Magic Kingdom Corporate to Real Estate Royalty: Kelly's Story

Even after working for years at the most creative company on the planet, Kelly Iannone felt that getting into Real Estate would unlock the next chapter in her business creativity. 

She talks about the importance of communication, creativity, and networking in a large organization like Disney and how hitting a plateau in her corporate career led her to pursue financial independence through real estate investing. 

Kelly discusses the different types of real estate investments and how she became a general partner in syndication, pooling investor capital to acquire a larger asset. She also shares her excitement about the future of real estate investing and achieving financial freedom through apartment investing.

Contact Info:
KELLY’S Profile

linkedin.com/in/kelly-iannone-waypointcip
Website

waypointcip.com (Company)

Email

kelly@waypointcip.com

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Transcript

0:02

Hey, everyone here on the Investing Stuff Know podcast. We have a really cool guest with us today. Kelly. Kelly and I met a couple years ago at a large conference in Orlando, Florida. Kelly, thanks for joining us today and sharing your story and all the things you've learned. Oh, you're welcome Johnny. I'm excited to be here and share my story. Awesome. So Kelly is one of those people I like her or not, she's on LinkedIn a lot and like I am, and she is working on spreading the word of what she does. But of course, before focusing in the social media space and all that kind of stuff, she had obviously a cool background, a lot of history and lessons of life and family and corporate and of course in the corporate space. So we wanna pull that out and, learn and listen to what she has to share for us. So Kelly tell us tell us how, what was like what was life growing up for you and kinda like you're the family background and then how did you know what to major in college? Give us that just a little background. So I grew up, I'm a small town girl from Michigan and born and raised in the exact same town as my mother grew up adjacent to the town. My father grew up, that really small town, middle America type thing. And I grew up in an environment that my parents were very Were very financially literate and also frugal. Okay. They, they worked good factory jobs. They saved so we could go on vacations. They invested in their 401ks. And the story I was told growing up was really, you invest in your 401k, you work at a good company, you get a pension, and then eventually you'll retire. But I was also very much told I needed to go to college so I could get that good job. So I did just that. I went to college in Michigan for my undergrad. And then after. And as far as what I wanted to major in, I really wasn't sure. I, again, I grew up in a small town of Michigan. I didn't have a whole lot of exposure. My parents worked at a factory good, decent jobs, but they worked in a factory. I didn't wanna work in a factory. What did they make, by the way? As I, I'm an engineer, so I love making stuff. And I worked for factories too. So what did they. They actually worked at Abbott Laboratories. Okay. So they, my mom worked in processing much of her career. So there was times she would go into the big tanks and order to clean the tanks that would have Similac or Isamill and stuff. I remember as a kid stopping by the factory way back when you could, and get a little bit of Similac, not Similac inure. I think it was chocolate inure directly from the tanks. Wow. That you could drink in the morning. Cuz as a kid that's like chocolate milk. That stuff's so good. But anyways, then my dad was an electrician. He also ended up working at the same factory for a while. Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. And just to just. Unrelated, but just a sidebar manufacturing. And of course we see a lot of this, of that type of growth in the south, Florida included, of course, manufacturing has so many ancillary benefits. And something actually as real estate investors that we look for is those kinds of job growths. Because yes, you can put a plant somewhere in factory that's making something that people need. But then there's lots of the technical piece, the engineering, the leadership, the management, the supply chain, and all the vendors that supply them to really the compounding effect of having local manufacturing and whatnot is very powerful. So something you wanna look. In whatever, wherever you're going to invest. But that's a little sidebar, but go. But please continue. No, that's a good point. That, that factory was the largest employer in the town I grew up in. So it was seen as the place to get a job, to have a good job. But as far as what I wanted to go to college for, I didn't really know. I knew I wanted to do something in business. I didn't, like most kids, I didn't wanna grow up and do what my parents did. I wanted to work in an office somewhere. I wanted to wear a nice suit, nice professional. So I went to college for business administration. And I had a minor in Human Resources Management, so you know. What pretty vanilla way. What was some of your so we have this always fascinates me, Kelly, is we have these visions of something we wanted, like you just mentioned, like this avatar of you in a business, dude, in a professional environment. Who was your heroes or goals or like, where did you get that image from? That's, I think it's really important to to identify our idols. Not in the most the most strict sense, but just like the people that we look after, maybe our heroes. Where did you get that image? If you remember, I definitely wanted to be an executive, a corporate executive. Yeah. And where that image came from, I had a couple cousins one lived in Texas, one lived in Florida, but one actually worked for the company that I retired from, the Walt Disney Company. And she was an executive. And then I also really enjoyed watching shows on tv. Obviously these days I like watching Shark Tank sometimes, but The Apprentice I used to really love to watch. Yes. I just, I really love that whole environment and that thought. Yeah. I was always one of those individuals, like I could have probably been an attorney too. I love to negotiate and talk. Okay. And look at, contrarian perspectives and play devil's advocate. And so that's part of what I think led to me at least going to business and having that avatar of I wanted to be in corporate. for sure. And that's, and again, and all these things are like the unique perspective, how you grew up, the things that resonate with you and the things you just liked. That's, and that's, you don't have to give an explanation why you liked it. Just I like this and that's the re that's it was, yeah. Obviously, Walt Disney is a huge, fascinating company. Been around a long time and has been just, literally the lifeblood is probably gonna misspeak cuz you, you've been in there so long, but it's like creativity that, of creating things. And you and I are both like, as. Scale into syndications and fundraising and funds, being content creators of marketing and sales is so important here. But give us a kind of a high, what are like the three things that you learned from all that time spent in Disney? So you went to college and you went to, you got hired at Disney. And what, firstly, what'd you have hired for? What are the, like the top three things that you learn over that amazing. So I was with the company for 18 years. So what I got hired for is not what I ended up doing at the end of my career, but for sure. Yeah, basically. So like obviously when you first, first step was like, oh man, yeah. So I spent a lot of my time in finance roles, business and market marketing, sales strategy roles, and a lot of integration type roles working on like business growth opportunities. And three things I would say that I really learned is communication is. Super key and essential communication with internal partners in order to integrate and understand every what drives individuals and drives the business in order to put together a plan. C. Could you define communication? Can you define communi? I know you're in a nice role. Could you define communication for us? Yeah, verbal, written really how I'm articulating the benefits of the benefits and the problems with something that we are trying to solve for. That's good. And making and okay. And making sure that the any, we use a, the company, like a lot of companies, probably a lot of acronyms. Yes, in understanding, my latest role, I was coming into a business that we were moving from California and we had a lot of new hires to the company and we speak in acronyms. Part of my role or that I took upon myself was a whole list of here's all these acronyms and what they actually stand for to at least help close that gap or new hires. Yeah. Yeah. So that's really important. Like you say, like communication is key. So that's one of the things you learned. But also I wanted to pull the idea of what is communication, and that is, identifying the challenges and the objectives in a clear and concise way that people can understand here. So I need to communicate better. It's it is important to define what those, what are words mean. But yeah, please continue though. And the thing that you said, you learned that communication is so important in a large organization. What are some other. Creativity. You mentioned that this is a very creative company. Yes. So yes. I was not in creative roles where I was drawing and creating storyboards and coming up with these movies. But in any role within the company or quite frankly, I'd say any role, creativity is key and creativity goes hand in hand with curiosity. And really diving deep to understand what the fundamentals of a particular business or issue is so that you can then look at it and engineer what the outcome and what the solutions can be for a particular thing. So creativity in that curiosity and diving into it is super important as well. And then networking, knowing people. In, especially a large company like this, it's really about being a specialist and a particular thing as opposed to being more of a generalist in a bunch of things. So having a strong network and understanding of different individuals roles and responsibilities and who you can reach out to, to help execute on something for sure was super essential in order to succeed in my role through my 18 year career. Did you hire or did you are you, were you a hiring manager? Did you hire. I did hire folks from time in different roles. Yes. I gotcha. I was not in hr, but I did hire like for my own teams for sure. What were some things that you look for Kelly, inside your roles as you look? So you mentioned curiosity as a part of creativity. Is that something that you look for in your role? Is that like something that you thought was necessary to be inside Walt Disney, inside business, management and growth and marketing and whatever. Was that something that you look or just tell us things that you look. Yeah, I would definitely look for that curiosity and wanting to dive deeper to understand, cause you can't just look at something's surface level and have an answer. You've gotta be able to dive deeper into it. I would also look for, again, communication skills, I mentioned the communication skills. If I have somebody in an interview who is not able to articulate themselves in a pretty straightforward and concise way, cuz the other thing with communication is not really being able to get to the point. I think it's really important and says a lot about somebody if they can articulate what they're saying very concisely. In short, they really know what they're talking about. Oh God, the more words you use, it's like you're trying to find the answer as you're talking. And so being able to say something very clearly and concisely is key as well. Making me really conscious of my words right now. Make sure that every word is, every sentence is laden with just the right amount of objectivity and insight and direction here. So it's just, we can make this a 10 minute show. Yeah, just crunch it down. So what is so when, how did you actually, how did you actually suss that out? Cause I think this is important as we engage with our partners. And people later were gonna hire and this, that, and the other. Of course she, like you said, Can they communicate in a concise manner? And I think that's in Indicat indicative of an organized mind, an organized thought process. If they can obviously verbalize it, eventually, if they eventually get there, they're, it's a scattered mind just wandering around in a bunch of this verbal landscape. But if they really know where they're going, it's a very precise A to B to C to like that and get there. How did you you, how did you actually, so that's, The organized piece. The articulate piece. How did you, what kind of things did you look for in, in the curiosity? What did you what did you look for and what kind of questions did you ask there to draw out if this person had a curious bent to their nature? I'm really looking for a dimensional answer. So as opposed to a, just a straightforward answer, but take me through the thought process. Sure. And so that's when through an interviewing process or even working with partners, asking questions, if I get a really, if I get the final answer. Great. I have the fine answer, but I d how do I know that's the right answer? How do I know that I trust the process that you went through in order to get to that answer. And so that's where, in both of those scenarios with interviewing for new hires or working with partners on particular projects, it's understanding what the thought process was and what the process was in order to come to that answer. Because throughout that process, I'm gonna have additional questions and un to seek understanding or to play the devil's advocate. Yeah, I'm sure we get something you spoke about earlier that kinda, that part of your nature was probably fun to like drill into you anyway and have the contrary and streak or challenge them, things like that and make them, feel maybe a little bit of discomfort and see what kind of the what kind of person this is that you're talking to. Yeah, and I think these skills are really important in a broad sense. Yes, they're from corporate America, but corporate America is corporate America because of the success and cuz of their size and cuz of their. Operational efficiencies and a bunch of other things, but there's a lot to learn there. And I really talk love talking to folks like yourself and drawing out your story and, finding, learning the things you learned from these huge organizations that have distilled millions of hours of training and in context and really societal studies, if you would. And like what works in, among thousands of people, what are the things that actually work? So I think it's really, I. So moving on here. So to, that's, so then you, what did you mentioned towards the beginning of our show, or actually pre-show here, that the, there's a part of you that corporate, the corporate no longer fueled here. So you got your job and then you cut in this corporate role doing these diff really amazing things, and whatnot. What, at what point did you feel like you hit a plateau of when corporate no longer fueled you? And why did that happen? Do you. It was about 10 years into my corporate career, and I didn't hit a plateau from a perspective of there was no more career growth. There was still plenty of career growth for me. Yeah. I hit a plateau of, I just wasn't feeling fulfilled. Ah, fulfilled in, in marching and really striving and pushing towards that same mission of the company or. Believed in the mission of the company. Sure. But I didn't, I wasn't fueled by it. I also, now that I was 10 years into my career, I now have a much better perspective of what it means to be an executive for a company. Yes. As opposed to, little high school me who didn't have any experience or exposure, quite frankly, of what that looked like. Yeah. And what I realized is I didn't wanna necessarily be married to my job. I didn't want to be at the beck and call because you get to a pos, you get to such a high level position that your life. really becomes your job, your corporate job, because there's really big decisions that are being made and there's a lot of pressure. And regardless of where you're at in the market cycle, there's still the pressures of those particular roles. And I had been successful in my roles and I was continuing to get promotions, but I realized that getting promotions wasn't gonna get me, it wasn't getting more job sat, it wasn't getting more, excuse me, more satisfaction at that point. I was making more money and I was raised, with the mindset of, I'm gonna work, I'm gonna make as much money as I can. So I was fulfilling that, but I wasn't getting the personal fulfillment out of it. And that was around a time that my husband and I really had a, we had this conversation of, okay, if we're not getting this fulfillment, do we wanna keep working until we're 55, 65? A lot of people are, what are our options? Yeah. And so we dove down really a rabbit hole of how we could achieve financial independence at a much earlier age. Now going back to how I was raised, my parents, I was taught Invest in your 401k. They worked at a job, they got a pension. That was the path I was on. I started investing in my four as soon as I got out of college because I knew that was what I was supposed to do. But we very quickly realized that investing in our 401k and not really having access to it until we were 59 and a half without jumping through some hoops wasn't our ideal path. That wasn't what we were necessarily looking at. Again, going down that rabbit hole, we discovered real estate and started. Started networking and educating with different people in the real estate space and we started in single family properties and then, from there, yeah, our education that was, that rent, was that like just rentals flips, like what did that look like then? A first, that kind, first foray into that field for that our first property was we intentionally kept our primary residence and kept it as a rental, so we kept that as a single family rental for sure. Yeah. And yeah, and then we ended up doing a flip with partners in the single family space. We very seriously looked at doing short-term rentals, so we were dabbling in this single family type space of how do we execute. Yeah, there's a lot of information out there as we know, in podcasts and books and blogs and articles and all these different things, and they are enticing and there're there's people that are just killing in those different spaces. A newcomer, it can be overwhelmed with the o opportunities. Options and the past which one fits for me? And unless I'm gonna revisit that in a moment here. But let me finish up the co the corporate thing, which you touched on, you and your husband both had a good, hard to heart discussion, perhaps at some point. And that was did your husband also feel that at, after 10 ish years, whatever he also wanted a kind of a different change. And is that just a function of the company our life just, is it a life cycle or is it like a corporate thing or what do you think that is? If you guys both felt at the same time, does that speak to the general idea that maybe after 10 years people find a reset in their life or look or looking for something different? I think it can be both. I think it can be both. What was it for you guys then? He was much more content in his job. Okay. And much more content. We came from very different backgrounds. My background was very stable. Yes. His background was a lot less stable. So for him, he saw having a job as a, as stability, having that consistent paycheck. Now we also know that is reliant on one employer and that's a whole nother thing. Yes. But we had very different backgrounds and thoughts about money and investing. He was much more fulfilled and content in his role and even to this day, he's much more content. He does still work at the same company, the Walt Disney Company. Yeah. And he is much more content with that for now, while I continue to grow and do what we're doing over here. So perhaps you led that, I mean you, you had obviously a family combo, but then also you maybe led that piece of it like, hey, just not getting the satisfaction into this. What are some other options? There's all these other side benefits, like you said, of, having multiple streams of income and not just having the one employer. let just say you're both working for the same player. That's always a risk for a couple. Or a family's what if something really big happened to this company? There's a lot of risks. Like Covid. Yeah. Like Covid, for sure. Okay. Thank, thanks for just giving us a little insight on that. was just, I was I'd like to ask those questions cuz I think they're interesting. They not necessarily appointed the show, but I do think just help people think about what, is there a time in my life that'll pop up or is something to look out for? Or what how have. People or couples dealt with this, these challenges themselves here. So that's fair. And I think there's probably a whole episode just in that as well. And whether you take it from the point of, okay, now marriage and two people, how people think about money together, how do, how we think about real estate versus investing in the 401k and then children, and there's a whole nother thing there, story there. Absolutely. Absolutely. Let's talk about the piece. You you ended with yourself on the last segment or the last section. and that was when you step into this space, when you have, you get the opportunity, the bug, the resources, the knowledge or whatever, like hey, maybe there's other ways of investing. Could be the stock market could be bonds. And to some people those things are just brand new. We just, maybe we'll just get a job, start contributing to 401k cuz everyone says it and it's automatically set up and blah, blah, blah. But some of us are maybe more savvy, maybe you already have stocks, or maybe it's the first time we're investing. But as far as alternative investing in the real estate space. how does one pick the right path for themselves? Like you. Short-term rental, medium-term rental, flips, wholesaling, commercial, all these different things. How do you think the path is best done? What are some mindset things that you work through or some processes that you, if you use to, to drive it, to get to where you need to go? Definitely starts with self-reflection and understanding where you want to be. Like what is your ultimate goal and what does life actually look like when you get to that point? And then backing into it from there. And obviously you need to be educated on what the different different real estate niches are. You mentioned wholesaling. Short-term rentals, flipping, obviously we talk about multi-family rentals and syndications, but understand what that end goal was. Our part of our process was that one, we had to have a mindset shift to understand that real estate was a secure investment and more res recession resistant than the rollercoaster on the stock market. Yes. And then, We wanted, we didn't want, we didn't want another job per se. Yeah. So when we explored different things like short-term rentals, that there's more, there's higher returns there. If you're doing, shorter projects, you can get really great returns, but it is more of a job cause you have a lot more turn of residents coming in and out or, transient guests coming in and out. And that's where, same thing with fix and flips. We did one fix and flip with partners. And I very quickly realized I don't wanna do fix and flips because I don't know what's gonna happen in the market two weeks from now. Like the total market could crash or it could be great and you're brilliant. But I didn't wanna be reliant on the market cycle quite as much and how much my neighbor house is sold for, even if I can go in and make this house a beautiful property. And that's where for. Long-term rentals came into play because it was a long-term strategy and a long-term, a long-term game. It doesn't, you can ride out the ebbs and flows of the market through the cash flow. And then growing into the syndication space allowed us just to scale that we ended up getting to. Tell us real quick what a syndication is for the people that are maybe brand new or have just not familiar without that term. Yeah, so a syndication in the real estate space is essentially the pooling of investor capital in order to acquire an asset. Typically larger than you would otherwise be able to acquire. For sure. And so a lot of. If you're a successful professional, we probably could find the money or somehow get a loan on to buy a single family home or maybe even a duplex somewhere and get a loan and maybe some additional money or have some additional money to fix it up. But syndication comes into into view. By necessity we're in these large buildings, a hundred units, 15 units, whatever it is, but it. These things. You're not actually gonna go get a loan for this. That's when this idea, this term that people use a lot, that maybe the audience some of the audience is familiar, some are not. But that's where the term syndication come from. That's why it's very powerful to use and that's why you do it. Like you just very succinctly articulated there. Kelly. Yeah. And initially I'll add, we weren't looking at doing syndications at all. We were on this. We just wanted, did you even know about it? Did you even know about it? That's something else. I found a lot of people, they don't even know what it is or what it don't even know about. I learned about it a couple years into our journey. Sure. Yeah. And actually I invested in my first indication a couple years into our journey as passive investors, but I didn't think that I would actually have the skills or the ability to be able to be a general partner. Basically the one controlling this indication, if you will, or on the controlling team of this syndication. So my husband and I, we ended up buying a six unit building, just the two of us. Cuz again, we thought we were just gonna do this on our own. Yeah. Yeah. That's actually a beautiful segue into the fi as we turn the final chapter of the show here, Kelly, into the details of the syndication. You've, you're, like you just shared, you are a passive investor or were a passive investor. I'm a passive investor in a couple deals. And we, I felt I went into it. Cause I felt really good way to win it. It definitely was a plan for myself. When I became a general partner or a lead partner on a deal, I would have the ability and the knowledge and the emotional, the empa, the empathy to understand what being a passive investor was and felt like. And just know that journey and so that I am one now and something like you are as well. Why, so then tell us what the, again, the kind of, the structure of you gave us a real high level, but. Tell us like now you are a gp. What did that actually. So as a general partner on a syndication, I am on the operating team, the owner operating team. So myself and my business partners, we are the individuals who are finding the deals, we're underwriting the deals, we're working with all the brokers, we're working with the lenders, the insurance companies to get all of the necessities that are needed in order to acquire a deal. We're also raising capital for the deals that we're doing, and then once we acquire the property or close on the property, we buy it. We are then overseeing all of the property management, the ac, the asset management, the renovation of the projects, stabilizing the assets so that we can get it to a point where we can either refinance it or sell it. For the path of investors. Yeah, so Kelly is on the decision team. So as a path investor, you don't really make decisions besides just going, you like knowing, liking, and trusting the team. And then you write a check for some minimal amount and then give that to the operating controlling team and then you let them execute the business plan. So Kelly is now on that team. Obviously folks too, I'm not sure a lot of, again, this is probably super basic for some. Maybe less so to others, but it sounds really exciting. So you at some point, Kelly I think of recent, you execute, you ex executed, exited your corporate job, and decided that this new path of syndication and being a general partner and being full-time in the real estate was right for you. Give us the bridge there and then tell us kinda the exciting really kinda, it's kinda an exciting inflection point or benchmark in your life journey. Tell us a little details there. If you. Yeah, it's quite exciting. So for a couple years I was going, I was doing both these paths. I was of course still working my corporate job and taking the active income that I was earning there and investing in deals so that we could create passive income so that we could eventually be able to just live on passive income and at the same time, I, along with my husband, were working on our own real estate projects. I mentioned we bought a six unit and then quickly scaled into multi-family syndications as well. And I was, we were going down both of these paths. COVID obviously happened and that gave us a great opportunity to be able to work remotely and get back some of our time by not having to commute, which we could spend more time than working on these real estate deals. And it got to a point where there was just so much time. I could be spending in real estate. Yes. And we had built up the passive income to a certain point that it was much more comfortable for us to make the decision for me to step away from my corporate job. And just last month I made that final move and I'm now full-time doing real estate syndication. That's so exciting. Such a big step in life. Big step for the family. And also you get though, if people were paying attention, there's definitely a storyline going here of, obviously the basics of college and then a job, and then corporate and then, seeing some discomfort in there, needing something additional and a convo and just this whole progression finally culminating into this last chapter, at least up, up until right now who knows where the future will hold here. Of actually going full-time to real estate. So tell us real quick Kelly as we wrap it up here where, what the future of 20 23, 20, even in 2024, what that holds for Kelly and her team. And then also give us the best way to connect with you and and even share or learn more about what you're doing. Yeah, so we're really excited about what, 2023 and then going into 2024 looks like. I think it's gonna be a great period for investors to jump into the market. Yes. There's obviously a lot of uncertainty taking place right now, and there's, this in the point in the market where we're figuring out where sellers and buyers can meet. But, here's the thing with real estate, it's. You don't time the market, you buy real estate and wait, you don't wait to buy real estate. So make those investments look for opportunities. And I would say the best way to get ahold of me is I have a really great 12 page ebook on financial Free Achieving Financial Freedom through apartment investing on my website. So if you reach out to me on my website, it is www.waypointcip.com. And that would be the great way to, best way to get ahold of me. And then you can find me on LinkedIn as well. Awesome, Mario. All right. Alright folks. Listen out there. So she's got a great ebook. She has a cool website. She's on LinkedIn a lot as well. So those, it's not that hard to get in contact with the folks like myself or Kelly. We're out there. It's what we do. We, it's all we know. It's a people business and we wanna connect with you and Show your, we wanna share your pain and lessen the pain and create another alternative path. And there's definitely newer, better ways out there of doing these things. So don't feel like you're stuck. There's ways. Talk to folks like us. So anyway, Kelly, thank you for connecting. Thank you for sharing your story. And until next time, we will. We'll see you again. Take care, everyone.