IAM1261 – CEO Helps Investors Find the Right Property and Diversify their Investments

Evie Brooks (Atlanta, GA, and Veracruz, Panama) is a former Advanced “Rich Dad Poor Dad” Trainer, Real Estate Educator/Investor, and My Panama Vacation Realty Founder. Brooks has guided thousands of investors for 24+ years through the process of locating, evaluating, and analyzing transactions for cash flow and ROI (Return On Investment) in 13+ countries and 30+ states in the United States.

Today, she specializes in real estate and agriculture investments in Panama and does regular VIP Tours for investors (14 maximum at a time) where they visit hard-to-find deals and smart greenhouse farms. Brooks’ work has been featured on Joe Fairless: Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever, ESPN Cover Your Assets, Think Realty, The Real Estate Syndication Show, Women Investing Network, VoiceAmerica, Moving Abroad Podcast, Atlanta Business Radio, and many more real estate investing podcasts. As a disclaimer, Brooks and her employees and affiliates are not investment or tax advisors and do not offer investment advice.

• CEO Story: Started working in the real state and loving it. Became an investor and because of her success, she was asked to be a mentor for others. Now serving her clients internationally.
• Business Service: Educator/Mentoring. Helping international investors find the right real estate investment and diversify.
• Secret Sauce: Niche Market in the real state industry. A program from start to finish, making it a stress-free experience for the investors.
• CEO Hack:  Stand on the shoulders of giants. Surround yourself with people who are experts in their fields of geniuses.
• CEO Nugget: Seek out the power team that you trust that knows more than you on what you want to accomplish.
• CEO Defined: Being able to make a difference in other people’s lives. Helping other people get on the right track to accomplish their ultimate goal.

Website: mypanamavacationrealty.com

eviebrookspanama.com

LinkedIn: Evie Speaks

Instagram: MyPanamaVacationRealty

Twitter: EvieSpeaks2

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Transcription

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00:20 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:50 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Evie Brooks of my Panama vacation Realty. Evie, super excited to have you on the show.

01:00 – Angela Minardi

Thank you. So glad to be here.

01:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, I'm excited as well too. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Yvie so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Evie is a former advanced rich dad, poor dad, trainer, real estate educator slash investor, and my Panama vacation Realty founder. Evie has guided thousands of investors for 24-plus years through the process of locating, evaluating, and analyzing transactions for cash flow and ROI in 13-plus countries in 30-plus states in the United States today.

She specializes in real estate and agriculture investments in Panama and does regular VIP tours for investors for 14 max amount of time where they visit hard-to-find deals and smart greenhouse farms. EV works Evie's work has been featured on Joe Fairless. Best real estate investing advice ever. ESPN. Cover your assets. Think Realty, the real estate syndication show, Women Investing Network, Voices America moving abroad podcast, Atlanta Business Radio, and many, many more real estate investing podcasts.

As it is a disclaimer, Evie our employees, and our affiliates are not investment or tax advisors and do not offer them investment advice, but they do phenomenal work. So, Evie, super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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02:15 – Angela Minardi

I am ready. Let's do this.

02:17 – Gresham Harkless

Let's make it happen then. So, to kind of kick everything off, I know I touched on your bio a little bit, but I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I like to call your CEO story. We're going to get started with all the awesome work you're doing well.

02:27 – Angela Minardi

Mine is simple. I was supposed to go into law school right out of college, and I ended up getting pregnant with my first child and was extremely, extremely sick. And I had a friend that came to my rescue and said, I've got a great job for you, and it gives you insurance benefits. And that was in the real estate industry. So I was in corporate America for four years. I never looked back. I never thought about leaving real estate. I got into it. I loved it. I was in the commercial division.

And after four years, well, after about three years, I realized I was sitting on the wrong side of the desk. I needed to be on the other side. And so I went out on my own as an investor, and I've been doing that ever since. And shortly after I started investing, a lot of people started saying, will you teach me how to do what you're doing?

And I became a mentor by default, not knowing that I was a mentor. And then I started professional mentoring. Then I started teaching with the Rich Dad organization in 2003. And that's kind of the, in a nutshell, the summary of how that all came about.

03:23 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. Well, I appreciate you sharing that story and it sounds like the progression of everything that you've been able to kind of build and understand. And I imagine, like, being on the other side of the desk is probably a little bit better for you and getting the opportunity to kind of be a mentor and of course, you know, make people, you know, successful in their rights as well, too.

03:41 – Angela Minardi

Absolutely.

00:03:42 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. So I want to drill down a little bit more and hear a little bit more about your business. Could you take us through exactly how it works, how you serve, and work with the clients that you serve?

03:51 – Angela Minardi

Well, you know, that's a great word. It's serve. And, my calling, I think, in this life was to be an educator, to help other people do what I've already done and have been blessed to do. And I love it. I am so passionate about it. But we work with international investors that are looking, looking to do one of several different things, many of them. And when the reason I started in this industry internationally was when I was teaching with my rich dad was I started teaching in the Costa Rica market for those who wanted to become expats.

So initially the driving force or the niche market, if you will, was people who just wanted to become expats. But as time has gone along, it's become a lot more than that. People are looking to diversify their investments to get them out of their homes. Country, they're looking to have a plan b, to have a place to go if they need to leave their home country. Of course, you've got people who are looking for second homes, vacation homes, and retirement homes.

So you've got a lot of different things. But realistically, since COVID has hit our market, there have been those who are looking for plan b, diversify their investments, or move their hard-earned revenues or dollars that they have in accounts offshore into hard assets so that they can protect them better.

05:05 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I appreciate you, you know, sharing that and being able to kind of do that. And I imagine, like you said, you know, having that experience, that expertise, and knowledge that you have in so many different fashions when people think or understand that, hey, maybe I do want to do something like that, probably the next step is figuring out who to ask, who to lean on, who has that expertise to make that, you know, vision becomes a reality.

05:28 – Angela Minardi

Many people think it's a lot more complicated than it is, and in some countries, it is very complicated, but in Panama, it's easier than purchasing in your backyard. So that. Yeah, it is. And that's what makes it people who cannot build a portfolio here for whatever reason, they don't have the debt-to-income ratios, and their FICO scores are not where they need to be.

They don't have enough cash to be able to build a large portfolio. They don't understand how to leverage all those types of things that we teach people. But none of that is going to stop you from being able to purchase property in Panama, Central America.

05:59 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Well, no, I appreciate you so much in breaking that down and especially that trainer background, that teacher background that you mentioned as well, too, and being able to kind of help and empower people because I imagine that, you know, sometimes you don't realize or understand that something is a reality until somebody kind of presents it to you and kind of demystifies it, I guess, for lack of a better term, about, like, what might be some potential options. So it sounds like that's what you do in a lot of different ways.

06:21 – Angela Minardi

That's correct.

06:23 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. So for people that want to kind of learn more, it's just kind of reaching out to you, going through some of the programs that you have or just having a conversation, and it kind of leads from there.

06:33 – Angela Minardi

We start with a conversation and you can go to one of our websites and fill out an opt-in page or just call me directly. My contact information is right there and I'll start with a 30-minute conversation to see where you are, what you want to accomplish, and what your goals are. We start with basically a five-year plan of action and then back into where you are today and how to accomplish that five-year goal.

It's all about the education. It is about understanding leverage and OPM and other people's money and how to utilize the money that you have to work most efficiently. And when people understand that they can accomplish way more than they can by just going out and buying a property, you know, people just think that they can go buy property and hold it for, you know, ten or 20 years and it's going to double in value.

Well, there is such a more efficient way to be able to utilize those funds than doing that. And so that's, that's kind of part of the whole training process that I do, that I work with each of my clients to accomplish that.

07:29 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love it. And again, knowledge, the same knowledge is power. So getting that opportunity to have those conversations, to, again, understand something that you may not know how to do or even how the best way to execute it is huge. So I love that you're able to provide that information and knowledge from that standpoint. So would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce?

I know you said it's fairly simple, but it sounds like you had a fair amount of expertise knowledge, and information. Do you think your secret sauce is potentially your ability to be able to take that knowledge and information and maybe simplify it so that people can potentially execute it?

08:03 – Angela Minardi

There is no question about it because people get so consumed and they get so bogged down, they analyze to the paralyzed, and you don't need to do that. It's not difficult, it's not hard. And if you have someone to work with you, I would say that my niche market is my secret sauce because there's nobody in Panama, Central America that does what I do. I know the market like the back of my hand. I work with the developers to bring special deals to our investors exclusively.

They're not going to be able to go online or go directly to the developer's office and say, I want this situation, this deal, or whatnot, because that's exclusively for our, for our investors. I've already done the legwork. I've done all of the due diligence, the reconnaissance, everything that's necessary. So people aren't having to wonder, are they getting taken advantage of? Are they paying too much? Are they using the wrong professionals? Is this developer going to be in business?

I've done all the research. I work with developers that've been around for 30, or 40 years. They've never gone down on any project, much less as a company as a whole. They're financially secure. So I've done all the legwork. And what I do is I just create a program that makes it simple, a to z, from start to finish, everything from the furnishings to the property management to the maintenance services to relocating your dog. I mean, whatever it is that you need. We do everything, all things Panama. And so we make it so that it takes all the stress out of it and makes it a stress, a stress-free situation or opportunity for all of our investors.

09:35 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. What comes to mind is Albert Einstein has quote where he says, you can see so much farther by standing on the shoulders of giants.

09:43 – Angela Minardi

Well, that is the key. And I know one of the questions that you like to refer back to is, what is one of your favorite business hacks? And you just said it, standing on the shoulders of giants. I have surrounded myself with people in my industry for as long as I can remember that know more about my industry and my business even than I do. And I think that would be the key component right there just understanding that you can't do it alone. You don't know everything.

I don't even begin to want to know the financial side of it, the CPA side of it, the, you know, running the numbers part of it. I know how to run numbers, but I don't want to do the accounting, you know, and I don't want to do the legal, and I don't want to do. You know, there's the architectural design. I want to surround myself with the people that can do that. What I can do is find the deals and make money. And that's what I want to teach other people how to do.

And so when I surround myself as a whole in a business with other people that have all those levels of expertise that I don't have, you know, the asset management team, you know, we have the best asset management team. It's just, it makes the whole thing more productive and in the long run, much more successful.

10:56 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. It might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:10 – Angela Minardi

Well, that goes back to what we were just talking about, seek out someone or your tribe, if you will, a power team that has your best interests at heart, that you trust, and that, you know, knows way more than you do about what you're wanting to accomplish that can help you achieve those goals. That is absolutely, unequivocally going to be that hack that I would recommend.

11:33 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. And do you feel like that was something that you picked on or you picked up, I should say, from early on that you were able to execute on, or was it something that you kind of progressed into?

11:45 – Angela Minardi

I have always been a numbers person from the perspective of how to take a little bit of money and make a whole lot of money out of it, a whole leverage thing that I learned about utilizing other people's money, and people just don't understand the power behind that. If you have $300,000 to invest, why put $300,000 into one $300,000 property when you can put it in three four, or five, which doubles, triples, quadruples, whatever the value of your portfolio, your rental income, your appreciation, I mean, every component of that, plus you've got multiple exit strategies with each of those, instead of just one property that you've got maybe one potential exit strategy.

So you've, what you've done is you've not put all your eggs into one basket. And that, for me, has been the key component of success in this business. If I had not learned that early on, I would not have the portfolio of real estate investments that I have today. No way.

12:44 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And kind of going back to your nugget and your hack, do you feel like a lot of people can, quote-unquote, I don't know if this is the right phrase, but diversify a lot more, largely because you don't try to lean and do everything. If you understand your lane, to me, it allows you to do that and lean into that where you could do that in multiple places, rather than trying to do everything for that $300,000 property, or whatever property you might be, you get to stay in the lane on each of the different ones.

13:10 – Angela Minardi

Yeah, people have got to stop stumbling over dollars to get to pennies. I mean, that's the mentality. And when people are like, oh, well, I'm not going to pay 14% for property management, I'll just do it myself. You don't know how to do it. Let somebody else who's an expert know how to do it and have you a, an 80% occupancy rate versus you doing it yourself and having a 45% occupancy rate. That's what I call stumbling over dollars to get to pennies. And when people understand that they can implement that pay. It takes money to make money. Be willing to spend the money to learn how to make the money that you ultimately want to make.

What I see so many times, people going wrong, whether it's in real estate or any other business, is they'll go out and pick up a book and try to read a book about how to start a business of any type. And then, you know, six months, a year later, they're out of business because they're not willing to spend the money or the time, make the sacrifices required to get the support and the mentorship that I referred to many, many times to have that success, I promise you, it pays off in the long term. That's the way that you want to make sure that you have success, is by surrounding yourself with other people that know more about you and your industry than you do.

14:21 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping for different, quote-unquote, CEO's on this show. So, Evie, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:31 – Angela Minardi

Being a CEO, to me, means being able to make a difference in other people's lives, helping other people to get on the right track, whatever that track is, for them to accomplish their ultimate goal.

14:41 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. And I think so many times I love how you said on the right track, because I often say, if you run your race, you can't lose. And I love how that aligns exactly with that, because I think so many times we can get on certain tracks, and it doesn't lead us where we want to be, but to be, you know, a true leader is helping people to align with those goals and aspiration and get in that spot where they can progress towards that.

15:06 – Angela Minardi

I agree with you 100%.

15:08 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Evie, truly appreciate that definition. And, of course, I appreciate your time even more. What I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And, of course, how best they can get a hold of you. Your team will find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

15:25 – Angela Minardi

Great. Thank you so much for having me.

15:27 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. For people who want to get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to do that?

15:31 – Angela Minardi

You can go to my website, my panamavacationrealty.com, and then also eviebrookspanama.com and Evie is spelled Evie brookspanama.com dot awesome.

15:46 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. And to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information that show notes too, so that everybody can follow up with you. But truly appreciate you, Evie, for taking some time out. I appreciate you for changing, I think, the perspective of the knowledge and the information of people because a lot of times our reality is based on how we think and what we're kind of seeing outside.

And when you're able to kind of reframe that and then change that, then really phenomenal things could happen. So thank you so much for reminding us of that. Of course, doing that for so many clients and people you work with as well too. And of course, I appreciate you and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:17 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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