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The Level Up Creators podcast is for digital creators ready to take their business to the next level. You'll learn valuable strategies and hear engaging stories from industry pros and digital creators who have walked the path of scaling up.
Whether you're tired of tap dancing for the algorithm or seeking to build real wealth - without the burnout - this podcast offers proven methods and practical advice to help you elevate your business, on your terms. Join us!
Amanda (00:00)
Hey, hey, you're listening to the Level Up Creators podcast. Amanda Northcutt here, founder and CEO. We help creators and digital thought leaders like you turn your knowledge and experience into rock solid recurring revenue. And we are so glad you're here. Welcome. Today, my special guest is real estate mogul, creator, podcast host, author and co -founder Amelia McGee. We're going to unpack Amelia's creator story today and surface some key turning points in her journey that helped her become who she is today so that you can learn how to get where you want to go on your own creator journey.
faster and without all of the stinking headaches.
But first a little bit more about Amelia. She has been investing in real estate since 2019 and now already owns a portfolio of over 40 doors. Amelia is passionate about encouraging other women to begin investing in real estate and co -owns the business Wire, women investing in real estate with Grace
Together through WIRED, they host real estate retreats, create courses and boot camps, and have a weekly podcast. Amelia is a true Enneagram 7 with a million hobbies. In her spare time, you can find her on the pickleball court. Yes! Golf course or on a brewery patio with a craft beer. And Amelia is joining us today from Des Moines, Iowa. Welcome, Amelia.
Amelia McGee (01:12)
Well, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
Amanda (01:16)
My goodness gracious, you have such an incredible resume and I'm so pumped for our conversation. I just cannot even wait to get into it. But just so our listeners have a bit of context, you and I met at ConvertKit's Craft and Commerce this past June of 2024. And y 'all, Amelia is both brilliant and delightful. And she also won this like raffle grand prize that we put together.
like Level Up Creators put together with all the ConvertKit, Crafting Commerce sponsors. And that included like all this amazing package of goodies, including like a Mighty Networks membership to start a community there, membership to Level Up Creator School, some consulting from other amazing people. mean, this is a cool package. So it's been an absolute pleasure to get to know both you Amelia and your business partner, Grace, and learn about.
how you all are making your mark on the world by helping women build wealth through real estate investing. And I'll just bluntly say that you're pretty damn successful. And again, I'm super pumped for the convo. So can you tell us a little bit more about yourself, your background and kind of the winding road journey you've taken to get where you are now?
Amelia McGee (02:21)
Yes. Well, again, thank you. feel like that intro makes me seem way cooler than I actually am. So I appreciate that. but yeah, my journey started in 2019. I was a product of basically watching all the HGTV shows and thinking how hard can it be guys do it? and so I was like, I'm going to flip a property. This is going to be fun. I'm going to do it as a side hustle. I never thought it would lead me on my journey of
being an online content creator today and having a community with Grace for other women that invest in real estate. But after I did that first flip, I bought a couple of rental properties and I was absolutely obsessed with owning rentals. And about a year into my journey, I was like, I'm really lonely. I don't know anyone else in my real life doing real estate. Who's my age, who's a woman, who's fun to be around. And so I just
Started sharing organically on Instagram. I started a page a business page Amelia Joe REI and I was like I'm just looking for friends like I'm not looking to monetize this I'm not looking Like for anything from anyone else out of this I'm just looking to share what I've learned learned from others and maybe make some friends along the way So that's how my whole journey started
Amanda (03:41)
That is so cool. And I know we're going to get to this in a minute, but I just want to point out that the best businesses in the world are typically started by a founder who is solving their own problem. And so I love how you were just incidentally going and looking for community. And now that is a main business line for you and Grace. So yeah. Okay. Tell us, tell us how this went down and how did you and Grace meet? How did this happen?
Amelia McGee (04:02)
No, it went exactly like that. Selfishly, Grace and I created the wire community because we felt like there wasn't a community out there for women like us. And Grace actually started it. She said on her bucket list of things she was gonna do in 2021 was start a women's meetup. She didn't know what the meetup was gonna be. She didn't know what it was gonna be about, but.
In February, she's like, I'm just going to bite the bullet and I'm just going to do it now. Cause I know that if I don't do it now, it's going to be December of 2021. And I'm finally going to be starting that thing that I have on my bucket list. So we met through Instagram. She actually slid into my DMS. Grace is also from Iowa. She lives about two hours away from me. And she was like, Hey, I can't believe there's another cool girl in Iowa investing in real estate. need to be friends. And from there we were fast friends. She asked me to.
Be the speaker on our very first online meetup. And unbeknownst to me at the time, she was like, I really just wanted to get you on and pick your brain. And like if five other people showed up, I was like going to be ecstatic. So like 35 women showed up. We both advertised it on our Instagram pages, which probably at the time we both had like less than 500 followers. Like we did not probably even less than 300. So
We just organically advertised it and 35 women showed up, which if you're in the online content creation space and you're building from ground zero, in my opinion, I think that's a great turnout. Like 35 women, wow, we were like blown away. And after that meetup, we were like so energized, like so inspired. And like the next day, Grace texted me and she was like, that was so great. We should make this a monthly thing. We should bring on guest speakers every month and run this like
Amanda (05:38)
Yeah.
Amelia McGee (05:54)
free meetup every month online. And so that's what we did. We started bringing online speakers on because we wanted that knowledge for ourselves and we wanted that community for ourselves. We opened it up to the public and this is getting into the weeds, but we started building our email list without even knowing what the hell an email list was good for, that it would help us in the future, that we were building no like and trust factor for free, like all of the things. And it was really just so we could learn and be connected with.
others at the same time.
Amanda (06:26)
that's so cool. And what an awesome altruistic approach. And I'm sure that came through from that very first meetup to every single one of those 35 women. There's no better way to build a business than kind of on accident like that. It's so neat. OK, back in your early 30s, right? OK, so you are a younger millennial. I don't know. I'm on the tail end. I'm an elder millennial. So how do you classify yourself?
Amelia McGee (06:38)
Yeah, yeah, totally.
I feel like I'm like right in the middle actually, cause I'm almost 33. I'm a middle millennial. feel like 27, 28 is like young and like forties is like a higher end. So like I'm right in the middle.
Amanda (06:56)
The middle millennial. Okay.
Cool, okay. Back in 2019, so we're recording this at the end of September in 2024, so you were in your late 20s at that time. How did you get the money for your first flip? Tell us the story of how that went down.
Amelia McGee (07:27)
That's such a good question. And I like to be very open here. I started investing in small town, Iowa in my hometown, which is 5 ,000 people. So the prices here are going to seem crazy if you're listening from California or New York or wherever. But I purchased my first flip for $30 ,000 and I know it's crazy, right? And I had been working on my parents because my parents are very
Candy, my mom likes to say that we've never lived in a move -in ready house. Like they're very hands on. My mom's very artistic. And so they came with like 20 ,000 and I came with 10 ,000 and it took me two years to convince them to flip a property with me. I was actually looking through my emails the other day and I had emails from like 2016 and 17 that I would send them like analyzing all these properties. But we finally got convinced to do it.
Amanda (08:21)
Nice.
Amelia McGee (08:24)
We bought it cash, 20 and 10, and then we had $30 ,000 in expenses that we took out a line of credit on, a personal line of credit at a bank. And so we were all in at $60 ,000 and we sold the property for 120. So before taxes, taxes are important here.
Amanda (08:45)
No.
Amelia McGee (08:45)
we made $60 ,000. I literally thought I was the richest person in the world and my half of it was like $30 ,000. I was like, my God, if I can do one of these a year and supplement my full -time job with this, like I'm gonna be rich. So that's how my very first deal went.
Amanda (09:04)
Amazing. Okay, that's great. I mean, that's cool that that was your partner. Your parents were your business partners, but effectively like you found a cash partner, right? Which is a, that's a legit way to go about it. So, all right, you ended up with 30K. You had to pay taxes on that, income taxes on that. But then, you you didn't put that into a mutual fund. You put that into your next property, right? So how did you stretch that?
Amelia McGee (09:12)
Totally.
Mm -hmm. Yeah, so.
Amanda (09:32)
you know, whatever's left over, 22K or whatever.
Amelia McGee (09:36)
Yeah. So what I did was in the real estate world, it's called a BRRR. And this is a really fascinating strategy. If you're looking to get into real estate investing, this is really powerful. called it's a BRRR buy rehab rent refinance repeat. So basically what you do is you buy a fixer upper property, you fix it up, you take it to a bank, you say, want to refinance this loan. You refinance it, you pull out all your initial capital, and then you keep it as a rental.
So then you can recycle that money into a different property and you can do the process again. If you're not in real estate, don't worry. It took me like a thousand times of hearing how to do that before I was able to actually do that. But during this whole journey, I was also really into personal finance and I think real estate and personal finance, those communities tend to run together. So with my flip money, I was like,
I'm going to buy a rental property so I can make monthly recurring income instead of flipping, which is a one -time lump sum, and hopefully be able to eventually replace my W -2 income with that rental income every single month. So I purchased a triplex, did the BRRR, and then I was off to the races.
Amanda (10:46)
you
Cool. And so something I want to point out, if anybody who is listening is thinking this does not apply to me because I do not invest in real estate, not true. So what Amelia is explaining here is she identified it, she identified and exploited an ethical point of leverage. And that's all we're doing in our businesses, right? And to be strategic and successful, you have to identify what your unique differentiators are and you have to exploit those in the marketplace. And again, by identifying and
using your points of leverage, whatever those may be. So in this case, it's like this BRRRR methodology, which is fascinating. I've never heard that acronym or that explained exactly in that way. So how fascinating. I'm sure that's a very, that's probably a content pillar for you guys in women investing in real estate, but how interesting. Okay.
Amelia McGee (11:37)
Yeah. Well, I was going to add, and if you're like, I'm not a real estate investor. I don't know how this applies to me too. It's like, I want to point out, I knew nothing about real estate when I got started, but I was okay with not being perfect at what I was doing when I started out. And I think that's so important in the creator world is I think a lot of us entrepreneurs are also like borderline perfectionists. So we feel like everything has to be perfect before we can take the next step forward.
But you're never gonna learn, you're never gonna advance if you're always waiting to be perfect before you move to the next step.
Amanda (12:12)
That's a really, really good nugget of advice. We should have saved that for the end. I've got like a killer last question for you. We'll bring that back in. That's a great piece of advice. I want to talk about time management. You have a lot on your plate. mean, you and Grace recently co -authored a book. You have a podcast. You're very active on social media. You're running a community. You have dozens of rental properties that you don't use a property management for, company for. You are the property manager, right? How are you doing all this?
Amelia McGee (12:16)
No, sorry. Okay.
Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, I will admit I'm not the best at it. But what I try to do is time block my days. So we work on wire Monday, Thursday and Friday, and we work on our real estate portfolios on Tuesday and Wednesday, because grace also has a large portfolio of rental properties. And she does a lot of flips. She's done like 10 flips this year, which is a lot of management.
So we take Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We don't talk to each other. We're working on our other business on those days and then just time blocking our calendars. So we batch all of our podcasts recording days on the same day. So those are all, you know, we have back to back recordings one day. We do all of our content creation on one day because that's only one day a week that we have to get camera ready and put makeup on and look nice to do reels and take all that content. So it's a lot of just like batching, but
To be honest, I think that's probably the biggest thing I struggle with in my entrepreneurial journey is just setting up my day for success. Because when you quit a full -time job and you have a routine and then it's just like a free for all. And for someone like me, that's very like disorganized, I would say that can be really challenging and really hard.
Amanda (13:57)
You aren't, to use a Gen Z term, you are not giving disorganization. Did I get that right? I'm a 13 year old, so we try and insert as much ridiculous language as humanly possible into everything. I think that's the first time I brought it here, but feels fine.
Amelia McGee (14:03)
Yeah.
Do you guys talk in that gibberish language? What is that gibberish language they do these days?
Amanda (14:19)
man, there's so many words. Riz, know, is like charisma. Skibbity means bad, sus, suspicious. But it goes so much deeper and wider than that, Amelia. I mean, it is unbelievable. So I rely on Instagram reels to explain to me WTF these words mean. But it is funny to mess with my kid on that front. And he is our podcast editor. So hi, Kyle, you're gonna listen to that and hear that.
Amelia McGee (14:23)
Yeah!
you
my gosh, that's funny.
Amanda (14:46)
Maybe I'll have him on for an episode just to explain for elder millennial parents what's going on. His eyes are rolling. I can feel it. Okay. So yeah, you're not giving disorganization at all. You sound very organized, I mean, ultimately that comes down to you have put systems in place, right? Okay. And I'm really, really big on system process, standard operating procedures, finding efficiencies, using your brain power for
Amelia McGee (15:05)
Yes.
Amanda (15:16)
things only you can do, right? You should be spending 80 % of your time as a business owner doing things that only you can do. And otherwise I believe you should be outsourcing or automating, delegating in some way. So speaking of that, I know you all have made a big hire recently and I'm not sure who else is on your team, but how are you guys thinking about how you hire, delegate and automate?
Amelia McGee (15:40)
Such a good question and such a good point. We have definitely made a mindset shift over the past year that we've maxed out what Grayson and myself can do. We have to hire it out. So we just hired Taylor. She started full time with wire in July to be our head of marketing and launches. Although she does so much more than that for us. She was with us part time for an entire year.
so we got to know her working style. We decided to hire her on full time. We also have someone that works 10 hours a week doing our sponsorships and affiliates. And then we also have a VA. Plus we outsource contractor work for our Facebook ads and our podcast editing because we just, we're not experts in that field, nor do we want to be, nor do we have the time to be. And it's honestly more, our hourly rate is worth paying someone else.
to just do those tasks for us so we can focus on our zone of genius.
Amanda (16:43)
Yes, that's exactly what I was about to say. I'm like, you've identified your zone of genius and said, I am not doing anything else. And that is another point of leverage in your business. That's going to be, I think, a theme for our conversation today. But that's brilliant. I love that's a great and simple framework. So thank you for sharing that. know that's identifying who that first hire should be is typically a huge pain point for creators and it's a big investment. Often, you know, at the beginning, I don't know, you tell me, guess, if you felt this way, but.
Amelia McGee (17:00)
Mm
Amanda (17:12)
A lot of people feel like if they're the founder, the business is their baby. No one can do this as well as I can. Therefore, I have to do everything. Did y 'all ever have that?
Amelia McGee (17:23)
100 % totally, absolutely. And I will actually share another fun fact, which I think might be a unique situation. And I'm not necessarily saying that you should do this, but we actually pay Taylor more than we pay ourselves. And we're okay with that right now because we see the end, we see the end goal and we know that we'll get there and we have a, you know, outside income through real estate.
But we were just like, our time is so maxed out. We actually can't expand and we wouldn't be able to pay ourselves anymore without making this hire and taking a cut right off the
Amanda (17:59)
I love that. And that's completely fine because as the business owner, mean, equity is your ultimate point of leverage. It's the ultimate play for building generational wealth and whatever your financial goals are. And so there is absolutely positively nothing wrong with that. It's a good approach. Obviously you have another business and so that is somewhat unique situation, kind of like you said, but yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. That's cool.
Okay, this question is a little bit more vulnerable, but you the point of this podcast is to help folks get where they want to go faster and with fewer headaches. That's like the goal of both of our communities, right? Like that's why you're in Level Up Creator School. That's why people come to wire. So we want to help folks get the line. So can you share some experiences that, know, in past couple of years you've had, I'm sure not everything has gone super, super smoothly. You basically started your business during COVID, interest rates, housing prices skyrocketed.
at least on a macroeconomic scale. So I'm not sure how that went down in Iowa, but what are things that you perceived as failures at the time when they happened, but actually have turned into valuable lessons and wisdom that you've been able to carry forward into better decision -making now?
Amelia McGee (19:18)
Ooh, that's a tough one because as an Enneagram seven, it's hard for me to like think I'm always looking for the next best thing, right? Like I'm rarely reflecting on the past, which is not a great trait, right? But for me, it's just, you know, I've been investing for five years now. I've sold some properties that were great. I've sold some properties that weren't great. I've purchased some properties that weren't great.
I've purchased properties on terms that weren't great, but specifically for real estate investing, always have to remind myself that real estate investing is a long game. It's not a get rich quick scheme. One bad decision isn't going to ruin your whole life. mean, in most cases, I won't say that that hasn't happened, but your goal with real estate investing, like with equity in a business,
is to own it for a long time so that you get appreciation. You build that equity in the property. There's ups and downs, but overall it's moving upwards. It's an upwards trend. So for me, it's just always reminding myself, yeah, you made some bad decisions. made some not great decisions, but you took action on those properties. I think that's huge. Just like so many people are so scared of making a bad decision. They just never make any decision.
And I hear this a lot because everyone thinks real estate investing is so cool. Everybody wants to be an investor. Right. And so, so many people say, I want to get into real estate. I want to get into real estate. And it's the same song five years later and they've still never done anything because they're too scared to take action. They're too scared to make the wrong decision. So yeah, for me, it's just remembering and keeping the end goal in sight that
This is not a three year, five year strategy. This is a 20, 30 year strategy so that when I'm 55, I can be completely retired, completely hands off, do whatever I want, have generational wealth for my future children, et cetera.
Amanda (21:28)
I love that. And I love this, your POV on taking action. I mean, that is so big for overcoming imposter syndrome and lacking confidence. It's like increasing your competence, which can be through trial and error, but increasing your competence and taking action will overcome any imposter syndrome that anyone I've ever met has. Like that's kind of the framework that we teach. And I don't know if you're aware of this, there's like research, real business research that exists that leaders who are decisive, even if they make the wrong decision, obviously,
they need to make more right than wrong decisions over time. But leaders who are more decisive are more successful overall. Their organizations are more successful because there's a plan, there's clarity on the plan, everybody is rowing in the same direction. And so there's a lot of validity to thinking that way. So that's a great and again valid philosophy.
Amelia McGee (22:19)
That's actually really good to hear because Grace and I are both very much fast decision makers. And we did bring in Taylor, who's our head of marketing, who, is a good balance because she does cause us to slow down and think things through a little bit more than we generally would. Although we still are, I think just in the startup world in general, to be successful, you have to be fast at making decisions because things are moving so quickly. I guess that makes sense that.
Successful people are the type of people that can make decisions quickly.
Amanda (22:52)
Yeah, and we tend to just internally perceive people like that as leaders. Like, they sound very confident. I'm going to follow them. So that I'm sure is a factor in it as well. But that's great to have Taylor and Taylor's wonderful from my, you know, a couple of experiences with her. That's great to have kind of that counterweight in your business to make sure that you're looking at quantitative data and reflecting on experiences and things like that to carry forward learnings, which is, you know, marketing is all about.
Amelia McGee (23:02)
Mm
Amanda (23:21)
a rapid experimentation and reflection on results and taking those learnings forward. And so that's great to have someone like that on your team. That's super. And speaking of grace, tell me how your roles have evolved. mean, this is something, someone that went from stranger to business partner, you know, pretty damn quickly. And now you guys are building what is going to end up being quite a large business in the wire community. So how are you guys divvying?
Amelia McGee (23:23)
Mm
Amanda (23:51)
that up.
Amelia McGee (23:52)
You know, we don't have that all perfect at this point, but we do have some sort of a designation. I would be what I would consider the CFO of the company. So I very much handle all the financials, the reporting, that whole aspect of things. I also do all of our emails and all of our convert kit stuff, all of that. And then Grace is on more of the content creation side. She's in charge of our social media team.
She's in charge of our affiliates and sponsorships. We do work in tandem on a lot of these things. It's not like all or nothing, but as we continue to grow, I think our roles will get more defined. It's just like, I think as creators in a partnership, you're so focused on growing, growing, growing. What's the next thing? What's the next thing?
It's really hard, at least for us to sit down and be like, okay, we're not going to launch anything. We're not going to do anything new instead for this month. We're going to sit down and we're going to do all the boring stuff, which is we're going to talk about roles. We're going to talk like, you know, like that's not as fun for us. know it's super important, but it's just like, we've been growing so rapidly the fast three past three years that that is like, it's not a priority. It's one of those things that's always on like the bottom of your to -do list.
Amanda (25:00)
Yeah.
Mm hmm. Yes. Are you familiar with the Eisenhower matrix, like how you decide what's urgent versus important?
Amelia McGee (25:22)
No, but I want to hear about it.
Amanda (25:24)
Yeah, I mean, it's a four quadrant matrix and it's like you've got urgency on one. my gosh. The horizontal access is urgency and then the importance is on the vertical axis. And so things are either unimportant and unurgent or important but not urgent or urgent but not important. And things typically only get done in the upper right, which is urgent and important. And this is an interesting sort of like business.
Amelia McGee (25:34)
Yeah.
Amanda (25:53)
ops, like operations situation, and you guys will continue to feel pain if you don't shore up your operational systems until that becomes both urgent and important at which time you'll do that. And we have lots of advice for that. But one thing that comes to mind actually for you guys, this is something we can carry over into a conversation in creator school, but for the benefit of our listeners here, we have something in Level Up Creators, like in our internal organization called
an area of responsibilities chart, an AOR chart, and it is a very, very, very simple like three column chart. And maybe it's even, yeah, three columns. And so it's like, we have every area of the business covered on this chart. So all major buckets of activities are in column A. And then the DRI, directly responsible individual, is in column B. And then the backup person is in column C. And so we have this AOR chart with
directly responsible individuals, and then we use the OKR framework, so objectives and key results, and everyone has an objective and key results that pertain to whatever they are the DRI for on the AOR chart. And so this is most silly bunch of business acronyms possible. And these also reflect back to this major metrics dashboard with KPIs, key performance indicators, and it's all enmeshed.
in a very, very logical linear flow and that kind of chart and system creates extraordinary clarity throughout the organization. It's actually really, really simple. The acronyms are stupid. It's all business jargon, but it does bring the point across very clearly who is responsible for what. So I don't know. Does that sound like something you guys would overlay at some point?
Amelia McGee (27:37)
Yeah, I'm like, okay, we're gonna do that. I think we have like a piece of crap one that's like on a Google Doc somewhere that's like so just, you so out of date. Sounds like the book Traction, honestly, just in like a more simplified form.
Amanda (27:52)
Yeah, yeah, and traction is the entrepreneurial, what is it? my gosh.
Amelia McGee (27:59)
Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS.
Amanda (28:02)
Yes, EOS. Yeah, and that is a great operating system. Very simple with the rocks and stuff like that. Yeah, that's a good starting point for a lot of people. And that has informed part of our methodology. But I really do like that AOR chart. And that also helps when you bring someone new onto the organization. like, if I have an issue with this thing, I go to this person. So it helps on all fronts, I promise. But it's not very fun to put together. It's really not.
Amelia McGee (28:09)
Yup.
Mm
Yeah, no, that'll be that's definitely Q1 of next year where we don't have any active launches planned. So I think we'll we'll be focusing on that in Q1.
Amanda (28:40)
There you go, work on your own business, love that. Well, tell me about all the products and services that you and Grace offer to this point and again, how you made decisions on those launches, like what made you create the community, you have a retreat programs, tell us all about it.
Amelia McGee (28:43)
Mm
Well, again, selfishly, the retreats were started because we wanted to have like, we wanted to go to a retreat. There weren't any retreats specifically for women who invest in real estate, at least that we could find and related to. And so I actually was like, Hey, Grace, we should have a retreat. This was a year after we started wire. And she's like, I'm not sure. I don't really think we're ready for it. And I said,
okay. Well, I already sent the email out about it. So I think we're just doing a retreat now. And she's like, okay, I guess we're doing a retreat. And it was super fun. It was like so basic. We sold tickets basically at cost. Like, again, we were just like getting it done versus having it be perfect. And we had 17 women attend. It was in the Smoky Mountains. It was absolutely amazing. People were
You know, they had so much fun and we've since hosted eight others. But again, it was just a selfish need for we need women investors in our community. We need to host these retreats because nobody else is doing it. Now there's all sorts of people doing it, but ours are still the best. and then, for a podcast, I think it was just like something that it was one of those itches that we had talked about for like two years. This was something we didn't take action on quickly. We were like,
We should have a podcast. should start a podcast. It'd be so great. We could share so much information. It took us two years to actually do it. And that, that really is just selfish because it's for Grace and I to just chit chat and share our experiences. That is another selfish thing, but we also have created a couple of courses for real estate investors. have some live boot camps and we are launching a paid community in November, which is
We're so thankful that we won the giveaway for the level up like creator school and just that whole package, the mighty networks, we're using mighty. We got a whole free year of that. It was like divine timing with the scheduled launch in November of this paid community. So we're just so thankful. We've learned so much from your school and we're going to just continue to learn over the next year to make our community the best community possible for female investors.
Amanda (31:19)
And it is and it will continue to be. That's so great. And yeah, that is pretty serendipitous, amazing timing on all fronts. And yeah, I mean, we've just made the switch over to Mighty Networks. Like we're launching a custom app in October. Super, super, super pumped about that. And I love the direction you're headed with your paid community. I mean, you are offering a tremendous amount of value. You guys have a large Facebook community. So bringing that over to a place where you have a very
Amelia McGee (31:27)
Totally.
Amanda (31:47)
you know, a linear path to success. It is a very upscale kind of experience and everything's in one place and well organized. It's just a double, a different level of conversation and discourse inside of a paid community over and above what happens in a Facebook group, typically in our experience. So I am very excited for the community that y 'all are building and the direction you're taking your organization. And I love that live events play a really central role.
Amelia McGee (32:07)
Absolutely.
Amanda (32:17)
I think that connection piece, you people taking what's online offline is going to only continue to upward. We're so hungry for that connection. People who are like -minded and 'all putting together these extremely entrepreneurial group of women is so cool. And I love how you're taking the tact of, you have these problems and instead of being like, well, why isn't someone else solving this? Like, ugh, that's so annoying. you know, why should I be the one?
to solve that and you're approaching it with a, well, why not me? Yeah, I can do this. I'm stepping up to the plate and do that. And that will continue to serve you throughout your career, which I mean, is only you're going to achieve compounding rates of success at the rate you're going. I can see the future ahead and it's looking bright for Amelia and Grace and all that follow your methodology as well.
Amelia McGee (32:52)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. Thank you.
Actually, I don't know if you know this. I think this is kind of interesting though. We did have a paid community three years ago, two and a half years ago that failed, which I think is the fascinating. It failed because we shut it down. We stalled out at the hundred member mark. It was a super low cost. It was like $17 a month. It just, it wasn't the right fit at the time. And I think that's okay too, to
Amanda (33:24)
Interesting.
Amelia McGee (33:41)
close something down or say, hey, this isn't really what we want it to be. We're OK failing and failing in public. And now two and a half years later, we're coming back. And it's going to be 10 times what it was before. And that's OK.
Amanda (33:58)
Yes, it's all about market positioning and value -based pricing. And for the high ticket, I mean, getting into real estate is not a super inexpensive endeavor. I guess depending on where you live, I'm sitting here thinking about there's a house in our neighborhood that has not been updated at all and is for sale for $978 ,000. Like it's a little different here in the Fort Collins, Colorado, Foothills area.
Amelia McGee (34:10)
Yeah.
my gosh. No thanks.
But you also get to live in Colorado, so I mean, here's a reason for it.
Amanda (34:28)
yeah.
Yes, man, we love our neighborhood. My goodness gracious. I have no idea where I was going with that. yeah, positioning, yes. It's not cheap to get into real estate, depending again where you live, but your offer should match that. You guys are best in class. You're going to continue to be best in class. You're pushing the envelope. You're helping people move forward to a clear end. There's such a clear from, to transformation with your offering that the value, the case to be made for your value -based.
is going to be very strong and easy to make and it's going to be a very high -end valuable community. fully support that. I'm really excited about digging into kind of that member success path for you guys and the content that you include. And yeah, I mean, you can't charge, you can't make $1 ,700 a month on a community. So 17 times 100, right? And put together a killer community. Like it's just the mathematics did not work out in that equation. So.
Amelia McGee (35:25)
Mm -mm.
Amanda (35:29)
when you can, people pay attention to what they pay for also. And so a $17 a month thing, it's like, I spend more than that on my lunch. And so, you know, it's like, eh, do I really want to do that homework? Or do I really want to show up? Nah, but if it's a couple hundred bucks a month, it's like, I'm gonna pay a little bit more attention to that or a couple thousand bucks a month, whatever the case may be. So I love the approach and I'm super pumped for that to roll out. Okay.
Amelia McGee (35:38)
Right.
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Amanda (35:56)
I know you already have given a lot of good advice. We're going to summarize it here. So what are your top three pieces of advice for creator entrepreneurs who are maybe just a few steps behind you on their journey?
Amelia McGee (36:07)
Yeah, the number one is coming at whatever space you're in or whatever you're offering from a point of sharing your knowledge for free. And I see this a lot in the real estate investing space. Is there so many people that start an Instagram page, let's say, and immediately start selling their coaching or immediately start selling something?
And I feel like people can see through that and you're not going to be as successful. And these are very generalized, right? It can work for some people, but really coming from a point of giving value for free at first to build that know, like, and trust factor. think Grace and I had 700 people on our email list before we even realized like, we have an email list. Like it was just crazy because it was all free. You know, I think the second thing is.
Getting something out there is better than perfection. And we talked about this earlier, but I'm such a firm believer of it. I talked to so many women in the real estate space specifically who are mortified of sharing something on Instagram or social media that isn't 100 % polished and isn't 100 % perfect because they think people will judge them for it. But the truth is no one cares. No one cares about that post.
Even 1 % as much as you do. You are the only one that's sitting and thinking about that post. People are going to see it for five seconds and yeah, it can provide a lot of value and whatever, but like no one actually cares. So just post it. It doesn't have to be perfect. If you keep putting things off, you're never ever going to actually take action and do things. And then the third thing that I would say, okay, this is totally off. This is off, but
One thing we've recently learned in wire that we've really started is you have to pay to play. And I know this is way out of left field and this is totally crazy, but if you are wanting to get to where we're at, which is, you know, not huge, but we're, getting somewhere. We wish we would have started paying for Facebook and Instagram ads so much sooner to grow our email.
And I know that's kind of crazy, but hey, we're talking content creators here. The email list is like, is your goal, right? So you have, even if it's 200 bucks a month, you got it. You have to have some sort of a free funnel onto your email list and you're likely going to have to pay to show up on people's feeds. It's just the name of the game these days in 2024.
Amanda (38:52)
Yes, that's great advice. Figure out your funnel, invest in your email list because you're right, that is a gold mine for creators and that's your, you know, most likely to purchase people. And yeah, everything has moved to pay to play. So it's kind of like a suck it up and get to testing different lead magnets, right?
Amelia McGee (39:14)
Yeah, well, it's and it's not I wouldn't say necessarily if you're a brand new creator and whatever I'm talking about the creators who've been at this for maybe a year a year and a half to and are like looking to take it to the next level. It's like you've got I was just we just had a retreat and we had an advanced retreat for women investors and half of the women there have coaching problem programs and all these other their online business coaches too. And you know, one of the women had
She probably has 50 ,000 followers on her Instagram and she has 2000 people on her email list because she's never prioritized getting people onto the email list. So we had such a great hot seat and mastermind around how they need to grow their email list. But it's just like, it actually surprises me. There's still creators out there who, you know, they, they don't realize like that's where you should be focusing your time, not on gaining more followers. It's getting them onto your email list.
Amanda (40:11)
Yes, because we are all subject to the whims of Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and others on social media platforms. So yeah, go from renting your audience to owning your audience through permission -based marketing. Get their first name, get their email address and speak to them. Demonstrate that you understand their problems, that you have legitimate solutions to those problems. that's kind of just how, that's a very business in a box. Like very, very simple, right? It's just, it's just.
Amelia McGee (40:38)
Hahaha!
Amanda (40:40)
providing solutions to a unique subset of the population that's got a very specific problem. That's kind of it. Yeah. Thank you again for joining me today. Amelia, do you have a quick parting shot and where can listeners find you online?
Amelia McGee (40:47)
That's it.
Yeah, I would just say get out there don't be afraid to get started like I said, it's so much better to get started then be perfect and Yes, you can find me on Instagram. That's where I'm most active It's Amelia Joe rei and our wire page is wire with two eyes community
And our website is women invest in real estate. So if you're interested in investing in real estate and you are a lady, we would love to have you.
Amanda (41:24)
Yes, I will second that. This is the only place you need to go if that's you. And we will, of course, link all of that up in the show notes and are happy to drop a free asset in there as well if anyone wants to jump on your email list and learn a little bit more. And time is precious. Thank you so much for sharing yours with us. We help creators like you at levelupcreatorschool .com where our team becomes your full stack team of advisors and also includes no fluff creator courses, a vibrant creator community and more all on a subscription basis coming out with me and Amelia. And we'll see you there.
Amelia McGee (41:38)
Thank you.
Amanda (41:54)
See you next time on the Level Up Creators Podcast.