conversations with lady to see where we bring guest on our shows to talk about issues and topics that matter today i have a beautiful young lady from trenton new jersey from rita strokes and she is an amazing person so we're going to hear her journey but before we do that you know it's tea time so today speech actually we have a belgian chocolate pleasure and i actually mixed in some chinese spices and some coke in it pieces so i hope you love it sounds delicious and what i tell people is to taste it you know before they put in the sugar but also smell the  and then when you smell it you just wan quite a few years probably at least seven or eight years at least writing that we run into each other at networking events the last time i saw you was when to metion actually aired got the tradition at the arts council and it was a beautiful event before  i didn't see you for many years so it was wonderful running into you and i was like yeah we gotta come you know you have to come on the show and just tell us about your journey and you know it's empowering you ok well i think probably the reason that you hadn't seen me in so long d during that time i was in a partnership with someone else for another business another real estate brokerage that we owned and at that time there was a process where we were  severing our business relationship so the reason you hadn't seen me in so monk is because i was severing a business relationship and starting up my new company which is harks realty and associates so a lot of time on the back in terms of planning and you know just organizing and scheduling and just taking time to i reconnect with myself with what i want to do with this new brokerage was what i had been doing but now things are up and running and i'm ready to hit the ground running again and the world council so what were you doing before you said you work for the brokerages that was a major in school that you wanted to do or no actually when i was a student at northwestern university way back in the ninety's i majored i was in the school of education and social policy and i majored in learning and organizational development and i had a minor and african american studies so i always am i and i have to also say to i come from a family of teachers ok so right so i thought maybe i would get into some sort of teaching opening a school of some sort but i found that working with adults was something that i really wanted to do but not in a classroom setting so after i graduated from northwestern i moved to new york  and i was a trainer for american express for a few years and after nine eleven happened i knew that there were going to be layoffs and we had actually just moved back to new jersey at that time too so i went ahead and got my real estate license and i've been selling real estate full time for fifteen years and i mentioned so and i find that i like working with adults and teaching people how to achieve their goals from from  just being a dream to becoming a reality so that was that's why i like doing what i do yes i love selling houses i love teaching people how to gain wealth through real estate but being able to someone who didn't know anything about the process or who had no idea that they were eligible to go ahead and move forward with you know achieving that american dream of owning a home and then being able to give them the keys it's a wonderful feeling is it was a wonderful feeling when i got my house when i was much older i was probably it's thirty five something like that and it was wonderful you know because renting even though i must say i am renting now but you know renting back in the day i couldn't do anything i felt like i couldn't really be creative with my my space and so when i had my house it was like having a comic con i have a second do what i want with it you know i can yell at the top of my write you know it's just my space so just you know it's a long process but it was still exciting as well just getting the keno and this is right that you know that's a wonderful feeling right and i know when you see people's faces with a smile you must love that as a rule is and what i love even more is once they get into their homes and they've got and used to having their own space and they come back and say you know what i want to start investing now i want to start learning how i can really use my money to make money for me and so coming back and putting that whole process together for them is even more exciting so it's it's the whole is i so enjoy it as the joy from beginning to end you know it's a school i just want to take you back and i know it's probably hard to talk about a partnership and you don't have to go into details just you know  what made you decide that you wanted to have a partner versus doing something on your own initially and michelin see we started the business about nine nine years ago and i was in my early thirt bill just kind of filling myself in terms of you know what it is that i like to do and i thought that having someone on to compliment what i wanted to do was really the only way to go right i guess for myself i was i don't know if i was confident in myself to be able to do it on my own and so that's why i brought that partner to the table and something different right sometimes you just need to recognize the voice that speaking in you to if it's selling you to do something different trust the voice and move on and there was a friend i'm sure a lot of ideas off each other when we were serving as well that makes a difference because the one thing that i hate to hear people say is the friendship is over or it was a friend because i know a few people that have started business with friends and now they're no longer friends and that's so you know that's hard to hear and it's disappointing that that that happens that people can't differentiate one keep it separate but it's hard to pending the what they go through in the scene people where one person is doing all the work and the other person just you know not really putting in that time that they should put in and that's where you get a struggle so you know you think going in having a partner always going to be great and it's great if you all stay on the same take all the way through and that's the difficulties of part and i think one of the thing we have to recognize too is the way you are ten years ago is not the way you are today everyone is always growing everything is cyclical so we just have to remember too that  there's a growth and everyone has to accept the growth of another person or the non pros of another price because we don't want to say we don't know at the same time so that you know just understanding that and i think the other thing with partnerships too is recognizing the strengths of who is at the table and you know when your strengths and you knowing your weaknesses and making sure that you are aligned with someone who can complement is that about a balance that's not a balance so truth is really making sure that you know who you're walking into something within and not don't want this to appear in any way shape or form that i you know feel like i made a bad this right voice that isn't telling you i have something different for you and not everyone will receive that but you know at the end of the day you have to fulfill your dreams and you can't let anyone or anything stop you from that right and sometimes that happens you know and it's whether it's just individuals or corporations or corporations that partner together when it's sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't either but it's always about a learning experience and i love to bring people on here so that they can empower people and they can you know just everybody can learn from your experience we know ok well maybe this is something i should look into a little bit more when you're going to develop a partnership or doing it on your own writing on the moon so it's choices and  your choice at the time works right and because you all were together for nine years you correct and so now you're on your own and you know it's it's a different journey it's a different journey and it's definitely i'm back in the planting se know how long you said you've had this we actually opened the doors in march of twenty seventeen so wow yeah five months or so but the thing is you have so many years experience so you know it's just new business is what it's it's the same passion of what you were doing already right exactly and the folks and i actually have four agents who have signed on to sell far and being able to speak to them about my passion and my vision and having them aligned and wanting to come on when he's a brand new agency and to help build a name that is exciting to do so like i said i there so much that s store i'm grateful that i was you know more confident in who i am added a person into my abilities and to listen to that voice and to step out on maze and you have to have to  afraid you know even if you're you have a talent or even if you're passionate about something simply on your own it's difficult you know i've been doing my business for about eight years and it's it's a journey it really is but you have to just stay focused you have the passion and you have to always talk to other entrepreneurs and the like minded to encourage you it's all about encouraging you jump in and say you know sometimes you might feel like oh this is just too much you speak to someone else and then that also helps you know that if you were to keep perfect right lets a business with a really built for them and now they're taking over but you know you're on your own and this is just the process right and i think it's also amazing to the energy that you put out there when i first and associates i was just constantly you know putting the energy out there that i needed folks who are comfortable with coming on to a brand new agency helping to build the name and the brand wasn't a true aligned right and being to able to say that i had folks on who while during the interview process they were saying the things that i only knew that i was saying they're saying that during the interview i'm like you know when you have to be hip to be positive you have to be kind of all of those things really matter because people no matter how great your brain might be if you yourself you're not on this person you're not trying you're not giving people can see and what they've been spilled in us and how we treat people how we talk to people how we just deal with those around us where everything is not about receiving from other people and i grew up i grew up in the church new life christian center in trenton and my pastor at the time unfortunately passed away but he always talked about being a cheerful giver and between giving knowledge of what i've learned over the years with real estate giving time and giving space giving energy giving money it comes back those are all planting tools as well and it's all coming back and i'm just i'm grateful for that and i'm really i'm grateful for that and it was and i wasn't ever and i'm not a giver for the purpose of receiving but it's really great to see that the whole being a cheerful giver it's wonderful and now i know you're mother and wife was well how was that now with the new business interests there and some a mother of four i've been married for seventeen years and tomorrow we're actually moving my oldest you and my second son he's a junior in high school and he's today as a scrimmage and he says to me well he apparently told me about this scrimmage but i'm like look if you don't tell me about this like the day before  doable if everyone who you surround yourself with recognizes that you have a lot to juggle so folks can't feel slighted by the fact that you can't do something with them you can't be there or can't be there buying or selling their primary home well let's talk about the investment the investment ok as we all know real estate isn't going anywhere it's been here since the beginning of time whether it was land or actual buildings on land right and people whether you are looking to purchase a property to rent out as a landlord people always a place to live or if you're looking to purchase a  property because you like to remodel or renovate homes and then eventually flip them that's an opportunity there and for me what i do when i initially meet with people about investing is i try to find out what are their goals  goals to hold on to something long term and pass it on to your children or are you looking to make money sooner than later and then that helps and then i'll talk about ok whether you'll be purchasing as only on board or purchasing a as a flip and what that what we then do again based off of what journey they're trying to take is figuring out what is your return on investment going to be so we need to look at what you need to see what you have to rent and if you don't have much to spend we need to look at some resources out there to allow you to borrow money or you know get money or some other ways and looking at areas that will allow you to reap the investment that you are seeking so again this is something that's long term you're looking to home purchase the multifamily or single family home to keep tenants and on a fairly regular basis you may consider looking in surrounding the urban area so again it just really depends on what you're looking for if you're looking to flip one of the things that i do is look at what properties what our properties in the area selling for and we have you know contractors that we work with that we can partner you with that can give you the minutes on what it would take to fix up the house and then again are we looking at you making a ten thousand dollar profit and is it worth it for you or are you looking at a eighty thousand dollars profit is that more my age and is that we're patient with working with our clients where resourceful whatever it is that someone says that they need whether it's a contractor an electrician  and insurance person home ever we have people in our database that we work with on a regular basis to be able to refer you out to we even have a not even from a referral standpoint but from a resource we get people who call us who think they want to sell their homes but they really don't they have no other they have no clue as to what else to do ok and there are so many people that we've directed to a state grant program that helps them save their homes so being gay we know always close the deal but to know that we help somebody again achieve what is what is your true goal you can hear that someone's  those tough questions right and again recognizing that everything doesn't always mean a commission at the end right but again knowing if you help someone and when you help someone they'll send someone else to  want you have to try to figure it out right so that is a big plus and you know and it's you have to find a way to sit just so pardon you just really said it and that's wonderful thing doing that and a lot of time soon we get people who have an idea but it seems like it's all over the place and our job is to figure out ok you want to do this but you also want to do that and they have nothing to do with the let's just kind of realistic and you know just come up with a plan that will allow you to achieve goal won first and then if you need to go to go to then we can do that too but or if there is a way to connect the two we need to be able to again listen to what they are saying or not saying  and being able to bring it all together from what you have also a lot of knowledge about foreclosure properties there are so many foreclosure properties that are out here in the market and some folks have come to us because they were working with others who had no clue right on how to submit bid how to you know work with the entire process so for me even though we may not do everything it's important for everyone in our company to have a knowledge base more on what's out here very in you always have to be open to learning you're always going to be open to learning if you're like i don't know how to do this so i'm not going to work with that right  me anything new things coming up you have an event coming up or anything like i'm actually working on my calendar of events for twenty eight or so i do free seminars to the community whether it is helping folks recognize you know if they're investor ready you know talking about investment opportunities i have a mortgage rep who works with investors as well so she'll be she's the money side of the community ok during the seminars i also do seminars for first time homebuyers i do seminars for people who are thinking of selling their homes and how to prepare their homes for sale so again don't forget to check out her page thank you so much by