Month: September 2021

Like many in the property communities, I am a huge fan of Darren Hardy’s content (referred to hereafter as DH). I don’t miss a day of his short mentoring videos and I really take the time to absorb and apply the lessons that will help in running and growing our property businesses. 

In one of his videos this week he focused on resilience and it resonated so strongly that I felt compelled to share the essence of that message as it relates to property.

So, DH was using the metaphor of a tennis ball to illustrate how in life we get smacked around like a tennis ball, and he broke this metaphor down into 4 phases which I thought were extremely helpful to relate to our property journeys. Use your awareness of these 4 phases to build your resilience in your property business.

#1: THE FALL

This first part of the metaphor relates to a setback of some sort, and we all get plenty of these. So in our property journeys this might relate to something like the following:

-you spend ages carrying out diligence on a potential deal only for your offer to be rejected

OR

-you start to realise that the the prospect of your desired hopeful outcome for a property maybe won’t actually come to fruition

#2: THE IMPACT

In this phase DH describes how hitting the hard ground bends the ball out of shape (ie hitting the proverbial bottom bends you out of shape). He goes on to say that ‘either you let it absorb you or YOU absorb it and use it to improve you. Whilst painful in the moment it is the smack of the impact that focuses the mind and musters up the fight in you to become the next version of you.’

So back to your property journey this could be something that in the moment feels like you’ve hit rock bottom and how you choose to respond next determines everything. For example:

-Something crucial to your business running successfully knocks you on your backside ie it could be a paying client choosing someone else over you, a team member leaving or something similar

OR

-Your worst fears become a reality- you thought that ‘if you build it they will come’, so you built it and no one came.

[Note, these ‘FALL’ and ‘IMPACT’ examples I’m offering up are all real things that we have experienced. Our worst fears with our first R2R SA business did become a reality in that we quickly set up 4 SA units and within 6 months we’d created a cash hungry beast of a small business that was paying everyone else but us, it was actually costing us a lot of money. ]

DH went on to explain that the pain of impact is what creates the energetic force to launch you in the opposite and positive direction – if you choose to see it that way. 

In other words you could choose to let the situation absorb you, or you could decide to act with resolve….that enough is enough and that going forwards you will commit to find a better way. 

#3: RESTORATION

DH explains how in this 3rd phase ‘the ball starts to regain it’s shape ie you realise that ‘your identity is not defined in the fall, it’s defined in your ability to rebound’

In other words this is where your choice in how you respond means everything, it’s where ‘you stop mourning about where you once were and start focusing on where you want to go’. 

-So in the example of losing a key client or a key member of your business, instead of throwing in the towel, it’s about facing up to the deep work of figuring out where did you go wrong, and asking how can I do things differently to avoid this in the future and actually do things better?

#4: ELEVATION

This 4th phase is where you rise higher than where you were before, because of the bounce ie had you not hit the ground like the metaphorical tennis ball, you would never have figured out how to be better. 

So back on the property examples I’ve referenced:

-you’ve figured out that the antidote to feeling down when an offer is reflected, is to put more focus on increasing your deal flow

-after taking a ‘guess and hope’ approach you realise the importance of figuring out multiple exits in advance

-in the case of a key client or team member derailing your business you realise the importance of not being 100% reliant on 1 client and on having additional processes and people in place to maintain continuity in your business

-and to finish with our example of creating a R2R business that was losing money, the elevation was born out of that painful experience – we made the decision not to guess again, and instead to bake much more certainty into our SA business by finding the demand first, and only then go find the property to serve that demand. 

In closing, where can you look at your own falls (past or present) as an opportunity to bounce back higher?

Quite often it’s not more new information that we need, but instead what we need is being reminded of something we already know that we will now commit to actioning. Would you agree?

This post is prompted by a discussion I had during an online coaching call I was hosting this week. That conversation led me to look up a post I wrote over 3 years ago, and I wanted to share it again and refresh it as the message is so impactful for people starting and growing their property investing business.

A few years ago I learned a new definition of ‘productivity’ and I’d like to share it again now and possibly challenge your existing perspective with it.

For decades (and no doubt generations) we humans have scoured productivity books and resources in search of the silver silver bullet to magically help us get more of what we want done. I’m not sure how many books have actually been written on the subject but a quick search for productivity books on amazon brought up over 30,000.

It was brought to my attention by one of my mentors in the US that we can typically sort productivity into 3 main categories, as follows:

#1 – WORK HARDER – so in other words increasing the output. For example in your property business this might be going on more property viewings per week, speaking to more agents per week, sending more letters direct to landlords, attending more networking events etc

#2 – WORK SMARTER – this would include time saving productivity hacks. For example in your property business this might include hiring a Virtual Assistant to help with admin, engaging a sourcing agent or two, batching similar work tasks, implementing systems and processes to prevent duplication and to automate some things. 

So those first two categories are logical, and everyone knows about them. What about this 3rd category however? This one was a new way for me to look at things when I learned about it in 2018, and it’s a game changer…..

#3 – BE BRAVER – maybe you are surprised to be reading this 3rd category, but have a think about what kind of action it includes – typically this would involve some kind of bold move, asking for something, risking your ego in some way. So in your property business for example this could be anything big or little that you are doing for the first time- it might be phoning a commercial agent for the first time, it might be asking for money from someone, proposing a creatively structured deal to a landlord direct, asking a prospective contractor guest for a commitment before you have a property. It might be posting a video on social media for the first time, doing a presentation, asking for an introduction….you get the picture. 

There are so many actions that will require a property investor/entrepreneur to have to draw on some courage in order to initiate something -actions that are uncomfortable to take at first. To be clear, I’m definitely not referring to any form of reckless bravery where one might leap before looking. What I’m referring to are the kind of interactions with other people that we may fear and hold back from. These interactions (that typically involve asking) may not take a long time, they do require drawing on a few seconds of courage, but once done could dramatically change your outcomes for the better. On the flip side you’ll also know that if you don’t take that uncomfortable action, then things won’t change. You’ll know exactly what these kinds of things might be in your property world.

IN CONCLUSION

The definition of productivity should be tilting towards this 3rd category because as my mentor put it, “Courage is the entrepreneurial force multiplier”. To be more productive we must optimise for courage. In many cases being courageous doesn’t take long, hence why it ranks so highly on the productivity scale 😁.

Ask yourself, what is the most courageous action you can take in your property business this week?

This week Chris and I did a site visit to see and discuss progress with the flats being built above our shop. 

It has been a few months since my last visit so it was great to see the progress. 

Shops with upper parts are frequently discussed in the investor community so we thought it might be insightful to share the progress of one we are doing now. This is a nice little example as it started out as one commercial building of a shop with first floor storage space, and we are converting the uppers into 2 flats. 

I’ve recorded a video to show the uppers mid-build to provide some visual context [excuse the poor videography 😊] and below are a few points to share our rationale and approach to this one.

*What informed the search in the first place? Without a search criteria you can very quickly become overwhelmed in the sea of rightmove and similar websites, searching for something that ‘looks cheap’.

*It was building relationships with a handful of commercial agents that gave us enough understanding of which commercial clients were looking for space where, and what size.

*With a few strategic conversations and meetings we were able to define a search criteria.

*It was the Specsavers criteria that led us to find this property and even though they had changed their mind when we pitched it, our initial diligence gave us multiple options with this property, and that’s what gave us the confidence to proceed.

*After viewing we found out 3 local businesses had expressed an interest to the selling agent to let the building, and if the large space didn’t let we had understood there was a big demand for workshop space which could have been created with the rear section, leaving a smaller retail front to let.

*We developed a relationship with one of these local businesses and worked with them to agree a shop layout – we upgraded it to suit his long term vision for a bakery with retail shop and cafe at the front and storage and distribution at the rear. 

*On viewing, the upper parts lent themselves very logically to create a spacious 2 bedroom apartment, and when we discovered the height of the attic space there was definitely enough to create a 1 bedroom apartment up there. So, if we’d wanted there would be an option to sell the resi and keep the commercial for no money left in. However we are choosing to keep both as long term income producing assets. 

So that’s a brief update from one of our projects. What kind of projects are you working on at the moment?