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Pushing Through Mistakes And Having Control Over Your Success With Anna Scheller

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An award-winning podcaster, speaker, TV show host, and sales success strategist, Anna Scheller coaches entrepreneurs to develop strategies that result in more sales for their businesses, while creating profit for future growth. She began her business career as a real estate investor, and has learned many lessons as a result. In this episode, Anna joins Moneeka Sawyer to talk about how she got through a time when she was losing $10K/month and how she was self-sabotaging herself while building her business.

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Pushing Through Mistakes And Having Control Over Your Success With Anna Scheller

I am excited to dive deep into this conversation more than anything else. The reason that I’m so excited about this conversation is I want the ladies to understand that real people do real estate, real people make real mistakes, and real people recover. You’re not out there as a big high fly in real estate pro like a lot of people that are on this show. They’ve been around a while. They’ve got resources that the small guy doesn’t normally have. I’m excited that you’re willing to share this because I know it’s vulnerable for you but I also know that it helped my lady. Thank you for that.

You’re welcome.

Let’s start with the conversation on how you were self-sabotaging yourself and your business.

Growing up, I’d been the victim of sexual abuse. It’s a painful topic but I do know that 1 out of every 3 people has experienced that. The numbers could be bigger because we don’t know what the true numbers are simply for the fact that most people don’t come forward and say anything. With that background, my mom and I came forward with that when I was a child. It was happening at my school. I lost a ton of friends. Only two people stuck around to be my friend. I didn’t understand it. I was only six years old. I internalized that and began to think that I wasn’t as smart as I thought or I wasn’t as pretty as I thought. That was back when I was six years old but it carried through.

When I went into real estate investing, I had this idea that I could not handle money well. I’ve been taught that money doesn’t grow on trees. People who are wealthy are filthy rich. I had a lot of those things that I was struggling with, plus I’d grown up in a religious background. I shared in the other show how my foundation with Christ is important to my life and to my business. It was back then, it still is, and I’m grateful for that. Religion, however, some of the dos and don’ts that come in that aren’t necessarily God’s way, those things can hinder our ability. I grew up in a culture where women always had to defer to men for the decisions.

Create affirmations that support what you're trying to do because the more you hear it, the more you will act on it. Share on X

I would see an opportunity. I shared some of those opportunities earlier. I would see many opportunities but I was afraid to contradict my husband. I would bring those opportunities to him and he said, “That’s not going to work.” I’m going to be honest with you. It was a safe place for me because if he says, “I don’t think it’s going to work,” I didn’t have any risk. I could always say to somebody if I had been speaking to them, I would say, “My husband is not interested.” He was my backup. When I would get scared, all I had to do was present the opportunity in a way to my husband to get him to see all the negatives.

I did it for years and years. That hindered us from making a lot of decisions. I had employees. I had a gal who was working for me. She worked for me for six years and I did not know how to work with employees. I had always been living with the fact that, “If I was a good leader, I always listened to people and I didn’t micromanage.” Those are good things to do. I’m not saying that’s not good leadership at all. What I did is I let other people make the decisions that I should have been making. I wasn’t holding people accountable because I was afraid that they would get hurt or offended.

If a decision went wrong, I took the blame for it but it was because I let somebody else make those decisions like this particular employee. Ultimately, when she left, it was extremely painful. She blamed me for her leaving, which would have happened regardless. It was hard not to internalize that and tell myself I was a terrible leader because when you believe you’re a bad leader or you believe you make poor decisions, what you do is you set things up to where it’s not going to work out. It happens that way.

I want to highlight this because it’s important. What happens inside of your head is what’s going to show up in your life. If you believe that you are a poor leader or you make bad decisions, your subconscious is going to perform. It will help you to make bad decisions and make you a bad leader. It’s the way that it works out. That doesn’t mean that if that’s already your belief, you could immediately say, “I’m a great leader and I make great decisions.” Your subconscious needs a little time to be convinced and to adjust.

There needs to be some transition but understand that all of those things are things that you’re creating. They support you in some way like you were talking about your belief about deferring to her husband. It became a good cop, bad cop thing with you and your husband. You didn’t want to do it and he could be the bad cop. My husband and I do this all the time but we’re conscious of it. We have conversations about it. Now I’m going to be a good cop or I’m going to be a bad cop. We make decisions around that.

That’s clever because you’re calling it out, it’s out on the table. It can’t sabotage you from the inside.

It’s a strategy rather than a self-sabotaging mentality. That’s another thing that you can do to support yourself is see what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how can you get the benefit of that without subconsciously sabotaging yourself. I don’t make good money decisions. It can be an excuse but I will say this. The more that you tell yourself something, the more you’re going to believe it. I make bad money decisions is not a good belief to use as a strategy because you want that one completely out of your life. I like to use my husband as an excuse for making hard decisions that I don’t want to have to make.

That’s a strategy you can use but being conscious about it. When your subconscious, you’re sabotaging. When you’re conscious, you’re creating a strategy. You can tell what’s going on in your mind by looking at what’s happening in your life. If there’s something that’s happening in your life, you can reverse construct it to see what’s going on in your mind. As you change your mind, you will slowly, it’s not going to be an instantaneous thing, unfortunately, but over time, you will see the evolution of thought.

That thought must have changed. Look at what’s happening. As I said to one of my coaches, I said, “I keep getting good news. It keeps rolling in.” That’s true now. Even during COVID or what we’ve got going on, good news keeps rolling in. Being with that hasn’t always been the case. It’s starting to happen and then when something goes wrong, I can say, “We had one piece of bad news, but good news keeps rolling in.” That’s what’s showing up in my life. Sorry to hijack the conversation, but it was valuable what you said there.

It is. Some of the things that I did to pull out of that and I want to share about a real key strategy that has helped me that some people would say, “It costs a lot of money.” You’re going to pay one way or the other. There are three practices that I have that are important for dealing with this. The first one is to find affirmations that support your new belief. You want to do these affirmations, you want to record them in your voice. I do them in three persons so I do the I, Anna you, and Anna does. That way, I’m hearing it three different ways. That’s important. The book that I recommend for creating powerful affirmations is called The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.

Don’t quit moving forward. Share on X

He talks about how to create those affirmations that support what you’re trying to do because the more you hear it, the more you’re going to act on it. The other thing is visualization. That’s also part of The Miracle Morning. Visualize how you’re going to work through a difficult situation. A case in point, we had a poop storm with a client. It became obvious to me that the landlord that I was working with was becoming increasingly anxious, beginning to take more and more control, and was looking to charge me through the nose for a number of things. Some of which I didn’t agree with. I visualized how I was going to negotiate with this lady about what I was willing to pay for and what I was not willing to pay for.

That was a scary thing for me some time ago because I would always placate somebody so I didn’t have to deal with the hard part. I would always give them whatever they asked for. This time, I realized that I couldn’t do that because it wasn’t good for my company and I was accountable to my client. I visualized how that conversation would go. It didn’t go exactly how I visualized but I had composure in the conversation and let the person know what I was willing to do when I wasn’t. Unfortunately, it put that other person on the defense. That’s not my problem but the visualization helped me to prepare for the conversation with confidence. The third thing is that I didn’t quit moving forward.

I moved right along in step with the next thing that needs to happen. As you start to build successes, that also helps to build your confidence so that you say, “This could go wrong and this can go wrong.” I’ve got contingencies to take care of that, so I’m going to move forward. It’s good to have those contingencies because you need to be aware. You put in for property. You want to make sure you have an option period so that you can get out if you find out there’s a problem or renegotiate the price. The property has to appraise at a certain value or you’re not going to move forward. You can put those things in there to mitigate your risk but move forward anyway. Those are the three things that have helped me. I’m still on an ongoing journey. I’m not at all accomplished in terms of I don’t have these issues anymore. I deal with them every day and I have to remind myself that I got this far, I’ve got help, I’ll continue to move forward.

It never stops. I still have days where bliss is hard for me or running my business is hard for me. As we move up to the next level, you’re going to have a whole new level of opportunities for expansion. It keeps going, it doesn’t stop. That’s because we, as humans, are here to expand and to grow. We need to trust that we will never be handed something that we can’t handle. Through this, we’re developing the skillsets to become a better version of ourselves and create the life that we want for ourselves. Tell us about pulling your business, I hope this term is okay, out of the dump. You had some rough time.

That’s okay. It was in the dump. I mentioned previously that I had this gentleman that I had been working with and he constantly reaffirmed my value. That was the first step in pulling my business out because if I believed that I couldn’t do it, then we were in trouble.

 

You were losing $10,000 a month, correct?

I was losing $10,000 a month and I had to get to a place where I could say, “This is bad but there are resources.” The first thing I did is I sat down to see what vendors I could go to that would be able to take payment plans so that they were constantly getting money from me but it wasn’t as much as I should’ve, would’ve, could’ve paid them. The first thing was to look at those people, go to them, and be honest. It was humbling but I went to them and I told them my situation, what was going on, my intention to pay, and this is what I could do to keep the relationship going. Most of them were understanding. The others who were not put me to step two. Step two was to look at what resources I could. I had to go out and borrow money to get through the difficulty. Was that a bad thing?

It kept us going until we could get through that period. I learned a few things along the way, I was much more conscious of how stepping or trying to be speculative in my business was not warranted. It all started with sitting down and realizing that I had resources. When you’re going through something like that, there’s so much that goes on inside of you. I would come to my desk and I would sob. My employees were afraid that they were going to lose their jobs because I would come to my office, they would come, they’d pat me on the shoulder, and they’d go, “It’s going to be okay.” I’m going, “You have no idea.”

I still had to pay for their payroll. I wasn’t getting paid. I still have to pay the rent. Some of the apartment communities worked with me. They had people coming in so that I could release those leases. It was a lot of negotiating which I was uncomfortable with but I did it anyway. I’m going to recommend another book. It’s one of my favorite books. I’m going into a study group for this book. This book is called Never Split the Difference. It’s written by a gentleman named Chris Voss. Chris was an FBI negotiator. I didn’t know about this book back then. If I did, I don’t know that I would have been as quick to implement it as I am now because I was such a fearful person back then.

This book will take you through the steps to negotiate and get people to come where you are instead of you always having to split the difference. There are a lot of powerful stories here. I will tell you in using this, I made an offer on a property. The property was selling for $159,900. That’s what the owner was asking. I went in and I offered $120,000. My expectation was that the seller might come down halfway. The seller came down to $129,000. The seller dropped $30,000 off the price. Did I use these techniques while I’m working with a realtor? I didn’t have the fun of trying all of this stuff but I will tell you that this does work. I’ve used it in many situations, personal and business, it does work and it gives you a place of strength to work from.

As you start to build successes, it also helps to build your confidence. Share on X

I did have that to a degree when I was going through the $10,000 a month hemorrhaging because I was willing to step out. I may not have done it perfectly but I did it. We’re in a position we can pay back all of those loans that I had to take out for that time and we’re in a much more comfortable and powerful position. If I may share about 2019 that I was thinking about folding the business. If you’re reading this blog, I’ve got to tell you that there are times that it gets hard that you’re wondering if you’ve made the right decision, things don’t seem to have gone right, and you aren’t sure where to go anymore.

I was at that place in 2019. We had come through the $10,000 a year, but I still felt like I was treading water. I thought, “We either need to grow or we fold. This is not working. I’m spending a lot of time. I’m not getting paid. I go to bed at night fearful that the next day, something is going to go wrong.” I contacted a guy named Carl Gould. I met Carl through a conference that my daughter and I do together. I called him and I said, “Do you think that this is something you could help me with?” He asked me a few questions. He said, “This is what’s going to cost for me to come out there but I’m going to come out there.” It was going to be $9,000 for him to come to see me. I thought, “What have I got to lose?” Carl came out, he spent two days with me and my assistant. I was at that time one employee, I’m back up to two. If I could show you all of the stuff he left behind, he is looking at growing my company by 10x-ing my company. I was like, “How?” He saw potential. We hired him. Every week, I meet with either Carl or one of my advisors.

I have a marketing sales advisor, operational advisor, financial advisor, and I work with Carl. With them, we worked together on strategy. I haven’t always been good about doing everything they’ve said but I am now in a position to go out and do more real estate investing again which I forgot how much fun it is. I forgot how exciting it is to look at a property and get it to where somebody will want to buy it or to find rentals and give people places to live. Working with this team has been phenomenal for me. I would say that would be the fourth thing. When you’re going through a crisis, you have to be willing to pay somebody to help you. They see things you don’t see. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. All I saw was this company had default because I couldn’t see how could I get out.

A lot of times we’re in it. We’re deep in that hole and we can’t see the light or we can’t see any way out. Other people come, they look down, and they’re like, “There is a ladder right here. You could have crawled up.” You’re like, “It was dark down here.” They can see things that we don’t see because we’re trapped in our own minds and our way of thinking.

When I hired this guy to come out, she knew how much I was going to have to pay him. She said, “I don’t think we need it because things were starting to pick up.” I said, “Let’s see what he says.” The way he opened her mind to the possibilities for the company that I couldn’t even see. When he left, she goes, “That was worth it.”

 

What is the name of his company? I know that he works nationally.

He does work nationally. The name of his company is 7 Stage Advisors. If you go to 7StageAdvisors.com, that will help. If one of your audience does, tell them that Anna Scheller sent you. He might give you a discount. Carl is always confident. I had been working with him for 3 or 4 months and I started to feel like, “I keep messing up.” My husband didn’t have the vision and he still has trouble with that. I might even choke up because it meant so much to me. I was having a real crisis of doubt and confidence.

I was beginning to wonder if I had done the right thing or if I was screwing things up, and Carl said, “Anna, what you are doing is going to benefit your family. Isn’t that why you’re doing this?” I go, “Yes.” He goes, “Anna, you don’t have to please anybody. Your husband loves you. I love you, not in a weird way. You are free to make whatever decision you need to make. Make the decision you think is best. You do not have to ask me. You do not even have to ask your husband. Just make a decision.” That was the most freeing thing for me because I realized my decisions were not detrimental. It gets back to what we talked about in the first place.

My decisions were going to be to benefit my family, which was my ultimate goal. He was there merely to support me. I will remember that conversation for as long as I live because he gave back to me the confidence to continue to move forward. That’s what I’m going to say to your readers. You have what you need to make good decisions. If you make the decision, the best decision with the information you have now, then you’re making a good decision. If something changes tomorrow, then you have new information, and you can make another decision but don’t be afraid to make a decision because you have the strength, resources, and confidence. You might not have the confidence but you need to step out regardless because you’re going to learn something that’s going to be extremely valuable to you, your family for whatever your goals are, you’ve got this. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Thank you. That was valuable.

You’re welcome.

Ladies, thank you. I don’t even have anything else to say. That was beautiful. I want to close with this. Thank you for taking the extra step towards your financial freedom. Always remember, you do have control over your success. I’ll see you soon.

Important Links:

• Anna Scheller
• The Miracle Morning
• Never Split the Difference
• Carl Gould
• 7StageAdvisors.com

About Anna Scheller

I am a dynamic Keynote Speaker with a heart to help people create more sales. As an educator for over 20 years, I have the skills to provide learning in a fresh and engaging perspective.

I have a unique style that combines sales with training. As a 3rd degree black belt in TaeKwonDo, I combine the black belt mindset with sales training to provide engaging and thought-provoking training.

Every month I lead a free sales training workshop and I attend regular keynote speaker events to help sales professionals expand their network and practice sales skills in a safe environment. My passion as a sales trainer is to empower people to elevate their results and realize their significant contribution to life. Among others, I have spoken to dealerships, financial institutions, as well as leadership classes for the local Chamber of Commerce. I am currently conducting sales training workshops for the Small Business Development Centre for Rio Grande College along the Texas-Mexico Border, as well as conducting webinars for clients all over the world. My passion is fueled by experiencing the change in my own businesses as a result of investment in professional sales training. In one year, I increased the revenues in my corporate housing business 50% and doubled the volume in my network marketing business. I am available for free motivational talks to any size organization.

To see this program in video:

Search on Roku for Real Estate Investing 4 Women or go to this link: https://blissfulinvestor.com/biroku

On YouTube go to Real Estate Investing for Women (link:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4FF7vwqQI1HsZ1uXln4-uQ/videos)

To watch the EXTRA portion of this show go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com  (link to https://glow.fm/realestateforwomen/ )

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