How to Build Wealth with Small Bets with Mandy McAllister

0:00On today's episode, we interviewed a friend of ours, Mandy McAllister, where we talked about really what it's like as a woman to go off and kind of start off an apartment by your own business, and at the same time get involved with a community of women to help you grow, learn and succeed. And really, Mandy is a person that I look up to a lot, right? High energy, very self-aware, and really thoughtful about what she's doing and how she's doing it. And there's a lot of valuable pieces to that. So Casey, what was some of your takeaways? You know, I haven't been a dad, two daughters, and seeing them grow, and finding people like Mandy that's, you know, and for the guys that are listening, and for skipping, because it's a female, you're crazy. Because all of those things that they see differently are the things that we should be adding into what we do to make things scale and grow, and Mandy has a very good way of looking at the way she measures risk. She's also talking about how she looks at her portfolio, right? Using real estate cash flow to invest in businesses, make small bets, improve those, because

1:03she has a number that she wants to hit at a certain time. And you've got to ask yourself why you're doing this. What is it? It can't just be because you want to make a lot of money. You've got to have a strategy and a plan. And I think Mandy hit it right on the nose with a lot of those things, and then the challenges in the journey she's been through. It's great. Yeah, you know, in all this episode, we kind of talk about buying a small apartment that was shipped into buying a car wash and some of the things that that entails. And then ultimately buying a motel, right? And some of the things that think about as you buy a motel, and how do you grow a motel? And really kind of then from there, right, shifting into the community aspect. So lots of information to this one. Welcome to the M&A Launchpad podcast with your host, Casey and Ferris with Equity Launchpad. On this podcast, you will get insights on acquiring investing in and selling profitable businesses in the lower to middle market. Whether you're a business owner, investor, or a spa entrepreneur at Equity Launchpad, we will provide you with the knowledge, guidance, and capital to navigate the world of mergers and acquisitions. All right, guys, just take one second here real quick. When you're buying a business, ensuring the financial health of the company is critical.

2:05And that's where our quality of earnings partner comes in. Quality of earnings gives you confidence in the financials of the company that you're purchasing. It aims to protect your investment and ensure that you're stepping into a profitable business on date. Patrick of Oconnell Advisory Group is your dynamic quality of earnings partner. He's here to help you buy the right business on your timeline. Patrick's entire practice is focused on business acquisitions. Your niche is his niche. And over the past decade, Patrick's helped more than 200 buyers like yourself successfully purchase and operate enduring profitable businesses. In fact, Patrick's helped some listeners of the show. So if you're buying, looking for help with the quality of earnings, financials, diligence, network, capital, and more, head to oconnelladvisorgroup.com or just click the link in the shown page. Hey, Mandy. Welcome to the show. Hi. I'm super excited to be here, guys. Long time coming. I know. It's taken us way too long. We've known Mandy for six years and probably should have had her in the podcast sooner. But here we are. So, Mandy, tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I spent the bulk of my career in medical device sales and started buying apartment

3:06buildings, which Ferris, that's how you and I became friends. I let him meet up in Chicago and you guys were down in Houston. And then when I bought enough apartment buildings, I didn't need that W2 anymore. So in 21, I was able to leave my W2 largely because of the bravery I found by being part of an organization called Go Bunnets Women. I saw other people living big and doing these brave entrepreneurial things. And I knew I wanted to do it too. And then actually a couple of years into that, you know, quote, unquote, retirement. I saw that the richest people in Go Bunnets were the people who had a business interest. So I leaned into buying businesses that had a heavy real estate lean because that's the language that I spoke and ended up buying a car wash and a motel in addition to the apartments. And that's kind of how I ran it to you guys with M&A launch pad. So I have found some success in the business stuff and a lot of success in the apartment stuff and really leaning into making the motel is what has the bulk of my attention and

4:09business right now. All right, so you basically did it on speedrun. We can call it a wrap on the show. No, I'm kidding, right? So there's a lot to unpack in that. So let's just maybe go through the different steps, right? So you started with apartments. What did you like about apartments? What did you not like apartments before you decided that, Hey, I want to get into, you know, businesses. So when it comes to like, I like safety. I like things to be boring when it comes to my money. And when I, you know, I, I did a master's in behavioral economics and the idea of Maslow's hierarchy of needs says that you can live every day of your life and never own a Bitcoin, but you can't live a single day. None of the eight billion people on the planet can live a single day without shelter. So the surest bet in the whole world is to buy something that you get to pay off that someone will want to live in. So that kind of provided me what I call a floor of income that pays me every single month forever. So now I don't ever have to be thirsty to go do a deal in business and real estate in anything because I know my, my stuff is provided for I get to live the life that I want.

5:13However, once that floor of income is provided, then you want to figure out how, how to, to grow in terms of lifestyle, in terms of experience, in terms of all of the things, right? And when I saw, you know, the, the richest people how they were doing it, there was always a business interest. And actually part of that epiphany came Casey from one of your talks and an early M&A launch pad, that graphic that you show that talks about the different strata of what your net net worth is and what it's comprised of. And the, you know, if you want to go 10 million or above, you really need a business interest. So that's why I started buying businesses. Got it. So it sounds like really the problem with apartments, it's easy to grow, to get some, but it's hard to really scale that without significant capital, right? I mean, that's really what it boils down to, right? Versus the business that low at less capital can go much further. I like to tell people in apartments, you know, you're buying an apartment, let's say it's a five cap. Well, that five cap converted to business multiples is, you know, Russia and converted

6:13the other way around. We're buying it at a five cap. But if you're buying a business at a four X, that's a 25 cap, right? So there's a five X difference in terms of how far your money will go for each dollar. Except you have very little to know collateral in most of your acquisitions, right? Unless you are buying the real estate, which we'll talk about kind of the your mentality around dying the companies with real estate back. And so you're trading risk, right? Because the business also can go to complete zero, not saying a part you can't, but you still have the collateral. Now an apartment will never go to zero, right? You know, there's always some intrinsic value. Yeah. So those are those trades, but you're right. The cap, I mean, you can make a lot more money in a business. And I also think the business provides a lot of other things inside of the business that you can't necessarily do another investment vehicles when it comes to, you know, using cash value, whole life insurance to give yourself key man to add all these other vehicles into your business that you can create some leverage off of. So it's it's it's that business journey, you know, allows for some other things that

7:17help create that wealth. The way that I tend to look at it is I've got a heavy engine for cash flow that I take that that cash flow to put it in the bucket that is safe and forever. And you know, my husband retires in 11 years, I got 11 years of hustle left in me. So I need to make the heavy churn of cash flow as much as possible so that we can, you know, be in the sunset all the time in a cabin in Tennessee, you know, so I'm going in from right? Yeah, I have right. No, I'm suburbs of Chicago right now. Got it. But it is amazing in that in your mind, you know, and that's kind of what got me into the whole game was, you know, I read cash flow quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki and, you know, really looking at W2 income to self employment income, which I spent a lot of time in my life as you start to build these businesses, you really, you're really kind of self employed for a very long time, but you're still trading your time for money. But if you want to get over to that other side of the quadrant, right, you've got to buy, you've got to be a business owner or an investor. The ultimate goal is to be a full time investor, right?

8:18That means that you've got plenty of cash rolling in so you can just, you don't have to do all the work we do. You can invest, you know, that's the beauty of it, you know, and that's what most of our passive investors are looking for, right, being able to deploy their capital. Yeah, so that's kind of, that's what drove me into the game was to think about how Kiyosaki talks about getting those different quadrants and, you know, the business one is, I think a very challenging quadrant. That's why the upside and the rewards can be so significant because of the risk that we're trading. Yeah. And, you know, I talk a lot about, you know, the way I do things, I don't really take outside capital. I kind of all do it with my own capital or with partners in their capital. And the, the brain space associated with having a car wash, yes, it's a, you know, we, make, I don't know, probably $70,000 at the end of the day for 150 in. It was a very little bet, but 70, you know, 50% cash on cash is incredible, but the level of brain space guys, like that, that is not a requirement of my apartment.

9:22So I think that is a real kind of missed piece when people want to try to figure out what's better for me, real estate or a business, you got a factor in the brain space piece. Oh, brain space. And I mean, even in the real estate side, people don't understand risk adjusted returns. But there's risk adjusted returns, there's time adjusted returns, there's brain space adjusted returns, you know, you have to weigh them all in. And it's not just about the wrong number at the end of the day. But I think to maybe kind of tie it all together. So you did the apartment side, then you joined GoBundits women. And as part of that, you know, you started to see that, hey, some of the most successful women were people that had their own businesses. And you know, that allowed you to really start to kind of just be around people that help you make that mine shift to, as Casey mentioned, get to the other quadrant, which is, okay, you know, I want to be in this other quadrant where maybe I'm trading time for a business, right? And ultimately, maybe to grow to where I can be an investor where I'm just trading time for money, right? Or sorry, trading money for money, essentially what you're doing, right? And so maybe give some examples of people that you met in the group that just helped you

10:25get that inspiration. And ultimately, how did you make the jump to what that actually meant? That I mean, buying your own business, that I mean starting your own business because a lot of people tend to think it's about starting a business. Yeah. I either we do these things called pods. So a small group of four to seven women that meet weekly and all of the women that were in my pod that met weekly, you know, they were business owners. And you know, I was kind of, you know, scratching and clawing to get up to a $3 million net worth and they were well into the 40s and 50s. So it just, it felt very clear that if I just focused how I spent my time and my attention on one big thing, then, you know, if that was my ultimate goal, then that's how I'm going to end up getting there, right? So when it came to like a choice to invest in a business, you know, because I then got to serve in leadership at GoBundance, I became introduced to Walker Dival who, you know, he wrote what I call the Bible, my gateway drug to buying businesses, buy them build.

11:31And the idea is just it makes so much sense, you know, both my parents were entrepreneurs. My dad, the farmer, had this forever existing business that continues to exist and my mom had a startup that didn't really make it, you know. So I saw firsthand in my childhood that buying something that existed will continue to grow and a startup is where, you know, things can fizzle out pretty quickly. So I wanted to do something that was heavy real estate because I wanted to keep that real estate professional status and continue to be involved in the depreciation stuff and having the bulk of my time spent in real estate. So that is why it was a motel or a car wash. Yeah. Another thing about the car wash, right? I mean, it shouldn't tech, you know, once it's up and it's operational a team, right? Is it like one of those fully operational ones that someone can just drive through and pay or does it take people? I mean, how does that business kind of flow into and tell us also what we don't know about car washers that we shouldn't know. So when I was under contract to buy the car wash, I had a call with Walker and was so

12:35excited to tell my friend who, you know, talked me into buying a business that I'm under contract to buy a business. And I tell him I'm under contract for a car wash and he goes, I never own a car wash. I'm like, oh, say more, say more, right? So he said, you know, something's always broken at a car wash. I'd never own one. And I'm like, okay, well, we did go through with it, obviously, but it kind of, you know, helped me with a reframe that it's not some five alarm fire when something's broken at the car wash because my expectation is something is always broken. We have a seven bay self serve car wash that, you know, if something is broken, if a hose gets ripped off, then, you know, we put a cone in front of it. And we have a relationship with vendors that can fix that type of thing. And we have some college athletes that work for us, college baseball players that come in and change the trash out and rinse off the quarters and things like that. So it is largely most days, I don't think about it, but, you know, when there are problems

13:37the day after my wedding, you know, someone ran into a wall with their duly pickup truck. So we left the brunch that we were at my husband and I, new business owners, newly remarried, right? To go to, you know, deal with the broken wall that we were worried about structural, you know, abilities, right? So there's, there are, it's significantly larger in terms of brain space like we were talking about. Yeah, but, you know, one of the things kind of like we think about due diligence on, on certain type of assets that you're going to buy, you know, so we hear a lot from investors or buyers that say, Hey, I'm agnostic, okay? That is one of the terms we laugh about because, you know, everybody has an opinion is being somebody that's agnostic, a good thing, you know, investors, no. So one of the things, you know, being buyers of a manufacturing company is you're, you have to know that like a car wash, like anything that has assets that help you generate

14:38income, you're going to typically have breakdowns all the time. And so like my first six, eight months being at H&M, I felt every time, Hey, the machines down. This is down. I just, it like would make my stomach hurt. And I remember the seller looking at me like, what? Like it's all the time. Like something is broken every second of the day. It's not a big deal. And getting through that kind of part, right? So like in your due diligence, you know, when you make your next acquisition, we'll talk about your, your, your motel or hotel or holiday in, whichever one is, whatever it is. But, but you kind of, you learn from your next acquisition, right? You start to go, Hey, these were things I should have done or man, I'm not sure I like this. For me, I really enjoy it. I love the fact that if you get a really good solid maintenance team and a really good person that instead of just fixing the rebuilding, well, man, you're now putting your, your, your assets in a better place than when you bought them. But again, it takes that like, Oh my God, things are breaking all the times.

15:42But also, you know, the, it's just like in apartment buildings, you need the scale to be able to afford the team, you know, that if I wanted to go by six more of these, then I could totally afford the right people to be handling the things so that I can buy back that brain space. But what, what I found in another thing that I've observed from go bonnetswomen and our, you know, brother side too, that those people who go to those nine figure networks, they do one thing really, really well. So I, I became a beginner when I bought a car wash. I became a beginner when I bought a motel. I, I, I need to, my plan is to really specialize in a better way and not force myself to become a beginner and put, you know, efforts in the same direction so I can grow further faster. Yeah, because you've got 11 years, I mean, you've got to knock this out like 10,000 hours. Like you got to get your 10,000 hours, like as soon as possible, right? So from the car wash, you then take a leap, right? You say, Hey, I found a, it's, is it a motel? Mm hmm.

16:43It's roughly the same time I bought the, the car wash and the motel because I knew I wanted a business and I made two little bets, roughly the same time. So how would people wouldn't do that? No, of course not, but she's got 11 years, man. Why would I do that, Ferris? Have you known me to, to do things this people way? No, you, I'm not surprised. I would have probably done the same thing to be honest, but that's also why we're not most people. So tell us about the motel journey, right? So the car wash, you've got the concerns there, things break all the time, but you've been adapt to that. How does a motel, how's it different? Yeah. So, I mean, I, I speak small apartment buildings, like my whole stick in apartment buildings is the, the mid-sized multi that call it 15 units to about 50 units. That's really kind of how I bought my way out of my W2. So I gave a presentation preaching the gospel of mid-sized multi to somebody and a guy asked for a follow up call after he saw on MLS in 18 room motel, you know, an hour 45 minutes

17:45outside of Minneapolis, St. Paul, he's like, I want to reposition this into apartments. And you know, it's 300 square feet. It's a super rural town, but like right next to a lake and Wisconsin Lake culture guys, if you don't know what they, they drink, right? So, you know, they need a chance, a place to stay. So it needed, like it made more sense to make it stay short-term rentals rather than apartments because the population like five X's over the summer. A lot of money comes in from Minneapolis into this little town called Boston Lake. And so I talked to him into keeping it like that, but he, you know, a lot of things happen and I am now, you know, the owner, he decided not to move forward and I bought out a partner. The difference there is, you know, you can find a short-term rental, host, co-host, property manager that it's a lot more expensive than a long-term rental. You'll pay roughly eight or 10% for a mid-sized multi if it's a long-term rental per month of top-line revenue to that property manager, but you're going to pay 20 plus percent

18:45if it's short-term rentals. And it is the expectation of communication for a, like, an Airbnb or a VRBO is very different than if you're going to a motel that looks like it might have someone on site. So the growing pains with the management, you know, I had a partner that that's what she does. She just lived a thousand miles away and her play just didn't translate it all. And we ended up with lots of really terrible reviews and I was able to buy her out last summer and reposition and now we're thriving just took property management in-house and it's all systems. It's all setting the expectation. It's all SOP and make things repeatable that I know from my other business stuff and my past lives, right? So it's, you know, it's that, that business is shining because of, you know, the things that I know that I'm good at, the providing connection. I've also decided that the straight line of all of the things that I do, go about and swim in is connection, our events that we get to do together, that's people connecting, right?

19:49Like where you live your life, that is building a connection with your family. This lumberjil lodge is connection for girls trips. The car wash does not fit into that. It's one of these things is not like the other. So that is why we're divesting that and really focusing in on the motel for now. So, yeah, I think you were probably saying the same thing, but I'm curious. So, okay, so you take the, so the motel, right, never done it doing it before. It's a different, you know, it has a lot to do with taking care of people and making it an experience. So what did you do, right? It wasn't working and now you're making it work. What was it? I know it's standard operating procedures, but what did you do? There's got to be some cosmetics, some brands, some things that you did to make it fun. So back to my geek hood of being a behavioral economist. There's these authors that I love, Chip and Dan Heath, their brother's behavioral economists. They wrote a book called Thinking in Moments. And one of the stories they talk about is a motel in LA. I think I'm going to totally butcher this story, but it's a good point that, you know,

20:50it has the best reviews of any LA area hotel, not because the better than the rents, better than the wall or for story, but what you do is you pick up a red phone and it'll say popsicle hotline, how may help you. And you can tell them that I would like three grapes and an orange please. And they will come out with a tray and make it this incredible experience, right? So the thing that people remember in moments, in experiences, that's what we're selling a clean room and an experience at the motel. People remember the beginning, they remember the end and they remember the peak. So if you screw up the beginning and they can't get into their room, which was the thing that was happening in past management, we've already lost them, right? If you screw up the end that, you know, somebody, you know, barges in on them, that's also terrible, right? And then, you know, how do we get the question I continue to ask my team and I hired a guy to live on site who is, you know, strangely enough, former corporate walmart.com guy who wants a fun retirement job. So that's kind of the perfect fit.

21:51But, you know, how do I make an experience? And these Instagram-able moments of, you know, a little swing with Lumberger Lodge above you. You know, we cleaned out the shed in the back that we're going to host women's things at. Like we're going to, I'm bringing go-buttoned women there to do a summit where we business plan and we talk about the things in our lives that we want to move forward. So really nurturing the stuff and doubling down on the places that build that experience, build that connection, that's what's working. And so for people just listening, I mean, can you maybe walk through some of the numbers of that? Right now, how, how should people look at that as a business, right? Maybe what you get it for, how do you put the stack together and, you know, how profitable and not profitable is it? Well, I mentioned little bets, right? So the motel itself had a lot of damage. So of the 18 rooms, only like 10 of them were usable when I acquired it.

22:52I only paid $326,000 for it, but it needed a lot of love. I have over the course of the last couple of years put in probably about 200,000 or so. You know, because it's commercial, real estate, it's worth, you know, a multiple of how much money it makes over the summer. It's a very, you know, seasonal business because it's a lake in Wisconsin. And nobody wants to go by the lake when it's, you know, you can't ice fish, but it's still too cold. Over the summer months, we, we cashload after debt service and everything, $20,000, a couple months. So, you know, that is, well, when I acquired it, let me tell the story two ways. So when I acquired it, that $327,000, like I like to think in worst case scenario. How do I not lose this property? What's the worst thing that could happen? And can I meet whatever bar to keep that work, worst worst case scenario from happening?

23:52I needed like a 7% occupancy to break even, right? And I figured over the first year, I can pull off a 7% occupancy. Well, you know, we are very good at filling up over the weekend. And the weekend is roughly 30% of the week. So over our peak season, we kind of top out right now at around 35%, 40%. But, you know, if we hit that 35%, 40% we're cash flowing about 20 grand. Nice. That is awesome. So let me do this real quick. I kind of want to talk about mindset because, you know, you talk about your community, you talk about a lot of these things and the people around you that help you make that decision. I would say for our listeners, I would say many of them have not taken a leap. They've not said, hey, I'm going to go take these risks, right? And they're significant risk, no matter what size. So how does, how does talk about community, but also talk a little bit about your mindset? How did you get to a position to where you could go?

24:53Hey, you know what, I'm going to take these risks. What, like, what are those things that you did? I know you started with multifamily, but still you had to take a risk. Yeah, you know, for me, I'm super pragmatic. I'm super, you know, let's, let's figure out that worst case scenario and figure out how to not make that happen. So actually in the real estate stuff, I had, you know, a sales number that was not possible because I knocked it out of the park theater before. My boss was pressuring me to do stuff that I knew was not okay. And I was having a panic attack in a parking garage at a hospital. And I was a brand new single mom, I had just gotten divorced. So I thought I was going to, am I going to have to entertain doing the stuff that I know is wrong? Right? You know, and then I realized, oh my God, I have $3,000 coming in from cash flow from, from my apartment buildings. I'm not going to die. Oh my God. If I just pay attention to that, that number, if that's the thing I put my time on, then I'm going to be able to do whatever I want. So whatever risk I'm taking, it's not really a risk. When I can figure out the math of it. So I think the, you know, really figuring out worst case scenario and putting truth to the problem.

25:56Whenever you got a problem, the best way to solve that problem is to put more truth to the problem. And there's nothing more true than numbers. So if you can just figure out what reserves are going to make you feel whole, are going to make you feel safe. What, what income you're going to need to make happen in order to feel like you can move to the next level. So that risk feels, you know, that an asymmetric risk reward. That's really what I go for. I bet a penny to make $10 in every case in what I do. So I think for me, it's, you know, the mindset reframe is how do you reposition the thing that's to, in a different true way that's going to serve you? So the, the figuring out of the worst case scenario is something that really helped me. And so then, but maybe tie that to, you know, who did you feel like just being around help to get accomplished that? And, you know, and I know we've mentioned Go Bunnets Women a few times, right? And what's your kind of involvement there? Right? And what's the, what's the mission in the goal there? So I joined as a member, the minute that I learned that there was a women's division,

27:00I joined as a member. And then after a couple years that I had bought my way out of my W2, I had the opportunity to start serving in leadership and acquired the rights to, to operate that. So with partners, I operate Go Bunnets Women. We are the tribe of healthy, wealthy, generous women who choose to lead epic lives. We, we, you know, once you get money to a certain point, you realize it's about so much more than that. Like are you living your relationships in a way that feel totally connected? Are you giving back in a way that really fulfills you? And where do you want to set your goals? If the goal that would fuel your life best is something health right now, let's focus on that. But also playing the business game, you know, we, we talk a lot about trying to scale our businesses without sacrifice. I want to nine figure business, but I also want to be the mom that goes on field trips with my kids, right? And I, I think that a thing that's been missing in a lot of business stuff, you know, as well as I do that, you know, not, not as many women yet at these types of events as I,

28:01I hope for you guys do an incredible job at courting the women to come to them. And women aren't taking the chance because, you know, that's, that's food out of my, you know, why would I do that? That's food out of my kids mouth. Well, you, the thing that we do really well is, you know, we, we exemplify that you got to show your kids that mom's dreams are worth it, right? So being shoulder to shoulder with people who are scaling these huge businesses and going on field trips with their kids. Like that is the thing. How, how do you do that? Not it must be nice. Show me how, give me a high five, let's do the next one together. Oh, I love it because I'll tell you here at, you know, an equity launch pad, you know, we have a partner's program. We're going to be announcing more about it next year, but we've brought, you know, operating partners on. We've made some acquisitions, we've, we're learning kind of the template of how we do it. My vision, I cannot wait till we find that right female that wants to do what we do and run a business with us. You know, I've daughters, I have, you know, my, I have an older sister and I look at us all, you know, very much the same.

29:06Now, we shouldn't be playing the same sports. However, we, I see everything else very equal in these things and it's going to be very exciting, you know, to, to have that. And I think abundance could be one of those things that helps us maybe identify and find the right people. It's, it's, it's great because it's the community that we're building. Yeah, you know, and there's a lot of truth of Fraser, the average of the five people he spend the most around, right? And being around people helps you think bigger, figure out similar problems, figure out how to take, you know, leap frog what you're doing. And I mean, heck, a lot of what we, the reason we put on the conference is so we can be around other like-minded people, every conference we put on every conference we attend, we pick up something new, right? And it's about, you know, not thinking that you're alone wolf, but instead really figuring out, hey, how do we go accomplish something bigger, better together? And so I totally, you know, big fan and excited to see kind of where go abundance women starts to go. Because again, there's a, it's a clear lack, or if we clear gap right in the, in the space, and how do you get more people aware that, hey, these things can be done and here's how you go through it, right?

30:07So love it. I, and I'm looking to put my money where my mouth is, right? Like we know that women are the better investors, like there's studies that exist that show that because women don't take big swings from the jump and they make sure that they've made that metered choices that their performance on average is better. So I, I back female led things, female led companies, female led syndicators. So, you know, I, you know, I love doing business with my guys and I want to empower more women to take the chance on themselves. It's powerful. My wife literally, when I made my solo acquisition in 2019, she said, I don't even need to look at the deal. I don't feel like you should sign the paperwork, and I was like, you don't know, like what, like now I'm like, hey babe, what do you feel? How do you feel? Like what do you think? You know, it's like, you know, there's a little bit of that women's intuition that's just different than some of us guys. And so I think that helps lead as well to find the right opportunities.

31:08All right. So with that said, we'll go ahead and shift into our rocket round where we ask our guests the same three questions. First questions, Mandy. Oh, what do you like to do in your free time? My free time. I mean, the three children that I keep alive. We do all of the sports right now. We are heavy football. My husband's a high school football coach. So it's a football for the boys, football for the husband and singing for the, the daughter. Yeah, and you told me this that and I didn't realize it and maybe I don't even, and you still don't even believe it. Right. How many other coaches are on the team? Well, the junior, whatever, the junior warriors, they had like 11 or 12 coaches for these little guys. It was in bonkers. So you guys are doing some intense coaching there. I mean, I guess you can play football. I agree in Texas. Shouldn't you know this? I should. That's all I had. I'm going to go pay attention next time. It's a big part.

32:09All right. So what is your most memorable moment in your business journey? More than likely that the two months into acquisition, just getting newly remarried to my husband and business partner in the car wash. Dropping everything in the middle of the brunch to go help fix the wall and make sure we were structurally sound at the car wash. That'll teach you, you know, what ownership really can mean. All the benefits. I think you know, if you don't realize with any business, you're always on call. Yeah, just the buck ends up stopping, you know, at some point in time with the ownership. And then last question, favorite tool or resource. And you can't say gobundits woman. So a thing that's kind of been all the hotness in gobundits that I'm really leaning into to is not just using like an AI tool for asking questions or write me this document or whatever. Really turning that into an agent that setting things up so that OK, whenever I'm whenever I get Airbnb reviews like this now agent tool will respond as if it's lumberjil in a different way every single time that now no employee has to touch that Mandy doesn't have to touch that a lot of that lift is completely handled because of the AI agent.

33:33Nice, beautiful. And AI is, I was just a podcast on the way in. I mean, there's just so many ways that we're learning to use it that can really advance things and just something as simple as that. That's pretty incredible. Agreed. And Mandy, how can people get all of you? And again, we want to put all this in the show for people, including a link to gobundits woman. I love it. Everything that I do is on Mandy McAllister dot com. All of my socials are the Mandy McAllister and actually we're doing a women's wealth symposium and Dallas. So if anybody's in Texas, I'll make sure that I get to that link to over international Wednesday. Yeah. What's the date for that? It's international women's day. So the seventh will be the symposium and then the next day we're actually doing a pitch event where we want to turn a bunch of women into business investors. Alright, awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, Mandy, thank you for spending so much time with us today. Really appreciate it and excited to continue to hear about your journey. Like what? I love you guys. Seriously, what you're doing is so necessary and so huge and I am so grateful to get to be a part of it.

34:39Thank you. Thank you, Mandy, appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the MNA launch pad podcast. If you've enjoyed today's podcast and would like to support us, please leave us a rating and a review after you listen. If you're looking for guidance on your next business acquisition or sale, capital to support your next business transaction or to invest in a private equity opportunity, visit equity launchpad.com to learn more and to connect with our team. If you know of an individual, you would be a great guest for the show head over to equity launchpad.com or slash nominate where you'll have the chance to refer yourself or someone else to be a guest on our show. I'm Casey Menchew and I look forward to talking with you next week.