Episode 33: Bethany LaFlam | Unlocking Wealth and Raising Capital the Right Way

Wow, guys. You are gonna love this conversation with Bethany Laflamme and totally understand why she is a girl after my own heart. Bethany is a top securities attorney and co owner of the Premier Law Group where she helps entrepreneurs and investors raise capital the right way. So incredibly important and doesn't always happen. Known for simplifying SEC compliance, Bethany makes legal strategy approachable, actionable, and growth focused.

She is also the author of OPE. Make sure you check that out. Let's take it away with Bethany.

Hello, and welcome to the Power Up Your Life podcast powered by GoBundance Women. I'm Mandy McAllister.

And I'm Kelly Resendez.

Okay, guys. So excited today. We have with us my girl, Bethany LaFlamme. Hey, Beth. How are you? I'm so good. How are you? I'm just fully caffeinated, living my best life. Oh, well, thank god. Worries. Well, why don't we just kinda start from the beginning? Just for our listeners who have not had a chance to meet you yet, tell us a little about you.

So, my my day job is I'm a a securities layer, and all that means is I help real estate investors raise capital, leveraging other people's money, OPM, safely under the securities guideline, which sounds like a lot. But that is what funds my passions, which is investing in boutique hotels and luxury resorts. So that fuels that.

And so my and then we have a community called the Conscious Capital Collective, which is really built to support the people who are are building their wealth, and, it's all about attainable wealth and attainable luxury.

I think it's so like, the the focus on wealth building, and sometimes you gotta do a thing to fuel another thing. I think that's so important. And one of my favorite jokes that you tell about this, attorney thing is that you help people practice safe SEC. I just find that so

hilarious. Yeah. I love

it. So Like the safe sec.

Yeah. Hilarious. So tell me a little bit about, like, you are the person who helps people raise capital in the the correct way so that they can fuel their businesses. You know, maybe for for the the world that we're living in now, tell me just a couple mistakes that people make when they're raising capital, high level.

I think the biggest mistake people make when raising capital is they, they underestimate how hard it is at first in some ways, and they they go out to start paying people to raise for them. Right? And you can't do that. You can't pay people just to raise capital for you. And I get it. I've been in this game. I'm raising capital right now. And what I wouldn't give, right, to just pay someone and do it for me. But you can't do that.

People who you you have to have a license actually to get paid to raise capital. It's a broker dealer license. It's FINRA. It's highly regulated. The only reason that we in our world are allowed to raise capital from passive investors is to operate our own business, which means if someone's raising capital with you, it's gotta be their own business too. So they have to have a meaningful role in your business.

So that's that's the biggest mistake is people are like, I'll just give you 10% if you go raise $500,000 for me. That's A lot of that happens. Never almost never okay. It can be okay, but almost nobody does it the right way for it to be okay. So that's the biggest mistake, I think.

And then the other agree. Yeah. It's scary. And I get it. I do. I get it. I get it. It's you gotta raise the money in order to buy these these properties. I understand that. But in in some ways, I think people, they they overestimate how hard it's gonna be. Right? Because if you have a really good deal, you're offering an opportunity to people to make money that they wouldn't otherwise be able to make while they sleep.

They can use their their high earning w two to make money for them, and that is the only way to actually grow wealth. You're never going to really, really be wealthy just from a w two. I don't care how much you make Because the minute you stop working, it stops coming. And so you've gotta be able to invest.

And if you learn that and you teach people how to do that, which I think you guys are doing here, I think you're providing an opportunity for someone, not begging for money. Yeah. And so I think it's just a mindset shift.

Love it. Exactly true. Bethany, do you do capital raising support for businesses and for real estate, or you just focused on real estate?

Primarily real estate. Although we are spending a little bit out. And and to be clear, I just help people stay compliant while they're raising the money. I'm not raising for them. I raise money for my own deals, but I don't raise money for I love it.

But we are expanding into operating businesses in our community because I think that in addition to real estate real estate is a really good way to to create,

long term wealth. I think businesses are better for cash flow. Yeah. No. I love it. I'm big in both. Like, for myself personally, you know, my portfolio's got over 20 businesses in it and then, you know, similar on the real estate side. So I think it's really important that people educate themselves.

So, you know, let's let's talk about the ugly truth. The last few years have been really brutal for a lot of us that have invested in deals that somebody else was raising capital on. Now I can tell you that my good friend, Mandy, has kicked butt for me on stuff that I've done with her, but, like, I'm the person that wants to trust someone else to invest my money wisely when it comes to real estate. I'm a business strategist. I'm not a real estate one.

So what are some of those things that you can do to really protect yourself? Because, you know, my situation was I trusted the person that trusted the person, and it went sideways. You know? So the amount of money that I've energetically released into the world in the last three years, and this was pretty high. Pretty high. So how do I how do I avoid those pitfalls?

You know, I mean, some things, it's just it is unavoidable. Like, there I mean, sometimes it's a bad operator. Sometimes it's fraud. Sometimes it's just black swan events like we kinda had over the past few years that we just didn't see. You know? Like, interest rates going up at the same time as insurance is impossible to get at the same time that occupancy drops and all the things. Right? So I sometimes it's just it just sucks. Right? And I know that's not a a good answer for you because it's like, well, what can I do to take control of my situation?

Yeah. I think the biggest thing to do, though, is really dig deep in who you trust and your diligence process. So we all have we all have buy if we're if we're investing responsibly, we have a buy box, right, for our assets. You have a buy box for your businesses. You have a buy box for your real estate. We also need a buy box for with whom we invest. What does a communication need to look like? What does the team need to look like? What does the track record need to look like for me to be comfortable?

And it's gonna be different for me than it is for you because I might have a different risk tolerance or I might like different asset classes or I might I might have different goals. Right? And so I think it's really, really important, though, for passive investors to have their own buy box and be intentional, which means as a passive investor, you need to know what your investing goals are. Right. Right? Because and a lot of times this is why I love I love you guys because you're you're educating people on what this looks like so that people can then power up. Right? They can they can take their w two and turn it into a wealth building machine, but sometimes people don't even know what the heck that means. Yeah. Right?

Right. And so I think if you know your goals, like, okay. I'm getting a little bit older. I can't do as much risk right now. Or, hey. I'm just getting started. I I want big returns over time. I've got time to wait. Right? You know what your goals are, then you can pick your operators from there. Right? And and pick your assets from there. So I think first Creating a buy voucher investments is one big thing to do and really dialing in your listen to your gut.

Yeah. How many times have we just shut her up? Right? Because we're like, oh, that's not logic. That's not Yeah. Listen to your gut. If it feels off, go. There are plenty of good deals and good operators to invest with. Right. Definitely. It's the whole Warren Buffett

thing. I failed a little bit was that I didn't do my own due diligence. I trusted the pro form a without going a little bit deeper. I didn't assess some of these other, you know, aspects of what it was. And so I really consider these learning opportunities for me, and and I'm just gonna move forward. You know? And I'm I'm gonna con continue to do that.

I also got caught in what what they believe is gonna be the largest Ponzi scheme in California. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Lafever Matson, Ken Matson situation. I've known these guys for twenty six years. And, you know, and I think we you can even trust somebody for ten years, and they've done a great job for you, but you can never stop doing your due diligence as you as you move forward because people get into life situations.

So, you know, Bethany, I think I'm gonna continue the conversation with you right now because it looks like our girl, Mandy, has frozen up on us, and I'm not sure, when she's gonna be back. So one of the things that I would ask, you know, for anyone listening so what GoBundance women really focuses on is helping you scale, whether that's your business or your investment portfolio without sacrifice. And there are some rituals and recipes for successful people out there like yourself that have gotten you where you're going. So what would you say are some of those things that have really supported you on your business journey?

I wrote a whole book on it, and the book is called the power of OPE. I love it. Everything. And I think the very, very biggest jump forward in my life and in my business and in my not getting burned out for the sake of of getting more. Right? Yeah. Is is letting go. It's letting go and and and bringing in other people.

But before you can do that, you can't just let go and and just be like and I've done this too, by the way. I've made the mistakes, and so I wrote a whole book on it so people can at least start from ahead of where I was. Right? OPE

stand for again? Other people's everything.

Other people's We're all leveraging OPM, other people's money. Right? And I kinda did a deep dive into that, and I was like, that's not enough. It's not enough because just money isn't usually the answer. We we think we wanna make more money, and we do probably wanna make more money, but that's not enough. Right? And and we don't wanna sacrifice ourselves, like you said, without without sacrificing yourself. Right? So without the burnout, without the whole culture, without all the garbage that goes along with getting more and more and more.

So, wait, you don't have to sacrifice your health and and your relationships and everything else to be successful? Not sustainable if you do. I did it for years. That's that's what this is. Right? I did it for years. And and I'll tell you, I I made a lot of money, and I was miserable. I wasn't my best self. I wasn't my best mom. I wasn't my best business person. I got so much better at all the things when I asked for help.

But in order to ask for help in a way that makes sense, you have to know exactly what your goals are, what your extraordinary life looks like, which is fun. I when I first started doing this, my my coach at the time was like, alright. We're gonna, like, dream about what's your perfect life, what's your extraordinary life. We did this whole vision board thing, and I was like, dude, I have a business run. I don't have time for this shit. I need, like, I need to make more money. I need to do this. I need to do and she was just like, just humor me for a minute. Right? And we we looked at like, I got to vision, like, what's my extraordinary life look like? What part of this am I doing?

And I call it my lane. Right? What's my lane? My lane is 3 things. It is what I'm amazing at. Like, no one does it as well as me my lane. I also super love it. Lights me up. I'm excited to come out of bed to do it every day. But, also, three, it moves the needle towards my extraordinary life because, otherwise, it's just a hobby. It's gotta be all three.

And then my goal in life and in business, my primary goal is to do as much of that as possible and as little of anything else as possible and find other people to do all the other things.

Yeah. All of them. I think that's an extraordinary point. This idea of first you have to vision what this life looks like so that you can know what that North Star is that you're running after.

So, you know, let's talk to somebody who's kind of in it, that they haven't yet done that visioning process. But, oh, you know, that's cool. That's Bethany. Bethany is special. She wrote a book. She's an attorney. She does all these big things.

Tell me a little bit about what step one could look like or should look like to anybody that you're gonna speak to that isn't yet in that visioning phase.

You have to trust yourself enough to take a breath and and really do the visioning because it feels whimsical. It feels like a waste of time. It feels like I have things to do. I will do that when I. But the thing that I learned is there is no when I unless you do it. There's always gonna be another goal. There's always gonna be another thing to do. There's always gonna be something that's gonna take your attention, and you don't know if it's getting you closer to your goal because you didn't take that step of figuring out what it is.

And so you'll be busy all the time. You can be. And it might be taking you down the road the wrong way because you haven't taken the time to figure out where you're going. So it feels soft. It feels whimsical. It feels too fun to be an entrepreneur. Like, why is this fun? Why am I I can't have fun. I'm struggling. I'm hustling. I'm an entrepreneur.

No. I I actually I will tell you this. I think the only way to be successful is if you figure out a way to still hustle and work hard, but make that part not stuck. It doesn't have to suck. I I see these influencers out there saying, well, it's gonna suck for a really long time before it doesn't. Yeah. Or you're not gonna have any friends. I'm like, who literally would wanna live that life? What what who tells me when it can stop sucking? Is it you? Is it Right. It's just like hustle porn. You know? Like, I do not subscribe to that at all. It's like so gross. It's it's gross.

Yeah. And it is. I see the people who do it, and I don't look. This is gonna probably get me canceled. But the the biggest offenders and I love their content for the most part. I'm not even gonna say who they are. I love their content. I think they have really great business models. I adore them. And they're out there telling you how hard it's gonna be and how much it's gonna suck, and you have to sacrifice that it up. They don't have kids.

Yeah.

And I'm not saying you have to have kids to get it. I'm saying it makes you get it immediately when you have kids. So you can get it before that, and you can actually have it not suck if you don't have kids. That's fine.

But the people who don't have kids telling you that you gotta grind it out and it sucks, you're gonna show up for your kids. You just are. And so why not figure out a way to not make it suck? It can, by the way. I'm living proof that it can. Totally.

I love this. Tell me a little bit about your, the not making it suck, the living the life of your dreams, these resorts, these boutique hotels. I also am a boutique hotel owner, so this is one of the things that we are kindred spirits on. You know, tell me a little bit about that life and and brag a little on those.

You know, we're under contract actually at a new one in Costa Rica. Super excited about it. But the whole the whole thing is we are investing in places that are giving us a return. But every time I go there, I make money. I am going to a vacation spot, and I'm making money back. Every time our investors go, they're making money back. Right? And it's not a time share. It's a it's an investment. We're running it. They're not doing it.

But I I'm like, and it gets the best of both worlds because you get real estate and operating businesses. So you get the upside, the appreciation, but you also get the cash flow of operating businesses because we've got a spa. We've got restaurants. We've got all the different ways to add revenue. And it is, I feel like you get to go enjoy it.

Like, look. I I'm passively invested in other asset classes and, in storage and and mobile home parks, but am I gonna go hang out there? You know? I think this is so fun because you get to enjoy it and you get to make money on it. And I feel like that is what my extraordinary life looks like is that I get to travel and I get to do these things that then pay me back. Yeah.

I love that. About,

a summit or a retreat for GoBundance women,

offline here. Is that the one are you the one that that Karen was at your place and, like, I was getting all these videos, and I had so much fun when I almost hopped on a plane? Like, they when she said two. Yeah. I love that. Now we're gonna buy another one in Costa Rica, and then I just did this really fun thing. It just I I just found out last night that it worked,

because I talk about attainable luxury. Right? So luxury without sacrificing your financial goals just for the sake of looking like you are rich. Right? Yeah.

I'm moving. And I'm moving to, I live in Southern California. And, what I did, I rent Southern California because I can go buy a hotel somewhere else for how much it costs to buy a home here. Yeah. So I rent here, and then I buy hotels somewhere else. So I choose to do that. That's that's my financial plan.

But what I did was I looked up a bunch of luxury properties that were sitting on the market. And this in this market, that can happen. Four years ago, they were like, you know, you had to pay a year up front just to get anywhere. But now luxury homes are sitting.

So I called a few, and you've gotta you've gotta figure out, like, what's your budget? What is it that you want? Whatever. I I sent a letter. Thank you, Chatchi BT. I sent a letter to a few of them, and I said, listen. Here's how much I'm gonna pay you in rent. I noticed your property has been sitting for a while. I'm gonna pay this much in rent because that was what my personal budget is.

But I host retreats, and I can manage, and I can manage photo shoots at your property. Not Airbnb, not VRBO. I'll always be present. And I will give you 100% of the revenue until you hit the asking rent that you're never gonna get in this market, by the way. And then I will split with you fifty fifty anything above that.

So you actually have a chance to make more than the rent you're asking for if you're patient with me while I use your property for photoshoots, movie sets, retreats. So now I'm moving to this property where I can host retreats, and it is epic, you guys. And I'm paying less rent than I am now.

And that's in Costa Rica? No. No. No. I'm in it's in Southern California in your Oh, it's in Southern California. No. That's amazing.

Well, you know, I wish we had a lot longer to stay, but one of the things I you know, as we're getting ready to wrap up, one thing I can't help but notice is just your energy. You're so present, and I'm so grateful for that. It's something I've been working on for the last twenty, you know, plus years.

What would you say that shift was? Was it going through some struggle? Because it is, you know, it is very rare that somebody can show up that embodied. And so there's gotta be some secrets that you have to this.

Yes. There was some struggle that I had to overcome, and I think every interesting story had some struggle that you had to overcome.

But more than that is my my phone is blowing up right now. I don't need to look at it because I trust my team has it. Mhmm. I I OPs, my other people, this I when I say other people's everything, I mean it. I'm in my lane. This is my lane. This is what I'm supposed to be doing right now is talking to you.

Yeah. We have a deadline going on with the Costa Rica property. They've got it covered. Love it. So it'll be okay when I'm done here. I don't need to be checking my phone. I don't need to be making sure.

And I was like that for the longest time. I'm like, oh god. I can't be out here talking to you. I got this and I would have been, you know, on my phone. They got it. My OPs have it. That's my

That's great.

Alright, Mandy. Take us home. Oh, I I really feel like, you know, you're you're a big giver. You know, you've given all this information, and and we love the opportunity to support givers like you. So, you know, tell us, what is a resource or an introduction that helps take you to the next level so that we and our listeners can help support you?

Well, we are currently raising for the Rev Luxury Fund, so passive investors. But, really, I I wanna bring people into our Conscious Capital Collective community so that we can continue to grow and support this message of you can create your wealth without burning out. So Mhmm. Capital Collective.

Yeah. We say a lot more about sacrifice.

Yes. Yes. Exactly.

Yeah. I look forward to you getting in the business space. So I'm currently raising capital for a couple, health companies. I'm in femtech and medtech. So, definitely, that's exciting.

So so many great gifts and and pieces of wisdom that you left. But I think the biggest one is just, you know, being in proximity of other people that have that that same value system and that level of integrity. And then just really being thoughtful about, you know, the way that you wanna write deals and and, you know, trust that instinct too. So that was super powerful for me.

I love the trusting yourself piece. I the trust yourself and then hire the right people and let the smart people do that you what they do, you know, and then know that they've got it. Those were my favorite pieces.

So, Bethany, thank you so much for joining us. For all of our listeners out there, if you liked this episode, if you know someone who needs to talk about OPE or someone who needs to raise capital the right way, make sure you're sharing this episode. Make sure you're subscribing to Power of Your Life, and we will see you, on the next episode next week. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.