892 Angela Duncan:

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Angela Duncan:

Because the interest rates have gone up and the banks definitely don’t want to loan like they used to, I’ve been teaching more about tax lien investing. Every home or every commercial property has to pay property taxes. And the state, the county, they depend on that money because they’ve got budgets. They need to pay teachers and police officers and pave roads.

And if you own a home and you’re not able to pay your property taxes you have a lien that’s placed on your property. You owe taxes to the government.  Well, the government still needs that money, so they’re going to come to me as an investor and say, hey, I need you to fund this property tax, and in exchange I’m going to pay you 18% interest rate. It’s a great way for you to start smaller into a real estate investing vehicle that’s passive and you know for certain what kind of interest rate you’re going to get in the beginning.

Melinda Wittstock:

There are so many ways to make your money work for you with passive income streams like tax lien investing described by my guest today, Angela Duncan who is on a mission to help women get smart about growing wealth. A lot of it comes down to your money mindset and being open to talking about and learning about money.

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m all about paying it forward a five-time serial entrepreneur, so this podcast is all about catalyzing an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other …Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who went from Section 8 housing and welfare to serial entrepreneur, defying the odds to conquer a childhood of abuse and poverty. Angela Duncan is a force in personal finance with 25+ years of experience and a heart for empowering women who want to take their lives to the next level.

Melinda Wittstock:

Angela has a diverse career in banking, financial advising, owning a top 10 RE/MAX office for 5 straight years with over $2 Billion in sales, before establishing and selling her insurance agency, We Insure Gold Coast. Angela now hosts the top-rated Empower HER Money Podcast. Angela’s mission Is simple: To transform female entrepreneurs’ lives through financial literacy and generational wealth, proving it’s never too late to rewrite your financial story.

Melinda Wittstock:

Angela will be here in a moment, and first:

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Melinda Wittstock:

Money. We all want it, and want more of it. Right? Or maybe not, because most of us have some sort of subconscious money block. Maybe money flies out of your hands faster than you can attract it. Maybe you do everything possible to avoid looking at your P&L and cash flow or underprice your services. Maybe you simply never focused on learning about how to create wealth for yourself.

Melinda Wittstock:

For women, money is about empowerment, so who better to talk about how to grow and manage money than the host of the Empower Her Money podcast. Angela Duncan grew up in poverty and from age 14 she became determined to learn how to build wealth, starting out in real estate and building her own insurance company to a lucrative exit.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we talk about how our childhood experiences shape our financial perspectives and actions and how to change deep-seated beliefs about money that can hold us back. We also talk about why it’s important for women entrepreneurs to openly share our money stories, how to make investing a part of our business strategies, and the role of education in empowering female investors. Plus, there will be lots of practical advice on organizing personal finances, understanding taxes, and generating passive income through strategies like tax lien investing and beyond, as well as setting up financial systems from the start and knowing your business exit strategy.

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Angela Duncan and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Angela, welcome to Wings.

Angela Duncan:

Thank you so much for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love your personal story that you came from public housing and poverty abuse, and you became a serial entrepreneur, really helping people with money. So that’s quite a journey. Do you remember the first time that you thought to yourself, okay, this is my current circumstance, but my life is going to be different?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah. I don’t think that epiphany kind of came until I was done with college more so as a child. I just kept thinking, you know, why do other kids get to live differently? Like, what is this lifestyle, and how do I get to what they have? Right? Because I always thought if I had more money, it would bring more happiness. But really, that was part of the journey, but it wasn’t the full picture. So, growing up and having free lunches and not going clothes shopping for school and having to get a job at 14 and watching the other kids have a very different life, I knew that it was curious about the why behind it. But that thought process, I think, really didn’t develop until I was out of college.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so out of college you’re like, okay, I want to learn this and do this. At what point did you become an entrepreneur?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, almost right away. I bought my first real estate investment when I was in my early twenties, and that kind of led me down the path of having real estate portfolio and kind of thinking about owning a real estate company. Prior to that, I was in a financial advisor role, and I don’t like the lack of control. And I think that is a trait a lot of founders have, is that we want to be more in control of our business and how we produce and how we handle our clients. And so, when I transitioned out of that financial advisor role into more of the real estate field, I knew that I wanted to provide more opportunities for other people. And I also want money so that I could teach other people about money. And early on in my career, for me, real estate just was a no brainer, because people can create wealth and have money through real estate when they’re taught properly.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so how did you get the money together for that first investment?

Angela Duncan:

It really came out of necessity, I wanted a home, and I didn’t know much about real estate investing, actually, my first property I bought in a neighborhood where even Domino’s pizza would not deliver. But this was the early two thousands, so we were able to get a no money down loan through a first mortgage and the second mortgage, not really the same opportunity today. So just doing my research and figuring out how can I obtain this asset with the least money out of pocket and finding out more about loans and opportunities and what kind of a budget would look like, and really just diving deep into studying money and figuring out what’s the best way for me to start on this journey based on where I was at that moment and asking a lot of questions. When I was a financial advisor, I had a couple of clients who are real estate agents, and I would see their commission checks, and I was like, okay, what are you doing? How are you doing this? Tell me more. And then they would start talking about real estate. And I’ve always been very curious, and I love to ask a lot of questions, and I think that’s also important when you’re, you know, going down this entrepreneurial path is the best way for you to learn, is to surround yourself with other people who are doing things better than you.

Angela Duncan:

But don’t be afraid to ask questions, too, because most of them, myself included, are more than happy to answer your questions, to give back, because we were once there, so we understand what that journey looks like. And the more that I can help other people, I feel like that that just helps my career grow as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, that’s beautiful, so important, and especially for women. I think men in business have been doing this always. Do you know what I mean? They talk more easily about money. They share insights, deals. It’s kind of like almost a casual conversation. But for women, it’s a learning to do that, to feel confident enough to even ask the question.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think sometimes we think we have to know everything ourselves, and that’s impossible. So, it’s really important to, as you learn, to be able to give back. But that curiosity is critical to entrepreneurship. The other thing that strikes me about you, like, in your early twenties, so many women in their early twenties are wasting all kinds of money on beauty products, fashion, all these sorts of things instead of really focusing on building assets right out of the gate. How did you compare to your friends at that time? Did they think you were weird, or did you have other friends that were like you?

Angela Duncan:

Oh, no. They called me, like, librarian and nerd and names like that. But when I talk about my childhood, I really do think it was an advantage for me because I didn’t have that stuff when I was a kid. I didn’t really feel like I needed that stuff in my twenties or in my thirties, a little bit more now that I’m in my forties. But just not having that access early on, it wasn’t part of my life. It wasn’t part of my lifestyle. Just a pursuit.

Angela Duncan:

I want to get money. I want to have a different lifestyle. I want to be able to have food in my fridge. I want to be able to travel, take care of people around me, get back to my church. So that lack of money early on, I really do think was a huge advantage for me as I continued into this journey.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, it’s such an important lesson because I think a lot of the things that we suffer through, we can think of ourselves as victims. Like, this was done to me, or you can reset that story and say, this was done for me, and it was done for me. So, I can help other people. Which is basically your journey.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in your childhood, a lot of what your environment is, you have absolutely no control over. And that obviously plays a big role in me today because I do feel like that is a huge factor of me having to control things. And I recognize that. And trust me, I’ve done years and years of therapy. I do recommend that if you do have some traumatic and in your background, that you do seek out help. And I, again, we go back to that, too. It’s like women were so willing to help people, but we don’t want to ask for help, but they counteract with the man.

Angela Duncan:

They’re willing to ask for help because they understand they have these conversations with each other. But there’s so many women today that want to help and uplift. But when we talk about money, it’s still such a taboo topic. But I really think we’ve made big strides, and I think we will continue that. But it’s going to fall on each of us individually, be able to ask those questions and to grow ourselves and kind of motivate and inspire the people that are around us.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right? And so, you just set out to learn everything about banking, financial advising. You were in real estate; you owned a top ten REMAX office. It had more than $2 billion in sales. You built and sold an insurance agency. It’s an amazing journey. And your focus now is really on advising women. I mean, you have the Empower Her Money podcast, it’s one of the fastest growing in entrepreneurship and finance. I love talking about podcasts. Tell me what it was that made you say, okay, I’ve done all this stuff. Now I want to really pay it forward with the podcast.

Angela Duncan:

When I sold my last company, I was burnt. You know, some as entrepreneurs and business owners, I learned that there were certain skill sets for my company that I was not great at. And I had hired some people that were in the wrong seat of the bus, and I had to be accountable for that, right? So, my company wasn’t where I wanted it to be, and I didn’t have the team in place. And then my top salesperson left, and I took it very personally. And I knew that I was no longer the leader that that business needed. And it was hard, but I accepted that, and I found a better leader that could buy the company and lead the company the way that it should be in order to take care of the employees and the clients. So, when I sold that, I thought, I’m done.

Angela Duncan:

I’m never going to own a business again. I was very hard on myself, and I was like, okay, my coach, my mentor said, when you’re feeling down and you’re having that negative thoughts or those negative feelings, the best way for you to get out of that is to help other people. I was brainstorming with my daughter, actually, she’s in college. And I told her, I was like, I really want to teach people. I want to teach people about money. I’ve been studying it for so long, it makes sense to me. How do I do that? And she’s like, well, everyone’s doing podcasts now. Why don’t you try launching a podcast? I’m so not the techie person at all.

Angela Duncan:

So, I said, okay, tell me what to do. Help me launch it. And she set up all of the technical side of stuff, help me with the camera and the microphone. And my first couple episodes, I was, you know, just talking to a camera, trying to teach money. And someone else mentioned to me that the best way to reach people and to help change their lives is through storytelling. I’ve already told my story. Now what? Now I’ve got to find other amazing women with great stories and great lessons about money, interview them and help them tell their story so that we can impact more people. Because when people can relate to your story, they start to listen, and that’s where we catch them and help them to make big changes in their life.

Angela Duncan:

So that’s kind of why the podcast started. As you probably know, I love doing the podcast. I love sharing stories, and it’s a free platform for everybody, and we can reach people all over the world and teach them through this free platform.

Melinda Wittstock:

There’s so much education that has to be done for women about money. Just even like talking about it, feeling free to talk about it, understanding things like, oh my goodness, like a big epiphany for me was understanding, like why say, a 401K wasn’t really all that great compared to say, a whole life policy. Like whole life policy gets taxed at the beginning before it’s huge. A 401K gets taxed at the end when it’s huge and when it’s just really accumulating money and you got to cash it out. The little, like, I mean, things like that, like personal finance and ways to generate passive income or cash flow living or all these sorts of things are not taught, like in school. And the financial industry isn’t necessarily set up to encourage that way of independent thinking about your own finances because they make a lot of money off all the fees. So, tell me a little bit about your journey and some of the things that you advise people to really think about setting up, particularly for entrepreneurial women who put all their eggs, I know I’m guilty of this, into one basket, basically their company, which is an asset. But you’re not really diversified from the point of view of a female entrepreneur and ways of really making sure that your financial, personal, financial situation is set up right.

Melinda Wittstock:

What should female entrepreneurs be doing?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, there’s a lot of unpacking to do there. I am looking forward to the point in which we can break through the myths of all the information that has just kept secret by the wealthy. Those things that we hear, there’s so much information out there and what happens is we get confused and then we don’t take action. So, my recommendation one is, first thing is you’ve got to get your own financial house in order, right. Even if you’re just starting out knowing your income, your expenses and how much money you have, at the end of the day that you can start investing with and pick one lane. If you are a business owner, retirement is so important. But I love what you said because a lot of people think 401K is the way to go, right. But it’s just because they don’t have all the information.

Angela Duncan:

And when you know how the government works and how the taxes work, it’s important for you to really have that full financial picture. So, for me, I have several advisors and so that’s my way of helping myself diversify is because I’m going to pick someone in their own expertise of field so that they can explain to me what they can help me with on my financial journey. And I’ve got several of those that are in different fields because that’s my way of diversifying, is making sure I have an expert in each of those different fields. Primarily for me, it’s real estate tax, lien investing. I do debt funds, which are a whole other avenue, and then a little bit in the stock market because that’s, you know, going to be some of my long-term planning. But first, understanding your own financial house to making sure you have several mentors or coaches or advisors that are helping you plan out what you want to do. And I like to do little steps. You know, I’m not necessarily thinking, you know, 60 years down the line, but what do I need today? What do I need in a year? And then we can go out 510, 15 years from there.

Angela Duncan:

But when we break it down into smaller steps, then when we achieve that, especially when you’ve got, like, a coach and a financial advisor in your corner, and you get to celebrate that together, and then you want to tell everybody about it, right? That’s how we spread the information, is by absorbing it, first, learning it, doing it, and then changing the lives of the people around us. And when you see that impact with other people, for me, that’s why I do what I do, because I didn’t know about money. I’ve taken the time to study it. I will study it forever. And the more information I know, the more information I can teach other people. And then watching them implement and change their lives, too, it’s just. I get chills just even, like, thinking about it.

[PROMO CREDIT]

Wings of Inspired Business is brought to you by the new podcast, Zero Limits Business Growth Secrets. Join me together with Steve Little – serial entrepreneur, investor and mergers & acquisitions maestro – as we explore the little-known 24 value drivers that spell the difference between a $5m business, and a $50mm even $500 mm business. That’s Zero Limits Business Growth Secrets, produced by Podopolo Brand Studio at zerolimitsradio.com – that’s zerolimitsradio.com and available wherever you get your podcasts.

Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Angela Duncan, financial advisor and host of the podcast Empower Her Money.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Melinda Wittstock:

So, let’s pick apart some of these different areas where women can really start to think about growing their passive income. You mentioned when you got going in real estate, obviously it was a different time. Interest rates were low. You could get loans more easily. All of that pre-2008. And even after. Before the interest rate rises in the last couple of years now, it’s pretty hard to get into.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you need more money. I mean, presumably, what’s the best way to get going in real estate? Like, say you don’t really, you might own your own house, but in terms of real estate for cash flow living, like for investment, that kind of thing, what are some of the best baby step ways to start there?

Angela Duncan:

So, over the past couple of years, because the interest rates have gone up and the banks definitely don’t want to loan like they used to, I’ve been teaching more about tax lien investing. I will break that down as easy as possible. But every home or every commercial property has to pay property taxes. And the state, the county, they depend on that money because they’ve got budgets. They need to pay teachers and police officers and pave roads. They’re expecting that income to come through.

Angela Duncan:

And if you own a home and you’re not able to pay your property taxes here in Florida, you have a lien that’s placed on your property. So, it just means like an IOU, you owe taxes to the government, right. Well, the government still needs that money, so they’re going to come to me as an investor and say, hey, I need you to fund this property tax, and in exchange I’m going to pay you 18% interest rate. That’s what the rate is in Florida. It’s a great way for you to start smaller into a real estate investing vehicle that’s passive and you know for certain what kind of interest rate you’re going to get in the beginning. Now, each state varies, but I definitely encourage you to figure out what the laws are, where you live and determine if this is going to be the right investment vehicle for you. I don’t recommend going outside of where you live to start because you want to drive by, you want to make sure there’s a house there or there’s a building there.

Angela Duncan:

And then understand what the process looks like with tax lien investing. I mean, Iowa pays 24%, Chicago pays 36%. So there’s still ways for you to get into the real estate space with less money, with certainty, upfront, because they’re paying you an interest rate and it allows you to just to get to know real estate a little bit differently until hopefully we get back into a market someday where the interest rates are lower and you can go back to perhaps being a landlord, but you may not want to. I mean, I didn’t enjoy being a landlord, so taxing and investing. For me, I don’t get a phone call on Christmas about a broken toilet. But you’ve got to figure out what kind of investor you are as well and what makes sense for you. Asking a lot of questions to experts that are all around you that are willing to help.

Melinda Wittstock:

And there are other ways, too. Like, I’ve noticed that there’s some people who get together and pool their resources almost like a syndicate investing in real estate. Like, say, if you want to buy up like several properties and kind of cash flow them, like, hopefully you’d like to think that the rent that you’re getting is bigger than the mortgage, but with interest rates, maybe that’s not working as well, at the moment there’s other people who go into real estate to flip properties, but then now you’re competing against these massive companies. Right? Buy up all this stuff if you can’t. It’s not really a great level playing field. So, this is why you’re recommending that tax lien that that’s the most advantageous at the moment.

Angela Duncan:

Syndications are great. I’m in several syndications. The biggest disadvantage with syndication is we don’t know when we’re going to exit, which means you don’t know when you’re going to get your investment money back. It’s going to be dependent on the market. But some great advantages of a syndication is there are some tax advantages for you.

Angela Duncan:

So, if you’re a higher income earner, you might want to look at a syndication because you could take advantage of the, some of those tax structures, whereas a tax lien investing is interest income. Whatever your tax rate is, whatever the state or federal rate is, you’re going to pay taxes on that income that comes in. But it is passive. You’re not going to have to manage anything where the syndication piece, you’re most likely going to be managing a little bit more of that, especially if you’re in a smaller pool of people who put their money together as investors.

Melinda Wittstock:

That makes a lot of sense. What are some other things like on the insurance side of things? What’s kind of an interesting way to get into that now?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, I don’t do a lot of insurance. I know you mentioned whole life and IUL, they’re great vehicles and you can actually fund them and borrow against them to do your real estate investing, which could be a tax advantage for you as well. But I would definitely recommend getting with an insurance professional to understand what that strategy looks like and see if that’s a right fit for you.

Melinda Wittstock:

One of the things that’s really important to me as an entrepreneur, especially as a tech entrepreneur, where women are not getting their share of the venture capital, it’s like remained at 2% of, you know, these are for women who qualify like that could be highly scalable, billion dollar plus companies. Okay, we get 2% of the venture money. That hasn’t changed in more than two decades.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so, a lot of people in this space are thinking, well, you know, how can we get more women investing in, you know, the startup world, in the venture world as say as limited partners in funds, how can we syndicate funds, how can we really do that? And one of the things that I’ve noticed is there’s just very little in the way of education around it. So, you have a lot of women with really high net wealth have no problems writing massive checks to charity, but would shy away from writing a tinier check to say, a startup company that’s solving the same problem as the charity. Even better. And there’s kind of like you have these conversations where they’re like, oh, well now my husband does all that and it’s like, what? Yeah, so one of my big hobby horses is how can we educate more women to really invest in other women, like the companies that are creating job, you know, the companies that are creating jobs for people, the companies that are having a big impact and such because the returns can be really, really great. How do you, what’s your perspective on all of that?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, so I think there’s three sides to that because I’ve had this conversation quite often. One, yes, we’re at about 2% venture capital. It means there’s $100 that are out there for to be lend. We get about $2 of that. One of those things I know from reading the statistics is that there’s not as many women applying for VC. And you’re right, it’s really because of a lack of education and there’s, and there’s less businesses that are owned by women. If we can increase both the education and more women founders entrepreneurs, then those numbers I think we would see trend up. Two is the people that run and fund the VCs are still primarily men and they feel and talk a different way than a woman does.

Angela Duncan:

They’re very logical, they’re going to talk about the numbers and look at the business from that perspective. They speak each other’s language. Right. So that’s part two. We need to have more funds with either female people that are on the decision-making team or the founders of the VC firms that are helping fund other female founders. So that’s piece two and then piece three as a woman is we definitely need to be more educated if we’re going to go down this route and we want to have a company, we want to be able to impact others with our company. You have to understand that you need the education to go get the money that’s available out there. I was at an incredible networking event last night.

Angela Duncan:

And we were talking all about business credit. And in the room I could see the faces of the females and they just looked lost. They don’t know what business credit is. They don’t know how to go get business credit or to ask for money or to put a business plan together. That information is out there, but it’s just not so much readily available, I believe, for the women because there’s less of us teaching it to each other and because we kind of speak our own language. You know, I truly believe, like women, we are heart centered. And so, when we want to pitch with, you know, here’s our company, here’s the impact we’re going to make. And the logical brain on the other side, which is the man, is not, you know, is not jiving with us, is not connecting with us and not understanding what we’re trying to pitch because their brain is just working differently than us.

Angela Duncan:

I really think if we can get all three of those sides of the triangle to move, then you’re going to create more capacity for the women to come in and get more of that VC funding, to get more of that business credit so that they can grow and expand their businesses. And then hopefully I challenge you to turn around and teach other women exactly what you did so that we can help other women get to that point as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that’s happening really in the venture space is that the female venture funds, of which there are more, they tend to raise less from the LP’s, from the pension funds and the insurance companies and all of that. So, they have the same struggle. A lot of them are getting higher returns than the male VCs because female founded companies tend to do better. They survive and they tend to use capital more effectively and they do better. So, these female run VC firms are doing better, but their check sizes aren’t big enough for the types of companies that women may run that are like setting out to disrupt a whole ecosystem, for instance, or like with a game changing technology. One of the things that’s kind of interesting is how can all these smaller funds get together and like have a fund of funds or like syndicate or whatever? And then what is the education that really needs to happen to get women more confident about investing in things that they don’t necessarily understand? Like my company’s an AI and blockchain company. And when I talk to female investors, they’re comfortable investing in beauty products or like fashion or like fem health tech, you know, that kind of thing, because it speaks to them personally. But they will say things like, I don’t really understand AI, so I can’t invest in it. And my response to that is, well, I go to the doctor and the doctor gives me advice and I don’t walk away and say, hey, I need a medical degree before I can evaluate your advice. Whereas men will just say, hey, that’s good. I’m investing in the team. You look like you know what you’re doing. Go for it. So, women feel they have to really understand a lot more, than men to be able to invest. the education component, it’s actually critical because women feel they need to understand things more than men do.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, I think we’re definitely more conservative from the gate. So that’s why we take a little bit more time to make decisions. We want more information, we’re more emotional about it, and we tend to be more conservative. And I think a big factor and what we forget about is it wasn’t until the 1980s that women could get credit on their own for their businesses. So, it’s going to take a generation or two for people to forget what that feels like to not have access to. If you don’t have access to the funds, you’re not going to ask for it. So, we’ve got to get through at least a generation of women who didn’t grow up in that environment that were looking for funding at the time that they couldn’t get without a man.

Angela Duncan:

So, and you add that into the conservativeness and the lack of education, female to female, which I do believe you’re right, has definitely increased and it will continue to increase, but I think we have to continue to go through these cycles and help each other and uplift each other and offer advice and help to each other and put it in platforms like your amazing podcast, right. So that you can get more information out there for us to continue on this educational journey. And it definitely has improved. So, I’m excited about the future. I really am optimistic thinking that we are going to continue to see this trend. And that 2% number in the next five years is probably going to get to 10% because there’s a lot of women on the front lines that are very passionate about changing that statistic.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, 100%. So how getting back to the female founder journey for the women, and women like me, say, who have been on the serial entrepreneur journey, really, with technology companies where everything goes into that company, and then you get your money out at exit, and there’s all kinds of mistakes you can make along the way where, like, if you don’t plan your taxes right, or you’re like, the structure of the investment coming into your company or your documents or whatever, or you don’t really know what’s going on at the exit, you might have built this amazing asset, but you might end up with not your fair share. You exited your business, your insurance company. Tell me a little bit about what that was like. Did you feel like you had all your ducks in the row, right, to get the exit that you wanted? Or if you look back on it now, is there anything you would have done differently?

Angela Duncan:

Well, as far as running the company, there’s some things I would have done differently. But as far as the financials and the books, I always, when I start a company is I. I’m the numbers person. I’m setting up my numbers from day one. And that’s something I encourage you as a business owner, invest in either a bookkeeper or QuickBooks or something when you’re starting on this journey, because you need to know what your numbers are. And the numbers are so important for you, especially when you’re going to go to exit my industry. I had quite a large insurance company, and not many people can just write a check for it, right? So, I studied creative financing and what creative financing means. I’m working with the person who’s buying my company and figuring out how I can rev share forever.

Angela Duncan:

So, we did a more. We did less money upfront and did more of a partnership. They’re going to run the company, but I still continue to get revenue from that company every month. And the reason why this is a really great partnership, one, it keeps me involved right enough to refer people to the company. Or if a client needs to talk to me, then I’m more willing to help them because I’m still generating income from that asset. I’m not actively managing it. It’s very passive income. But it became a win-win because the person on the other side who bought it didn’t have the funds, nor would the bank loan on this type of asset the way that we had set it up.

Angela Duncan:

So, learning what your exit game might be someday, because you are going to exit whether you pass away, give it to a child or sell the company, there’s always going to be an exit for that company. So, you need to know that going into it. And if you set up your numbers from the beginning the right way, it’s so much easier for you as a business owner one, to know if you’re profitable, right, to look at your numbers, to figure out how to grow. And if you’re going to go get VC funding, they need to see all those numbers and they need to be correct and in place properly. Setting it up correctly from the beginning will just help you further down the line. And I’ve been through the headaches with other clients where they had to go back, read you their books, go through paperwork to figure out what was what. And that can be extremely stressful. And it’s going to take your time away from your business, growing your business.

Angela Duncan:

So why not just set it up from the beginning the correct way so that it’s easy to manage going forward?

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, this is so important. Like, know your numbers. I’ve seen companies, you know, that I’ve mentored, they’re like, well into the eight figures and their books are just a mess. Like, it’s like, wait, what? What? Because if you go to sell that business, anybody, you’re just going to knock so many points off your valuation, because any buyer is just going to seize on, like, one number that’s wrong or whatever and question the whole thing.

Angela Duncan:

Yes, I saw a client using an Excel spreadsheet that was into the eight-figure revenue, and I thought, same thing, human error. One digit is wrong, and your numbers are completely off. So, like, you have to make sure your system is in good order from the beginning.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, have you noticed resistance, and maybe this is a money mindset issue, but the numbers tell a story too, right? Being on top of your numbers is critical in business. And yet I see so many people, and it’s not just women, it’s men too, just not really wanting to know, like, I don’t know what it. What that is, what’s going on there. Why are people afraid of their numbers?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, I think it comes back to, especially with women, they get into the business because I don’t want to make money. I don’t need to make a lot of money. I don’t, you know, I just want to help people, so they think the numbers are not important. But really, when you think about your numbers, and you know what you can do with those numbers. I can hire more employees, which changed lives. I can give back to my charity, which helps change lives. So even though your intention is to impact people and help other people, you can still do that by creating huge revenue for your company so that you can turn around and do that for other people. But when they get into the company thinking that they’re not going to do it for the money, then they just forget to track the money because it doesn’t seem important, but they’ve got to tie it to the emotion, to the, why.

Angela Duncan:

Why are you doing this? Why are you running your company? What is it that’s important to you? And understand that money fuels all of that. So, you’ve got to know what your numbers are.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, gosh. Yeah, 100%. I mean, and this is maybe a mindset issue, because if we think that money is a thing or a destination as opposed to really understanding what it really is, it’s just. It’s a tool. It’s just a marker of the exchange of value between things. It’s like an energy. It’s not really like a thing. Do you know what I mean? Let’s get into the mindset issue here, because so much of it is tied to those deep, subconscious beliefs of what we think we’re worth, right? And all of these sorts of things. I mean, is that, like, 80% of the issue, really, the mindset?

Angela Duncan:

And they’ll come from your childhood. No matter what kind of upbringing you had, you’ve got that in the back of your mind always, until you can recognize it and start to create habits and patterns that are going to change that mindset. You know, if you came from poverty or maybe you came from a lot of money, I interviewed someone who came from a very wealthy environment, but people kept calling her wealthy, so she always associated wealth with bad and then would never allow herself to create wealth in her business. So, you’ve got to understand what that mindset is and where it’s coming from and recognize it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, God, there’s so many different money stories that. That people have because, like, chances are when your beliefs about yourself are being formed in that, like, zero to seven years old, eight years old, or whatever, and you don’t have a frontal lobe, so say you hear your parents arguing about money and you think money, therefore, is bad. Or maybe your parents are very, very wealthy, but they’re not happy. And so, you can equate, oh, money doesn’t buy happiness. Like, I don’t want money.

Melinda Wittstock:

Or you just don’t really believe in your own value. Right? Or you don’t think you deserve it. Or if you have a hard time asking for things. At the beginning of the podcast, we were talking about how hard it is for women to ask for things and receive things. Then it’s hard to receive money.

Angela Duncan:

And you hit the point right there. So, like, the development of the brain doesn’t come until seven, eight years old, right? I. So could you imagine if, especially if you’re a parent, imagine your seven-year-old kid trying to run your company. You would never allow that. So why are you allowing those old thoughts to run your company today? So, you’ve got to change it, but recognizing what are the thought patterns that you have in your brain, what’s holding you back? And then telling yourself that that’s not my truth today. That’s not what I think, it’s not how I feel, that’s not who I am today.

Angela Duncan:

And you’re going to battle it. It’s going to take time for you to change kind of those mindsets and habits. But when you kind of think about that, then it makes it a little bit easier for you to. Now I’m going to be acknowledging what those thoughts are, and I can make changes and habits so that I am who I am today and where I want to go in the future.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think it’s very funny to realize that the world is actually being run by toddlers.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, I think I’ve seen commercials, right? They’re sitting in the boardroom eating gummy bears. You know, I just. It’s funny, but, you know, it’s a way for us to learn that those are the habits that we’re using today, and that’s how we break that cycle.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, it’s so true. So, tell me a little bit more I imagine you run the gamut of all the things we’ve been talking about on this show with your money story.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, very similar. And what I find it interesting, too, is I interview women who own businesses, and I tell them we’re going to talk about money. And more than half the time they come to the show, and they say, well, I’m not sure what I’m going to add value to, I don’t know anything about money. And then I challenge them. Like, what did you think when you started your company? What were your startup costs? What would you have done differently? These are all money topics that you’ve learned, and someone is where you were. How do you tell them what to do differently that you’ve learned so that they can jumpstart their business a little bit quicker. So maybe they don’t make some of those mistakes. But I’m always amazed at how women think that they don’t know about money.

Angela Duncan:

It’s just they do, and they don’t think that it’s something that they could teach to other people because it seems like, oh, I’ve already done it. It was a mistake. But really, that’s the story I want you to tell. I want you to help you five years ago so that the next person behind you can get to that level quicker. And then she’s going to turn around and teach other people, too.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is so important. I mean, this is the kernel of what makes entrepreneurs succeed, actually, is all those failures, and there are many, because you’re creating something new, you know what I mean? Or doing something in a different way, and you’re on your own personal learning journey as well. There are things you can’t control. So invariably there are going to be all kinds of failures, large, small, little micro failures, things you look back, think, oh, man, if only I’d known that, I would have done that differently. So, the more that we can get all this information out there and show, share vulnerably, because it takes a little bit of vulnerability to share, like where you really messed up. Like, I look at all my businesses and I think, oh, man, if only I had done that. Why did I not invest in Nvidia?

Angela Duncan:

For me, bitcoin, which I still don’t do any crypto at all, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

And there’s all these stories now that, okay, it was like dead a couple of years ago, but now there’s all these predictions. It’s going to be at a million dollars. It’s like what, you know, or just really getting, getting around, like, you know, AI, like which companies to invest in, how to, you know. Like, and a lot of it, I think, is just where to start. And if you don’t, if you’re starting from a place where you don’t have a lot of money, or in my case, all my money is tied up in my company.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so, it’s like, when is the right time? So, what you said much earlier in our, you know, conversation is like, you can start small, right?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

What’s the right time? Because I think we put a lot of blocks, like, ahead of it. Like, okay, I’ll be able to do that when.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah. So, think of investing as an expense to your company. Why not make it a line item on your budget and allocate funds to investing? Now, I understand, you know, a lot of times people want to keep investing and reinvesting in their company. But if you can make and start off small, make a line item for your business, call it an expense of, and then use those funds to go invest. Whether it’s going to be real estate or the stock market or whatever it is that you’re going to choose as your first investment. Um, make it a line item. That way it’s just like automatically going to that. And that’s how you start your investing.

Angela Duncan:

So that not all of your money is just tied up in your company. You’re now filtering it into another vehicle that’s going to grow, hopefully passively, when you set it up correctly and you still run your company and it’s just an expense item on your budget.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s a really good point. But then it’s your business investing as opposed to you investing. So that can get complicated as well.

Angela Duncan:

It can. But I mean, you can also just make it as a distribution to the shareholder as you, and then you can take it from there and take it from that account and put it into an investment. But then at least you’re moving that money out and taking a new habit and putting into place where you’re giving yourself permission to take money out of your company to go invest in your future.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, in my case, where in the startup phases and the pre revenue is expensive to build, you know, technology companies. So, like all our AI and blockchain and like creating an app and all that stuff, right, where there’s tremendous amount of investment upfront. It’s not like revenue positive from day one, but once the revenue starts ticking on, though, it spins cash. It’s like a flywheel. Okay? So, it’s a deferred gratification style business. So, in the meantime, one of the things that I think I’ve done that’s smart is, you know, I have a salary with my company. That’s been noted in the books, it’s accumulated in the books.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s like, a line item in the balance sheet, how much money my own company owes me. And it’s a nice little nest egg at this point, and I know that with that. I’m going to do a whole life policy for myself. I’m going to use that money and to invest.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

And, in fact, I’ve been building sort of my own personal asset, even though it’s, like, on the books, so doing things like that, because I think a lot of women don’t pay themselves but they’re not noting that they’re actually accruing it.

Angela Duncan:

Mm hmm. Yeah. You wouldn’t want your employees to work for free, so why are you not paying yourself? And then if you’re, you know, taking this time and you don’t have the funds yet, it’s a great time to get educated. Right. Take the time and get your education. I’m big on time blocking, and I’m in Miami, so we do a lot of networking events, and I’m very specific on who I want to meet, what I want to learn about. And I think when you kind of tell your brain that, you know, I’m interested in, say, real estate, for example, your brain kind of seeks out that information. Let me find an expert in this field and get multiple opinions about what they’re doing and pick their brain and see what they’re doing and what they can help, you know, you learn and grow.

Angela Duncan:

And then when you’re ready, you have that cash in your company where you can move it out of the company. You already have your space kind of chosen where you’re going to put it, so it just helps you get there a little bit quicker.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. So, Angela, what is the best way for people to find you and work with you? Obviously, all the details of your podcast will be in the show notes and all of that. Do you do any consulting with anybody or, like, what’s the best way if people have a question for you?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah. So, Empower Her Money. I’m on TikTok Instagram. That is the name of the podcast as well. And if you’re interested in figuring out what kind of investor you are, I love doing quizzes with people. It’s probably one of my favorite things because it helps you unpack what you think you know versus what the system’s going to tell you are. If you message me on Instagram quiz, I’m going to send you that link for that that quiz and you can kind of figure out where you might want to start on your investing journey.

Angela Duncan:

And then you can always ask questions, too. I personally answer most of my messages now, and I just love just doing videos and helping people, you know, with the questions that they, maybe they’re not comfortable enough to ask people in person.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Angela Duncan:

Thank you very much for having me.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Angela Duncan is the founder of Empower Her Money and a serial entrepreneur across finance, real estate and insurance. You can take her free quiz at empowerhermoney.com, and check out her podcast on Podopolo where you can create and share your favorite moments with our viral episode clip feature, and join us in the episode comments section so we can all take the conversation further with your questions and comments.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s it for today’s episode. Head on over to WingsPodcast.com – and subscribe to the show. When you subscribe, you’ll instantly get my special gift, the WINGS Success Formula. Women … Innovating … Networking … Growing …Scaling … IS the WINGS of Inspired Business Formula …for daily success in your business and life. Miss a Wings episode? We’ve got hundreds in the vault, all with actionable advice and epiphanies. Check them out at MelindaWittstock.com or wingspodcast.com. You can also catch me on LinkedIn or Instagram @MelindaAnneWittstock.

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