After 9 months of activity, we are now in the final few days of the Touchstone Millionaire Maker Challenge. For the benefit of anyone who hasn’t followed the competition, this has been the first of it’s kind ‘X-Factor’ style property competition where a group of investors battle it out to be crowned overall Millionaire Maker of the year. In keeping with the title the aim is of course to get as close as you can to creating £1m+ worth of new property deals and property related revenue in the time frame given. Each month the candidates would be put through a series of challenges that have all be recorded and broadcast as episodes over the Touchstone Education Youtube channel. The viewing public have then had the opportunity to vote for their chosen candidate to keep in the competition.
From a starting pool of over 30 applicants, the presentations and voting challenges have trimmed the numbers down to a final group of 5. And following a final online vote over Sunday/Monday, there will be a LIVE final where the last 4 contestants will compete for the audience’s vote on Tuesday 8th October.
I wanted to use this weekly blog post to say a massive thank you to Paul and all the Touchstone team for creating this competition, and to all the viewers who have voted to help keep Chris and I in it to this stage. As a small gesture of thanks I’d like to share some of our greatest lessons and tips that have come out of this experience so far.
#1 A MODEL FOR STRUCTURING A PROPERTY ENTRPRENEUR’S WEEK
Here is the MEND model that Paul taught us in January. This is a simple and memorable model that will help guide and structure your week to move your property business forwards. So at the beginning of a week you will be asking yourself what can I do to increase/grow each of the following:
MONEY – what activities are you doing to increase money flow?
[For money insights from the Millionaire Challenge see episodes 13, 21, 25, 29 & 30]
EDUCATION- what skill or capability gaps do you need specific education for to move forwards and what will you do to educate yourself in those areas?
NETWORK- who is it you want to target and bring into your network? How are you doing that?
[For more about the importance of Network see Episodes 18 & 19]
DEALS- What are you doing to get more deals into your short list for analysis?
[For more on deal flow see episodes 10, 11, 12 and 23]
Then at the end of the week you can reflect by asking, over the last 7 days what have I done to increase/grow in each of these areas?
#2 GET CLEAR ON WHAT PROPERTY STRATEGY YOU WANT TO PURSUE
This one is more important than you think, if there’s a part of your unconscious brain that is not in alignment with your chosen strategy and goal then you will end up procrastinating and not last the course to see the results. When you are 100% clear and committed on why and what, you will be able to figure out the how.
If you are learning new skills to support the chosen strategy then it will massively accelerate the progress if that proactive new learning time is focused to one strategy, rather than trying to spread it across three. Furthermore you will be able to pick out specialists in that area or who have done what you’re aiming to do who can help provide some answers.
# DON’T UNDERESTIMATE WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW
Even though Chris has been 18+ years in the building trade, he is very honest with himself and humble when it comes to possible knowledge gaps in relation to covering all the considerations of analysing a multi-unit site. Therefore we recognise when we need to draw on the specialist skills and experience of others around us. Don’t assume or guess, but become proficient at figuring out how to get to the point of feeling you have comprehensively covered the questions and gaps you don’t have the answers for.
# 4 HARNESS THE POWER OF DEADLINES AND ACCOUNTABILITY
A big attraction to Chris and I of doing the Millionaire Maker Challenge was because we knew it would manufacture certain conditions that would get more out of us, namely real deadlines and accountability of public pledges. One example of this was the challenge we had in April to secure a R2R property in 2 hours. It’s amazing how much more resourceful you can be and how much more you can get done when you are working towards a goal that you care about and within very real deadlines. 90% of the Millionaire Maker candidates came up trumps and secured a R2R. We went ahead with ours and opened it as an SA unit in June.
#5 FIND THE DEMAND/END USER FIRST, THEN THE PROPERTY/SITE
This is an approach we used to start and grow our SA business and one that we have now adopted when it comes to commercial and development sites. Over the course of the year Chris and I have picked out multiple mixed use sites up and down the country to analyse. Every time we have approached the deal from a position of knowing who the end user/client would likely be or when we we’ve had some kind of local competitive advantage, the analysis and decision making has been so much easier. On the other hand when we have approached a deal by just starting with a property that looks possibly interesting and then try to figure out the end user/s, it has been a much harder beast to arrive at conclusions.
#6 COMMERCIAL SURVEYORS ARE ONE OF THE BEST SOURCES FOR DEALS
You’ve probably heard it many times before – go out and build relationships with commercial surveyors, tell them what you are looking for…but are you actually doing it? We have fully embraced that approach this year and it has been able to uncover a much better quality of potential deal than previous attempts without surveyors on board. Commercial surveyors not only have a more ‘investment’ led perspective than you think, they can also tap into a network of fellow professionals where they actively pass deals between them.
#7 THE IMPORTANCE OF DEAL FLOW
It is only natural that at some point you might become quite emotionally attached to a potential project. In other words, you can want it so much that you end up compromising on your criteria, your budget, your standards etc to secure it. Well the antidote to that, as Paul taught us, is to have steady deal flow. Make sure you have enough deal potential to consider, analyse and only proceed with the ones that meet your strict criteria.
#8 PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE
I only need to borrow the wise words of Bill Gates to explain this point,
“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
Along this journey we regularly have to temper big ambition with patience, and that’s OK. If being a property entrepreneur will be your life’s work, like we have chosen it to be, then those before us have shown that patience and perseverance pays off.
#9 START CREATING YOUR SYSTEM NOW
Start recording what you are doing to get results in your property business now. Doing that will enable your growth, rather than trying to grow without having a system.
#10 BE VERY CONSCIOUS ABOUT VALUING YOUR MOST PRECIOUS ASSET: TIME
In amongst all the hustle make sure there is time scheduled for the important things in your life like loved ones and health. From a commercial perspective, as you grow your knowledge, experience and value in the market place there will come a time where it is perfectly acceptable to charge for your time and contribution.
#11 GET COMFORTABLE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE
This can relate all sorts of scenarios as the circumstances that feel uncomfortable will vary from person to person. It might have to do with the phonecalls, or specific actions you need to do in order to progress your property business. For Chris and I this competition has meant that we’ve had to get more comfortable putting ourselves out on videos and on social media. As Dr John Demartini always says, “Growth occurs at the border of support and challenge” and that’s going to feel a little uncomfortable.
I could go on but the post will turn into war and peace. Thank you for all the votes so far and please be sure to vote this evening and tomorrow when the vote opens.
https://www.touchstoneeducation.co.uk/touchstone-millionaire-maker-vote-now