank you for all you do. I know you’re helping a lot of people with the book and simple CFO, so it’s great.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I appreciate that. And if you’re listening, thank you for listening and for sticking with us and have a great rest of your day.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
This episode of The Profit First for REI podcast is over, but there are plenty more where that came from. Are you ready to learn how David and his team can help implement the Profit First system in your business? Schedule a discovery call@simplecfo.com right now. We’ll see you next time on The Profit First for REI podcast with David Richter.
