Month: March 2018

It was straight back into an action packed week after the ski trip, with the highlight definitely being picking up the keys to our new acquisition. More on that in a moment.

By way of a quick summary, here are some of the key challenges and learns for the week along with an explanation to help those facing similar things:

Accounting and financial management

This is in relation to the fact that we are managing all booking revenue for a few different entities through a client account (essentially like a letting agent does), and that client account requires to be accurately reconciled and managed in order to hold all future revenue until the relevant month and distribute net revenue from the month that was. This has all been fine managing manually on excel to date however it is not scalable and there are of course better ways of managing and tracking this through software like Quickbooks, as we are implementing. All fun and numbers.

Kigo website and SEO

We’ve had the entry level kigo website for a few months now and as we are learning the SEO capabilities of it are quite limited. The fact I am not an SEO expert means I’m starting from a position of total naivety however with the help of asking the right questions I’m gradually wrapping my head round what kigo websites can and can’t do. I’m also looking at the self hosted website option using the kigo widget (which would allow carte blanche on the SEO front) however kigo are now disencouraging users away from that route in favour of  using their Core API to pull information from the app to a third party website. However the downside with this is that the new website would to need be built from scratch.

Listings on airbnb

If you have a business airbnb account you may have noticed that new listings in major cities may not be approved like they are on your personal airbnb accounts. For example you can’t list properties in Edinburgh city centre with a business airbnb account, I’m guessing it’s the same in London and possibly Glasgow. We’ve been aware of this for a while however now we are finding that airbnb are not approving properties with postcodes in the surrounding areas of Edinburgh. Their automatic filtering system can’t discern too well between the postcodes and even though you are in a different local authority, you might get a message saying, “The listing is in a prohibited vacation rental market.” Don’t worry though, by contacting ukaccountmanagers@airbnb.com you can appeal and have these listed, it just causes a small delay.

So, back to our recent purchase. As you can see, Chris and I are now the proud owners of a tired but well proportioned 3 bedroom 1 bathroom flat. The plan has always been to gut it, completely refurb (including adding an ensuite bathroom), furnishing/dressing it for SA, manage the unit as SA, and then sell as a hands free and high cashflowing asset to an investor (hands free because we can manage it along with our own portfolio).

In thinking through the various steps involved, Chris and I thought it could provide a fantastic opportunity to not only document, but also to publicise in some way a kind of ‘look over our shoulder’ as we work the property through the various steps, uncovering things and making progress to the end goal.

It would be good to know if such an idea would be of interest to some people. If so please do let Chris and I know, then we can keep you posted as we figure out the optimal way to capture and share the journey so that it may also benefit others.

Have a great week ahead.

Back in my post for WEEK #49 of last year I shared the FOUR PILLARS OF PRODUCTIVITY – in essence the four cornerstone ingredients for productivity and goal achieving. These were introduced to me several years ago and I’ve been employing them each week since to set and work through mini goals that contribute to the bigger ones.

For anyone looking for a quick reminder, the Four Pillars are:

1. SPECIFICITY
2. MEASUREMENT
3. DEADLINES
4. ACCOUNTABILITY

This week feels like an appropriate time to share the Fifth, and counterintuitive, Pillar of Productivity. This crucial and often overlooked contributor to productivity is…..

PLAY

It’s fitting because I’ve not long ago landed back in snowy Edinburgh from our annual family ski trip in Porte du Soleil.

No matter what our age, we all have an inner child that enjoys PLAY, and it is actually counterproductive to ignore that. As I’ve gradually come to learn from my said mentor, it’s super important that we don’t try to optimise every minute of every day. You’ll know if you fall into this trap of listening to podcasts whenever you move/travel, trying to multitask, and attempting to push for every minute of your day to be optimised for maximum business output and personal growth.

If you can relate to that at all, I get it. I’m the same. We are only trying to become the best version of ourselves. Indeed my highest value.

However, as I mentioned, I’ve gradually learned from my mentor Peter that play is important too. He showed me that ‘the latest science has actually proven that Playing – like a child – is a revolutionary brain hack that stimulates your neurological growth*. It also unleashes powerful focus and motivation.’

[*Dr Stuart Brown has devoted his career to a meta-analysis of “Play” research in humans and animals, by sociologists, biologists, psychologists and neurologists. He found (among other things) that Play – in both kids and adults – directly correlates with increased brain neuron density and executive function. Play literally makes you smarter.]

So, it’s actually “optimal” to not always be optimised.

I’ve learned that it’s crucial to allow yourself some time regularly for unstructured, non-improving, joyful activity. The kind of thing that’s innately interesting, where you lose track of time AND lose your sense of self. The kind of thing that your seven year old self would’ve loved to do.

For my seven year old son I know that thing is Lego. For me, one of these activities has always been playing in the snow, so getting to do that with my loved ones all this last week has been amazing.

I’ve returned home excited and energised about beginning a new week of incremental progress with our SA and development business. Tomorrow is a particularly exciting start to the week Chris and I will complete the purchase of a 3 bed flat that we intend to refurb for SA and then sell as a high cash flow asset.

Have a great week all, and don’t forget to factor in some all important PLAY.

Although it doesn’t feel like Spring yet,here we are ploughing through Q1 at pace and heading into that time of year. With just over two months down, how are you tracking on your yearly and quarterly goals? If you’re feeling like you might have lost a bit of focus on your big goals, then I might have a little 10 minute exercise that will help you.

Like most business owners striving towards the optimal balance of working ON the business v’s working IN the business, I do find it challenging each week to complete the proactive milestones in amongst all the operational and reactive things that come up day to day. I know I won’t be alone in that.

This week I’d given myself 3 mini completion points, as follows, that contribute to the bigger Q1 goals for our SA business:

• learn how to create a reporting dashboard in QuickBooks
• research and make next step decision on the SEO capability of our kigo website v’s going down the route of self-hosting and connecting a bespoke website with the kigo plugin
• create an ‘end of stay’ and a ‘mid-stay’ clean checklist for our cleaners (have you ever been caught out by a TV not working between one guest stay and the next? This is the kind of thing that our clean team can check and report on).

I’m pleased to report these actions did get ticked off.

A growing SA business can kick up so much busyness that I’m very conscious about getting caught in the weeds and I definitely don’t want to lose focus from the big hairy audacious goals Chris and I set at the start of the year. So, when I heard a podcast episode from Peter Voogd recently, about a 2 monthly re-focus exercise, I had to give it a go.

The podcast episode was about how to make sure we are sticking with our new year goals, past the first and second month, and shared some routines to get back on track, producing results.

As Peter Voogd puts it, ‘Your job as an entrepreneur is to make sure whether you are there or not, whether you are sick or not, whether you feel like it or not, results are being produced and you are progressing in your life and business.’ I subscribe to that.

THE FOCUS FIVE ACTIVITY

This is a 10 minute exercise to shift your mindset and mentality to help get you back in the zone when you’re feeling out of optimal state. Voogd does this every 2 months, but suggests others may need to do this more often until habits take over (remember ‘habits trump inspiration’).

I’ll share the steps below and a few examples from my own exercise.

STEP #1

Write down 5 things you are grateful for and really appreciative for. Things that if you didn’t have them you’d be extremely sad or stressed. We always want to come from a place of gratitude because it’s impossible to feel frustrated when feeling grateful.

1. My amazing wife and 3 boys
2. My good health to be fit, active and mentally capable
3. Our SA business and all of our paying customers

STEP #2

(To help you come from a place of confidence and self worth)

Write down 5 things you are proud of, considering the last 2 or 3 months, not from years ago. So things like business achievements, results, good deeds,

1. Crafted a master vision for the year, my Q1 goals and implementation plans
2. Introduced my kids to 2 important life values (1 per month – Jan = Loyalty and Feb = Respect, 10 more to go) and associated teachings as I said I would in my annual goals.
3. Got our SA bookings back above £XXK/month through nurturing relationships and developing some new business

STEP #3

Now it’s time to turn ‘gratitude’ and ‘proud of’ into Excitement. Write 5 things you are excited about in the coming couple of months

1. Our family ski trip
2. Getting a new car
3. Getting our first refurb to packaged SA unit moving

This step is key because we have to create things to be excited about or we risk falling into drudgery.

STEP #4

Everything always has to come back to results. Now it’s time to turn the ‘grateful for’, ‘proud of’, and ‘excited about’ focus into results. You can re-inject all your gratitude, confidence, energy and focus into 5 results you want to have done because, ‘ideas don’t pay the bills, execution does’.

What are 5 results you want to have created in the next 30-60 days (you choose the appropriate time frame)?

1. Launched our SA management offering
2. Refinanced our guest house
3. Have tested adwords on our website and optimised organic SEO

When I did this I made a note to self from Peter’s suggestion about the importance of keeping a record of this stuff because it’s so important to be able to see your progress and how far you have come. This is crucial because it helps prevent you from living in what business psychologists call ‘the gap’ i.e. always thinking about where you could be and what could have and potentially disheartening yourself because it’s always so far in front. Instead, what you need to be recognising is how far you’ve come and feeling great about that. Because ‘success is a practice not a destination’.

Voogd recommends that by doing this exercise every 2 months it will re-programme your thinking and help keep you on track by making sure you focus on gratitude and what’s important so that you don’t misplace your priorities.

I certainly found the exercise energising and will be scheduling it in every 2 months.

Would love to hear what tactics others use to help keep you focused and on track with your yearly goals.

I’m sure you have all heard the saying, “life is 10% of what happens and 90% of how you react to it.” Sound familiar? More on that shortly.

I hope this finds everyone safe, warm, and with enough food supplies etc. Storm Emma certainly hit the country unexpectedly hard this last week.

What was nice to see and hear is that situations like this can bring out amazing acts of caring, generosity and community spirit- from aid to those trapped in cars overnight to sharing supplies amongst neighbours. Rather than choosing to wallow and whine, we heard of many positive stories like this locally, and did what we could to support our own neighbours.

In our fairly rural neck of the woods, with hills on every side, we have been snowed in for the last four days. I was able to get a car out safely enough for the first time today thanks to the efforts of local farmers clearing the backroads around where we live. Like many I’m sure, we found ourselves very conscious of our food supplies and rose to the challenge of being frugal enough to make things last, based on the uncertainty of how long the ‘lock in’ would last. We also chose to see this situation as serving up a good opportunity to teach our kids how to respond and manage resources based on the circumstances.

The hand that the weather dealt us this week serves as a metaphor in business too, about how we respond to circumstances, adapt to strive for the best outcome possible from each challenge and seek the lesson in it all.

Of all the weeks to have boiler issues, we had two in our SA portfolio this week. In one such property we were accommodating contractors who were working in our area over from the West of Scotland. Being unable to physically get out to the property myself I had to talk the guest through locating everything and re-pressurising the boiler to get the heat back on. Thanks to the way he had chosen to be positive about the situation and my efforts to do everything I could, we had built up a good rapport over several calls and texts. He ended up staying an extra night, which I discounted heavily for him, and we now have a satisfied guest who would be happy to stay with us again.

Whilst this boiler issue was a very minor challenge in the grand scheme, this last week’s weather has made me reflect on all the ‘dips’ Chris and I have encountered so far in establishing our SA business, and bring an appreciation there will be many more to come. However, with the right reframe and choice of attitude, we can use these situations to bounce back higher and faster.

Here are some of my favourite quotes on the matter that capture this sentiment:

“Early success is a terrible teacher” – Chris Hadfield, Astronaut. He then goes on to say that, “You’re essentially being rewarded for a lack of preparation.” In other words when the challenges come, we can choose to embrace them because the lessons help better prepare us going forwards.

Then we have these wonderful reframes:

Dr John Demartini says that everything that happens to us in life is,  ‘on the way, not in the way”. We often need to remind ourselves of that.

And finally, it was just this week that I heard Darren Hardy share this reframe in one of his morning messages, “Everything is happening for me, nothing is happening to me”.

On the rollercoaster ride that is business, it’s so important to remind ourselves of this because how we decide to respond to certain occurrences is what will shape our emotions, actions and results.

Strangely enough it was just last Sunday that I was writing a post with a similar theme about reframing things we wish hadn’t happened [see the ‘reverse gratitude’ exercise from WEEK #8 post]. Whilst that last post outlines frameworks to find the good in past situations, here we are talking about the IN THE MOMENT attitude where we have the choice on how we respond to what happens.

This last week’s events have certainly reminded me that YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE OF HOW YOU ARE GOING TO RESPOND TO WHAT THE WORLD OFFERS YOU.

Have a great week ahead.