The Real Mike Duley

Ep. 3 - Airbnb Goldmine & 30-Year Wealth Game Plan | With Cassandra Clark

• Mike Duley

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0:00 | 48:25

What if the best thing that ever happened to your career was being told “no”? That’s the plot twist that turned a lost lake house into a lakeside Airbnb portfolio, a thriving investment business, and a 30-year wealth plan built around family, freedom, and fun.

We sit down with Cassandra to map the exact frameworks she and her husband use to buy, flip, and hold with discipline. She breaks down their Airbnb buy box, waterfront, sand, easy access, quiet, and why they design for connection with one TV, modern finishes, and analog play like shuffleboard. You’ll hear how pairing two large homes side by side unlocked big-family bookings, and why short-term rentals fit their personality, cash flow goals, and brand better than long-term leases. We dig into the money engine behind it all: flipping two to three, then holding one; raising flip profit minimums to protect time; launching wholesale only after the retail team stabilized; and treating every decision like math first, hype second.

Cassandra also shares the mindset moves that made the leap from corporate possible. She set a measurable proof target, built passive income for security, and now tracks net worth monthly like a date night: glass of wine, green-or-red progress, small wins celebrated. For couples working together, she explains how they created clear lanes, she negotiates and scales, he designs and builds, so both can lead without stepping on each other. We round it out with practical systems, from CSU and CRM habits to education-driven events that attract serious clients, plus how right-sizing the team preserved culture, profit, and sanity.

If you’re ready to design your life on purpose, own your time, buy on criteria, and build wealth you can feel, press play and steal the playbook. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a quick review to help more builders find the show.

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the Real Mike Dooley Podcast. I'm Mike Dooley, nationally recognized broker, bringing you real conversations, real strategies, and real insights into today's real estate market. Hey, hey, 2026, we are here. Uh, you guys can maybe can't see her if you're driving on the road or hanging out, but what a beautiful outfit! Looking awesome, looking phenomenal. I know you just came back from a vacation, so that obviously has got you glowing, right?

SPEAKER_00

It does, Mike. Every year, I love, love, love planning all my vacations for the whole year.

SPEAKER_01

So I actually had, and I don't know if you know Tara Smith or not, she was my last guest. And one thing she told me, she says when she's on vacation, so her framework or her model is to book the next one, or she has to do it 48 hours after she gets home. Do you have a model or framework around there?

SPEAKER_00

I have a model and framework, and actually I do it in December. So every year in December, we've pull out our 12-month calendar, and my number one is picking out our vacations. So we already have them laid out for the whole year, the following year.

SPEAKER_01

That's super cool. And I know you're in Michigan. So in Michigan, it's not 80 degrees in December, right?

SPEAKER_00

Uh, no, it's dark and gloomy and gives you all the motivation to book tropical vacations and getaways. And we have to book vacations in January, we have to have one in March, and we have to have one in May. Otherwise, we just get depressed here.

SPEAKER_01

That's awesome. Well, I know we went right into it, but I do want to give our guests, and I always tease, I was saying we have people from Paris, and then I go Paris, Arkansas, or Paris, Texas. They're living, they're listening all over the world, which is fun. Uh, we've had a lot of people already message uh about it, but I want to tell everyone did I read this in my notes, you're the lioness. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00

So we get that a lot. Just the joke from leaving corporate to building our own business. And we get the joke a lot, like lioness and heels, um, just because it's been a fun whirlwind of five years. So yeah, I get called that.

SPEAKER_01

Do you have a graphic around that too? That's your Instagram that you need to, you need a poster up in your office.

SPEAKER_00

Maybe that needs to be like my personal brand like logo.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I think it's dead on. I would definitely do that. I think that's badass.

SPEAKER_00

That's actually maybe that'll be a new 2026 goal. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01

So we're in in Michigan, and it's I know if I think I remember correctly, and we've been at several different events and wealth building together and stuff. Grand Rapids, right?

SPEAKER_00

Grand Rapids, yep.

SPEAKER_01

The good old, the good old Bob, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. We can do the Michigan hand. We are over in West Michigan and Grand Rapids area. Uh, and we scurry up even a little bit northern Michigan with some of our Airbnb stuff.

From Corporate To “Lioness” Brand

SPEAKER_01

People are always surprised to say I've been there a lot and stayed at that courtyard Marriott before, but all I've really done is stayed in the courtyard Marriott. And then I called on Meyer uh for about a year or two and went there and I sold Simalax, so baby formula for ABI Nutrition to Meyer. What beautiful stores! What a beautiful area. It is so nice. Every time I went there, people are so nice, they're awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a great area.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think I read from my notes uh you were a bartender.

SPEAKER_00

I was a bartender. That's where I first started, right? Bartender server, which who would have thought that would make it really tee up for success when it comes to real estate, because if you can talk to that many people, you're ready to go, right?

SPEAKER_01

For sure. I think about my start, you know, being at Red Lobster, being a server and a manager, you really do have to pivot all the time. You know, they're like, hey, you just got sat 14 people, or hey, this, you just you just roll with the punches, don't you?

SPEAKER_00

You roll with the punches, you make people happy, and you figure it out. And that is a skill that most people just don't realize how important it is.

SPEAKER_01

Well, why I thought it was important, just kind of reading the notes and just kind of thinking about it. You think I think people say, I'm a bartender, I'm a waiter, I'm gonna do all those things. I can't get to, and I know we're gonna get to all the amazing things that you're doing, but I wanted to lay the land for people to know too. We all start somewhere. You know, we're all something, we were different, you know. Uh, one of my last guests and I were talking about we both kind of dropped out of college. Now I did finish, uh, it only took 10 years, but I finally did it. My parents always say that's what doctors are, right? But but you uh right now, I want them to tell them, tell the audience and tell everyone a little bit about what you have. Just, you know, a quick 30,000 feet. I know we have team, we have other businesses, we have wholesaling, flip. I got really excited. I kept reading. I was like, we're just on your intro, we're gonna spend 77 minutes.

Service Industry Skills To Real Estate

SPEAKER_00

No, you know, it's um got a lot of fun. But right now, as a big overview, I look at everything in the real estate world, and we've really taken readers and had fun saying, hey, we're we built the traditional real estate side. We were already before we even I jumped into that side. I had purchased my first Airbnb and we've continued that. So we have our Airbnb portfolio. We started the wholesale side of the business. My husband really helps run our fix and flip business. Um, and then on top of that, we've really implemented our investor series. So trying to just give back to our community and helping other people learn how to invest and how to use like utilize their money to live their life by design.

SPEAKER_01

And I know your Airbnb 2020. I think if I read right, that's where you kind of started and had your first one. Do you still own that one? Or we move this into our so it's still doing awesome. And you think about it, if people are going in, are you other strategies, you know, uh midterm, 13 week, are you doing that in some of your portfolio?

SPEAKER_00

We are not. We are strictly here doing short-term rentals on lakes, destination places where people can get away with their family. They can do a weekend getaway. It truly is a short-term destination place.

SPEAKER_01

That's awesome. What what why'd you choose your first Airbnb?

SPEAKER_00

So our first Airbnb, Mike, I always kind of laugh and joke. I say, well, we kind of fell into um fell into just investing and fell into a gold mine with that one where we said, I, you know, I think things happened for a reason. And we actually got told no. This is in the beginning before I was even an agent. We were looking to live on a lake. And we thought we our offer got accepted. It was verbally accepted. Our agent called us, said, Oh my goodness, it's yours. We were celebrating. Mike, like, we already had a celebrating dinner. I'm so excited. A couple hours later, I got the phone call and he says, Hey, unfortunately, a cash offer came in and they signed that before they signed your offer. And I'm like, wait a minute. Like, we already like had wine, we were celebrating. Um, and so that put us on our mission to find a cottage. And to do that, we said, well, you know what, we could Airbnb be a part-time. And let's just do a cottage instead. And so that is really what put us on the track to start investing.

SPEAKER_01

So that loss in the beginning was actually a blessing.

SPEAKER_00

Huge blessing. We would have spent more than we ever wanted on boats and remodels and doing everything else. Instead, we bought the cottage, Airbnb, and then it ended up being one where instead of us using it over 4th of July, we said, oh, the opportunity cost is just too high. We're gonna let somebody else use it and we're gonna book our January vacation to an island somewhere.

SPEAKER_01

That's what I've heard. I'm I'm working on a 30A beach house right now, and that's what I've heard from a lot of people is that you look at the numbers and you're like, wait a minute, I could rent that for 15 grand this week. You're like, no, the reason I bought it is to be able to stay there with my family and friends.

SPEAKER_00

Nope, time to buy another one and maybe you'll use that one. Nope, you'll rent in, maybe, and then five later you keep just going. Um, but yeah, nope, that's really how we got started.

SPEAKER_01

So your first business was the Airbnb?

SPEAKER_00

First business was the Airbnb.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. Take us through a little bit the timeline, you know, when you think about it too. So if someone's listening, they're going, okay, I want to get started. Was that really hard for you guys to select the first Airbnb, or did that happen kind of quickly?

Portfolio Snapshot: Retail, STRs, Flips, Wholesale

SPEAKER_00

No, it happened fairly quick. Um, and I'd say we went into it at that time, looking at it as it was going to be for us majority of the time. And then we actually continue with that model. Would we want to stay here? Is it a destination place? We kind of have a little different model than some where we don't say, hey, we want to be in a destination town. Uh, we want to be close by some things, but we also want to make sure that the property is a destination itself as well. And I think that's what differentiates us with our Airbnbs, is we make sure that they're a destination we're staying at.

SPEAKER_01

So that's kind of your buy box. Do you have that framework laid out that says, here's what my buy box is?

SPEAKER_00

Yep. We want to be on the water. We want to have sand. We want to make sure that it has it's relatively easy to get to. Michigan can have some fun dirt roads and some hills and slippery things. So we do make sure that um anything that has a crazy driveway we stay away from, we want to make sure to eliminate any noise. Um, and then we truly minimize things. So uh we'll have one TV, right? We get a lot of people that say, oh my goodness, it was fantastic. Our kids didn't even ask about technology. Uh, so we minimize that. We try to make sure there's plenty of games, we try to make sure that there's a hot tub fauna, other attractions for people to use there.

SPEAKER_01

No, that's great. So, from a managing perspective, so I want to get to it too. I think I heard you say your husband runs the fix and flip. It's all that, yeah, kind of tell us again 30,000 feet. So when you have that, that gives you a look into a potential Airbnb or something you're gonna use in a different way, right?

First Airbnb: The “No” That Won

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So we look at everything as uh, you know, you kind of look at your different buy boxes and then you also look at the different opportunities. Um, and I think that's the fun part about being in real estate is it does give you the MFR advantage, right? We're we're looking at the market every single day. We're looking at the market, we're looking at opportunities, and then saying, okay, where does this fit? Um, and when it doesn't fit, or hey, we can't take every opportunity, fantastic. All the people in our world and the investors in our world then also get to benefit. So when we look at everything coming in, we say, okay, what does this look like to hold, right? We have a kind of a pattern where we have, we felt slow. We haven't really built as fast as we could have, but also we've been on that middle tolerance of risk where we didn't, we haven't refinanced everything. We do love having a lot of equity in there. So our model has been, hey, we're gonna go ahead and flip two to three, and then we're gonna hold something. We're gonna flip two to three, then hold something. Um, and then as I've coached with Brett Tanner the past couple of years, it's been, hey, we're gonna build a really strong foundation before we buy too much. Um, so we've gone a little bit slower in some areas, but it's really helped us build a strong foundation.

SPEAKER_01

Well, with these weird markets, you know, 2024, 2025, you're really glad you did that, right?

SPEAKER_00

Really glad.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I I have a mindset all the time. It's like, go, go, go. My wife is like, no, no, no. So it's I don't know if it's strategic. It's actually just works that way where she says no all the time and I'm saying yes. So if it's really we really buy it, we really do it, it's really a good deal. If you think about your 2026 and you laid out uh your plan, your portfolio, did you have some goals that the audience would be really excited about or something you were excited about that you laid out? So you talked about flip uh count. Are you saying this is how many flips I'm gonna do for the year? Or do you even go further when you have more of a four to five year plan? What does that look like in your planning?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So, Mike, we do it twofold. Um, so we have our, we obviously put together our 30-year wealth plan. Um, you know, both been in KW Wealth and you put together your 30-year plan. And for me, that was a game changer. Sitting there and saying, okay, what are the couple smaller things and being able to break it down to, well, I actually only have to purchase one or two rentals a year. And now I can actually build off of that. And then how do we continue to grow? So this year we've been doing that. We've been building small. And then this year we are going to be adding three to our portfolio. Um, we've actually gotten a little stricter with our flips. So in the past, we would say when we first started, okay, if we could make 25,000, we would do that. Now we're saying, okay, if we can't make 50,000 on a flip, we're gonna pass. Um, because there might be an opportunity where we could go find a hold and do that. We could have other opportunities. So really getting tight on our buy boxes and saying, okay, how do we put stricter boundaries around everything we do to truly be more efficient? Not just spend more time or work harder, but truly be more efficient as we grow.

SPEAKER_01

You said a couple amazing things in there. I want to unwrap. You said 30-year wealth plan. Wow. Well, if I know the first time I heard that, I was like, well, how long am I going to be in this business? But I love that it really gets you thinking a little bit further. So are you checking in with your goals on there? Is that weekly, monthly? What does that look like?

The Buy Box: Lakes, Access, Simplicity

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So we've been really strict on tracking your net worth monthly, going in and actually having a blast doing it. So I would tell you when obviously leaving corporate, starting here, going every like net worth tracking was not even in my wheelhouse of like I never even heard of doing such a thing. And so sitting in that room, so I left corporate, just as a like overview, I left corporate in April of 2022. I sat in at KWL's July of 2022 and talking about net worth tracking and building this 30-year plan, having to do that before we went. Um, and I was a little bit mind blown. I yeah, I graduated with a finance and academic. Um, and then here I am. And the first thing I was told is if you think money is your issue, you're not in the game. And I'm like, okay, well, I guess I'm not in the game. How do I get in the game? Anyways, so long story short, kind of going through that, we said, hey, you know what? Once we started plugging in, what would it really look like if we just bought one a year? Would our net worth be? Right? Okay, we can get to 50 million in net worth pretty quick if you just bought one a year, two a year. Um, and it was a little bit of a game changer. Being able to put that onto an Excel spreadsheet and see what it would do if you just did one thing different every year. We talk about the one thing, we talk about different things like that. But when you really just do one thing and you focus on that and you look at it, it can be a game changer for the rest of your life. So we truly started doing that. And then slowly, as we every time you go to a conference, I don't know about you, but I have 50 pages of notes. I want to go start a self-directed Roth. I can't wait to start hard money lending. I want to do this piece, do this piece. Um, and so we slowly just started writing everything down on the list, my wish list of all the things I want to do, and slowly plugging away NFU. Um, and that's been a game changer because it's helped us slowly build and not get overwhelmed with all the shiny objects out there.

SPEAKER_01

That's great. And you know, I just grazed over it too. I'm glad you brought that up. So 2021, 2022, you're working 65 hours, 70 hours in corporate America and not happy, right?

Choosing STR Over MTR And Design Upgrades

SPEAKER_00

No, like I would say the biggest lessons I have learned from that. So I actually was never planning to get in real estate, not in the slightest. Um, I had a career path, wanted to become a director. I I worked in, yeah, I loved what I did. I truly, I worked at Gordon Food Service and distribution. I was a merchandising manager, I absolutely loved it. Um, I worked with pork and entrees. So crazy enough, I have toured all of the plants that went to, you know, JBS, all of them from farm to table, right? Um, never in my wildest dream did I think I would switch careers. My husband wanted to start flipping. And thank goodness we had the age and I told you about that. We didn't get the lake house and said if you want to start flipping, you should probably get your license. Um that was an interesting piece of advice. So my husband got his license. And if you ever met my husband, he is the contractor. He loves design, he loves to build. He is not a negotiator, he is not what he can absolutely or he's fun. He's very, very fun, but that is not his role. So slowly he tried to start doing a little bit of real estate, and he's like, I'm telling him how to negotiate what to do. Because here I was over here negotiating that margin, new products. That's my world. And he's like, You should really do this. So I said, Well, I'll give my license and I'll go ahead and negotiate for you. You do all the rest, I'll negotiate. Well, we helped 16 people that year. And then it was 2021, and I went on a retreat, and we were helping quite a few people at the time, 16 our first year. Great. And then next year we were like a little over 20 people. And I go on my retreat and I'm like, oh my goodness, you know, I really think this is what I'm supposed to do. Um and if you know me, uh is one where I once I have a goal and I want to be a director and I have this path, like I kind of stay on path. So to say, oh my gosh, I'm gonna switch everything, uh was a little uncomfortable. Um, so I actually prayed a lot and I made an ultimatum with God. I said, Well, if we sell 40 homes, then I know it's meant to be. So here I am working 40, 50 hours for Gordon Food Service. Somehow we ended up selling 42 homes. Yeah, it was a blast. And that's when I said, okay, we're gonna switch. Um, but at the end of it, it wasn't until after I left and having that COVID period where I said, okay, you know what, we're gonna stop. I missed a lot of dinners. I used to travel a lot for the corporate, right? I was gone three nights a week, traveling all over. Um, not that I didn't love going to those vendor dinners, not that I didn't love what I did, but what I didn't realize is how much time I was giving away and how many dinners I wasn't having with the people I love the most. And that's what really intrigued me once I actually left and I started incorporate or started the real estate side was I could choose every night who I'm going to dinner with. I can choose to have coffee with my husband every morning. I can choose how much time I'm going to take off. And I can truly start living a life by design versus letting my work run my life.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. A lot of people that are listening, there's probably several of them that are that I find, and you know this too, a lot of people are husband and wife that work together in business as just part of real estate a little bit. But what was that kind of ultimate decision? So I think I heard you too saying you can choose who you can have dinner with. So if someone's listening and they're saying, maybe maybe we make it a framework. Three or four things that they need to think about. I think you said you talked to God too and you prayed, you said 40 houses or more. So that was a framework. Did you work backwards and say this is the net income from those? Like, what were some of the things that you did that someone that's listening going? I've kind of been part time. I've been, you know, saying maybe I want to get into real estate, maybe I want to do this. What was some of the things? If you had a you know, three or four, we could build, we could use Chat GPT and build a Framework together.

SPEAKER_00

So we're to build a framework for me. Um, you know, it was proving to myself that I could I could do it on my own, right? That was um, it was a little bit different, right? I had grown up and I had heard, okay, you need to go to school. Okay, you have to have this career. Oh, you need your 401k plan. This is just security. Um, and I had to get really clear on, no, I can bet on myself. Um, and maybe I had to prove it to myself with those 40 homes before I was comfortable reaching that band-aid. Um, you know, and then I had to put some boundaries in place. I love my parents dearly, and even they were so nervous for me. And I'm like, okay, you can only say positive things. And they're like, oh, we weren't trying to be negative. We know you can do it. You could do anything. Like, that's what I needed. Um, but Mike, I think when I worked around the numbers, I mean with the 40 homes, I more than tripled what I was making there. So it really wasn't even the numbers, it was the mindset of like you can do this. And it's just a different framework. For me, I had never had a business where I was full commission. I wasn't betting on myself 100%, right? It also was a very good reason to build our Airbnbs because I wanted to build passive income, right? I wanted that sense of security before I left. Um and there was also a little piece of grieving in there of okay, I'm gonna let go of that dream that I thought I wanted because it's not really truly what I want. That's not gonna give me the life by design. Um, so I'd say there were three pieces in there. One, the grieving piece of the original goal, and then two the mindset shift and truly believing in yourself and betting on yourself and getting aligned with that piece is number one. I think mindset's probably most important. And then third, absolutely back in the number backing into the numbers, making sure that you're okay. And I think that's why I loved investing so much because that I could control really, really easily and say, okay, fantastic. If I had this, there that was my like safety net. Okay, no matter what, we could stop everything. I could have no business, we could just live off of this. That gave me enough security to be comfortable betting at myself.

Two Homes Side-By-Side Strategy

SPEAKER_01

That's so cool. And I love the in there too. I think you said commission, a commission only job. My wife did the same thing. She's like, What do you what are you gonna do again? You're gonna leave this great corporate job and you're gonna get into commission only. I think the difference that I know today, and you said this, you could build a plan that says, okay, we're gonna sell 12 homes, we're gonna sell 20. What does that back into? You actually don't in your job or your career, they don't pay you by the week or by the month. And most corporate jobs, you get here's your annual salary. If you think about real estate that way and back into the numbers, it's a lot easier, to your point. And I love too that you have the your loved ones, your parents, and everyone around you, and said, Hey, believe in me. Show I think there's a lot of times that people get into they're like, they look at it as us going backwards. They'd say, Oh, you're gonna leave your corporate great job to go real estate. And I love that you said I didn't not love my corporate job either, but I just love to your point, flexibility and also no ceiling. Really, we have no financial ceiling in how do you utilize that cash or build something. So I do want to go into, if you will, what are some of the other businesses that you have right now? So I've heard we got flip fix and flip, Airbnb, and this just so the audience knows, this is all in a couple of years. We're not talking about you built this in 10 years, this is all within 2021, 2022 start, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. I officially left Corporate April of 2022.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, that's amazing! Congratulations, that's huge.

Slow, Safe Growth And Market Resilience

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. We've had so much fun. Uh, we've been really, really blessed. And I'd say um, probably the number one thing is that what I love the most in there is yes, the flexibility, but also you can just decide everything that you learn. So we've been able to spend a lot more time on education. I never in my wildest dreams after college that I'd be paying as much as I am for some of the coaching masterminds. Um but the fun part is that you can take that time to actually learn and grow. And that's been what's really fun because that's what's helped us build these businesses. Um, and I'd say build them so much faster because we're not recreating models. We're following the same models, right? We're using Gary Keller's red book, and we're using a coach and we're using the right people and learning along the way. And it's made it so we don't have to figure it out on our own. We might have our own culture and we have our own um spins that we put on there, but we're not recreating any models. So anybody can go out there and build these as well if they're willing to take the right steps and willing to follow the models and get the coaching.

SPEAKER_01

It's so true. If people think about uh Chick-fil-A, well, would you buy one? Well, you're still gonna pay$1.5 million or$2 million. It just looks differently. Sometimes we're calling it coaching, where someone's already had 20 or 30 years of mistakes and they're going, here's what not to do, or here, let me keep you some guardrails or lay out some playbooks, or what does that look like? I do want to make sure for all our listeners as they're like, oh, I love everything she's saying. Where could they find you? They find you on Instagram, Facebook. What's the best place for everyone to find you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, they can absolutely find me on Facebook, Cassandra Clark. Um, they can find me on Instagram as well. My handle is Cassandra underscore cark and um LinkedIn. We're on LinkedIn quite a bit. That's where we originally were from the corporate side. So you can find me, it's my first last name on LinkedIn uh as well.

SPEAKER_01

That's great. That makes it easy too.

SPEAKER_00

That is.

SPEAKER_01

So on LinkedIn, actually, are you getting much business from LinkedIn?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we get a little of our business there just because we had so many people that we were really that's where my network was was in corporate before. So posting on LinkedIn for us has been great, a great way to connect with everybody that I've always been connected with. Um, from vendors to people in the office, it's definitely a great way to just get everybody to know who you are.

SPEAKER_01

I talk about it a lot. I kind of set you up for that question just because I think a lot of people don't talk about it. You always hear Instagram, Facebook, but really the thing that I love about LinkedIn. So if our listeners are not listening to your point, we came from corporate roles, corporate jobs. And what do those people do? They buy businesses, they buy investment properties, they also want cottages. You're gonna have to explain for our listener, listeners, I don't know what a cottage is. You got to tell me what that is.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, it's a cottage is just a second home on a lake, right? Up north, Michigan. Only in Michigan do we get going up north for the weekend, uh, because it's like a whole new world. Um, going from Grand Rapids, you drive one hour and it's up north.

SPEAKER_01

I lived in Minneapolis for three years, so they did the same thing. They went up, but I think I don't know, I think they called a cabin. But sometimes whenever I went though, I was like, this is not a cabin. This is not what I pictured. This is much nicer than a cottage or a cabin.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah. They're gorgeous, they're modern. Um yeah, cottage cabin, but they're great.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I'm jealous about it, which I love too, and I love that about you know, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, is you leave. So you kind of leave your home, and I think there's a benefit to that, and probably you're seeing this. You're and you talked about it, only having one TV, one strategy. Could I go deeper into that too? Is it a is it a playlist that you have for your Airbnbs? What you know, ping pong tables or something like that? I know that's tactical, but for me, I think some of our listeners, I did have, and I don't know if you ever listened to Henry Washington, he's gonna be a little bit before you, and he's done a phenomenal job on podcasts and talking about it. But I think if we keep going with this framework, our listeners will go, okay, hopefully they're learning from something from us and just saying, oh, that's a really good model in Airbnb.

The 30-Year Wealth Plan And Net Worth Tracking

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'd say Airbnb, it's kind of fun. I always look at it in two forms. Uh hey, right? There's long-term rentals, short-term rentals. I can go into a little bit of the pros and cons. For me, I know myself in that if it was a long-term rental that wasn't paying and it pulled up my heartstrings, I'd probably be bringing them groceries, Mike. Um so when it was short-term rentals, I loved it. They had to pay before they ever stayed. Um, for me, I got to make the home pretty, I got to make it beautiful. We love making things absolutely gorgeous. And so we got to add the design aspect, and then they pay before they actually go. So for us, we loved that piece. And then when it comes to looking at it, one, like I said, we make everything gorgeous, right? We have the quartz countercepts, we have everything there that's good.

SPEAKER_01

Are you guys designing and and are sometimes you're buying or a little bit of everything? So you're finding something that's not perfect yet, and with your husband and you's design and construction experience, you're taking it to the next level.

SPEAKER_00

You got it. And we're not gonna leave it. Like our model is making it absolutely gorgeous, right? We are not looking for the rustic cabin, if you will. Uh, we are looking to turn that rustic cabin that maybe somebody's been using for generations and generations, and it still has some smelly green carpet in it. We want that one. And we want to get the best deal on it. And then we want to turn that around and put LVP in it, put the quartz countertop in it. We want people from Chicago, Indiana, everywhere else to be able to go there and have a modern, gorgeous lake house to enjoy and make memories. And absolutely to your point, of we don't put ping pong tables. We love shuffleboard tables. So we put the shuffleboard tables in, we put a couple of the video game councils in. Um, that's really been our model.

SPEAKER_01

Are you seeing repeat people? So you talked about Chicago, Indiana, a lot of those. You forget about those people. They can either go way south on a plane, right? Or they can go way east coast, or they can just drive to where you are. So are you starting to see repeat uh visitors all the time?

SPEAKER_00

We see some repeat business um quite a bit. And then we actually have two next door to each other. That's been kind of a fun model, newer model, um, is we've had a lot of large family reunions because it's two large houses right next to each other. So um it's kind of interesting because in the short-term rental space in the beginning, everyone's, oh my gosh, it's gonna get oversaturated. It's gonna get oversaturated. There's gonna be just too many. Well, there's only so many inland lakes in Michigan. Not that there's not a lot. We have 16,000, you know, inland lakes, but um there is not just unlimited either. And so what's been really fun is having two right next door to each other and how much that's increased business because there's not very many times that you can go find a place with two houses next door, 11 bedrooms, you know, five bathrooms, 700 feet of you know, water frontage. And so that's been a really big game changer for us. So we're probably gonna continue to find some that are right next door to each other like that.

SPEAKER_01

If our listeners are are wanna looking for an Airbnb, where do they find is Airbnb, V RBO? Are you a certain platform? What's the name of some of these properties? Do you and I think about it, so I do not own an Airbnb, and I've been thinking about it for like four years. So I have all these note pages that have different names, and I tell clients and I tell friends, I help name their places. I'm like, here's some themes. Do you have is it a named uh thing we can find on Airbnb?

SPEAKER_00

Actually, if you go to my name again, just I love it.

SPEAKER_01

That's a model, that's a system.

SPEAKER_00

You're gonna find, and then you can click on my profile and you'd see all of my listings from there. Um so maybe we'll get fancy someday and use something else.

SPEAKER_01

No, there's there's a reason to not get fancy if it's working. I think I love you. You said sometimes we overthink these things, and it doesn't need to be overthought at all. It's pretty easy. I was gonna go into and I had a few questions for you, and please stop me at anything. But if you think about everything you have going, the family, travel, weather, all these things, you know, systems and operations and your leadership. So, what kind of leverage do you have, or systems, or is there certain technology? Uh, I gathered one thing I learned from you too, is that you were in finance at a high level. So I'm sure you're really good VLOOKUPS and spreadsheets and all these things. So, is there something you're using today that the listeners can go, oh, I like that system or that tool?

SPEAKER_00

You know, my actually it's funny I say spreadsheets because my team would be like, get her out of her spreadsheets when we really want to use CSU, right? Like we do have C Sue, and then I have my secret spreadsheet off to the side that I just can't like get rid of. Um, so yeah, when it comes to um spreadsheets, when it comes to numbers, when it comes to, I mean, everything comes down to math, right? At the end of the day, no matter what we're doing, whether it's in the Airbnb sector, whether it's in the wholesale, whether it's going to be a fix and flip, whether it's the retail business and how my team's doing, everything comes down to math and numbers.

SPEAKER_01

Um what is your real three team? What does it make up? What does that look like for the listeners?

Leaving Corporate: Proof, Mindset, Security

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So I'll look at my team and I'll break down that math too, and some of the systems we use in each one. So we'll start with the retail team, right? That's the first team I built. Um, and the first business we truly, besides the Airbnb, the first business we truly built. Um, and that looks like we have C Sue. I absolutely love that for tracking. We absolutely love having our CRM. We're a bold trail fan. Um, and then from there, everything is events. So we absolutely love events. We have we are look at ourselves as consulting, whether it's in our RIA group, whether it is a home buying seminar for us, we just are consultants. And so we have kept with that model as hey, as agents, we are supposed to be consultants. That's what we do. And that's what we do at a high level. Every single month, we make sure to bring value and um communicate, hey, what is something that somebody else can implement? What's something they can learn, whether it's in wealth building or just how to buy or sell a home? And our team looks like we have our transaction coordinator, we have our executive assistant, a VA, and then three strong agents.

SPEAKER_01

That's great. And you know, you think about it too. I know a lot of teams, uh, even mine, I've done over the years, they get big, you know, and then it's like, you know what? If you really look at the model, you start looking at it, you have three to four people that are doing majority of the business sometimes. So I love it. Sounds like you really have it dialed in too, and you have a mix of salaried and then a VA uh and teams. And then you and your husband are buying, selling, or leading, or a little bit of everything.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, so it's kind of pretty easy because actually we, as soon as I left in 2022, that October is when I started the team. And then late 23, I'm like, we're gonna expand this, we're gonna have a huge team. In 2024, it was so hard, Mike. I had a lot of people on my team that just made my life not so fun. Right. They weren't motivated, they didn't love selling. They never wanted to sell, they just wanted to be on the team. Um, and so we actually had to make a really, really hard decision in 2024 and let a lot of people go and say, okay, never mind, we're gonna go small and mighty. Um, back to those boundaries and back to those what are the expectations, whether, and I I say it's math again, is hey, if you can't first year, you need to sell 12 transactions, second year, 24, because we want to make sure that our team can live a life by design too, and their basic needs have to be met. And so if their basic needs aren't met and they're just coming to be on a team for fun, let's do fun when nobody's making money.

SPEAKER_01

So I always say charities are fun and we can get together, right? They don't need to make a profit. So this is not, you know, events and fun. This this is to your point, you're leading by example. If you want them to have cottages and have a plan to have a cottage and they're not selling or making any money, they can't even pay their rent or their mortgage payment. Well, that's not what you're providing. Or do so I love that you did that. My wife would want it next time we get together, she wants to hang out with you. She kind of balances through there. And uh, something else you said. I always so we use command currently right now. Obviously, it's me, a regional leader and OP and stuff too. So we're using our platform for that. But Cody always has the side spreadsheet. I'm always like, hey, how are you trending? How are you doing? I'm like, all that is in command. But she goes, Oh, I got the side little spreadsheet she has to keep, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I love it. Um, but yeah, so that we really restructured that, and that's what gave us the capacity and the energy to say, okay, now in 2025, we can go ahead and truly scale and build the wholesale side. So I think once you can get clear on one side and you can get those systems in place, and it was like, okay, now we have a little bit more capacity, we can go ahead and build something else. So that's when we built the wholesale side. We've had that for just over 15 months. Um, and so that's still relatively new. Uh, we were profitable, which was great. Our goal was, hey, we want to, you know, sell, you know, 24 off-market properties. We did 23, so we came darn close our first year, which was great.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and then you have retail and what are the other in part of your portfolio of businesses.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and then the flip side. So we'd have that piece in there. Um, and that really has been my husband's mind leaned on him heavily for that piece. Um, we'll find him, we'll negotiate. We already talked about that's not his wheelhouse, but um, then from there, he takes it, right? He's the one who is running it, he's the one who is helping. He might ask here and there for design, but mainly easily the one that is designing, renovating, and then we come back into play and our team must sit. So that's great.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, if any, I was just saying real fast, sorry to interrupt. I was saying any husband or partners or anyone listening, there is, even though you can work together, maybe you'll back me up on this. There is times you have to have some separation in some part that you're owning or I'm owning. We've learned that all too well. Sometimes my wife are in the same things all the time. You don't have your creative outlet or you don't have a way to lead. It looks differently. So I love that you guys have that somewhat separation. Still together, you come back, you have one mutual goal, and you talked about your 30-year wealth goal as far as your net worth tracker. So I think that's a win for any listeners to listen to say, hey, let's set that up. And it's actually okay, isn't it? I don't know about you. I've had many times where it's like, oh, we're getting into it a little bit with each other, you know, because we're overstepping into our other areas. It was one night this week, she's like, Remember, marketing is me. What are you doing? Get out of here. And I say, Yes, ma'am.

Framework For Quitting A Salary Job

SPEAKER_00

We've had that online, we really have gotten, we've actually improved. I would give us much improvement, and it's a learning curve.

SPEAKER_01

For sure. No, no one teaches you. There's not anything in life that says, Oh, now we're gonna trust, we're gonna do family together, vacations, and work. And I don't care what anyone says. I've heard many people say, Well, we're gonna have this little office in our home where we're only gonna go over there and talk about work. That does that's not real life. That does not happen, right?

SPEAKER_00

It does not. And in fact, you almost have like, at least for us, I don't know about you, but we have to be like, okay, we're gonna go away this weekend, and no work. We can't talk about work.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and so there's like we have a hundred percent success rate on that.

SPEAKER_00

No, what's the point? What's what we're gonna be talking about?

SPEAKER_01

Does not happen, I know.

SPEAKER_00

But we have gotten much better, right? In the beginning. When he was drink flipped, oh my gosh, my poor husband. I'm a little bit of a micromanager, right? Okay, what are these numbers? How much have you spent so far? Where are we at? Um, and he's like, okay, let me let me run this part. Um, and that took me a little bit of time to say, okay, I'm gonna trust him and let him take this piece away and I'm gonna be able to focus here. Um, but it is a ebb and flow, right? It's a dance for sure.

SPEAKER_01

For sure. Well, you said something I think that helps it, you are profitable. And I think when I see husband and wife or different teams or different people, when you get to that place that gives you a little bit of comfort, it's kind of like back to corporate America. Well, when you know every two weeks you're gonna get paid, it's a little bit easier to maybe be a little bit riskier or do something different. And I think that's important for couples and business partners or whoever you're doing business with is to be able to say, okay, when I have this plan, and I know Brett said this one time, we we might have been in the same room where he said, if you have a spouse or a partner that's a little bit more conservative, ask them for a number. So in our check-in account, we need to have 250,000, whatever that number is, and we all feel good from then on. Then I can be a little bit more creative and a little bit more risky, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Ian I I would take that a step further for us when we first started, right? We weren't tracking net worth. In fact, we weren't even doing a great job of budgeting, right? And so here I come back from this mastermind, I'm like, hey, so I need us to track all these numbers. Uh and he's like, this is awful. Like, I mean, well, how do we make this fun? Like, we're gonna have a date night once a month, and we still do this. Actually, it's no longer, you know, not fun. It's actually we've actually enjoyed doing it. So finding a way that you both can look at the numbers and no longer making it feel like a chore and said, hey, we're gonna have a glass of wine, we're gonna dream a little, we're gonna put in our net worth. Oh, green light, red light, where are we at? And then look at the goal and celebrate because there's so many little wins that sometimes we don't take the time when we're looking at you know, net worth, when we're looking at building these businesses, when we're looking at our monthly finances, hey, how do you find some of the wins? And even if there wasn't a win, okay, there's probably something that's great about it, and it allows you to just make quick shifts. So, like just getting comfortable, having fun talking about it, and take making a date night out of it once a month was like our win.

Coaching, Models, And Faster Execution

SPEAKER_01

That's cool. Well, it's funny you say date night. So I've spent a lot of time with my 13-year-old. She's in basketball. I've been her basketball coach, and I'm doing, you know, she had two basketball games last night in junior high. My nine-year-old, I still take her to school and I'm spending time with her, but it it does over-index the 13-year-old. So tonight I said, you know what? I'm gonna do a date night with her. So then I was talking to Cody about uh what the plan was, and she was like, oh no, she's got a sleepover. So I guess I'm not gonna do a date night with my nine-year-old, but it's it's cool, you know, is Valentine's Day is gonna be coming up. So with challenge people, I think there's a way to lay that out. As we kind of um we could, we I'm excited. I I haven't even got to half of my list and we're still rolling and rocking, but I want to make sure too, if people have any referrals and they want to send business to you or they want to work with a savvy investor like you and your husband or a flipper, what areas do you guys service?

SPEAKER_00

So we service the West Michigan area. So we're growing up as Michigan, we service there. Um, the fun part about our team is that we have really strong agent connections um outside of there because of the Airbnb business and us running our investment group where we teach people how to actually get started in Airbnb, right? We're doing those classes every other month. And so we do have a great amount of agents that we can make sure that whoever is looking here in Michigan, we can connect you with the right agent if it's not us.

SPEAKER_01

That's great. I I actually have this thing I was gonna do this morning and saying, really, you can help everyone in 50 countries, can't you? You know, so it's like, hey, we can help you anywhere and everywhere. You really can. But I know we go into okay, where your expertise, but you haven't anything we haven't talked about so far, you want to make sure the listeners really know as I peek and look at my notes real quick.

SPEAKER_00

Um, I think the number one thing um, you know, we kind of talked about it a little bit is that life by design. I would say it would be a dishonor if I didn't just talk about that one last time of like, how do you make sure you truly sit back and like this is just a time of year that we're reflecting, we're setting goals. And how do you really dig deep and say, hey, am I living a life by design? Am I truly spending the time where I want to be spending it? Am I getting the experiences I want? And if not, how am I coming back here? How am I tapping into somebody else? How do I figure out what that looks like? Uh, whether it's a 12-month calendar and you're truly setting those goals, I think too many times uh in my past, all my goals were around a promotion or finances. And once I started laying in there, hey, I want to make sure to go on four vacations, I want to make sure to be three weekend getaways, I want to make sure to have five mornings, five mornings a week, I want to have coffee with my husband. Um, until you start doing that, you truly every once you start actually doing that, everything else falls into place and your world can just get bigger and bigger and bigger.

Where To Find Cassandra And LinkedIn Wins

SPEAKER_01

Everything you know today, you know, when you kind of started 2021, 2022. What do you wish you know then today? Or you know today, you wish you knew then. Say that three times fast.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I wish I would have known. Um I wish I would have known that piece. When you fill your cup up, because I was doing great things. Um, I wouldn't say I was doing bad things, I was doing great things, you know, helping enhance margin, like I was hitting my goals. Um, but I would say you can get your time back. So be careful who you're giving your time to and be careful how you're spending it, because that's the one thing you can't get back. And that's a piece of advice I wish I would have learned sooner.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I love it. I want to thank you so much for coming on. I also want to thank our sponsor, so Mutual Omaha Mortgage. Thank you, thank you, thank you for sponsoring us. This was so much fun. I got so much value out of it. I know our listeners are gonna get so much value. So the Lioness got to hang out with us, which is so cool. We need to get you, like Famer Reunion, one of those events, a name tag that has Lioness and like lights up or something, you know. Well, thank you, thank you so much. Thank you for everyone for tuning in to the real Mike Dooley, subscribe, share. If this episode was something that you really enjoyed, go ahead and share that on Instagram, LinkedIn stories. As we know, Cassandra and I are both LinkedIn people. We'd love to hear about it. Let us know how we're helping you paying it forward. So thank you so much. Great seeing you. Have a great Valentine's Day and year. Thanks for listening to the Real Mike Dooley Podcast. Subscribe, share, stay real. I'm Mike Dooley. Until next time.