Month: October 2017

Currently on the train back up to Dunbar from Peterborough after a 5 day intensive speaker training course. Five packed days with a great group of people and big transformations in our ability and confidence to deliver a talk. Big thanks to our trainers Steve and Peter. We all had great fun talking about topics we believe in massively – for me it was the power of mastermind groups and about the mastermind event Chris and I plan to launch next year.

Mid way through the week Dillon shared an inspirational talk with us during which he shared the line used the the title of this week’s post. It was a fitting line for both Dillon’s talk and for our course – in other words if you have a message or mission to share with others, that you know will serve them, don’t keep it locked up inside you. The quote is actually the title of a book written by Dr Wayne Dyer and his daughter Serena about the most important life principle her father taught her –  it means that you don’t allow yourself to live any life other than the one you were born to live.

Whilst in Peterborough this week I shared a great Serviced Apartment with Kenny in the Hamptons (you’ve got a super place there Gary- thanks). Each morning before class I jogged round the footpaths and waterways of this new build development listening to podcasts. One of these podcasts about creating your own brand was particularly fitting to the theme of speaker training and getting your message out there.  I thought there might be others in the community who would appreciate a summary of the key take aways from this podcast and a link to it if you’re interested:

Here are the 5 C’s of creating your personal brand, courtesy of Pat Flynn (one of my favourite podcasters)

https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/podcasts/how-to-build-a-brand/

1) Clarity

• Be clear on your mission and who you are
• Be clear who you are trying to serve and how
• Have a clear copy i.e. on how you communicate the above (in other words are you making sense with what you’re putting out there?)

2) Consistency

• Have consistency in your message and pack value into the content you share
• It isn’t necessarily about frequency but about showing up consistently and putting maximum effort into what you do
• To be consistent you need to know what to say ‘NO’ to and what to say ‘YES’ to

3) Community

• Have a community to support that brand, and be an extension of it, to be there when trolls show up
• The community is the glue that holds your brand together
• They are the first step towards raving fans
• ”People find you for your content but stay for the community”
• Humans naturally want to be in tribes because people want to get together to be with like minded people
• Pat recommended this podcast  on building your tribe http://www.chalenejohnson.com/podcast/Shaleen podcast on building tribe

4) Calls to Action

• Getting the people that follow you to take action, if you miss that out then you are missing a whole part of brand experience, reading content is just one dimension
• When you give calls to action give them opportunities for transformation because you know that when they take action they will benefit
• How to do it? You can use community challenges over a set number of days, i.e. help give them small wins
• “If you want to change someone’s life, start by changing their day- with little wins” – Ramit Sethi

5) Courage

• You need to be brave, it takes hard work, time and bold action to put yourself out there and build a brand- those things will make the difference however
• When you go big you will go into the unknown but that’s where good things happen, you have to get nervous, if not then you could be getting complacent

Have a great weekend all.

At some point in the nearish future Chris Dornan and I will benefit from a one hour Q&A with Rob Moore. This was part of a great offer we took advantage of at the Elite Cashflow Accelerator event in September, where we were the first to book our spot on the Business Systems Course.

I’ll circle back to Rob in a moment, first here’s a quick round up of the week that was:

• Kicked off our recruitment campaign to hire a Property & Operations Manager.
• Took a day out to visit the Falkirk Wheel and Stirling Castle with my family.
• Finally pushed through the synchronisation to integrate multiple properties on airbnb with Kigo (a fair bit more work than expected).
• Big push on researching & contacting various infrastructure and construction projects in our area as part of our business development pipeline for contractor guests to our SA properties.
• Had a brief ride in my friends Tesla on ‘ludicrous’ mode – which can go from 0-60mph in about 2.5 seconds –insane, or…..ludicrous!
• Measured up some new SA apartments for full set up with a furnishing consultant in preparation for opening them up in a few weeks.
• Met with a potential investor about our packaged SA offering
• I’ve just kissed the family goodbye after a great weekend and am now on the train down to Peterborough for the week long speaker training course at Progressive Towers. I’ll be sharing a nice SA unit for the week (new to the market from fellow VIP Gary Smith) with Kenneth Martin (hope your cooking is good Kenny).
• Got some photos taken at one of Chris’ current residential projects (a 35SqM+ extension and re-model in East Lothian ).

Main learns this week from my morning reading/listening/watching sessions:

• This one is a proactive decision rather than a new learn, but I’ve recently decided that once I’ve chosen my top 3 goals for the week ahead (which I do on a Sunday) – I must commit to SCHEDULING allotted time for each goal into my google calendar for the full week ahead. It’s great having clear goals for the week but unless you have specificity on defined completion points and have them scheduled in with a clear plan to execute, then you could find yourself at the desk late on Friday night after a ‘busy’ week with not much completed from your original week’s plan.
• This next point is quite heavy going on the psychology side, something that fascinates me – read it twice if you’re interested. Empathy is the key to melting away marketing obstacles. Empathy is the (imperfect) art of learning what people want, and WHY they want it. The key to empathy is to imagine how your customer’s beliefs characterise their perception of their world and their place in it. As we start to explore customer’s beliefs, needs and wants begin to emerge. Beliefs transform raw needs into specific wants (for example, the need to feel secure can manifest itself as the want to be highly organised).
• More often than not, being selfish is the most selfless thing you can do! – I was reminded of this from one of Darren Hardy’s morning messages- he said that when you take care of yourself first, you can then help others from a position of strength rather than always helping others first and sacrificing yourself. A great example cited was that of Michael Jordan, who focused on his own game intensely for years, before then being in a position to help raise the game of his entire team – he captained the Chicago Bulls to six NBA Championships. Hardy’s mentor Jim Rohn would say, “You take care of you for me, and I’ll take care of me for you.”
• Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals each year, make a plan for them, but in the moment of each day, forget the gap between where you are now and the big scary goal, and just focus on the very next step of action towards it.

So, what about those questions for Rob? If you are still with me, in preparation for our Q&A with Rob, Chris and I would love to tap into the great minds in this community to help generate a selection of quality questions that we could all learn from. We’d like to invite ideas for the kind of questions that will open up some profound wisdom, insights and resources. In return, we’ll share key learns when the time comes. If you’re keen to contribute your thoughts please either respond to this post or message me direct.

Have a great week.

How has your week been? What have you learned?

Our week got off to an exciting and insightful start. We attended a 3 hour talk by international speaker, coach, author and successful entrepreneur Brad Sugars. Listening to someone who was able to retire at age 26 and then go on to buy, grow and sell over a dozen companies in his next 20 years, you’re clearly going to learn a lot in 3 hours.

We had the privilege to meet Brad briefly after the talk and chat with him over a beer in small groups- a phenomenal businessman and inspiring guy.

Learning and the continuous journey to become the best version of me that I can is my highest value. There’s a good chance that many of you reading this weekly post also have something similar in your top values so I hope that you appreciate these highlights of the week’s learns.

The title of this post is a line we heard from Brad Sugars on Monday, and very fitting for this post.

Here are some highlights from my notes:

Brad’s definition of a ‘Finished business’ 

A commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you. Getting to this stage was the essence of his talk and it’s what he has specialised in doing for the last 20+ years. Once a business is ‘finished’ it can be sold for a multiple of profit. He finds that a sweet spot is getting a company to £5m in profit as it results sales valuation multiple of circa 9-15x. Although he once sold a dog food business for 37 times profit!

Brad Sugar’s topline formula for success:

DREAMS (‘nothing if not at first a dream’ – have dreams in all areas of life)

X

GOALS (When we have goals we have direction, and we know what we have to learn)

X

LEARNING (learn how to achieve the specific goals)

X

PLANS (once got the knowledge can then make a plan)

X

ACTIONS (once you have a plan you can then go to work on the right things)

=

SUCCESS

3 main business owner challenges

• Time – means they are doing everything themselves
• Team – means not right people in place
• Money – likely a combination of the above

Business doesn’t get easier, you get better at business.

Brad shared his BE X DO = HAVE formula which you can see here in a short video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCZEiI-8aa4

He also shared his 6 Steps for a Winning Business (working from the bottom up)

1. Freedom/Results
2. Synergy
3. Team
4. Leverage
5. Niche
6. Mastery

If you are interested in learning more on this here is a presentation on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSDKfHIYxiY

If you can take a little more learning, here are a few nuggets from a great day with our Development Discovery mentor Alan Christie on Tuesday- thanks Alan.

In no particular order:

• A reference point for when looking at optimising a development site is that you can comfortably fit 16,000-20,000 SqFt (1486-1858 SqM) of building on an acre site (of course there’s obviously so much more to take into account i.e. utilities, access, where and how this fits in with the local plan and so much more).
• Our cohort member Neil gave us a mini masterclass on using the measurement tool on Adobe Acrobat Reader to calculate areas on an architect’s drawing when floor areas are not provided and all you have is a scale at the bottom of the drawing. This is a free to use tool that just requires a little investment in time
• If you don’t have Adobe to hand you can use Alan’s handy  trick of measuring a parking space on the drawing with a ruler to find the scale. Typically a parking space is assigned 2.5 x 5m.
• Where there is a requirement for housing as stated by Central Government, planners are obliged to approve the plan on appeal if there are no issues with the design.
• Planning fees in England have increased by 20%.
• Councils can’t be seen to be an impediment to development as a consequence of requirements i.e. for AF contributions, CIL etc. In the case of our development site, we are currently pulling together a viability report to justify to the council that their suggested commuted sum and other contributions are currently too high.

Thanks also to Mark Doyle who presented a great talk on his experience of buying at auction, where he has had great success. Here are some of his new to auction simple rules:

• Observe first
• Go through the legal packs of any interesting property
• Check land registry and title of the lot you’re interested in
• Listen to the auctioneer’s reading of the rules
• Watch out for the bidding increments so you don’t get caught out
• Be seen (he likes to wear a red shirt)
• If you are bidding, come prepared with proof of ID and address (and the ability to pay a deposit of course)

Tips on properties that could hold hidden value:

• Japanese knotweed – this can be treated and then if you get a 5-10 yr insurance product on it you’ll be fine to refinance, sell on etc.
• Look for old, struggling pubs that have few customers and some parking, they may have even been houses previously
• Can you split properties vertically with firewalls to make 2 units
• If the property is suffering from black mould, cold spots and bad condensation, this can be remedied with the addition of pacifier vents on cold walls at height.

So, a busy week both on the learning front and on the operations of our business. We have also just kicked off our recruitment campaign for a Property & Operations Manager.

Have a great week ahead.

Have you identified your own highest values? When I first completed John Demartini’s values determination exercise I shone a light on something I’d been focusing on for years without recognising it as one of my highest values – that being the hunger for continuous growth, learning and becoming the best version of me in each area of life.

With this value front and centre, there was a Darren Hardy message this week about wisdom that really resonated with me and I felt compelled to share it. More on that shortly.

First, here’s what Chris and I have been working on the last few days – this week we have invested time in developing our model for packaged serviced accommodation units and viewing a few potential properties. We have also been getting ‘our house in order’ from an admin perspective and crafting a vision of opportunity for an Operations Manager in anticipation of recruiting for that role soon.

Main lessons from the week

A few great take aways from Darren Hardy:

Where great wisdom really comes from – Wisdom is gained through awareness, we pay for it with attention. It’s a conscious choice but we can build a habit around it by asking ourselves, what did I learn today?’ and capturing a note of three learns each day in a learning journal. This was the message I wanted to share.

A three step re-frame when facing obstacles

1. True achievers are revealed during times of challenge. When we feel like we’ve been knocked on our backside or are facing challenges, we first need to get a grip and get perspective. In other words, take a step back from our immediate situation and recognise the good things we already have going on in life. We can’t be productive wallowing in self pity.
2. Focus on what you have and can do rather than what you don’t have and can’t do.
3. Turn obstacles into opportunities – it’s because of the obstacles that we are able to dig into and access our potential. Opportunities are often cloaked as obstacles so it’s crucial for us to learn to see them as positive (and to teach this to our kids). When we push ourselves we’re going to fall but it’s proof that we are getting better, these are markers of improvement along the journey to ‘better’ and they should be celebrated.

Some wisdom on cars, clarified during a productive meeting with our Accountant this week:

• You can claim capital allowances on cars you buy and use in your business. This means you can deduct all or part of the value from your profits before you pay tax. – Ref https://www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/business-cars
• If the car has CO2 emissions of 75mg/km or less you can claim 100% allowances (these would likely be hybrid cars). In other words if you bought a car in your LLP for £30,000, you can make and keep a profit of £30,000 before paying tax, even if you have bought the vehicle on HP and are making payments each month.
• If the car has CO2 emissions of 75-130mg/km or less you can claim 18% allowances

If you haven’t discovered your own highest values yet and would like to, here’s a link to the exercise https://drdemartini.com/values/login