On Friday I was discussing pros and cons of which company structure to use with a group of property investors at the the early stages of their journey. As there is no right or wrong answer I thought it would be helpful to share some of rationale for those who may also be wondering which is right for them.

 

[Please note – this is for guidance only. I am not an accountant or tax specialist. If you are just getting started looking into company structure for your property investing then these are some ideas you can research further online but most importantly by seeking out a specialist property accountant and a separate Capital Allowance Advisor].

 

If you are out buying property you have the option to buy in any of the following:

-Buy in your own name

-Buy in a Ltd company

-Buy in an LLP

Your choice will depend on such things as, your current tax band, where you want to create capital allowances (if applicable), and your own legacy/future tax planning.  Capital allowances (a relief created with certain types of property ie if buying commercial or creating commercial) can be a bit of a complex subject – you can read more at the link here, and beyond that you’ll definitely want to seek guidance from a specialist. However, worth knowing that any of the above buying entities can benefit from capital allowances.

https://www.out-law.com/topics/tax/property-tax-/capital-allowances-on-property-transactions/

You can look up all the following tax information at .gov.uk but things to consider with a Limited company are:

-When profitable, a dividend can be taken by Directors

-Corporation tax is reducing, currently 19% and reducing to 17% in 2020

-The first £2000 of dividend are tax free and the remaining dividends upto the lower rate tax threshold of £46,350 (tax year ‘18-’19) will be taxed at 7.5%

-Bearing in mind the personal allowance for taxable income is at £11,850 (tax year ‘18-’19) this means that £46,350 paid out via a Ltd company as a mix of salary and dividends is more efficient vs being taken as salary (where everything after £11,850 is taxed at 20%)

Some considerations with a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)

-In an LLP, the profit generated is essentially the income of the partners so will be taxed at their income tax band

-LLP’s can be a great entity for owning property, both for capital allowances purposes but also for future generation planning.

-Property can be passed down to the next generation for a small administrative cost by making them a partner in the LLP

 

For those who aren’t buying property but rather going down the rent-to-rent strategy, using a Limited company is the structure to use. All the operations of your Serviced Accommodation business will run through the accounts of your Ltd company and liability will be limited to the company entity, rather than being under your personal name. (In other words protecting yourself from any extreme cases of things like recourse from guest accidents whilst staying in your SA unit).

As you can see it’s not a one size fits all but may well be that a combination of the above is required to best suit your circumstances and future plans. Either way, seek professional advice to find the optimal structures for you and your family.

 

[Image credit: DNS Accounting]

If you were patient enough to read through Part 1 of this two part post you will recall being introduced the top 2 success traits – CONSCIENTIOUSNESS AND OPENNESS. [If you didn’t see that post you can CLICK HERE to catch up – believe me the tactics below will make so much more sense when you understand the context and the theory.]

Now the juicy bit you’ve been waiting for.  With the aim of levelling up the Openness trait during our downtime, here are some big hitting tactics:

#1 Unleashing curiosity with deliberate study

-What are you reading/do you plan to read on holiday? Do you have a topic you want to know more about? Make yourself a small summer reading list.

-Start writing/note taking. I heard the wise words from a mentor that, ‘you don’t know something until you’ve explained it to yourself’, so to get the most out of a book write down the ideas you get and what you are connecting them to and with.

-Teach someone else about what you’ve read using the Feynman method as follows:

        1) Choose a concept and study it quickly

        2) Teach it to someone, like a child, who is unfamiliar with the topic

        3) Revise to fill in the gaps

        4) Review and simplify

        5) Repeat steps 2 and 4 until you can explain the topic in your own words

Doing this probably only adds about 5% extra effort to your downtime/holiday reading. In other words its just a subtle tweak to how you are doing that learning but it changes the outcome massively. (I’ve been listening to Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Habits this holiday and have been using this little technique to explain some of the brilliantly powerful concepts to my wife and kids)

#2 Travel and Observation

-When you experience the place you are visiting on holiday, for fun see it through the lens of an entrepreneur (maybe specifically a property entrepreneur). In other words, everywhere value is being created and exchanged in some way so be OPEN and observant to the street vendors, flea markets, hotels, bars and attractions etc you might visit.

-Have the mental presupposition that everywhere you go, someone knows something that you don’t. Be fascinated with the local businesses and property you see, try to find out what others know that you don’t- what commercial property is for sale? What deductions can you draw out or questions can you ask?

-Going deeper, think about the unit economics here? How does this business make money? Why is this business winning vs competitors? What’s working, what’s not?

I found this tactic really engaging and have two simple and fun observations to share from where we are on the Costa Blanca. There is a lovely stretch of beach with a great boardwalk that connects the sand to a string of bars and restaurants. Some proprietors get it right and always attract the crowds, others seem to fall short – this photo attached shows the case in point of a completely empty beach bar while the next door venue was busy (the answer here was a giant flat screen showing the World Cup Final match).

Example 2 was on our last night walking back along the far end of the boardwalk after a lovely meal and a couple of strong Spanish G&T’s. We stumbled upon a different kind of street vendor – a group of young kids (under 10 I’d guess) selling a selection of items they’d made. These enterprising youngsters really caught our attention so we back pedalled and asked about their little market stand –they were selling knickknacks like the little plastesene pizza my son’s holding up in the photo so they could a)spend money at the fair and b)buy more supplies to make things and sell –just brilliant. What we really liked is they didn’t even live there, they were on holiday too! This really inspired my older two boys.

Even if you don’t find conclusive links to your own business you are levelling up your openness and contributing to your own creative development as an entrepreneur.

#3 Consuming Fiction

This is one you were all hoping to hear…yes it’s true that watching Netflix and reading stories help you evolve as an entrepreneur.

The secret here is understanding that all humans (and potential customers) are seeking a personal transformation in some way. That is to say that everyone buys things (and services) to become a different kind of person, or to reinforce the kind of person they are.

All fiction is about the archetypes of these people ie the ‘transformational selves’ that people (potentially your customers) seek to become. A lot of TV programmes give this message of here’s the kind of aspirational person you’d like to become- when we go and buy products and services we choose things that help us feel like we are becoming more like the people we watch. From Game of Thrones to Madmen to you name the show or film, there are archetypes.

Fiction increases openness as it gives us the opportunity to empathise with the values and concerns of other humans and this is essential for coming up with ideas of things that will appeal to others.

Developing your openness helps you better understand human beings, which in turn improves your marketing and sales ie your ability to turn strangers into customers (and in the property business you have a wide range of customers).

People who revolutionise industries are the ones who introduce lateral ideas from other places, in other words they maximise openness. Did you know that one of the most memorable classes Steve Jobs took before quitting College was a calligraphy class? It was that class that later gave him the idea to revolutionise computer text by introducing new calligraphy type fonts never seen before on screens.

So this summer, and on all future downtime, give yourself permission to go out and pursue OPENNESS.

When you know how, downtime can serve your business more than you think. If that’s sounding strange, let me explain.

[WARNING: This post contains some heavy going psychology and personality theory, not for the faint hearted, but will pay dividends for those who stick with it to the end]

Many of the ambitious achiever types can easily get caught in the ‘hustle’ and ‘grind’ of working towards their goals daily. It sounds crazy but both in the US and the UK many annual leave days go untaken or left until the last minute each year.

Downtime and play is not only fun but it’s a crucial part of sustaining one’s ability to keep performing throughout the year.

This two part post is about using your personal downtime and holiday time to supercharge your brain so you can unlock more of two key things: 1) high leverage execution to act on bold ideas and 2) develop your ability to come up with the bold ideas in the first place.

If interested, you’ll need to bear with me for a few paragraphs so I can explain the context and some theory, then the tactics that follow will make a lot more sense.

I am genuinely intrigued by the subject of human performance and psychology so over time I’ve done a bit of research and learning in the area. Rather than go into a lot of detail I wanted to try to keep this as a brief introduction and look at how understanding this stuff translates to us as property entrepreneurs.

What Is The Big Five Personality Model?

In Psychology, there are five broad dimensions of personality traits, commonly referred to as the “Big Five” personality traits. These can be easily remembered with the acronym OCEAN (attributed to Lewis Goldberg), as follows:

O – Openness: Curious, open to new ideas, creative, original, intellectual

C – Conscientiousness: Organised, systematic, punctual, achievement oriented, dependable (think also delayed gratification, doing what you know you should, finishing things)

E – Extraversion: Outgoing, talkative, enjoys social situations

A – Agreeableness: Tolerant, sensitive, trusting, kind, warm

N – Neuroticism: Anxious, irritable, temperamental, moody (meaning a high stability against these)

The Big Five model is able to account for different traits in personality without overlapping. In other words, while identity (our beliefs, values and individual psychological “make up”) might be infinitely varied, there are just five key dimensions of personality that can be tested and measured without overlap.

What I find fascinating is that research has shown the Big Five personality model to show consistency across a wide range of ages and cultures.

The top 2 success traits

The top 2 entrepreneurial superpower traits are Openness and Conscientiousness.

Openness is the trait that leads entrepreneurs to the bold and courageous ideas.

Conscientiousness is the trait that leads them to execute on the ideas.

Research indicates that one well documented personality type consistently produces more and better success than all the others – Conscientiousness

Eric Barker (a writer for Wired magazine) uses the latest findings in the science of human behavior to write about ideas that improve our performance at work and at home. I’ll paraphrase one such article here:

“Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success…..

Conscientiousness is the fundamental personality trait most closely tied to self control (willpower) and it tracks with nearly every type of success across your lifespan.”

Whilst Conscientiousness is great, when paired with a high Openness trait, the results can be phenomenal.

High openness people are extremely curious about the world around them, in being creative and exploring ideas. As an example, the late Steve Jobs was extraordinarily high in the Openness trait and just look at the industry changing ideas that have come from him and his company.

Openness is where your entrepreneurial genius comes from, the out of the box problem solving. The challenge for any solo business owner is that you need to be high in both these traits. High Openness but low Conscientiousness can lead to lots of ideas but risk of shiny object syndrome ie jumping from one thing to the next and never actually executing.

When you are heads down working hard each day on (or IN) your property business, that’s working the conscientiousness muscle, and without a break to replenish, it can lead to serious burn out and diminishing returns.

Openness is also like a muscle, but here’s the good news – it’s RELAXING AND FUN TO WORK OUT. What’s more, we can only build our Openness muscle when we’re NOT working.

The ‘tunnel vision’ focus of Consciousness execution is the total opposite of Openness. In other words, you narrow your focus at the desk to crunch through to do lists. What replenishes this is sleep, exercise, nourishing food and breaks. BUT, what also helps replenish this is OPENNESS ie being open to and engaging in new conversations, new points of view, new experiences, indulging your curiosity. The more focused you get the more your brain will crave Openness as a release and a means to replenish. That’s why ‘crushing it’ for an 80 hour week of conscientiousness robs you of the regenerative cycle where Openness feeds Conscientiousness and Conscientiousness feeds Openness.

So here’s the BIG TAKE-AWAY from this post that was a total light bulb moment for me when I learned it, and a real mental gift in relation to all of our family holidays…..

Give yourself permission to consciously unwind with the knowledge that it will help you become more Open and therefore more Conscientious in the long run. [By the way if you have kids, you’ll know they are great at play (see pic), so observe but more importantly, join them].

This really is huge, so don’t underestimate the seemingly obvious. It doesn’t happen without being intentional.

Increasing Openness and Conscientiousness is the entrepreneur’s superpower, there’s nothing that guarantees success more than these 2 traits.

Well done if you got this far. It’s more heavy going than my usual posts but covers some fundamentally important concepts so let me know if it’s resonating or not. In the follow up post I’ll share some of the tactics to get this stuff working for you.

 

PS. If you are interested in taking an online test to find out your own scores in the Big 5 personality traits here’s a link:

http://personality-testing.info/tests/BIG5.php

 

References – the scientific theories in this post have come from the following experts:

Professor Brent Roberts

Peter Shallard

Doctor Rajesh Kamath

Eric Barker

Goldberg, McRae and Costa

 

Last week I wrote about hitting the half way mark of the year. Whilst it’s a great time to reflect and re-adjust, it’s also important not to lose the momentum you’ve built up over the last 6 months.

I’m not advocating to not take time off, that’s a key ingredient for being the highest leverage version of you. Many of us are starting to take our summer holidays now so naturally we’ll be taking a much needed break to recharge. However, what I am advocating is the importance of not losing momentum.

Over the next couple of posts I thought it would be fun, and helpful, to share some ideas about using the summer and holiday time to gain a competitive advantage instead of losing momentum.

One of the Darren Daily posts this week reminded me of a key learning from the Compound Effect- a seminal book I read back in 2008 (I’ve got Claire Darwish to thank for introducing me to that one). The lesson used the analogy of a steam train and the enormous amount of fuel and force required to get the locomotive moving from a standing start. However once in motion and at a good pace, it requires much less fuel and force to KEEP that momentum up. [Getting the power of momentum working for you is what Darren refers to in his book as ‘Big MO’.] Darren Hardy teaches us in his book that the danger of losing momentum is that it can take a month just to get you back to where you were and so over the year it can add up to several months of lost progress.

This is where having a business partner and a team is so powerful- whilst I’m currently on holiday enjoying time with my family, Chris is renovating our 3 bedroom investment- see pics attached. What you’re seeing here are the unsexy bits before kitchen and bathrooms go in ie the place has been re-wired, new spot lights cut in, all the nasty artex ceiling sheeted and skimmed over etc. This property is going through our full ATM model (acquire – transform- monetise) that we coach on and right now Chris is forcing max value through the transformation phase of upgrading and remodelling. One pic here shows the creation of a new ensuite where for space efficiency Chris has designed it with a sliding pocket door.

 

Meanwhile our Operations Manager is expertly running our serviced accommodation business – managing a mix of contractor and tourism bookings across the portfolio and all the associated hospitality operations to make that run smoothly. I’ll take this opportunity to acknowledge all her hard work and say a massive thank you for your daily efforts and enthusiasm.

 

So you might be thinking what am I doing to keep momentum going, am I just lazing in the sun? The answer is – I am doing that a bit each day . In fact writing this has been some good leveraged time- I’m by the poolside with the kids splashing in front and when I finish writing I’ll be joining them.

What else can be done to keep up momentum on holiday? Here are some of the key things I’ll be doing if it helps give you some ideas:

# Most importantly -create rich memories for my family by indulging our senses in activities, games, sights foods and drinks

# Maintaining health by running the beach boardwalk and listening to great podcasts and books (holiday audible is High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard)

# Complete my 7 figure review for the previous 6 months

# Think big and have intentional conversations with my wife and kids about learning, values who we want to become and the kind of life we want to design

# Strategic thinking and brainstorming about business growth, profitability goals for half 2

# Create content that is hard to create when working IN the business being reactive

# Talk capital allowance structures with our CA advisor

 

What else do you do to keep the momentum going over the summer days?

As we’ve been enjoying the glorious weather this week and the Scottish schools break for summer, our harsh start to 2018 and the ‘beast from the east’ seem like ages ago [that’s the team harbour jumping in North Berwick]. Can you believe how quickly the last 6 months have gone? Here we now are at exactly the half year point this weekend.

 

At the beginning of the year Chris and I had a few Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) in relation to numbers of SA units and beds spaces, numbers of development projects and then goals related to mentoring and training. Reflecting on where we are, some goals have been adjusted/re-sized, while others have progressed beyond what we were originally thinking. For example we have reined in our goal on bed spaces somewhat in favour of profitability and building a solid platform of systems and processes ready for the next stage of growth ie SA management. We transitioned into mentoring and training perhaps sooner than expected and are finding it incredibly rewarding and satisfying. This has created a whole new avenue for further growth and development and we’re thriving on that accountability.

 

Whether you set big hairy audacious annual goals, half year goals or 90 day goals, this mid-way point prompts a great opportunity to check in on where we stand with things.

 

If you’re looking for inspiration on how to review the past 6 months, a good place to start is the 7 figure monthly review I referenced (courtesy of Peter Voogd) back in WEEK #6 of this year – but instead of monthly, apply the questions to the entire  first half of the year. CLICK HERE if you want the full review from that post. 

For a topline highlight, here are the 6 areas to look at again with 1 or 2 review questions:

 

Section #1 – OVERVIEW

-what went well, what didn’t?

-did I do what I said I was going to do?

Section #2 – PSYCHOLOGICAL

-What have been my biggest breakthroughs?

-What have been my mind-shifts?

Section #3 – TACTICS

-Did I hit my business income goal last month/6 months?

-What were my top income producing activities?

Section #4 – RELATIONSHIPS

-Who did I you connect with and reach out to last month?

-Did I take care of my current relationships

Section #5 – TEAM

-How was my team engagement?

-How was my speed of communication?

Section #6 – LEGACY

-What did I work on that was legacy focused?

 

In the weeks leading up to this mid-way point I’ve been observing patterns in the messages coming over from the mentors and influencers I invest time in listening to and reading content from.

 

POPPING THE CHAMPAGNE 6 MONTHS FROM NOW

One such message pattern, which is relevant for everyone right now at this half way marker, is to get super clear on where we want to be in 6 months time. Other than popping the champagne corks and celebrating a New Year with loved ones, what do you REALLY want to be celebrating in relation to your property and business progress?

 

It was Peter Voogd who I heard say that “people don’t make a million by accident, and if they don’t have a goal, they definitely won’t hit it”…he goes on to say “it’s not about the money, it’s about interrupting a belief system you currently have and propelling you toward real wealth and building real net worth”.

 

It’s worth thinking about that for a moment, do you have a current belief system holding you back from what you really want to achieve and where you feel your potential truly lies?

 

If you’ve ever been curious to dig into this stuff (which I very much have) you learn that so much about wealth building and success is about the head game. And if you were to dig a little you would uncover some behavioural psychology pointing to our identity. When I first read the Jim Rohn quote that goes,

 

“If you want to have more you have to become more.”

…it didn’t fully sink in. But over time, and with putting in the work, it has most definitely been sinking in.

 

The reason I bring the identity piece up and this quote is because we are talking about reviewing our last 6 months and planning the next. If the results achieved to date are not where you expected or planned for them to be when setting your goals then there’s a good chance that your old belief system hasn’t yet been interrupted and levelled up. For example, the person who wants to make 6 figures but is still thinking and acting like someone earning average salary – the goal will elude them.

 

Listening again to Peter V this week reminded me that we need to think and act like a person one or two steps ahead of us. Making that shift will start to positively impact the weekly goals you set yourself, the actions you take, the micro decisions you make each day about how you allocate your time…..and therefore the results and speed of results you get.

 

How could this kind of levelling up at an identity level change the trajectory of your next 6 months?

 

As you go forth into the next 6 months here are 3 things to bear in mind – these are 3 things or opportunities people can miss when striving for their big goals:

 

# 1 They don’t fully think things through to the end result ie not being strategic and intentional enough about how they are moving forwards towards the end goal. They can also get caught up in what’s referred to as ‘Superman syndrome’ ie feeling like you need to do it all yourself. Some good advice I heard was this – if someone can do it 80% as good as you then delegate it.

 

# 2 What is your blueprint to be massively effective for rest of year? Are you consciously working on things that are growth related, or just things that maintain the current business and returns?

 

For those of us in the SA business, these summer months are prime time to get busy making the most of the summer demand, but we are we doing to also work on growth for beyond the summer? Take the time to take a step back, look at your weekly activities and write down the things that simply maintain the day to day running of business, then write down the things are directly attributed to growth. How much time is spent in each category and how can you swap in more growth?

 

#3 Simplicity over complexity. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the shiny object syndrome ie tricking ourselves into thinking we need more information but not going out and executing what you’ve already learned from previous books, courses, self study etc. One way to generate more results in the second half of the year would be to narrow the focus to study less (ie don’t spread yourself too thin across different things) but challenge self on the speed of implementation. Execute on more of what you have learned.

 

Happy half year!

I’m guessing many in the property community have a reading list and a reading goal for the year – what is it and how’s it going?

I was 19 years old and working in the US over a uni summer holiday when I was first exposed to the books from Charlie “Tremendous” Jones and his famous quote,

“You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you’ve read”.

That’s quite something when you think about it. If you believe it, it really makes you want to do something about it.

So what books are you choosing to read and how are you getting the most out of them?

In the last couple of weeks I’ve heard two messages come from two different mentors that essentially said the same thing, and I wanted to share those messages here for the benefit of others in the community.

 

MESSAGE 1

How much do you read about business and wealth creation and what are you actually doing about it? Here’s a quick 3 step guide/or recipe on how to get the max value from a book

#1 Start by writing down what your biggest takeaways are- What did you learn? What blew your mind?

#2 Document your thoughts in the form of lateral connections: What else does this concept I’ve learned relate to? Where else has this idea shown up?

#3 How could these concepts apply to you: What specific actions could you take in light of this newly learned concept?

If we don’t do this we’re leaving a lot of the best insights and ideas on the table. Here’s the technical reason why, without doing these 3 steps we don’t give ourselves the chance to build the neurological connections that deeply activate the learning process.

 

MESSAGE 2

And so to conclude, here are the thoughts from one of my long standing favourites, Darren Hardy – “You don’t need another idea when you don’t do anything with the last one you had. Instead, review your notes from the last 4 weeks and act on something. Don’t be satisfied with seeking and not DO anything.”

Share your thoughts on the above and how you get the most value from the books you read.