From Undercover Sex Work to a $30 Million Real Estate Portfolio

Laura Spaulding has not had a standard road to success.

She went into the military in the early 90s because she was homeless and wanted to go to college. After college, she became a cop in the Midwest. And then, solely because she wanted to earn overtime, she agreed to work undercover pretending to be a sex worker. That led into undercover work busting drug dealers.

From there it led to a crime scene clean-up business, then a crime scene cleanup business that also flips the real estate where the crime took place and then a franchise.

Have I mentioned the $20 million real estate portfolio or the millions of social media subscribers?

Well, it’s all in this episode — along with her tips for bouncing back from failure.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Anna: Okay, Laura. Hello. We’re starting with failures. What’s your earliest failure?

Laura: Oh boy. My earliest failure in business or in life in general?

Anna: Let’s do life.

Laura: Life. Probably going into the military was a, probably a bad decision at that time. It was 1994.

Anna: The height of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Laura: Yep. Don’t, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell up just got passed and the upper echelon in the military was not happy about it. And they were going to stick it to Bill Clinton any way they could. And they decided to stick it to me. So, you know, it’s probably not a failure in the traditional sense, but probably in hindsight, not a good decision to be the martyr for the gay community at that point (laughs). But I learned a ton out of the experience. Mostly resilience. But it was a, certainly a very life changing experience in a bad way (laughs).

Anna: How long were you in the military?

Laura: It was about six months.

Anna: Okay. So you got the hell out?

Laura: Well, they got me the hell out. So it was a witch hunt. In, again 1994. So 1993 is when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell passed. So in 94 they did a witch hunt in the female side of, of, of the army at that time, and they got three of us. And it was just based on opinions. So they would say like, “Anna, who do you think is gay?” And then if Anna said, “Oh, Susie and Michelle are gay.” And then they would say, okay, is anyone else agree with Su-, that Susie and Michelle are gay? And if there was more than one person, it’s like, “Okay, that’s enough. Let’s get rid of them.”

Anna: Did you not want to leave?

Laura: No, I didn’t. It was a means to an end with, for me, you know, I was homeless before I went in, and I had no, no money, nowhere to go. And I, I so desperately wanted to go to college. And I thought that was the only way to get out of poverty was through education. So I was going to take advantage of the GI Bill. But the GI Bill took advantage of me (laughs).

Anna: So just to, just like, we’re gonna get to your successes, but just to kind of highlight homeless, living in poverty to where you are today. Let’s talk. I mean let’s just be crass and talk about like, financially, where you are today.

Laura: Mm hmm.

Anna: Where are you today?

Laura: So um very different than where I was, when I was, you know, trying to put two pennies together. But you know, I’ve got a, I’ve got a good, about a $10 million real estate portfolio, and about a $20 million franchise company, restoration type, crime scene cleaning company. So yeah, I’m not, I’m not trying to scrape together crackers and peanut butter anymore.

Anna: No, no, no. And so after leaving the military, what happened?

Laura: Ironically, I’m very impulsive. So I had really nowhere to go. And one of the girls that I got kicked out with allowed me to go stay with her family for a little while until I figured out what I wanted to do. And we were staying in her basement, her family’s basement. And I remember she had this big US map on the wall, or her parents did anyway. And she said, we were just watching TV and she’s staring at this map. And I was like, “What are you doing?” And she’s like, “I think we should throw a dart on the map. And wherever it lands is where we should go.” I’m like, “Yeah, sure. Sounds great.” You know, no, no ties to anything. And that, that dart landed on Knoxville, Tennessee. And that’s how I got there.

Anna: And so you get there. And then what happened?

Laura: I get there and I find out, you’re not a resident yet because you haven’t been here long enough. So you can’t get into the University of Tennessee as a resident. Of course, I didn’t have a pot to piss in, so I had to wait for that. So I took a couple of serving jobs, and was just kind of waiting my time until I could be a resident. And then I applied for like a bunch of student loans and grants and all that crap that everybody else does. Basically put yourself in poverty to learn about world history that’s gonna make you no money. Yeah (laughs).

Anna: Yeah. So you graduate from college and realized it was a waste? Is that what happened?

Laura: Yeah, basically, yeah, yeah. All for naught.

Anna: And then you become a cop from there?

Laura: Yeah. So I started applying in my last semester of my senior year. And everywhere, every major city, you can frickin think of: Detroit, Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix, everything. So I ended up getting hired first at Kansas City, Missouri. Another, you know, great choice of mine. The department was great. I had a great time. But living in that location, not so great.

Anna: I would think being a cop in Detroit would be the darkest experience imaginable.

Laura: Yeah, probably. But Kansas City wasn’t far from it.

Anna: Okay. Okay. And so, did you immediately, did you immediately do undercover?

Laura: No, it was, I was 18 months in when I went undercover narcotics. But probably a year in, I was doing vice prostitution. So I, and that was something that was almost like, “Who wants to volunteer to be a prostitute tonight?” And I’m like, “I’ll take the overtime. I’ll do it.” You know? Yeah. And it’s, it’s completely contrary to what everyone thinks a prostitute would be. Or I guess I should say, sex worker, I get a-, every time I say prostitute, I get a lot of hate mail.

Anna: Yeah, we don’t want hate mail.

Laura: Not that I have anything against sex work, like, do what you want to do, whatever. But back in the day, we, that’s what we called it. Prostitution stings. So we would do that for, you know, 4-, 6-, 8-hour shifts, and it’s frickin exhausting. Imagine having to do the real thing. That’s got to be exhausting.

Anna: So what were you doing? Were you walking around?

Laura: On the streets. I was on the streets here.

Anna: Walking on the streets? Wear a sex worker outfit, whatever that meant?

Laura: No, I was wearing, basically, if you saw me, you would think I was homeless, living in a shelter or on the streets with missing teeth. And that was the look that they wanted us to have. Like, the gr-, they even said, “The worse, the grosser you look, the more money you’ll make.” And I’m like, “Wow, this is like,” you know, I’m, I grew up on TV like everybody else. And I’m like, “Wow, I thought, you know, five-inch stilettos.”

Anna: Pretty Woman.

Laura: Pretty Woman? No. Yeah. Pretty Woman is for, that’s more of escorts.

Anna: Yeah. Yeah.

Laura: And these guys that we were targeting? We’re not in the escort income range. Let’s just put it that way.

Anna: Right. And so, and so were you terrified when you first started doing it?

Laura: No, because I was young and dumb and naive. And I’m like, “Oh, I’ll do anything once.” And I actually liked it because it was very eye opening to humanity. When you’re getting, you know, guys pulling up and BMWs with the car seat in the back and the wedding ring on? And I’m like, “Okay, well, that’s one.” And then you’ve kind of start to see like, okay, is that is that the norm? No, then you’d get the construction worker or the roofer that pulls up and ask for a $10 blow job or, you know, it’s, the variety was uncanny. And it was something that I had no anticipation of.

Anna: And so, what, what do you do, once, once they proposition you?

Laura: So the, the way the law is written is any type of sexual act for anything of value. It doesn’t have to be money. So anything of value. So all I had to do was get and make an arrangement for them for a sexual act, and they could give me a hamburger or $100. It could be anything of value. So then I would say, you know, “I’ll meet you around the corner.” And then my SWAT team friends were waiting for them around the corner.

Anna: What’s the most danger you got into doing that?

Laura: Well, the ones that come up to me on foot are the bigger threat. Because the ones in a car, there’s a car between us, you know. But the ones that came up to me on foot were, were nerve wracking because I’m wearing no wire, no gun, no nothing. So it’s just kind of me and them and I got grabbed a couple times. But, you know, was able to kind of defend myself and make it happen. So thank God, you know, nothing harmful happened to any of us while I was there.

Anna: And you have told me that you would pretend to be mentally challenged in order to make it, you know, sort of put off anyone from raping you?

Laura: That was during narcotics.

Anna: Okay, let’s move on to narcotics.

Laura: Yeah, so narcotics is a whole different bag of worms there because I’m literally walking into crack houses. Buying crack, meth, whatever I’m buying. And there typically is, it’s a very dangerous environment. You know what people will do, when they, when they need that hit is, there’s nothing they won’t do. So you’re in line essentially, it’s like a frickin Chick-fil-A line in these houses. You know, you’re just sitting in there waiting your turn and somebody’s watching you. And we’re all like, lined up in the living room, family room. And then a runner goes and gets it from wherever they get it. And, you know, all these, I’m trying to watch and make sure that all these crackheads are not going to attack me. But also, my job was to count steps. How many steps in the house? Where is he going to get the drugs? Who’s watching it? What does he look like? Is there any identifying tattoos, marks, scars? Like I had to scan the room and literally try to have a photographic memory on it. How many crackheads were in there? What did you have to do to get in? What did you sit like, there’s a long thing in it all has to be by memory. There, it’s not like I can sit there and take notes on anything. So and then I had to come out with the product and make sure that I’m documenting it all. And you know, this was before we had iPhones and all this kind of stuff.

Anna: So you’re not wearing a wire at all?

Laura: No, no wire, no gun.

Anna: Too risky?

Laura: It was very risky. So if you got caught with that, you’re probably dead.

Anna: Yeah.

Laura: Yeah.

Anna: So how did you move from sex work to undercover drug stuff?

Laura: So the original thought with the undercover narcotics was, I thought that I was going to go work for like FBI, DEA, something like that. And I thought this experience will get me in the door totally. Because as you probably know, being a woman in a male dominated field, you have to do ten times more work and prove yourself. And I, you know, ended up, sometimes I would make stupid decisions or do stupid, risky things in order to prove that I was worthy of being there. I was the only female in the whole undercover division.

Anna: Were you still in Kansas City at this point?

Laura: Mm hmm.

Anna: And so how long did you do each of these? How long did the sex work and then the narcotics?

Laura: So vice was on and off. Like I said, it was like an overtime opportunity. So I did that for a few years. And then narcotics was, I think it was two years or 18 months, right around there. And honestly, that was enough. It’s, it altered my, my perspective. It altered my life in a very negative way. And I didn’t see the benefit of continuing it.

Anna: Well, it is interesting, I would call you one of the more positive people I’ve met.

Laura: Yes (laughs).

Anna: And then I, you know, I read your book proposal. So I know about your early life. And I know about this. To what do you credit that positivity?

Laura: I look at every obstacle and every failure as a teaching moment. And, you know, it’s just, it’s an opportunity for you to pivot and, and do that. But I think the biggest thing in my earliest days was I had so many people, championing, championing, championing. Oh, God, I can’t even say that.

Anna: It’s a hard word.

Laura. You know what I mean. My failure, that I was set, strong willed and set to prove them wrong. And I ended up, you know, doing things that I didn’t even really want to do, but I did it to prove them wrong. Like, going in the military, you know. That was a means to an end for me. And I was like, “Okay, I’ll do it, because I’m gonna get the GI Bill.” Little did I know, I got a lot more than that. But so I think it comes from that. It just comes from, you know, stubbornness, resilience, and really just taking–you can look at a problem in any way. You can see it as “Oh, my God, this is debilitating. I’m gonna close my business, I can’t do this.” Or you can say, “What do I need to do to turn it around?” And that’s just what I choose to do. And I think it’s a choice.

Anna: Mm hmm. So were you getting depressed when you were doing undercover?

Laura: Very much so. Pretty much so. You know, I think one of the moments that that I really had that come to Jesus is walking into a meth house and seeing an infant on the ground with a diaper with shit just spilling out of it and maggots all over this baby. And I was like, “What? What the fuck am I doing?” And I remember going home that night and just sobbing. And just like, “What am I doing?” Like this is changing who I am. I don’t trust anyone. I’m constantly looking over my back, my shoulders. Like I, I started to alienate my friends because I thought I can’t trust anybody. And I realized at that moment that no matter what we do, or what I do, personally, to try to help people in terms of, you know, eradicating the drug trade. It’s never ever going to happen. And I’m not going to sacrifice myself for a futile effort.

Anna: So your business–was it while you were doing the undercover drugs work where you saw murders and crime scenes and that kind of thing?

Laura: No, it was after that. So after I got out of narcotics, I went back to the street. And that’s when kind of the, the idea came and I was just kind of really bored and not as motivated. I kind of lost the passion. That, really that, that time in undercover really sucked the life out of me, is the best way to put it. It changed who I am just completely. And that’s when I kind of got the idea of it just working homicide after homicide and one of the victim’s family just asked me, you know, when are you guys coming back to clean it up. And I’m like, we don’t clean that up, you know. And then I just got to thinking about what she said. And I just, you know, get on Google searches and all this kind of stuff. And I realized, “Oh, my God, there’s like nowhere for this lady to go to.” So that…

Anna: What did they do before you?

Laura: They made them do it. Yeah.

Anna: So you say, “Wait a minute, we could go in, clean up and hey, this wouldn’t be bad real estate to flip.”

Laura: Well, that came much later.

Anna: Okay.

Laura: Much later. So 2005 is when I was like, “Okay, I’ll just do the cleanup of crime scenes.” And at that time, it was supposed to be a side hustle. The side hustle started to make far more money than the real hustle. So I, after six months, I quit my job. And, and I was like, you know, I’ve never liked living here so I’m getting the fuck out. Especially since I had a target on my back from being undercover. So I’m like, I’m leaving the state. I’m out of here. So went to Florida, and then not till about 2016 did I decide to marry my two passions which is real estate and the crime scene cleaning.

Anna: So was it the money that you made from the crime street, the crime scene killing that allowed you to invest in real estate?

Laura: So no, I started out wholesaling, because I still had no money because I was throwing everything into the business. And then when I started to franchise, that was extremely expensive, so I was literally throwing all the profits back in. So I was like, “Okay, I’ll start wholesaling.” And I would just get a property under contract and then call another investor and say, “Hey, I’ll sell you the, I’ll sell you the contract.” And I was making, you know, 60 to 70,000 on each split, so I only needed to do a couple of those to help grow the portfolio.

Anna: Okay, wait, I don’t think I get what wholesaling is. You, what do you do?

Laura: So if I want to buy your house, let’s say “Anna, I’m gonna buy your house for $100,000.” You’re like, “Perfect.” You sign the contract. Then I go to our friend, Michelle. And I say, “Michelle, I’ve got a house for you for 200 grand. Do you want it?” And she says yes. So I make the split, the difference?

Anna: Wow.

Laura: Yeah.

Anna: Why doesn’t everyone do that all the time?

Laura: That’s a great question (laughs).

Anna: Why don’t you do that full time? That sounds pretty good.

Laura: Well I definitely would love to, but I’m knee deep in a giant franchise system now. And you know, helping that grow and stuff. But you know, after, you know, my time is done with, with crime scene cleaning. I will definitely be all in in real estate.

Anna: Because you don’t put any money down or you do you put the 100 grand down. No, you get a loan?

Laura: You don’t get anything.

Anna: What?!

Laura: Yes, it’s just the split. So then I turn the contract in from you and I to the title company, and then I turn an assignment contract in from Michelle and I into the title company. She closes it. Michelle pays me. They take, they give me my proceeds. And the difference goes to you, the 100.

Anna: So you were already well, were you already knee deep in the franchising part when you discovered this awesome…”

Laura: Yeah. It was 2016 so it was simultaneous. I was using the proceeds from wholesaling to grow the franchise side.

Anna: And so, and so the franchise, how many are there?

Laura: Well, there’s probably 30 to 35 right now.

Anna: And you were the only crime scene cleanup franchise that exists?

Laura: No, there’s, I think two others. But yeah, but they don’t do any real estate.

Anna: And so all your franchises do exactly that? They go in, they clean up and then they buy the real estate.

Laura: They offer to buy it, yeah.

Anna: And then they, they flip it you don’t get a–well, I mean, whatever. I don’t know how franchising works but you get a take of it.

Laura: Yeah, we get a royalty of it. Because we’re teaching them how to do it.

Anna: And so, and then you became a bit of a social media influencer, not a bit of one. So you started a YouTube channel.

Laura: Yeah. That was in 2019.

Anna: 2019. That’s pretty recent.

Laura: Yeah, it wasn’t that far ago. But it was because we were getting the same feedback that I got back in 2005. Everyone thought the police did it. So I’m racking my brain. How do we do this? We don’t have a billion-dollar budget for TV commercials and billboards and all that stuff. So what do we do? Social media. And my team was very against it. Every one of them was like, “This is a bad idea.” And I’m like, “Why?” Oh, this is going to come off insensitive. Nobody wants to watch that. And I said, “You know, I’m willing to take the chance. If we make it educational, I think, I think there’s a big market for it.” And within about two months, we had 100,000 subscribers. So I was “Thank God, it paid off.”

Anna: And your channel just kind of shows what you clean up and shows your personality?

Laura: That’s it. Yeah, that’s exactly it. The cameraman follows us around to a bunch of different jobs.

Anna: And so what have some of your failures been on the road to building this? I mean, $30 million real estate portfolio, portfolio?

Laura: Well, I think the majority of my failures have been on the franchising side. And it’s due to a lack of guidance. Like I’ve had to learn everything by going through it. And franchising is a different animal. So you’re running your business, and you’re like, “Hey, let’s franchise this.” Well, you no longer get to run your business. Now you’re in charge of franchising, which means you’re, you know, you’re training people and you’re trying to make them successful. So my biggest failures have been choosing poor franchisees.

Anna: Mm hmm. I mean, I think that that’s probably a common theme no matter what your business is. Making poor choices and your team members may be making poor choices in your clients. But that’s, I think we have to do that before we realize what a good choice is, I assume?

Laura: Yeah. But the problem, I think, is when you hire a poor team member, you just fire him. You can’t do that with franchising. You’re marrying them, you’re, you’re an equal contract. So, you know, luckily for me, I’ve been able to get rid of 95, 98% of them that were just, you know, dishonest, lack of integrity, stealing. You know, just things like that. So I’ve been able to get rid of them because they’ve done that stuff. But just say, for example, you get somebody with just a terrible personality, you can’t get rid of them for that.

Anna: Have you gotten better at weeding out the bad seeds?

Laura: God, I hope so (laughs). Time will tell.

Anna: So, what have you learned from your failures?

Laura: You know, most of the adversaries that I have, have been, I guess I’m always surprised and I’m not really sure why at how many men don’t want a female to be successful. They even if it’s, you’re teaching them to be successful, they feel very threatened by it. And they’ll do whatever it takes to, to oppose you. And that has been the biggest learning experience for me in franchising is I got into this thinking it was a team environment, like, “Hey, this is great.” You know, I grew up playing sports, and this is going to be a team environment. We’re going to teach people, we’re gonna grow. But they look at you as the franchisor as the enemy. And I was not prepared for that at all. And I, to this day, I’ve been doing this seven, eight years, I will never understand it. I really do not understand it. We’re on a team. I’m growing the brand to help you. I’m teaching you how to be successful. And you view me as the enemy. I don’t understand it.

Anna: And so what have you, well what have you learned from this?

Laura: Franchising sucks (laughs). Yeah, it’s probably not for me. It would have been better, I would have been better off to grow corporate stores rather than, than franchise.

Anna: Are you going to get out? Or is it too late?

Laura: No, it’s too late, yeah.

Anna: You couldn’t sell that part of your business?

Laura: We’re probably too small to sell it at this point, because you probably need 100 units to sell it. So yeah, that, we’re kind of in the middle there. We’re caught in the middle. The ship has sailed to do something different. So the goal now is to just again pivot and find franchise partners that can appreciate the, the, I’m teaching you a shortcut to be wealthy. Take it or leave it but it is what it is.

Anna: So what, as we wrap up, what are your top three tips for bouncing back from failure?

Laura: You have to have a strong mindset. That is the biggest one. Prioritize your life and your goals is probably number two. And I think number three is surround yourself with people that are better than you, smarter than you, wealthier than you. Because you’re always going to learn something. If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.

Anna: Yeah, I love it. So if people want to find out more about you, where should they go?

Laura: We’re all over social. So, Laura Spaulding, the real Laura Spaulding on Facebook or YouTube. And Instagram is at crime scene cleaning (@crimescenecleaning).

Anna: I love it. Well, Laura, thank you for sharing your fascinating life.

Laura: Thank you (laughs).

Anna: And listeners, thank you for listening. See you next time.

Find more at: www.failyourway.com

Follow me on IG: @AnnaBDavid

Find out more about my company: www.legacylaunchpadpub.com