The Dynamics of Likability and Competence (ft. Mandy McAllister)

Jules (00:13) Hi and welcome to She’s the Boss, it’s not She’s the Boss chats, it’s She’s the Boss disruptors this little season. And I have just done a little post because I am so excited that I am interviewing the amazing Mandy McAllister, who is over in Chicago and is doing something that I think everybody who’s listening is gonna absolutely love. So I’ve kind of thrown you under the bus a bit there Mandy, but. ⁓ We’ll start with how about you introduce yourself and tell people what you’re doing now in your business. Mandy McAllister (00:46) sure. My name is Mandy McAllister. am a business and multifamily apartment investor, a podcaster and co-founder of Go Abundance Women, which in my opinion is disrupting women’s leadership. It’s helping women go further faster and scale without sacrifice. Jules (01:05) my god, I love it, obviously. let’s talk a little bit then about GoBundance Women. Why did you start it? Did you sort of have a light bulb moment? I’m always interested in that moment where you go, for god’s sake, right, I’m gonna go and set up something myself. ⁓ So I’m very interested in how it all came about and what exactly GoBundance Women does. Mandy McAllister (01:28) Sure, so GoBundance was actually a men’s only organization for many, years. That because I play in a group that is so heavily male dominated, I knew a lot of friends in apartment building and business buying that were… Jules (01:34) ⁓ really? Mandy McAllister (01:44) getting into their lives and growing into their lives in bigger ways than I had ever seen them do before. So I badly wanted to join the, because you’re part of this group, that’s what’s taking you further faster. And then in 2017, when I looked into joining the women’s division didn’t yet exist. in 2019, 2020, when the women’s division came about, I joined as a member. And then through that time, through being next to other women doing big stuff, Jules (01:57) Right. Mandy McAllister (02:12) I found the bravery to leave my W-2. I knew I had the money, but I had those golden handcuffs that, man, they fit me real good, Jules. You know what I’m saying? So I found the bravery because I was next to other women who had done big things. And then right after I bought my way out of my W-2, W-2 means full-time job in America, ⁓ I was able to, ⁓ I had space and I was able to then take on ownership. Jules (02:12) Yeah. Hahaha OK, right. Mandy McAllister (02:40) of the women’s division with a couple of partners, and we’ve been really running at impacting women’s lives in big ways ever since. Jules (02:44) Right. And so can you tell me a little bit more though about what Go Abundance actually does? Mandy McAllister (02:50) So. Sure, we are the tribe of healthy, wealthy, generous women who choose to lead epic lives. I’ve never said that before, I’m sure you can tell. But the thing that we do is we create the room for big thinkers. We create the culture where you get a high five for achieving something big, rather than getting a, ⁓ must be nice, which happens on the cul-de-sac a lot. Jules (02:57) You Yeah, right. Mandy McAllister (03:18) You know, we provide the opportunity for women to come together and mastermind to solve our own problems in a really big way. So we do stuff in person, we do a ton of stuff online, and we just kind of provide the room to lift each other up. Jules (03:36) And what kind of women ⁓ can apply? Because I think you’ve got sort of a clear picture of the kind of women that you want in the group. Mandy McAllister (03:37) We’re good. The ones that we can serve best are an accredited investor. So what that means in the United States is you have a million dollar net worth or earn $200,000 a year by yourself or $300,000 a year with a spouse because the types of problems that exist if you’re having trouble putting food on the table are different than trying to go from a million to 10 million. we are the perfect woman is the one who is hungry for more, know, more in her business. Jules (03:56) Right. are different. Mandy McAllister (04:14) more in her connection with her loved ones, more in her charitable giving, whatever those things are, we want to help put people in the right room and provide the right resources and goal setting to make that happen. Jules (04:28) And is it specifically around real estate? Mandy McAllister (04:31) You know, we’re a heavy real estate vibe because if the tribe of millionaires, they say, Andrew Carnegie said that 90 % of all millionaires are so because of real estate. But another key reason is the men’s division grew really quickly because ⁓ the hosts of a pretty key real estate podcast joined as members to go abundance. And that kind of spread the word like wildfire. Jules (04:36) because it came out of real estate. Right. Right, right. I love this. It’s just so clever. okay, now I’m interested. We’ll talk a little bit more about GoBundance after we talk about your journey there. But I want to take you back, if that’s all right, to when you were a little girl, ⁓ what kind of a family did you grow up in? Did you have brothers and sisters? What did your parents do? Did you like school? I want to get a picture of Mandy as maybe an eight-year-old, something like that. Mandy McAllister (05:28) love it. my kiddo youngest is nine. So it’s neat to get to visualize that. So I grew up on a farm in a town of 800 people. And my class of grad, my graduating class was 26 kids, the same 26 kids I went to kindergarten with. So very small, everybody knew all your business, ⁓ which is really good in many ways. And also really like, gosh, did I crave anonymity at some point. Jules (05:29) You Wow. You Mandy McAllister (05:54) but we’re a farm family, know? So everybody worked the farm. I, you know, walked beans and fed cows and baled hay and did all of the things that a farm kid would do. So my dad was self-employed and my mom started a gift manufacturing company when I was a kid that kind of ended up being my first sales gig. Yeah, she made reproduction carousel horses and the bulk of her sales came at trade shows. So I was her sales force. Jules (06:05) All right. my goodness. right Mandy McAllister (06:21) She would fly me around with her and we would, you know, hang out in hotels and then go sell on the trade floor. Jules (06:27) That just sounds so niche, I just need to know more about carousel horses. I mean, are they life-size? Are they real carousel horses? Mandy McAllister (06:33) Bye. Well, there, ⁓ do you know the things that the kid would ride like a horse, a bouncy horse? Yeah, that same manufacturer of the plastic horses, that’s who she started buying from. So, you know, it doesn’t exist anymore, but it was, you know, it was very, very niche. And it was a really cool opportunity for me. Jules (06:42) Yeah, at that thing… Yeah. Right. a thing. Mandy McAllister (06:58) to as this little farm girl who, no, you’re from New York City, you must know way more than me, have an opportunity to grow a bond with a buyer on the floor of the New York Javits trade show. And it was really an opportunity that opened up my brain that, well, why not me? If anything needs to have a person doing it, then why couldn’t I potentially be that person? Jules (07:02) You Yes. Yeah! Amazing. Okay, so ⁓ do you have brothers and sisters? Mandy McAllister (07:28) yes, I have one younger brother. still call him my little brother, but he’s 16 months younger than me and he’s the medical director of hospitals in Indianapolis. So. Jules (07:33) You I still call my, I’ve got three brothers and I still call them all my baby brothers even though they’re in their late 50s now. Okay, so you grew up on the farm, what happens with high school? Was there a local high school as well that you went to or did you have to travel or what happened there? Well, the dark night there, you know. Right. Mandy McAllister (07:54) Well, the high school was 10 miles away, you know, so I and I was the youngest one in my class. So I got my driver’s license at 16, which meant the middle of my junior year. So when it came to like getting getting into trouble with friends, like nobody is like I’m not riding my bike 10 miles. So it’s been a really funny like parenting thing now because I don’t even know how a kid would think about sneaking out. because it was never an option for me. So ⁓ very, very small towns. We went other cities to play sports. There was only one sport for girls in my town and it was volleyball. Jules (08:20) Yeah. Right. Bad luck if you don’t like volleyball then. Okay, so did you go right the way through to year 12 or whatever the final year is for you and then was it a natural decision? So what did you decide to do then? Did you go to uni or did you go straight out into the workforce? Mandy McAllister (08:34) Exactly. Yeah. So, ⁓ well, in my family, like the smart kid was going to go be a doctor or go be a lawyer. And I was a straight A’s, always did things perfect, always waited my, you know, always did things. And I think I got three A minuses in all of high school. Jules (08:54) Yeah. Mandy McAllister (09:08) And I knew I didn’t really belong in my little town. I love them to death, but I never fully felt like I fit in in that small town where I was craving anonymity. So luckily I was good at volleyball. So I ended up getting some offers to play in college and took a scholarship to a little school in Georgia, which is about 12 hours away from where I grew up. Jules (09:08) Right. Ha ha ha! Right. Mandy McAllister (09:30) So I ended up going to school, played on the volleyball team at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. And then literally the day after commencement there, the day after I was done, I moved to the city of Chicago. Jules (09:42) and haven’t looked back because that’s where you are still, isn’t it? Amazing! Okay, and so what did you study at uni and ⁓ what did you do in Chicago when you finished? Mandy McAllister (09:46) Yes. Well, the thing that I was supposed to do was go to medical school, right? So I was a chemistry major for two plus years. And I actually had a conversation. I realized like, my gosh, so I’m 18, 19 years old at the time. If I’m committing my entire life to this, I should talk to somebody who does the thing. Like how lucky that I had this kid thought. So I ended up talking to a cardiologist who I guess he was having a bad day. Jules (09:57) Right Alright. Mandy McAllister (10:20) because he’s like, you’re gonna be a slave to this pager. You better love medicine if you’re gonna do this because this beeper, this is gonna be your, you you’re gonna be tied to it all the time. So I ended up switching into the business school. I did a lot of Spanish and a lot of other like almost minors in there too. think I changed my major 72 times, but I ended up with a business degree with a specialization in marketing. ⁓ And then when I moved to ⁓ Chicago, Jules (10:29) It’s- yeah. Mandy McAllister (10:48) It was 2002, which meant that there was, was a recession. So I wasn’t able to find a job that I wanted to do. And nobody knew Mercer and I had no contacts because they were all in Georgia. So I asked somebody, well, the summer’s home through school, through college, I ⁓ waited tables. Jules (11:00) God. Right. Mandy McAllister (11:08) So I asked around like, does a girl go if she wants to make money waiting tables in Chicago and Rush Street. I don’t know if you know of Rush Street, but it’s the very ritzy. There’s actually, it makes a triangle the way the streets are. They call it the Viagra triangle because that’s where the rich old dudes hang out. And the little farm girl stumbles in and becomes a bottle service girl. And one of my regulars actually ⁓ was working on the floor of the board of trade. Jules (11:26) Okay. Mandy McAllister (11:37) And he, was, started a master’s in economics because I didn’t want to just be the waitress, you know? And while I was doing that master’s in economics, I worked on the floor of the board of trade also, which was a really cool learning experience as well. Jules (11:43) Yeah. Yeah, what’s the Board of Trade? Tell me about that a little bit. Mandy McAllister (11:54) It’s where all the pricing happens. It’s the open outcry that you might see on CNBC of guys in the same jackets and all the yelling in the hands and that thing. Exactly. Yeah, but the Chicago Board of Trade is where they do grains. And I speak farm ground, so they thought it was extra special to have the farm kid who had seen soybeans, because many of the traders had never even seen a soybean. So that was really great. Jules (12:04) the stock exchange kind of thing. Right. Right. Yeah. Mandy McAllister (12:23) again, a very male dominated area. And I started to, I saw the pits going away. We had these like little computers that people would, the clerks would tap, but it seems so clear that like, I’m pretty good at math, but the computer’s faster, you know? So it seemed very clear that that was gonna go away. And luckily I saw that writing on the wall. I went to make the trade or the change to what they called trading upstairs, trading on a computer. And it was me and 180 men. Jules (12:34) Yeah. Yeah. Right? Mandy McAllister (12:52) in one room at this prop firm. Jules (12:53) if that’s very i’ve got this picture of wolf of wall street you know it all the guys are cheering each other on and little old you in the corner pretty much right Mandy McAllister (13:00) Yeah, sweet little Mandy. Just yeah, bless my heart. So I realized pretty quickly that that culture just wasn’t me. And you know, it was a dark room and people would click their mouse for nine hours a day, 10 hours a day to get an edge. And that just didn’t seem that I lasted eight months, maybe, you know, but then I realized, OK, business plus medical, maybe I don’t need to be a doctor. Jules (13:16) my god. Okay. Mandy McAllister (13:26) but I can be in medicine because I speak science, you know. So I then went at like 24, 25 years old into medical sales and spent the bulk of my career in medical sales organizations. Jules (13:29) Yeah, nice. Can I just have to ask though about getting that first job? Because clearly if you were in medical, if you were working at the stock exchange going and fronting up to a company to say, hi, I’d like to start selling medical equipment would have been a bit of a long bow, I imagine just for in terms of your qualifications. So how did it come about? How did you persuade them to let you in? Mandy McAllister (14:05) I remember it like it was yesterday. Friends were telling me, that’s not possible. You’re not going to get a job. Everybody wants that job, Mandy. Well, who do you think you are? Whenever anybody tells me, oh, you can’t do that, that turns something on in my brain like one of bet. I’m going to make this happen. Yeah, just hold my beer. I remember thinking that I have all of the sales experience. Jules (14:15) Yeah. Yeah, let me show you. Mandy McAllister (14:31) Like I had ton of sales experience and managed millions of dollars worth of invoices and sales processes. So I knew those things. And I knew that I had this strong medical background coming as a chemistry major for two and a half-ish years. And I knew that I just needed to get one person to say yes. Because it didn’t matter what first job I had. I could grow a career, but I needed that first yes. Jules (14:50) Yeah? God, I love the way your brain thinks. You know, doesn’t… because you’re right! Once you’re in, then you’re in and you can keep… Mandy McAllister (15:03) It’s it’s backing into stuff. Exactly. I think so much, and maybe this is a takeaway for people listening, whenever there seems like some really big thing you want to do, you can always kind of back up and figure out one little linchpin. What is the, if I had that, what would change the ballgame, right? If I could just get that one job, that changes the ballgame, and I’m going to be able to build a career in medical device sales. So ⁓ AstraZeneca is a big mammoth. Jules (15:19) One little step. Yeah. Mandy McAllister (15:32) pharma company. ⁓ They are one that had offered, I got them to offer me a job. I met a manager who was gonna say yes and bet on me, even though I hadn’t had a ton of experience. And at that exact same time, there was a smaller company that’s, I don’t even know if they’re still around anymore, but I would have had a much larger territory. I would have worn a lot more hats. It was a generic. Jules (15:33) Yes? Okay. Mandy McAllister (15:57) albuterol company, a breathing medicine, that I would get to wear a lot more hats. So that felt way more interesting. Because if what I want to do is go further faster, I can either be a cog in a really big wheel, the AstraZeneca’s, or I can go to this super scrappy entrepreneurial type place and learn all of the things. So luckily, I chose ⁓ the door B and went to the entrepreneurial place. Jules (16:00) Yeah. or becoming. The smaller one. Wow, so how long did you stay there? Because you ended up, I think, for quite a long time working in that industry. Mandy McAllister (16:30) So I was at that company for about two years and I just, know, good, bad and different. There’s some ick that happens adjacent to medicine and I recognized it in that company. So I pretty quickly went to move to a larger company that would give me a little more ⁓ authenticity and being able to play by rules that felt like fully authentic, you know. Jules (16:36) led a lot Yeah, Mandy McAllister (16:55) So I Jules (16:55) yeah. Mandy McAllister (16:57) ended up finding another job where I stayed selling the dye that people might get a shot of when they get an x-ray or a CAT scan or an MRI. I stayed there for about five years. And that kind of just became the same thing over and over, because the contracts are two, three, five years long. And it all depended on the Jules (17:04) Yeah. Okay. Mandy McAllister (17:19) Each hospital belongs to a group purchasing organization. And if that group purchasing organization went a different way, you lost all your accounts. And it didn’t matter how good you were. The decision was made way before me. That felt a little frustrating. So I went to a really interesting company that collects your stem cells. This was 2012-ish. ⁓ Jules (17:28) Right. Okay, yeah. Mandy McAllister (17:48) that you get hooked up to a blood collection device, it collects your stem cells. And what it can do is for people with blood cancers, they would then put myoablate, they would give you chemotherapy to wipe out all your cells and then give you back your reprogrammed good cells. This is how they’re curing a lot of leukemias. That felt so freaking interesting, right? But it was 11 stakes. Jules (18:08) okay. Yeah, yeah. Mandy McAllister (18:13) I had 11 states, I lived out of my suitcase, I was getting married for the first time in there and I just, I couldn’t do that life. So then I found another job that was a wearable defibrillator. And I realized kind of my claim to fame there was that doctors weren’t prescribing this because it was difficult to prescribe. That the form had to be perfect or it got kicked back and they had to fill out the form again. Jules (18:17) Right. Right. Mandy McAllister (18:41) And that then meant somebody didn’t discharge the hospital, which then messed up their rates of discharge. And then the patient’s upset because they had to spend another day in the hospital because the form was wrong. But I had this realization that, we’ve got, again, computers. Computers were better at math than me, but computers can do something perfectly every single time. So these electronic medical records… ⁓ Jules (18:54) Right. You ⁓ Mandy McAllister (19:06) systems, I was able to figure out how to code our form to live inside these EMRs so that when doctor wants to prescribe it, he just click, click, click, and it prints out perfectly. And in some cases, I got it to auto fax to my company. So my quota was a million dollars. I sold like four million dollars that year. Jules (19:14) wow, Mandy. wow, okay, so by that stage you must be loving it. Mandy McAllister (20:39) It was great and it was a really good living. you know, honestly, putting these EMR things into place happened just as I was having my son. So there’s not like a timeline that you know is going to expire like the baby coming, you know? So it was great. We got a lot of stuff done. I was able to help dozens and dozens of hospitals, even on top of the ones that I got to represent in making this process easier. And I have hugged like 12 people who are alive. Jules (20:50) Uh-huh Mandy McAllister (21:08) because of this thing that I touched. There is nothing cooler. I get goosebumps saying it every single time. The opportunity to find something to stand behind, that you get to hug a human alive because of what you touched, that was amazing. That being said, the ick of medical device kind of came in there too. And a boss, the year after that really good year, the number reset. Anybody in sales knows this. You knock it out of the park. Jules (21:09) ⁓ wow. Wow. No. that you didn’t get on with. my god, I remember it too. Ridiculous. They make it enormous. Mandy McAllister (21:38) ⁓ Yeah, so Right. Well, so the quote of the year first year or whatever year it was that I figured this out was like a million and I sold four million So then the next year they want me to sell five million There’s not five million dollars worth of business in that territory, know So I wasn’t hitting my number and I knew I wasn’t hitting my number and I was doing my best But my boss told me that you got to go It’s just the math of it. It’s just it’s a support. It doesn’t Jules (21:54) Yeah. Okay. It’s like they set you up for failure. Yeah, yeah, doesn’t make sense. Mandy McAllister (22:08) Yeah, so my boss told me to go find patients. I’m like, well, tell me what that means. And he’s like, well, look at this printer at 10 a.m. and you’re going to see, you know, everybody who meets criteria for our device. Like you can get this thing that’s medical records and you can see who qualifies and then you just fill out the form and put it on the chart. Well, I don’t know how well you speak of the guidelines of hospitals. And in America, we have what we call HIPAA, which is, you know, protecting of patient information. That is a felony. Jules (22:34) Yeah. Mandy McAllister (22:38) And I told him, you know, no, I won’t do that. I was just becoming a single mom. I was getting divorced from my son’s dad. And I had a full on nervous breakdown in the parking garage because he was right. I wasn’t meeting my number and I could not line up my head with going to do this thing that I knew was really, really wrong. And the idea… Jules (22:51) ⁓ Ethically wrong, Mandy McAllister (23:02) And the Jules (23:02) and legally. Mandy McAllister (23:03) idea of, my God, I might lose my job and I’m responsible for this little boy. It’s just me and him now. But in this nervous breakdown I was having, I had this revelation that, my God, I’ve bought some apartment, like little bitty four-plex apartment buildings. Like I’m not going to be homeless and penniless and under a bridge with my son if I get fired because I won’t do this thing. We’re going to eat rice and beans, but we’re going to pay the mortgage. Jules (23:31) So you had already invested in some small apartments, is that what you were saying? Okay. Mandy McAllister (23:36) Yeah, so I got really interested in college when a friend explained the house we were at the party of that her dad bought that house and she got to rent out the rooms to our friends and I said, my God, and you get to keep that money. That’s the best. That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard in my life. Jules (23:43) Yeah. my god, Mandy, I can’t believe you came to that conclusion so early in your life. That is so smart. Like, I would love my kids at 18 to be learning from other people about buying into property. I just think that’s brilliant. So, you’ve been doing that. Mandy McAllister (24:11) but I did nothing with it. Because I was so scared to screw up. Like from 19 years old till 35, I did nothing because I’m so used to indoctrinated and must be perfect or you die. know, like I finally ⁓ took the risk and bought a fourplex, again, as my son, as I was pregnant with my son, because it says revelation that, you know, we only get one of these lives, you know. Jules (24:13) right Right. So a fourplex is, I’m guessing, a block of apartments with four apartments in it. Thank you, thank you, you, take my little bow. And did you think about living in one of them? Was that ever part of it, or was it just pure investment? Mandy McAllister (24:46) rushing at jewels. Yes, that’s exactly what it is. No, that was just pure investment. Had I had my do it all over again, I would have bought a fourplex when I was 19, 20, 21, lived in one and rented out the rest. But I you know, we had a little family at that time. But when I divorced, I couldn’t find I looked for a fourplex to live in that my my nanny and my son could live in and then we would, you know, rent out the rest of those rooms. Couldn’t find one in a school district that I liked. Jules (25:00) Okay. Yeah. Mandy McAllister (25:26) But I did find a house to fix up and get to sell for a profit later on. Jules (25:32) Okay, so then you’re into the, so if you kind of by that stage have you left medical devices and you’re starting to dip your toe into the whole ⁓ real estate investment thing. I mean, it just sounds incredibly glamorous to me, Mandy, I have to say. Buying apartment blocks as opposed to apartments. Mandy McAllister (25:46) Wow. This is great. Yeah, right. Well, got it. Actually, it’s hilarious that you say this because I a couple years ago acquired a motel ⁓ because I wanted to operationalize a business within real estate and now motel would do that. Well, I went to the motel. It’s like a five and a half hour drive away from where I live and we were fully booked. Jules (25:58) Yeah. Mandy McAllister (26:11) So there was no rooms available for me to sleep in. So I set up a little cot in housekeeping and I sent my husband a picture of it. He’s like, if this, you your life is so glamorous. Like I can’t even tell you slept under a desk. Yeah. Jules (26:13) You Yeah? Yeah, it doesn’t get more glamorous than that! And the mop bucket beside you. Okay, and so how did all of that unfold then? How did you start turning that into the main income, I guess, and also your main focus? Mandy McAllister (26:28) Exactly. Yeah, so when I had that revelation that, my God, we’re not gonna be homeless and penniless and under the bridge, like it was this light bulb moment of if I double down on medical sales and I sell four million again, they’re gonna make me sell $5 million for the same money next year, you know, like I can either chase my tail. Jules (26:58) Yeah. Mandy McAllister (27:02) or I can do a lot of work and set up an apartment building, but then if I go set up another one, it just builds on top of it. I’m never chasing my tail. I’m growing my cashflow year to year. So that really, that was, I’d say 2017, 2018, when I had that revelation. Much more recent. Jules (27:12) Yeah. more recent than I thought. Okay, right. So ⁓ by then you’ve got kind of, well obviously a marriage and some teen kids and ⁓ younger kids so it’s not just you and the boy anymore. Mandy McAllister (27:36) It’s not just me and the boy anymore. So 2018, I realized I just need to back into this, that kind of thought of same thing. How do I get to where I want to go? I just need to, you can do the math. Like my life costs me however much. If I just know how much that is and I have more coming in from the apartments, then I’m going to be able to make the choice. Do I need this job or not? So then in 21, I was a member of GoBundance. I left my W2. And I was able to take on that role in leadership because I had the space. Jules (28:09) Yep. Okay, and then how did you decide to grow GoBundance when at the time, I’m guessing, it was very much a minority. If it was a male organized group, they’d done a woman’s arm, God love them, but probably not paid much attention to it. ⁓ And you came on board, was it quite small? Then how did you grow that? Mandy McAllister (28:31) There was maybe 40 of us and we went about a year without a ton of interaction or help or resources. The couple of us that locked arms and chose to run at this realized that we need this in our lives. So we decided to take it on because we needed it for us. Not that it was like maybe the best business decision I’ve ever made, but this is something that Jules (28:34) okay. Right. You Mandy McAllister (28:58) feeds me in a really big way, the opportunity to serve more women. I always say that you get two arms for a reason, one to pull yourself up and one to pull other people up with you. And that is exactly what we’re doing here. we have, you know, it’s largely through word of mouth. It’s largely through referrals because amazing people want to be next to amazing people. And I think a lot we’re working really hard to let women give Jules (29:08) my god, love that. Yeah, love that. Yeah. Yes! Mandy McAllister (29:27) their themselves permission to spend money on a business expense that actually serves you. know, it’s ⁓ that has been an interesting thing. So now we are up to one hundred and fifty six members from the 30 or 40 that we had in twenty one. Jules (29:35) Yeah, I love it. And do the women come in experienced in real estate already or are you teaching them that so they might be out of another industry and they’ve just got the income or revenue that you’re looking for? Do you then teach them or how to invest in property? Mandy McAllister (30:00) Sure, so we are not like a coaching program that helps people learn you do A and then you do B. But we are, know, if what you want to do is invest in apartment buildings, then you would join the calls of the people doing the thing and talking you through it, right? And one thing that we’ve done a pretty good job of is we do some calls that are kind of the entry level stuff. Jules (30:04) Right. Okay. Okay Mandy McAllister (30:25) Like if you need to learn how to read a balance sheet, we did that and we mark it as if it’s newer learning. So that if you come in and you need to brush up on some basics, you can watch some calls that we’ve done previously that are more basic. But it’s the high level people doing the thing that these calls are largely about. Jules (30:26) Yeah. Yeah. which is why it works so well and that’s why it’s feeding your soul as well I would think because it’s, and I do the same thing with She’s the Boss that I’m trying to bring in women so that you’re all peers so that you are able to just support each other and understand what those challenges are that are pretty unique at a certain income level I guess and or at a certain level of growth that other people don’t have I guess. So where do you want to take? Mandy McAllister (31:13) Nice. Jules (31:14) Where do you want to take all of this Mandy? Where do you see yourself with GoBundance or outside of GoBundance over the next say, I don’t know, 10 or 20 years? Mandy McAllister (31:24) So GoBundance is, I wanna grow it obviously, cause it’s only as good as its next connection, you know? And I want to grow it right. I have absolutely no interest in. Jules (31:32) Yeah, What does that mean? Mandy McAllister (31:39) I, it needs, we need to support women who are hungry for the next level. We need to support women who show up knowing that this is not some like magic pill that you take and my God, now you’re worth $10 million. You know, we want to grow with women who recognize the work that needs to be done on themselves to grow their business. ⁓ So the, we can support the right woman, the woman with the mental space. Jules (31:44) Yep. Mandy McAllister (32:08) that is headed in a direction. ⁓ But it’s not some magic pill. So we want givers and not taker energy. Because I’m sure you can imagine a world where people who ⁓ raise money for things might see, my god, that’s 156 accredited investors. I’m just going to join that and I can sell to them. Right? Like, yes, we want to do deals with our girls. But that energy is not what we’re about. You have to be a member. For six or 12 months, I forget what we wrote out. Jules (32:17) Nice, yep. Yeah, yeah, would absolutely, yeah. No. Mandy McAllister (32:37) But you have to be a member for some long amount of time before you’re allowed to pitch your deal. Because we want to show up with your heart first. Jules (32:43) Yeah, nice. I love that, I love that. ⁓ So, in terms of how you think this will grow, I guess, look, I’m sitting in Australia, there’s a lot of women in Australia that love the whole, that are hungry and ambitious and love the whole kind of investment angle. Are you going to go international? Do you accept women from overseas or is that sort of not on the cards yet? Mandy McAllister (32:48) Thank you. love that idea and we have had some members who lived you know in the the Caribbean and we had a member from Germany so that it is constrained sometimes because if you want to watch calls live it does take a little bit of doing yes to get on we had a woman in Dubai for a long time so I you know understanding that the calls do happen Jules (33:29) It’s the middle of the night, yes. Mandy McAllister (33:39) The women who squeeze the most juice out of our organization do two things in common. We looked at all our data. There’s two things that they do the same. One, they’re all in on their pod. Every member gets a pod, which is five to seven women that want the same level of accountability as them, and they don’t miss that pod. These women are, know my highs and my lows and all the skeletons in my closet, and they love me because of them. Jules (33:57) okay right Yep. Mandy McAllister (34:06) So all in on your pod. And then the second thing that they do that they feel like they’re squeezing the juice out of it is they get to at least one in-person event. So the majority of our events are stateside or ⁓ we’ve gone to Mexico a couple of times. We were in Costa Rica. were in, ⁓ you know, we go on. Yes, exactly. So twice a year, the spring and the fall. Jules (34:27) But you have these get-togethers, international get-togethers. Love it. Once a year or twice a year or… Mandy McAllister (34:36) The fall, usually do something in the States and in the spring, we usually do something warm because we’re all ready to get into the sun because we’ve been cold for too long. I’ll say too, I want this podcast that Kelly and I started, Power Up Your Life, to get the message out beyond just to accredited investors. One thing that I would really like to do in the next however many years, maybe sooner than later, is I want to put together a fund. Jules (34:46) Fantastic. my god, I’m- Yeah. Mandy McAllister (35:05) that we are women who talk about supporting women. And as a commercial real estate investor, I know that only 1.5 % of all commercial real estate investors are women. And we know my partner Kelly in the podcast, she is a business scaling expert and only 1.7 % of venture capital funds go to women, right? So I want to do a fund. Jules (35:30) Right. Yeah. It’s less in Australia. It’s crap. It’s so rubbish. Mandy McAllister (35:34) Yeah, exactly. It’s the same. And thank you for the introductions to the incredible. Yes, it’s so rubbish. And we know that women do better than our male counterparts. know, I mean, be it because of the imposter syndrome that makes us look around more corners than our potentially overconfident dude counterparts. Like we do a better job at making sure that we are truly talking about the thing that we’re talking about. Right. So let’s put. Jules (35:42) Yeah, of course! But on top of that, there’s a level that women do that you’ve alluded to, which is support other women. Or put that money into something that’s gonna improve other people’s lives rather than just lining their own bank account. Mandy McAllister (36:14) Yes, like we don’t want to, you know, move capital around just to make money and make decisions that don’t align with the world that we want to see. You know, like I have my whole life making the decision that does better by the world and by patients and all of the things. I want to do that in such a way that it’s at scale supporting women. So in my brain, I actually talked to an attorney about this this weekend at an event. I got to MC. Jules (36:21) Yeah. Yeah. Mandy McAllister (36:41) We’re working on the thesis of what this investment vehicle would look like. But I think it hedges the safety of real estate because it grows slowly, but it’s very safe. Real estate doesn’t necessarily go to zero basically ever. businesses can have really fast, huge pops of wealth building. So I see a possibility of marrying the two together. Jules (36:55) Yeah. god, I hope you do. That would be just so brilliant for women everywhere. Okay, if there was somebody listening to this wherever they might be in the world, if they wanted to get involved or find out more about GoBundance, what’s the best way of them doing that? Mandy McAllister (37:21) So our website has a lot of stuff. It has our blog. It has a chance to subscribe to our newsletter so that you’ll be aware of all the free stuff that we do to the outer public. It’s goabundancewomen.com. I’ll make sure I spell that correctly so that we can get it into your show notes. But our website does just about everything. And my website, mandymicalister.com, links up to everything too. Jules (37:28) Okay, great. Fantastic. ⁓ okay, last question. Thank you so much for this. You are just a very inspiring woman, and I’m sure that a lot of people listening are gonna go, my god, I need to know more about this woman. But, now I ask a question completely out of left field that a journalist suggested years ago that I ask, and I love the answers I get for it. So, is there a quirky fact about you that most people don’t know that you’d be up for sharing? And it doesn’t have to be about business, it can be anything. Mandy McAllister (38:14) Hmm. I’ve shared this in some circles, but it is, think it’s really kind of, I think it’s cool. So I defending my master’s thesis, like I visibly shook, like I was so scared of speaking and was so certain that I didn’t belong and nobody would want to listen to what I had to say. So I, at 30 years old realized if I want to live the life I want to live, I got to fix that, right? So in Chicago, Chicago is really known for improv comedy. All the Jules (38:19) Yeah, yeah. Yeah? Mandy McAllister (38:46) professionally funny people go through Second City. So when I was 30 years old, I started taking classes at Second City. And then the year that anybody off the street can take, my teacher said, you’re not bad. You should try out for the conservatory, audition for the conservatory. And they freaking let me in to the conservatory. So whenever I say something that I think is hilarious, I tell my husband that I’m classically trained. Jules (39:02) my god! that that is a great fact. Well thank you so much Mandy, I have absolutely loved our interview and I know it’s going to inspire a whole lot of other women and I absolutely hope you get that fund up and running in the future because it’s so needed. Mandy McAllister (39:26) We will definitely keep you in the loop. Jules, thank you for this and for everything you put into the world. Jules (39:32) My pleasure.