Adaero Property

Over the last 3 years, my blog post in the final week leading into Christmas has followed the same theme – about ‘presence’ over presents. I want to stick with that theme and add in a little piece about happiness too. As a father, husband, son, brother, uncle, godfather and friend, I’ve gradually come to realise over the years that the magical time of Christmas is an opportunity for so much more than giving and receiving  nicely wrapped presents.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to give presents, and my kids in particular love opening them but what I’d really like to teach them by example over the years, is how to be fully present and create rich memories.

Whilst many of us won’t get to be with extended family this year (for us, our big family gathering in Spain can’t take place) I wanted to share a few ideas from my Christmas blog post last year that we can still do (even in our scaled back Christmases) to enhance the time we have with our loved ones and create enriching and lasting memories.

Here they are:

#1: CAPTURE THE MEMORIES

-make a conscious effort to pull the phone out and take some quality pictures of your loved ones laughing, playing, dancing etc (be sure not to bury your head in texts or social media, get back to that family meal/game/chat and really be there). Then be sure to schedule time over the holidays to compile your photos into an album (physical or online) to share with those you love for years to come.

#2: TIME vs TRINKETS

-in place of impulse buying gifts to bulk up what’s under the tree, write out a Christmas card or hand decorated note with a selection of experiences you will share with that person next year (I love this one – I did it for each of my kids last Christmas and this year we created special memories 1-to-1 with each of them. For my youngest, who loves crafting, I ordered a set of cardboard den building boards- we spent most of a Sunday together designing and building a den, making hotdogs and then crawling inside the den to eat our lunch and watch a movie. My middle son chose to do the high ropes course and zip wire at Go Ape, followed by a burger, and my eldest chose to have a go at clay pigeon shooting. We created wonderful memories and photos together and I know they appreciated the 1-to-1 time when normally everyone is talking over each other.)

#3: DON’T JUST GET TOGETHER, GIVE TOGETHER

-It has been said that families who give together make lasting and meaningful memories together.

-This might be organising a financial donation to a chosen charity, giving out soup and sandwiches to the homeless or any number of different charitable things.

-Last year my wife and I organised a surprise dress up night with a twist, a little like a secret santa where we had to buy an outfit from a charity shop for another family member on a £20 budget. There were 17 of us so we donated in the region of £340 to various charities by buying up old clothes and random accessories, and then after the party we donated all the goods to Cancer Research for them to sell on again. 

This year we will carry on the tradition with our kids, just on a smaller scale. 

 ‘TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY….

So, a quick note on happiness as promised at the beginning. 

This year has certainly thrown it’s challenges at everyone and that’s really taken us on an emotional rollercoaster. In amongst that however, it feels like in many cases, that lockdown has helped many find happiness in simple things again.

I’ve been reminded twice this week, through listening to some of my favourite podcasters, of this vital fact –

THAT HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE, IT’s ALREADY INSIDE US.

In the book, “Top Five Regrets Of The Dying” by Bronnie Ware, her interviews revealed that in the moment of death, people truly realised that happiness is a choice. One of the top regrets recorded was, “I wish I would have let myself be more happy”. Wow!

I know that many property entrepreneurs out there, myself included, can can too often forget to pat themselves on the back for their mini accomplishments. It is so important for us to give ourselves permission to celebrate small things and feel that happiness regularly. 

I heard these wise words in one of those podcasts, “Don’t be happy once you achieve, be happy along the way and you will achieve faster.” In other words, don’t be telling yourself, ‘I’ll be happy when I have a property portfolio of X, producing Y monthly income’, but rather find ways to let out your happiness regularly along the journey and the success will come faster. 

Going into Christmas and the new year ahead, give yourself permission to unlock your happiness regularly. 

I hope some of these ideas resonate and help others out there to be fully PRESENT and HAPPY this Christmas and beyond.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas

This week our Ops Manager and I met our new account manager from booking.com (referred to as BDC from here onwards) on zoom. Apologies in advance that this won’t be a relevant read for non serviced accommodation people, however for those in SA, I hope this little update serves as a helpful reminder that leads to more bookings. 

Although we generate the majority of our bookings direct, we do still have a few properties that benefit greatly from BDC acting as part of our sales team. So it is still important for us to understand what their data is telling us so we can optimise the properties where we want to attract guests through their platform.

The aim of this post is to highlight some of the tweaks you could make now to optimise your listings and ultimately secure a few more bookings. I’ll share what recommendations were made by the BDC account manager and explain what they mean so you can weigh up your own options.

CANCELLATION POLICY

BDC recommendation – Reducing your flexible 30 day policy to 0-1 days before check in would match the current demand in both policies and book windows.

It is no surprise to hear that 81% of guests want to have free cancellations right now. With our current cancellation policy of 30 days (ie only get a refund if cancel 30+ days before check in date) it makes our properties less attractive compared to those with shorter cancellation periods. Combine that with the fact that 50%+ of stays are booked last minute, it means we are missing out on more potential bookings. In other words, if prospective guests were to filter their search on BDC based on a free cancellation policy, our properties wouldn’t even be seen. 

Whilst moving our policy from 30 days to 1 day doesn’t work for us, we can reduce it to 7 days to close the gap in terms of what the current demand wants in terms of policies. 

LENGTH OF STAY

BDC recommendation – With 46% of guests booking a 1 night stay, ensuring no minimum length of stay restriction will allow you the best opportunity to attract bookings

We’ve typically worked on the basis of a 3 night minimum stay and with some properties do a 2 night minimum stay. You will need to weigh up if the profit generated by a 1 night stay justifies the service time associated and the exposure your property gets to wear & tear. 

 A happy medium may be to set your pricing such that the price for a 1 night stay is higher than the nightly rate for a 3 night stay. Whilst BDC is capable of doing this we have encountered challenges with our channel manager Kigo being able to map across price variables like this for us. However, this is something the account manager is now exploring for us with her technical team. 

THE GENIUS PROGRAMME

BDC recommendation – Make the most of our Genius programme – which offers visibility boosting and an opportunity for incremental bookings and revenue. 

The Genius Programme is essentially a discount of 10% offered to corporate and repeat bookers and BDC quote the following benefits:

1. Visibility boost – with tagging and filters
2. 18% incremental bookings
3. 17% incremental revenue

The stats we got from BDC did show that our Genius properties did receive more bookings than the non Genius ones. If you’re using genius however you need to remember that any other promotions you go in and add will stack on top of the genius 10%. So if you were to create a manual winter promo offer 15% off, and then your property was booked by a genius guest, you would end up giving out an overall 25% discount, then of course you have the 15% commission to BDC, so you’d only be left with 60% of your ideal nightly rate. Just something you need to be on top of. 

To be eligible for Genius your property needs to meet the following criteria:

-be available and open-bookable on Booking.com

-have received 3 or more guest reviews

-have a review score of at least 7.5*

You can check in the opportunities section of your extranet to see if any more of your properties have become eligible. 

THE PREFERRED PROGRAMME

BDC recommendation – Make the most of our Preferred programme – which enables you to fill more occupancy without impacting your bottom line. 

The preferred programme is essentially paying BDC a little extra in return for them boosting your visibility to the BDC audience. Instead of the standard 15% commission, you are charged 18%. BDC list the main benefits to be:

1. Fill more properties without discounting
2. Grow business long-term
3. Receive more visibility & reach more guests
4. Stand out from your competitors and earn on average 65% more page views

You become eligible for this once you meet certain scores for performance, reviews and pricing. 

For our area, 84% of all guests book a preferred property that has the little thumb icon. Check if you have any properties eligible for the Preferred Partner Programme that are not yet activated. 

MOBILE RATES

BDC recommendation -Take the opportunity to offer Mobile Rates – this allows you to stand out from competition in an evolving market. 

This is essentially offering a 10% discount to mobile users.BDC list the main benefits to be:

1. Mobile rates give partners 26% more bookings from mobile traffic
2. Stand out on mobile devices with badges
3. Positively impact your overall ranking on Booking.com.

We learned that 74% of all bookings in our area are made on a mobile device.

This is one of those situations you have to be careful of not discounting too heavily by accident ie the 10% mobile PLUS the 10% for Genius. 

So there you have it. I hope this might prompt a quick 5 min check on things to optimise your BDC listings that might just bring an extra booking or two in the weeks ahead.

And do share any other tweaks here that have been working for you.

Earlier this week I shared a 9 minute animated summary of the book Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg. I wanted to circle back to that and highlight something crucial, something that all property entrepreneurs need to do yet so many fail to. It’s something I strongly believe in, and work hard at consciously practicing. 

Anyone who’s worked with me in mastermind groups know that I’m a stickler for this, but it’s only because I want to help people to become their next level version… and to do that, they need to practice this crucial thing?

What is this thing?

It’s celebrating!

So you want to achieve XYZ goal in property? Celebrating is a key ingredient to getting you there. OK, I like to crack the champers as much as the next person, but I don’t literally mean bringing out the bubbly at the end of each work day (that’s a slippery slope in the wrong direction). 

What I’m really pointing to here is that the only way to sustain productivity, is to genuinely feel good about what we do.

For context, let me quickly back up and share BJ Fogg’s 3 step habit forming framework, then I’ll circle back to the celebrating piece and it’s relevance to property entrepreneurs. 

Here’s a quick summary of Fogg’s 3 step ABC method

A- is for Anchor moment

Use an existing routine in your life that will remind you to do the new positive behaviour. Here’s a simple template sentence you can use to fill in the blanks –  “After I……[something you already do], I will…..”[your new positive habit]

B- is for Tiny Behaviour

In other words to physically do a small version of the new positive habit you want to embed ie two press ups.

C- is for Celebrate

This is something you do to create a positive feeling inside yourself for having completed the positive behaviour (Fogg calls this feeling ‘Shine’)

This final step of the framework is the crucial step, and it’s the one that is too often missed out. Why is it so important? In Fogg’s words, “It’s emotions that create habits. It’s not repetition. It’s the emotion that your brain connects with the behavior that makes it become automatic, or in other words, a habit.”

[Read that last sentence again, you need to remember it.]

The celebration is something you do to create a positive emotion inside yourself. You need to get really good at creating that inner feeling of success from doing the small things that you know will lead to the big results. 

Fogg tells us that, ‘Learning to celebrate after a tiny win is the most critical component of habit development.’ The problem is so many people hold back on the celebration because they think they should only celebrate huge successes ie the the day they purchase a property, but that’s a huge mistake. 

Lets use an exercise related analogy to capture the message. If your goal is to bench press 120Kgs – as you work towards the goal you are not measuring did I lift 120kg today? Rather, you are measuring did I show up and go through the necessary pain to get closer to the goal (the pain being the core work out, the stretching, the work on other muscle groups). Did I show up and do that? – Yes, then that feels good, you create an inner feeling of success, your inner shine. And the more you do it, the more you feel good about it.

So what might be your equivalent ‘property workouts’? The small sessions you schedule each weekday that will eventually get you to your desired property portfolio and income? It will likely be groups of activities like phone calls (for due diligence, for quotes, for selling, for marketing), spreadsheet analysis, viewings, batched admin tasks etc.

Whatever it is, you need to schedule those property workouts, do the task and consciously acknowledge and celebrate each mini win. Create that positive emotion and find your “Shine” so you can form the habit and make the behaviour automatic.

Even though we won’t always overly love the nature of the task, we can train ourselves to love the feeling of the mini win. This is important for property entrepreneurs (and anyone for that matter) because it reinforces delayed gratification, which our subconscious doesn’t like to do.

When you feel successful at something, even if it’s seemingly pretty small, your confidence grows quickly and your motivation to do that positive behaviour again increases. Even better, motivation spills over to perform other related behaviours and this leads to success momentum.

Moral of the message is, don’t resist celebrating the small wins, that will only hold you back. 

So, what’s a small win for the week that can be celebrated here?

It’s an absolute fact that what we focus on is what we get… so having gratitude right now is more important than ever.

Whilst it can feel hard to be thankful during a pandemic, along with our friends across the pond celebrating Thanksgiving this week, I’ve also taken time to reflect and acknowledge many points of light in what will likely be viewed as a pretty dark year.

I really like the ethos of thanksgiving and can see why for some it’s their favourite day of the year. There’s no pressure related to giving gifts but rather a day to focus on good food, family and gratitude. It’s a time to simply take inventory of all the wonderful things and wonderful people we have in our lives that we are thankful for. 

Gratitude does so much for us, especially as property entrepreneurs, but we often don’t realise it. Here are just a few reasons why having gratitude is essential for people in property:

-It allows us to push through obstacles along the rollercoaster journey that is property.

-It allows us to enjoy the journey and stay sane by measuring incremental progress rather than the gap to a big goal.

-It allows us to change our perspective for the better, so that we can see that everything happens for us rather than to us, even with those things that can seem so difficult in the moment.

-It allows us to genuinely connect with people, because ultimately, property is a people business. 

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, here are just a few things I’m grateful for in 2020…

-That external challenges didn’t stop me from pushing forward.

-That I have my incredible wife Emma and my three boys with me healthy and happy at home.

-That I have an ongoing burning desire to BECOME more, ACHIEVE more and HELP more and more people.

-All of our paying customers (ie the guests and tenants in all of our properties).

-That Chris and I have created property businesses we love working on and for which the future is exciting.

-That I hold my future in my hands… success and failure is all up to me (and so it is for you!).

I heard property investor and mentor Dean Graziosi say that, “happiness is not about the luck of circumstances. It’s about how you approach life… with a grateful heart”, and I wholeheartedly agree.

I hope you can find your own points of light as you look back on your 2020 to date, and spend some time giving thanks- why not share with us a couple of things you are grateful for?

If you earned the exact amount of money you desired from your property investments and businesses, do you know how you would allocate it?

In last week’s post I shared a 6 step process, from the book Think and Grow Rich, to create your wealth vision.[If you missed it I’ll link to it at the bottom so you can go back and get those 6 steps].

If you have already read that post you’ll remember that the very first step is to – 

“Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. It is not sufficient merely to say ‘I want plenty of money.’ Be definite as to the amount.”

When I worked through the 6 steps for my own planning I found myself wondering how I could best come up with that exact figure. I found the answer in recalling that there is another great wealth calculation from a book I’d read years ago – The Millionaire Fastlane. 

So, for those interested, I felt this simple calculation will help you define the ‘exact amount of money your desire’.

Below I outline the 3 steps so you can follow along and replicate for your context:

STEP 1: DEFINE THE LIFESTYLE YOU WANT

So now is when you need to put your imagination to work by asking yourself, what exactly do you want? Do you want the X bedroom house in Y location, or the XYZ charitable foundation, or the…? You literally need to take the time to write everything down.

For the purpose of this illustration, I will share the same example that the author MJ Demarco uses in the book. In his example, lets say his dream lifestyle included the following:

Three cars: Mercedes, a hybrid and a minivan

A 6000 SQFT house with a fountain, pool and a waterfall

A small cabin in the mountains

The ability to travel 3 months a year

Private school for the kids

Do this for yourself to list out what you are working towards.

STEP 2: ASSESS THE COST OF YOUR DREAM LIFESTYLE

In this step you need to assess the monthly cost for each, including all associated taxes and insurance. [Note- by researching these costs you will start to move from vague dreams to a much greater sense of clarity and connection to the dream thing].

So, back to MJ Demarco’s example (although I’ll swap the $ signs out for £ signs at least since we’re not in the States 😉

Three cars: Mercedes, a hybrid and a minivan: £2000

A 6000 SQFT house with a fountain, pool and a waterfall: £5000

A small cabin in the mountains: £1000

The ability to travel 3 months a year: £1000

Private school for the kids: £1000

Dream lifestyle cost = £10,000/month

The next thing you need to determine is your monthly living expenses that run alongside the dream lifestyle. So this would include all other monthly outgoings like food, clothes, health, things for kids, eating and drinking out etc.

For MJ’s example he assigned £4000/month to living expenses (monthly allowance). 

Now you add this amount to your dream lifestyle cost to arrive at your Gross Living Cost, as below:

Gross Living Cost = £10,000/mth (lifestyle cost) + £4000 (Allowances) = £14,000

Next you determine your Net Living Cost by dividing Gross Living Cost by .60. This will crudely account for the higher tax band (however your affairs may be set up differently and you’ll no doubt be working with your accountant to minimise tax leakage and make use of things like capital allowances).

To continue the example

Net Living Cost = £14,000/.60 = £23,333/mth

STEP 3: SET THE TARGETS FOR YOUR MONEY SYSTEM AND BUSINESS INCOME

If you haven’t read Millionaire Fastlane, it introduces you to the concept of creating both a money system (ie a way to earn interest off your capital) and a business system (ie your primary income source from your main entrepreneurial endeavour).

The goal of step 3 is to set the targets for these two systems. To calculate your money system target, multiply your Net Living Cost by 12, then divide by 5%, or .05. Five percent is the minimum expected yield on a money system used in his example. 

Money System Target = (£23,333 x 12)/0.05 = £5,599,920

In other words, that’s how much cash you would need to have invested and working at a rate of 5% annually in order to deliver the gross income needed to fund this example dream lifestyle. 

For the business system target, multiply the Gross Living Cost by 5.

Business System Target = £14,000 x 5 = £70,000/mth

Now you have 2 defined targets. First, seek to create a business system that generates £70,000/mth ie this could be from a deal packaging business, an SA business, Rent to Buys, or any combination of property related income that best suits you. 

Of this income:

40% goes to paying taxes (appreciate that’s a crude calc so you can reapportion for taxes)

40% goes to fund your money system

20% pays your lifestyle 

This delivers your target lifestyle AND simultaneously funds your money system. 

With these figures known, you can then go back to completing Napoleon Hill’s 6 steps to map out the what, the how and the when.

Who’s going to have a go and figure out their property wealth calculation?

LINK TO 6 STEPS TO MAKE YOUR FUTURE SELF A MILLIONAIRE

Is your future self in a better financial position than where you are now? I really hope that becomes the case.

If you are serious about making this a reality, whether through property or another business avenue you know how to leverage, I’m super excited to share with you this 6 step method below. 

These 6 steps are nothing I can lay claim to, I am the mere messenger here. The information originally came from Andrew Carnegie (the Scottish-American steel entrepreneur who became one of the wealthiest men of his time having started out as a labourer). 

What further validates these steps is that Thomas Edison said of them, “not only are the steps essential for the accumulation of money, but for the attainment of any goal”.

Many of you may have at some point seen or heard these before, and let the information pass through your brain without actioning it – much like I did the first time I read Think & Grow Rich, by Napolean Hill. But this time round it’s different, I’m choosing to not just read it, but to commit to the implementation, and to teach this to my eldest son who has a goal to buy a crazy expensive mountain bike. 

If you go to page 17 of Think and Grow Rich you’ll see the beginning of the section titled’

“Six Ways to Turn Desires into Gold”. 

This is where Napolean Hill outlines six “definite, practical steps” to turning a desire for wealth into “its financial equivalent.”

Here is Hill’s 6-step guide, in his words along with an action nudge from me:

STEP #1

“First. Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. It is not sufficient merely to say ‘I want plenty of money.’ Be definite as to the amount.”

YOUR ACTION STEP

What he’s saying here is that the first thing to do is to establish precisely what it is you are after. It might be a mixed use property portfolio that generates £XX thousand net cash flow a month, a donation amount or in my 12 year old’s case – a Scott Spark 970 mountain bike costing £1709.

STEP #2

“Second. Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. There is no such reality as ‘something for nothing.'”

YOUR ACTION STEP

Figure out what it is you are willing to do in order to create that amount of desired value in the marketplace? What problems will you solve or desires will you satisfy using property? You’ll also need to get clear on the effort and commitment you’re prepared to give this endeavour. 

“Thomas Edison dreamed of a lamp that could be operated by electricity,” Hill points out. “And despite more than ten thousand failures, he stood by that dream until he made it a physical reality. Practical dreamers do not quit!”

STEP #3

“Third. Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.”

YOUR ACTION STEP

Come up with a finish line date for your wealth and money goals. Be realistic when setting a time frame to attain these goals, but at the same time, think big and don’t be afraid to challenge yourself.

STEP #4

“Fourth. Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire, and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action,”

YOUR ACTION STEP

When you know where you’re starting from, where you want to go and why that’s important, then to help create your plan you need to figure out what capabilities you need to bridge that gap. You can map out the over arching strategy, what you’ll need to learn, who you’ll need to enlist help from and what action steps you’ll take to get things started.

This step is all about uncomfortable and imperfect action that results in incremental progress.

STEP #5

“Fifth. Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.” 

YOUR ACTION STEP

Write down your goals and financial plan in your journal. If you’re not a traditional pen-to-paper kind of person, you can type them up and print them out. Even better, do both. Put them in a place where you’ll see and be reminded of them each day. 

Study after study has shown that writing down your goals makes it much more likely that you’ll achieve them.

STEP #6

“Sixth. Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night, and once after arising in the morning. As you read – see and feel and believe yourself already in possession of the money.”

YOUR ACTION STEP

Hill explains that, “You have to repeat out loud what it is that you want, and how you plan to get it, so you become obsessed with your purpose.”

I’ve learned from my business psychologist coach to write out the specific evidence procedure of your goals, and to write them in the present tense. Eg. ‘its XYZ date and I’m looking at XYZ dashboard which clearly shows me the asset value of my property business is £X and the net annual profit is £Y. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I acknowledge……’ So what will your version of that look like? 

If you’re aiming to follow Hill’s (well Carnegie’s) instructions and repeat your statement twice daily, then you’ll want to create an automatic habit – establish two set times — one in the morning and one at night to tie in with your routine. 

So, with the 6 steps shared, the big question is, will you model what worked for Andrew Carnegie?

It would be a fair assumption to make that the vast majority of people in these property communities want to use property to live life on their terms- to create additional income, maybe be location independent, and most important of all…to create time freedom to engage in the things most important to them. 

The wonderful thing is that all of this is completely possible thanks to the technology we have access to and the specialised property education we can invest in. It’s possible for property entrepreneurs to create and control multiple property income streams either alongside a day job, as their full time business, or from sunny holiday locations of their choosing (when we can travel that is). Property education combined with internet tools, clever apps and virtual assistants have created this phenomenal opportunity and there’s never been a time like it in history. 

However, the same exciting opportunity that is empowering us to live life on our terms, comes with a massive, often overlooked challenge. Property educated and technology empowered people are facing an accountability crisis. People working towards their personal property goals, and typically doing so on their own, are inadvertently placing themselves in a state of limited accountability. And for those who thrive on in person meet ups, this crisis is sadly being exacerbated by the covid related restrictions.

Whilst property income streams present one of the best opportunities to create freedom from conventional nine-to-five work life, the ironic thing is that the solo pursuit to create that property income lacks the accountability layers you typically get working in the employed world. If you are working for yourself, you only have to be accountable to yourself, and we all know who the easiest person to let down is, don’t we? Ourselves.

I can well remember my early years of property investing- getting started and trying to grow a portfolio with no property network, business partner or mentor, those were lonely years of slow progress. But it just doesn’t have to be that way. 

Those of us choosing the entrepreneurial path to create an income stream from property (or any self endeavour for that matter) are the most vulnerable to feeling ineffective, unfocused and unmotivated. And here’s the big reason why – we often lack the ACCOUNTABILITY that focuses our execution powers on the biggest needle moving activity. 

So how do we combat this human weakness and get the best out of ourselves?

Here’s the key thing you need to know – getting things done and being productive is a social phenomenon. Human beings are social primates and the way we have evolved proves that we work better when accountable to another human. 

That’s why when you ‘lift the lid’ on ultra-successful people you find they have surrounded themselves with empowering webs of supporting advisors, investors, staff and accountability coaches. Doing this helps protect them from experiencing overwhelm, procrastination and self sabotage that creeps in when pursuing what might be quite a lonely and isolated business goal.

With true accountability in place, these successful people don’t have to fight so hard to push themselves to execute, instead they more easily show up as the best version of themselves week after week. 

Scientific research and studies by psychologists have proven that accountability is one of the most powerful tools for improving human behaviour and performance. 

This week, myself and an awesome team of mentors will be delivering 4 days of property masterminding. The brilliant delegates we work with experience the power of accountability month after month by pledging committed actions to their mentors and peers. The results and fulfillment that brings to the individuals executing on their specific actions are awesome to see. 

Leveraging accountability effectively will be your competitive advantage and your psychological advantage. And it’s more important now than ever. In a world of chaos, challenge and uncertainty, we all want more certainty, and the place to start is the certainty in ourselves to show up and work on the right things when we say we will. 

Whether it’s with a business partner, a property peer, a mentor or a spouse, be sure to harness this powerful advantage to massively accelerate your productivity in property. 

What can you be doing to stack multiple layers of accountability on your property goals this month?

P.S. if you’re interested to read further about accountability, here are a couple of other posts I’ve written on the subject

Accountability In Property Is All Or Nothing

Do you want to know one of the biggest reasons why many people don’t hit their goals?

The answer is neatly captured in this quote:

“We are kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to lesser goals” – Robert Brault

I only heard this quote back in September but I love it and refer to it regularly, both to remind myself and to share with others who care about their progress. Just this week I chose to share and unpack it a little with our Thursday Power Hour Mastermind group where the message behind it was well received. 

To explain the quote a little, too often we are trying to accomplish too many things and not focusing on the one key thing, and getting it done. This might be because the one key thing feels difficult or a little scary, and there are ‘lesser’ goals we can work on that feel easier and make us feel busy – things like opening/responding/deleting emails, tidying our desk, reading the news, possibly some browsing on rightmove…..

You know what I’m shining a light on – there are multiple things that a property entrepreneur can busy their time with but that don’t actually move the needle in relation to your big property goal. 

Most people’s activity is based on what’s urgent or most pleasurable in the moment and therefore that activity is producing a combination of urgent outcomes or very short term satisfaction. This is at the cost of creating one’s future vision. 

For all those who have read Brian Tracey’s brilliant book “Eat That Frog”, you’ll know that the core message is to start your day with the biggest, most important, and most dreaded task. If you’re serious about your property goals this is a philosophy you will want to adopt – doing the right thing first, and consistently getting it done. 

Typically, both the task itself and the act of doing difficult tasks first thing in the day,  will be outside most people’s comfort zone and hence will be met with resistance. That’s why people opt for the ‘lesser goals’. 

If you want to become highly effective you need to get better at identifying your property related ‘frog’ and doing that 1 thing in an uninterrupted flow state for 60-90 minutes each morning.

Whether it’s sourcing and analysis based work, phone calls to surveyors or potential end users, or creative work like creating marketing content, you will know the kind of tasks relevant to your property business. The ones that really pay off when completed, and done consistently. Why not make a note to self right now of what those ‘frog’ activities are.

I’ve been following the work of psychologist Dr Benjamin Hardy of late and he explains that as you get better at showing up and completing the ‘frog’ work, it builds your identity capital by having this track record of work behind you, and that gives you self confidence and momentum. In other words, you’re building the identity of- ‘I’m the kind of person who identifies the right thing to work on, and diligently works on it first thing to a satisfactory completion point’.

Hardy also explains that when you first start practising this (ie focusing on the ‘frog’ first) it can feel like urgent things are piling up on you. However what helps is changing your perspective to recognise that when you focus on the frog you’re creating a better life for yourself and controlling your schedule. Your whole life becomes better because you’re emphasising the important and eliminating the urgent and ‘lesser’ things. 

Challenge yourself to eat that frog- identity the thing that will most help you accomplish your headline property goal and take some time to schedule it and set the task up the night before. If you like the result it produces, then do it again the next day.

Here are 3 frog eating questions to help you get started:

#1 What are my highest value activities?

#2 What can I do that will make a big difference?

#3 What is the most valuable use of my time?

With that said, what is the ‘property frog’ you need to eat right now?

[Image credit: 123rf.com]

Don’t you find it pretty magical when you either find or stumble across the same powerful bit of wisdom from multiple different sources within a few short days? It really makes the message hit home. 

This is exactly what happened to me with the wisdom behind the power of saying “NO”.

I’m confident that most people reading this will have heard about the ‘Power of No’ before so I wanted this to serve as a helpful reminder and prompt property people to think about how it applies to your property business now.  

The fact is, we are what we say YES to. To explain that another way, there are certain things that your former self would say yes to that your current self wouldn’t. So for example, as the starting out property investor, the first investment I said yes to is one that the current me would definitely say no to- naturally I’ve learned a few things since then and refined my investment criteria. The SA operator I was in 2016 said yes to things that the SA operator version of me today would definitely say no to. The way I structured my days in 2013 are very different to the way I structure them now, and the conversations I say no to now are conversations I likely would have said yes to a couple of years ago. You will have your own similar examples. 

In a new marketing book by Australian entrepreneur Sabri Subi, I was reading about his take on thinking like a billionaire. From his studies of high achievers, he concluded that to think like a self-made billionaire we must first understand their choices in life and business ie where do they derive their income from? What do they spend their time on? What tasks do they focus on?

With the most valuable, non renewable asset in the world being our time, how do billionaires spend their precious time?

Are they constantly checking email, or social media, or engaging in low level tasks that could be outsourced or delegated? Clearly not. 

The truth is, the more successful people get, its what they say ‘no’ to that makes the difference. Warren Buffet, quoted this exact point in his words as follows:

“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”

Instead of working on important needle moving tasks, many property entrepreneurs let the squeakiest wheel get the grease, especially when starting out.  In other words wasting time on low yielding tasks that make them feel busy, like checking emails and time consuming admin that could be outsourced. Meanwhile they forgo the activities that produce the bulk of the revenue/value creation ie those things could be generating SA booking demand, or sourcing the commercial conversion with big uplift opportunity- ie the highly leveraged and income generating activities.

The thing about these self-made billionaires and millionaires is that they have clarity on what their high leverage activities are, and they concentrate their time on just those activities. 

How different would your week look if you were to allocate just 2 focused hours per day on only the highest leverage activities for your particular type of property business? You know the ones I mean, the 20% of input that creates 80% of the result [Pareto’s 80/20 rule].

So from 4 different mentor type figures, I heard this same message over the last 7 days, just packaged up slightly differently each time. And each time it caught my attention and prompted me to challenge myself, and I in turn wanted to share this message so that you might challenge yourself, positively of course. 

Here’s the key insight I picked up from Dr Benjamin Hardy summarised, and when I heard these words, it resonated so clearly, 

“Your future self says ‘no’ to things you are currently saying ‘yes’ to, just like you now say ‘no’ to things your former self said ‘yes’ to”.

4 STEP NEXT LEVEL ACTION PLAN

Here are some exercise questions to help you figure out your version of this ‘billionaire thinking’:

#1 – Make a list of all your property business activities

#2 – Conduct an 80/20 analysis of those activities (decide what you activities you need to say ‘no’ to in order to get to your next level)

#3 – Create an action plan to help you delegate, automate or outsource a chunk of the 80% of your activities that don’t produce revenue or move the business forwards.

#4 – Invest your time in the activities that move the money needle and directly create value towards your next level. 

What does the next level version of you say ‘no’ to that you need to eliminate from your life now?

This week Chris and I did a flying visit to our shop and uppers development to check on progress as our allocation of works are just about complete (our tenant will finish his bespoke fit out independently). The lease commences this Monday so we wanted to hand over a celebratory bottle of champagne to our tenant (which is what you can see in the headline picture). 

I thought this would be a good opportunity to create a mini update on our shop and uppers development, with the focus being on minimising risk and the importance of treating your tenant like a quasi – business partner. 

When we first picked up the keys to our shop I shared a post with some explanation of our investment approach and a few walkround videos showing the state of the building. It’s fascinating to view those now compared to the recent pictures. (I’ve included a link to that original post at the bottom so anyone interested can see the before and after).

As I shared back in that initial post, our approach to investing is always to de-risk as much as possible so we can buy with confidence. To achieve that, we look to bake in as much certainty as possible by lining up our desired end outcome where we can, and ensuring we have multiple exits to the deal. We initially found this building while looking to meet some requirements for a particular brand. Even though they decided to withdraw interest, we proceeded with the purchase for the following reasons:  

-there was already expressed interest from two local independent businesses in renting the premises, and potentially with an option to buy

-research with local letting agents gave us confidence in the strength of demand for letting one and two bedroom flats in this location (ie the primary exit for the uppers)

-the commercial unit could be divided into two or even 3 separate units if required, presenting more options and different appeal to a wider array of tenants. The rear section has access to a car park and would make a great wee workshop for which we have been informed by a commercial agent there is high demand and low supply.

-with a purchase price of under £100K and the fact we have multiple exits, the risk was minimised

By pulling the thread and exploring the interest from one of the local independents, we have been able to establish and nurture a working relationship that has resulted in a fantastic lease and a win win outcome for their business and ours. 

QUASI BUSINESS PARTNERS

By taking the time to understand our client ie viewing their existing premises to understand the current inefficiencies and their ideal desires, we were able to take our 2400 (approx) SQFT of open retail space and strategically reconfigure it to serve the business operations and future vision for a well established local bakery business. 

-Front: retail counters for freshly baked goods and a cafe

-Middle 1: finishing area

-Middle 2: baking area, 

-Rear: dispatch area and chiller

One of the visions we were excited to help make a reality was to allow customers of the shop and cafe to see through to the middle section where the expert bakers would be finishing off the sweet treats ready for consumption.

Here’s a video explaining how the entrance to the flats will be created:

And this next video walks round the reconfigured space inside:

THINGS WE’VE DONE/LEARNED THAT HELP MINIMISE RISK

-put a long lease in place

-gaining an understanding of our client’s business to feel comfortable they will be around for the long term

-understanding the flexibility of the commercial space

-the tenant personally investing heavily into the premises (that kind of commitment means its in their interest to stay in the building because of the investment they’ve made for the business).

-Establishing a good working relationship early on

Due the extent of investment from our tenant to fit out the premises, along with the more challenging trading conditions, he had asked for concessions relating to the deposit bond and schedule of condition costs. Rather than reducing the deposit, we have allowed a 4 month runway to build it up in stages. Similarly we have also agreed to pay for the schedule of condition but on the basis our tenant will pay us back the full cost over 6 months. 

WHAT’S NEXT?

Naturally it will be building out the residential element as soon as possible. Our commercial tenant has also now expressed interest in renting one of our upper flats once completed so that may well mean an immediate tenancy once the build works are finished.

We are also actively searching for our next commercial investment. 

Whilst the decline in some areas of retail has been massively accelerated by coronavirus, commodity type retailers in secondary and tertiary towns have fared well. With the rise in working from home these out of town areas are looking to be increasingly attractive, particularly when the income can be diversified from a mixed use building. 

What are your sentiments on commercial investments going into 2021?

PS. Click here to link to the first walk round of the shop