Month: February 2022

Don’t know about you but I like to keep an eye out for what people at the top of their industries are saying, especially when it’s property related. 

In this post I’m sharing with you the 4 types of hotel offering that are expected to survive and thrive in the new post pandemic market. Why is that important to you? Well, as many of us are in the hospitality space through serviced accommodation, it’s important to understand what the wider accommodation market is doing and how other property related businesses are pivoting to be and stay profitable. 

So where have these insights come from? This week an article about Ian Schrager caught my interest – he’s the guy behind the famous Studio 54 nightclub and referred to as the inventor of the boutique hotel. What I didn’t realise is that few people have had as big an impact on popular culture as it relates to the entertainment, hospitality, food and beverage, retail and residential industries, as Schrager. His pioneering concepts and innovations with bars, hotels and various residential developments have become standards and continue to be imitated around the world. 

That’s why I paid attention to what I was reading. 

When asked, “What does the future hold for the travel industry?’ Ian Schrager responded with, “It will come roaring back – a V-shaped recovery”. However he also said that, “Only four different, distinct types of hotels will survive in the new post-pandemic market.”

The four types are:

#Type1: AFFORDABLE HOTELS – because family and corporate budgets will be squeezed.

Here are some notes from his predictions and comments:

-new hotel brands will leverage changes in consumer behaviour during lockdown to reduce hotel prices

-they will do away with restaurants and provide room service via remote “ghost” kitchens that have sprung up to service food delivery apps like Deliveroo and Just Eat. 

-housekeeping will be cut back

-the hostel market will boom

It is in this space that Schrager is investing heavily in launching a new mixed use offering called PUBLIC

#Type 2: THE BOUTIQUE HOTEL

He says it won’t just be about nice design alone. ‘You need to have an original point of view and stand for something contemporary, innovative, like we did at Studio 54.”

#Type 3: SUPER LUXURY – ie full service hotels for the one-percenters.

He says, ‘you’re going to start seeing people regularly paying $10,000-15,000 a night for nothing but the best level of service.”

#Type 4: AIRBNB – not a hotel of course but the short stay rental model is continuing to eat at market share from traditional hotels. 

Knowing this, he says the best way for hotels to compete with home-renting offerings “is to continue to innovate and focus on public space, which airbnb cannot offer”.

It is for this reason that his new offering at PUBLIC, he prioritises communal areas to work and relax – ie a coffee bar, restaurant, grocery store, nightclub, garden, gym and an outdoor bar. The writer of the article paints a great picture with this summary – ‘think Starbucks meets Studio 54, meets Whole Foods, meets WeWork, meets the local park’.

I certainly found all of this interesting. Most of us use these different types of accommodation and many people in the property community are investing in old hotels to repurpose them. So, we may well be consumers of these mixed use concepts or we might want to borrow ideas like this to apply to our own mixed use developments.

What have you read recently from an industry leader that has relevance to your property business?

The topic of decision making is a crucial one, and a process none of us can avoid. Whether it be deciding what to cook or what property strategy to commit to, it’s something we all face, everyday. And in many cases, arriving at a decision can be a painful process. 

Winston Churchill referred to decision making as ‘the long road of agony’- that agony being the period before deciding should I or shouldn’t I, this path or that path. 

I first wrote this post a year ago when inspired by a Darren Daily message – at that time I was deciding on and mapping my quarterly project plans for my 2021 property goals. Recent conversations with many property entrepreneurs has reminded me how many decisions we continue to face at the various stages of starting and growing our property businesses. That is why I thought sharing these 4 filters again would be a helpful guide. I do hope it proves to be.

I’m a firm believer in investing significant time over December and January (or whenever you choose to punctuate a year end) to do the heavy mental work of decision making about what you want for your year ahead, and to create the implementation plan behind it. Doing this in advance prevents you from beginning a week mid quarter wondering what to focus on. 

Darren Hardy said ‘more failure has been caused by indecision than by poor decision’, and his mentor before him, Jim Rohn, is quoted as referring to indecision as ‘the great thief of opportunity’. Don’t let indecision be the ‘thief of opportunity’ when it comes to your property business. 

So, whether it be arriving at a strategic decision for your property business, or addressing more in the moment questions, here are FOUR powerful filters to help you make great decisions quickly and easily (I’m going to paraphrase my notes I took from Darren’s video, so all credit to him for this). 

FILTER #1: MINOR OR MAJOR

We need to quickly discern whether a decision is a minor one or major one because way too much time is taken up with minor decisions. For example, what food to eat or what family movie to watch from the thousands on Netflix (or is that just with my kids in our house?). So to cut through the minor stuff quickly, ask yourself this:

-5 years from now, will this decision have significantly altered my life?

If it’s a no then its a minor, so decide and move quickly on as wasting any more time deliberating WILL alter your life 🙂

FILTER #2: COST OR WORTH

I love this one, and it’s particularly relevant for what might be investments in yourself. Darren reminds us that we need to be asking ourselves – ‘How much does this decision cost, not in money today, but in subtraction from your overall wealth?’ To put that into context he gives the example using compound interest that £1 today will be roughly worth £5 to me 20 years from now.  If an item costs me £50 it really costs me £250 in future wealth. So that’s the actual cost side. 

But we also need to evaluate what something is WORTH ie not what does this book cost, but what could it be worth to me through applying it? Not, what does this course cost, but what could it be worth to my future, my wealth, my health, my ability to positively impact and be of value to others? Getting clear on that completely changes the equation.

So to help with your cost v worth purchase decisions:

-first recalculate the maths of the cost by increasing it by 5 times, then recalibrate the worth because sometimes the worth skyrockets beyond the cost and sometimes not. That’s what you’ll need to figure out. 

So for example the cost of renewing an older but functional consumer item is something where the cost will likely outweigh the worth. However with something like a specific course or mentorship, where the cost today feels high, with commitment to implementing said course/mentorship actions, the worth will far exceed the cost. I’ve actively invested in personal development, courses and mentorship for years and the real terms worth (ie equity, income streams, value I can add to others)  from having implemented what I’ve learned far far surpasses the cost. 

FILTER #3: WISH OR GLAD

I learned this one a few years ago and it’s been incredibly powerful in helping our family make decisions. Ask yourself, 

“Years from now, am I more likely to say, I wish I hadn’t or I’m glad I did?”

The answer will hit you clearly and quickly. Jeff Bezos referred to this as regret minimisation- during an interview with Business Insider he said,

“When you think about the things that you will regret when you’re 80, they’re almost always the things that you did not do. They’re acts of omission. Very rarely are you going to regret something that you did that failed and didn’t work or whatever,”

So ask yourself, when I’m 80 years old will I regret not trying to start or scale a property investing business? Or will I regret having tried property strategy XYZ?

This question takes your mind away from the bits of short term daily confusion and turns a seemingly difficult question into a very easy one, because your 80 year self clearly tells you what you wouldn’t want to have regrets about having tried or not tried. 

FILTER #4: GOOD WOLF OR BAD WOLF

This final filter relates to the Cherokee folklore tale that Darren has shared many times before- we each have 2 wolves living inside of us; one is the best of who we are ie our core values, our best selves when it comes to character, love, kindness etc; the other is the worst of who we are ie our fears, doubts and needy ego desperate for acceptance. 

So the question to ask ourselves is this:

-”What choice would my good wolf make?”

Essentially that’s evaluating the decision through the filter of your best self, both now and in terms of who you want to become.

CONCLUSION

Either one of those filters on their own, or maybe even a combination of them will help you make decisions quickly, easily and without guilt or anxiety.

Circling back to that opening quote from Winston Churchill about agony, he concluded by saying, 

“Once the decision is made all the agony goes away”. 

It’s the indecision that causes the agony, not the decision itself.

So, which of those filters can help you with a decision you’re facing in your property business now?

So here we are 6 weeks into 2022 already, half way through Q1!  This last week was dedicated to masterminding so checking progress on people’s Q1 goals and holding them to account was the order of the week. 

All too often, human behaviour around this time of year follows a typical pattern -the intended good practices with exercise and business goals can slip away by February. As property entrepreneurs working towards lofty goals this year, we definitely don’t want to succumb to that. So, if you’re interested in making sure your good intentions for your property business don’t dissipate, here are 12 questions to check in on yourself. I learned these from Darren Hardy a few years ago and after having noted them in my journal I check in on them periodically. I hope you can benefit from asking these of yourself also.

HERE ARE THE 12 QUESTIONS TO CHECK IF YOU ARE DOING WHAT YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD TO GROW YOUR PROPERTY BUSINESS

[the short sentences in the parentheses highlight the reason for the question and highlight harsh truths that may be going on inside your head, hopefully not however]

#1: Do I have a weekly calendar with slots booked for my most valuable property business priorities, before each new day starts? [so I can create rather than react]

#2: Do I allow too many interruptions during the day from friends, family, customers, prospects, team members to interrupt my flow and deep concentration work? [because it’s a welcome relief from the hard work of creating and finishing something]

#3: Do I talk a lot, extending conversations into longer chit chats when unnecessary? [because it’s seemingly justifiable to delay the hard work of creating]

#4: Do I multi-task? [even though I know it reduces my intellectual ability and causes me stress and anxiety]

#5: Do I love the adrenalin buzz of being overly busy? [in order to feel a sense of importance and self esteem even though it’s at the demise of my actual productivity]

#6: Is living in chaos and constant motion more comfortable to me than stilling my mind and single tasking? [because I might fear to be alone with my own thoughts]

#7: Do I find it really difficult to say no? [because I am too needy for approval and lack the self confidence to stick to my own priorities]

#8: Do I often find myself in a crunch to finish projects because I’m in over my head? [because I allow myself to be everyone else’s whipping boy/girl and don’t protect my own priorities]

#9: Do I spend hours needlessly on social media? [to escape and distract me from what’s most important]

#10: Do I waste time doing repetitious, non-vital and inessential tasks? [because I haven’t put systems in place to automate or eliminate]

#11: Do I maintain control of nearly everything because I believe no one else can do it as well? [which makes me an egotistical and delusional narcissist]

#12: Do I believe I can’t afford to hire someone to help me? [because I don’t actually value my time, my family and my health appropriately]

You might be thinking woah- those questions can be quite harsh and cutting (that’s what I thought the first time I saw them). They are, but answering them for ourselves will only serve to help by shining a light on what we need to keep us progressing in an optimal way. For me personally, I’m consciously working on actions related to questions 10 and 11 (this time last year I worked on and improved areas 4, 7 and 10). 

Which question(s) have prompted some proactive refining work on your part?

I don’t know about you, but the idea of consuming a book a week has always sounded great to me, yet it’s not something I’ve ever actually done, or even got near to doing.

I love personal development books covering topics like high performance, wealth creation and entrepreneurship, so naturally the thought of being able to consume 52 books a year of those subjects is very appealing. Just think of all the wisdom one could absorb from 52 of the top business and personal development books. Does that appeal to you too?

Well, reflecting on my learning habits over the last few years I can see a pattern emerging. Whilst I love the idea of a book a week, the reality is that I only actually read/listen to a handful of books a year! However, with the books that resonate with me, I go deep with them and really do them justice. My phone and journals are full of notes I take from the few books a year I commit to. I will listen to a book two or three times and do so with the intention and commitment of implementing key ideas into our businesses.

Here are a few books from the last few years that I’ve read/listened to twice or more, taken copious notes on, and applied to our businesses.

2019 PROFIT FIRST by Mike Michalowicz

I love the simplicity of the core concept in this book – it’s really about allocating income into a few ‘pots’ to ensure that ‘profit is a habit, not an event’. So every month you get into a habit of putting set percentage allocations from the overall monthly revenue into the following pots:

PROFIT

OWNER’s COMPENSATION

OPERATING EXPENSES

TAX

Such a simple system, but do many actually do it? We implemented this across all of our company bank accounts and keep a monthly spreadsheet tracker for it too. I can’t tell you how satisfying it’s been to see the money in each pot neatly allocated each month and know you have everything covered, especially the profit and income piece 😊

2020 – PERSONALITY ISN’T PERMANENT by Dr Benjamin Hardy

I’ve always been fascinated with psychology and this book introduced me to and validated so many concepts that resonated with me. Concepts to do with goal setting, with reframing failure, progress and confidence, and much more. One of the lasting takeaways for me was wrapping my head around the concept of your future self, and investing time to design your future self so that you can experience a better present.

I went on to read, digest and action a lot more from Benjamin Hardy and his work on the future self has helped me enormously in my goal setting and day to day implementation in our property businesses. The wisdom from the book has also equipped me to better mentor people I work with in property masterminds. 

2021 – WHO NOT HOW by Dan Sullivan and Dr Benjamin Hardy

Here’s the book summarised in 3 core lessons:

1. Ask yourself “who can help me accomplish this?” instead of “how am I going to get this done?”
2. Getting the right ‘Whos’ in your life will free up your time.
3. You will make more money when you find Whos to complete your Hows.

This book really did start to shift my thinking in 2021 and it influenced us by either hiring more people into our team or finding additional professionals for our property power team. The key themes are carrying through strongly into this year too as most of my time in the first quarter is focused on people i.e. the ‘who’s’.

2022 – OVERSUBSCRIBED by Daniel Priestly

I am only half way through this book but I absolutely love how the author frames his points around the key concepts in the book, which is essentially all about making the supply and demand relationship work for you. 

This book is industry agnostic but very quickly, property people will start to see how the concepts can be applied to their property businesses, whether that be in relation to finding JV investors, recruiting team members or marketing campaigns. 

It’s still early days with this book but I’m excited about drawing out the nuggets and applying them to our businesses. 

In closing, I couldn’t write an article about applying the wisdom from books and not mention the book I wrote in late 2019. The concepts and D-I-C-E model I wrote about in PREDICTABLE PROPERTY PROFITS (https://www.amazon.co.uk/PREDICTABLE-PROPERTY-PROFITS-GUESSWORK-CERTAINTY/dp/1527253732)  covers our story from SA failure to success and it shares the investment and business philosophy we live by year on year. 

What about you – what wisdom from books have you intentionally applied to your property business?