Adaero Property

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

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

Accounting and financial management

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

Kigo website and SEO

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

Listings on airbnb

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

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

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

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

Have a great week ahead.

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

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

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

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

PLAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE FOCUS FIVE ACTIVITY

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

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

STEP #1

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

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

STEP #2

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

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

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

STEP #3

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

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

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

STEP #4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then we have these wonderful reframes:

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great week ahead.

Disclaimer: this post is not for light entertainment, it involves challenging brain work for those interested in the valuable outcomes.

Most people people who have opened themselves up to personal  development, entrepreneurship and property investing have likely been exposed to some form of gratitude journaling practice. It was something I was introduced to four years ago when I first set out on a business start up journey. The typical gratitude practice I have been aware of involved simply writing out things we are grateful for each day.

However, very recently I was introduced to a new and counter intuitive approach which I thought would be valuable to share. First though it’s worth pointing out why someone might be interested in investing a little time on this stuff.

Arianna Huffington (of Huffington Post fame) says that,

“Gratitude works its magic by serving as an antidote to negative emotions. It’s like white blood cells for the soul, protecting us from cynicism, entitlement, anger, and resignation.”

Here are some other top benefits I found via a quick google search for why to do gratitude journaling:

1. Lower stress levels.
2. Feel calm at night.
3. It builds up your strength, for when things don’t go so well.
4. You can see what’s great, not just what’s gone wrong.
5. By noting what you are grateful for, you will gain clarity on what you want to have more of in your life, and what you can cut from you life.
6. It helps you let go of old limiting beliefs.

When you’re building your business up, whether in property, online, or something entirely different, we all go through the rollercoaster of highs and lows. And when it’s your own business, those highs and lows feel much bigger/lower than when they happen as an employee. It’s a truth of the journey we all go through.

Gratitude is necessary for property investors and entrepreneurs (and everyone for that matter). The human brain unfortunately bleeds emotional states across boundaries so when we experience a dip in the metaphorical rollercoaster, it can easily spread over into other areas of business and life. In other words one little project not working out in your business can have a knock on effect to productivity in other areas of the business, but as ambitious people with big goals we don’t have time for that. The subsequent pessimism must be contextually limited, and GRATITUDE IS THE ANTIDOTE.

One of my mentors, Peter Shallard, said that, “A strong gratitude muscle is like a vaccination, it helps build an immune system from the destructive emotional side effects of informed pessimism.”

Gratitude is so important because it helps you push through to success despite the ‘Valley of despair’ experience.

These kind of benefits don’t come without some work though, it takes a real conscious effort to make a daily habit out of it. Even then, with a habit of noting 3 things in the morning and 3 in the evening that you are grateful for, you have to be careful not to be on autopilot.

That’s why when I was introduced to this reverse gratitude exercise by Peter it really struck a chord.

If you’re interested, here’s the counter intuitive gratitude exercise to help stack the odds in favour of a meaningful and emotionally rewarding 2018:

1. List all the things you were grateful for last year
2. List all the things you wish hadn’t happened last year
3. Organise the second list from worst to least
4. Perform a classic “gratitude journal” exercise from those top three worst events of the year. So, for each of the worst events, go through them and write down answers to these key questions:

• What did I learn from this?
• What secondary or tertiary consequences were positive?
• What unintended side effects can I be grateful for?
• What holistic outcomes (for others) were positive?

This is proper brain work but it’s impactful when you do it. When I did this one of the events I was reflecting on related to how I underestimated the cost impact of VAT in our SA business as our booking turnover grew quickly last year. Going through this exercise, painful as the reality is, I was able to draw out so many learns and unintended positive side effects that will only help us improve the business going forwards.

For all you SA operators out there in the various stages of growing your portfolio, I encourage you to properly plan for breaching the VAT threshold of £85K. Will Flat Rate or Standard Rate scheme be most applicable for you? (Flat Rate Scheme of 10.5% for £150K or less and if more than £230K t/o must leave flat rate for standard rate). Bear in mind you can’t claim input VAT on services like cleaning and linen on the flat rate scheme. Factor in how you will absorb VAT in your pricing with B2C guests and charge for it with your B2B guests via direct invoicing.

Here is the key take away from this reverse gratitude exercise, and the real definition of gratitude.

The gratitude that really affects your brain is gratitude that performs a REFRAME that transforms your perceptions of events.

Gratitude is useful as a mindset when it’s hard work to attain (i.e. going through a tough exercise like the one above). It’s not useful when it’s easily arrived at.

When I was sitting down and writing out 3 things each morning that I was grateful for I was simply confirming things my brain already knows. BUT, when we do the more soul searching work of seeking out the things we resented or really struggled with, and do the work to sit down and write about why we are actually grateful for those things and identify the ‘silver lining’, it performs a transformation in the brain. It’s really difficult work but the outcome is super valuable.

I appreciate this post has some heavy going content and won’t be for everyone, but if you’re interested, I challenge you to work through it to uncover your own reframes and transformations.

Each week I’m intentionally looking out for learning points and inspiration. This week it came from Olympic gold medal snowboarder Shaun White. More on that in a moment. Here’s a quick round up from the week:

• the two remaining SA flats in our block of 5 were furnished (thanks to our friends from Fusion)
• monthly meet up with my Development Discovery group where I facilitated a group mastermind session and mentor Alan Christie relayed the feedback from a recent council parish consultation (an opportunity for locals to ask questions and share feedback on our Devon development). Following a positive pre-app we are about to submit our final planning app. The CGI image of the development looks fantastic (pic attached)
• Chris and I got an offer accepted for refurb flat (this will be one we will gut, refurb, turn in to SA and package up as a ‘done for you’ cash flowing asset)
• VAT analysis and Quickbooks tutorial with our accountantSigned up a new contractor booking

All in all a packed and productive week.

Back to the Flying Tomato (Shaun White’s nickname on account of his big red hair). As a family we’ve been enjoying sitting by the fire from 7-8pm each night for the daily Winter Olympic highlights. All disciplines have been impressive and entertaining to watch but the one that tops it for me is the snowboarding – (a passion both for me and business partner Chris).

On Valentines Day we watched Shaun White win his third Olympic Gold medal in the halfpipe event. I remember watching him burst onto the Olympic scene at the 2006 games but this year I was inspired to research his story a little and here’s what I learned.

As you read through the below I Invite you to think about these takeaways in the context of your life and business business.

Lesson #1 – always strive to be the best version of you

Following his first gold medal win Shaun was focused on returning the next games to prove that the first time wasn’t a fluke.

At the Vancouver 2010 Olympics Shaun had won by the first run. For his third run down the halfpipe the medal was already secured and he could have ridden straight down the middle with his shirt off holding the U.S flag (as some suggested they would have done). But he didn’t. He chose to pull out all the stops and put his all into that final run, pulling off spectacular new tricks and the record breaking score of the event. It displays commitment, professionalism, but more than that, that he was competing against himself, to be the best version of him in that halfpipe.

Lesson #2 – use your failures to bounce back higher

Going into the 2014 Sochi Olympics as a double gold medalist, White was clear favourite. However, the pressure of the event got to him and the favourite failed to even get a podium spot. After the failure, Shaun found a sense of contentedness in the reality of the situation. As he said, ‘winning is great but it doesn’t equal happiness”. He chose not to take himself too seriously and rediscovered his passion and love for the sport. In addition to preparing for these current games, in the last few years he’s launched several new successful business ventures.

He bounced back higher both in business and in the sport, coming back to win gold at these games.

Lesson #3 – be your authentic self

After his first gold medal in 2006 Shaun was asked on numerous occasions to do all kinds of media stunts and fit this so called ‘extreme dude’ persona. With that came the lure of financial rewards but what he was being asked to do just wasn’t the real him, and despite the money on offer he chose to be true to himself and his values, and say no to those opportunities.

It’s lonely at the top and being so far ahead of others can generate some haters. But as his mentor Tony Hawk taught him, ‘you’ve got to learn to ignore the haters’. Shaun has stayed true to being his authentic self. He showed vulnerability and honesty when he didn’t win and many of his haters turned into supporters because they could see that, just like everyone else, he has to work hard at his profession, and sometimes it doesn’t work out.

Lesson #4 – stay grounded and take time to give back

Shaun is very grounded and hasn’t lost sight that every top athlete was once an aspiring one. After the Make a Wish Foundation first approached him to snowboard with a sick child for a day Shaun has granted 20 wishes for Make a Wish Foundation.

Lesson #5 – Enjoy the ride

Shaun is a consummate professional but he is humble and super grateful living the life that he does. He is content in personal and business life and genuinely loves what he does. He remains grateful for what he has and ambitious about the future. He has his sights on competing in the 2020 Summer Olympics for skateboarding (which will be a new event introduced that year). Competitions or not, Shaun will always be snowboarding and skating, because of his love for it.

Lesson #6- Be a legend, change the game

I love this quote from the Shaun White mini documentary-

“To be a legend in a sport you have to change it. You force the rest of the sport to become better because you exist’. – Alyssa Roenigk (sports writer).

Shaun’s example is literally raising the bar in snowboarding and inspiring the next generation.

If you’re interested, here’s a mini documentary about him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqdAhD0CJqw

Have a great week ahead.

For the last 3 years I’ve been reviewing each month with a very simple formula-  the highs, the lows and the key lessons. This has given me a solid platform for the bigger annual reflections (a topic I wrote about at the turn of the year).

Then, just last week I discovered a different monthly review process, courtesy of Peter Voogd from the YEL 2.0 podcast. It’s called the 7-figure monthly review. It has a more meaningful angle that I’m excited to inject into my own monthly reviews to make them more powerful, and in turn accelerate my results.

Firstly, the rationale behind this- Peter Voogd says that, “the best way to predict someone’s next 6 months is to look at their previous 6 months. Habits trump everything, mindset, decision, network. So if you had a mediocre last 6 months, the takeaway here is that the next 6 are likely to be the same unless you really get conscious about what you’re doing, you put new info in your head, and every single day you do things to get you closer to your goals.“ Is that hard to hear?

This post is taken directly from my recent podcast learnings – it’s about how to purposefully review the previous 30 days so you can set yourself up for a rock solid next 30, and so on.

Most people want to have a great year, they think they will but they don’t take the necessary daily steps to ensure that they will. It’s easy to plan, but executing when you really don’t feel like it is what separates the champions from the mediocre.

This process is about using your reflection as an awareness tool, on what’s worked for you in the past and what you can do differently/reinforce going forwards.

Reviewing each month is about investing past experience into future preparation and focus – ie your past decisions, successes, failures, lessons. That’s where the good stuff comes from.

Here are a selection of questions to help you reflect on the previous month so you can carry on with momentum. Use these prompt questions to help you reflect and free flow write for 30 mins each month about the precious 30 days.

Section #1 – OVERVIEW

• What went well, what didn’t?
• When was I in my zone, when wasn’t I?
• When was I at my emotional energy peak?
• What caused me peace of mind?
• What frustrated me?
• Did I do what I said I was going to do?
• What systems have I put in place?

Section #2 – PSYCHOLOGICAL

• What have been my biggest breakthroughs?
• What have been my biggest frustrations?
• What have been my mind-shifts?
• What have been my biggest disappointments?

Section #3 – TACTICS

This section looks at what were my top 5 wins from last month, financial, family, adventure…?

Getting down to business metrics ask yourself:

• Did I hit my business income goal last month?
• What were the top three marketing campaigns or sources of income last month?
• What were my top income producing activities?
• What are the biggest ways I’ll be producing income this next month?
• How did I add value to the marketplace, could I have added more? (In these property communities and we talk a lot about fair exchange of value, because that’s ultimately how we get paid.)

These will likely be related to your highest values but only you will know.

• Did I leverage technology?
• Did I maximise my reach?
• What will exponentially grow my reach this next month?
• What did I do to stay adventurous and feel fully alive?

To help keep you from the nitty gritty march of each day it’s important to mix it with the things that energise you. It might be something small ie for me it’s getting in a game of tennis once a week, or maybe you had planned a mini break with your loved one.  For those with freedom in their highest values this will be particularly important. Can you mix your passion and profession and link up travel to fun destinations with your work?

If you aren’t consciously making a decision to put things in your diary that will keep you alive and vibrant, you will become complacent.

Section #4 – RELATIONSHIPS

I love this one:

• Who did I you connect with and reach out to last month?
• Did I take care of my current relationships and did I reach out to people who can cut my learning curve in half- i.e. people who I can partner with in some way that’s relevant to your business?
• Did I leverage partnerships?

Section #5 – TEAM

Think about questions that will help with your team review:

• How was my team engagement?
• How was my speed of communication?
• What feedback can I give them?
• What do they need in terms of skill development?

Section #6 – LEGACY

• What did I work on that was legacy focused? In other words something that you work on now but won’t get paid until long into the future, or something that you don’t reap the benefits for until way later, ie it creating things that you value but that you get paid 6 months or more down the road. Note that if you just do this kind of work for the rewards/benefits you will lose steam, it’s important to engage in legacy work for other reasons, for something bigger than you. Part of my family legacy work this year is taking conscious time with boys each each to teach them one key life value each month.

Voogd recommends spending 80% of your time on profit making activity, creating systems etc that makes sure you have the money coming in for you and your family now. Then 20% of your time on legacy focused things. Eventually when you have built the business you want you can switch focus to investing 80% of your time on the legacy side of things. Isn’t that an exciting prospect? To spend 80% of your time on something that helps a cause you believe in or adds value to the world in some way, and not worry whether it pays you or not.

Conclusion

I encourage you to take some time to make this as relevant as you can to you and your industry.

Following that, I challenge you to take 30 mins each month to invest in doing this. WHY? Because high achievers always ask better questions, and they are always investing their past mistakes into their future preparation.
Ask yourself the tough questions because the better the questions you ask, the better the answers, and the more clarity you will gain.

If you have any ideas you’d like to share of how you review your months then please post it here.

Have a great one

Can you believe that’s January flashed by already?

I hope you are staying accountable to your new year goals and scheduling time in your diary for your highest priorities.

Back in my WEEK #3 post on goal setting I outlined the process I use for artful implementation- which in brief was about selecting your key (highest leverage) project/s for the quarter and building out a 12 week implementation plan.

Aspects of my Q1 projects are related to optimising existing systems and laying foundations for the next stage of growth in our SA business. A few weeks into the plan and I’m feeling like decent progress has been made. In taking these steps I thought I’d share a few notes from things that I’ve either learned or been reminded of this last week.

# On Legislation

As we gear up to extend our SA experience to other landlords with a managed SA offering, I’ve been looking into the various legislation that people managing property are required to uphold. For example the Letting Agent Code of Practice provides the benchmark for expected standards of practice and covers such things as handling landlord’s money and professional indemnity arrangements, amongst other points.

More can be found with these links that cover Scotland and England respectively (some riveting Sunday reading): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/sdsi/2016/9780111030912

https://www.tpos.co.uk/images/documents/rules-codes-obligations/residential-letting-agents/TPOE22-5_Code_of_Practice_Residential_Letting_Agents_A4_-_effective_1_Oct_2016.pdf

#On VAT

We have a few business entity structures and with one, we are at the point of submitting our first VAT return for one of our businesses that is flat rate registered. As we were looking at the VAT amounts from invoices collected they were looking a bit higher than expected.  In exploring if we could offset any input VAT from our purchases I found that if you are flat rate registered you can claim for single capital purchases over £2000. That means you can’t claim on 3 separate visits to Ikea adding up to £2k but you could claim on the order of £2K+ from Fusion for example (that’s the way I interpreted it). You can’t however claim on services unfortunately.

See more here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-notice-733-flat-rate-scheme-for-small-businesses/vat-notice-733-flat-rate-scheme-for-small-businesses#reclaim-of-vat-on-capital-expenditure-goods

Another point to note about VAT is that if you are running an SA business and have guest stays of more than 28 days, then VAT is applicable on the full price of the booking for the first 28 days, but only applicable on the serviced element thereafter, ie the linen and cleaning services.

In addition to the ‘ON’ the business projects, the ‘IN’ the business work has been very busy. Now that we’ve past the worst of the tourism ‘tumbleweed’ month for many SA operators I’m pleased to say that our contractor bookings have been pretty satisfying, both from direct relationships and from contractor finding us on booking.com etc.

We have been selecting a few different furniture and design options working with our friends at Fusion as over the next couple of weeks we will be onboarding 3 new units.

On our development and refurb side of the business, Chris has identified a number of interesting sites he’s appraising and also a potential refurb to SA that we just submitted an offer for. Fingers crossed on that one.

To wrap the week up I spent the day with Paul Smith and a room of like minded people at the shiny new Touchstone Training venue for the Property Leverage Day. Although I’ve probably clocked up many hours listening to Paul, I subscribe to the fact that we humans typically need reminded more than we need new instructions.

Needless to say I’ve come away with pages of great notes and multiple action points. Thank you, as ever, for your wisdom Paul.

Have a great week all

 

My wife and I watched the Eddie the Eagle movie last night- such a great story and I remember seeing him at the Olympics on TV as kid. Seeing Eddie’s unstoppable drive portrayed in the movie linked perfectly into the topic I wanted to write about this week, so more on that in a few paragraphs.

This has been a great week for progressing steps of our Q1 goals. Within the SA business this involves consolidating aspects of our admin, accounting and operational processes in order to build the right foundations for the next stage of growth. It’s been very satisfying this week leading and coordinating our team of Operations Manager,  Virtual Assistant and some local suppliers towards fine tuning and systemising parts of the business. We’re by no means perfect but the vision of a well oiled machine keeps us striving.

Fresh off a recent 3 day property development course with Lloyd and Andi Chris has been putting the powers of google to use to help him identify a long list of potential development sites in our area.

This is just a little snapshot of the week, skimming over any of the more ‘boring’ details and mini fires we typically fight. Next week we will get up and go again, giving it our all, with the enduring spirit of incremental progress. So why are we pushing through what might appear as ‘grind’ to many?

We all know that financial components only motivate and drive someone to a certain point. For long lasting motivation and momentum it’s crucial to tap into an underlying WHY that will continue to drive you forwards, through highs, lows, the mundane and everything in between. Our business acts like a vehicle through which Chris and I can live and express our highest values and best self journeys.That’s what keeps us going and is what will stand the test of time.

The theme of this week’s post was initially prompted by a short clip from Darren Hardy that I’ve seen several times before, and saw again on Thursday. In it, he was discussing the importance of finding your big why. He used the following analogy to illustrate the point, I’ll try to recall and paraphrase it here:

“Imagine I put a 10 inch wide, 30 foot long plank on the ground and said, if you walk the length of the plank, I’ll give you 20 bucks.

You’d do it, yes? It’s an easy 20 bucks.

But, what if I took the same plank and used it to make a rooftop bridge between two 100 storey buildings, would you walk across that sky high plank for the same money now?

No way!

However, what if your child was on the opposite building and that building was on fire with the flames fast approaching them. Would you walk across that plank to save him or her?

Likely your answer would be, absolutely and immediately.

So the first time I asked you to cross the rooftop bridge you said no way, the second time was a yes without hesitation.

The risks and dangers to you were the same so what changed?

Your why changed. Your reason for wanting to do it changed.”

So the point of this little story, courtesy of Darren Hardy, was to show that when the why is big enough, you’ll be willing to perform almost any how. To borrow a quote from him, “The power of your why is what helps you stick through the gruelling, mundane and laborious. All the hows are meaningless until the why is powerful enough. If your why isn’t big enough, the fortitude of your commitment won’t be powerful enough and you will end up like everyone who makes a new years resolution, gives up too quickly and reverts to living a life of mediocrity”. DON’T LET THAT BE YOU.

Circling back to Eddie the Eagle and the reason why he’s made a cameo in this post, is because when you watch the movie, it’s clear the guy had a powerful why. Against all odds he competed in the 1988 Winter Olympics ski jumping event. His goal from a very young age was to become an Olympian, despite being told on endless occasions that he wasn’t an athlete, he would never qualify, he’s not cut out for it, etc etc. That’s why this line from the movie, and likely a real quote from Eddie, stood out and resonated with me – Eddie said,

“I love ski jumping, almost as much as I love proving people wrong”.

Have you found your reason why?

Here are some resources I looked up that might help those interested to find their why:

https://startwithwhy.com/find-your-why/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2013/10/30/know-your-why-4-questions-to-tap-the-power-of-purpose/#38a48aec73ad

https://www.success.com/blog/john-addison-how-to-find-your-why-in-life

Last week’s post seemed to be really well received (thanks for all the kind comments), so I thought I’d follow up with a part 2 focused on the implementation of your goals.

First a quick summary of week 3. Alongside wrapping up my own goal planning work, there was a big focus on optimising occupancy across our existing SA portfolio. As many of you know, January is never the kindest month in the SA industry so even more reason to dig deep. We took a 3 pronged approach:

1) Do what we can to optimise presence on OTA’s (from tweaking pricing, to adding any new through our kigo channel manager);

2) Go back through all past guests and companies that could potentially book again and make contact

3) Explore brand new avenues in our areas ie any sources that may attract people to our local area that we haven’t spoken to yet

Whilst we know some of these avenues will be slower burn opportunities I feel like we had a pretty successful week, securing a few longer stays, some extensions and a some short stays.

The other curveball this time of year can throw at you when managing multiple properties are potential boiler issues. We’ve had our fair share of boiler challenges but each of the team have learned/are learning how to repressurise boilers and restart them. Most importantly however is to have a reliable engineer who can respond when you need them. We’ve also learned it’s worth investing in some back up electric heaters to have at the ready, just in case.

So, onto the meat. In the last post I wrote about how to set psychologically optimised goals that are congruent ie your conscious and unconscious mind are aligned in relation to the goals you set.  People can get pretty excited about setting big goals but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of the ‘doing’, this is where they can let themselves down, telling themselves they’ll come back to it later. DON’T BE THAT PERSON!

Instead, you need to take your Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) and translate it into a project plan. This part of the process is uncomfortable, which is why people skip it but having a plan will keep you aligned, in the zone and knowing what you have to do next. BHAGs don’t manifest on their own, it takes real intentional work to dream them up, plan the road map, and then of course execute. When you do invest in this however you can expect benefits like:

# get clarity by doing this planning

# can connect the dots between your seemingly unattainable BHAG and the day to day

# the promise of not sitting at your desk wondering what you should be working on to hit the goal

# knowing what you have to do acts as an antidote to feeling overwhelmed (sounds strange but it’s true)

# ultimately, all this good work now build the foundation for your year

Here’s a quick summary of the process for goal implementation I’ve been taught and use each year.

STEP #1: taking everything into account, list 5-20 projects that would have an immediate impact on your business. With this list you are thinking up all the various strategies and tactics you want to try that would/could result in a net positive to the business. So if the project has a cost, like a marketing/advertising cost, the net outcome is a degree of profit based on leads coming in and converting a proportion into paying customers.

STEP #2: Now eliminate all but 3, and ask yourself:

– are you able to complete each one in a 12 week period?

– can you complete these with your current resources ie time, people, money?

STEP #3: Now for each project, build the outline for your implementation plan by completing a handful of answers to these 4 key building block questions:

For project 1

#1 What specifically needs to happen…to get started? To continue? To finish?

#2 How can you measure progress? (ie no. of viewings/offers per week. Booking revenue, occupancy by month..) When answering these questions think about what can be ritualised/repeated.

#3 What deadlines need to happen within 12 weeks? Think it through and allocate deadlines you can put into your diary.

#4 How can you stack multiple layers of accountability onto this project. In other words, who all can you inform, involve, make a pledge to etc that will help you follow through on your promise. Think mentors, family, advisors, peers).

Do the same for Projects 2 and 3

STEP #4 12 WEEK PROJECT PLAN
The final stage to this is creating your 12 week project plan where you literally create a grid with 84 – 91 days and then populate it with dates, specifics and deadlines (as per your answers to the Q’s above) to work to each day and week. Schedule this stuff in using the mechanisms that work for you, phone, outlook calendar, a wall chart or whatever. Allocate sufficient time and protect it in your diary.

And there you have it.

Have a great start to next week.