Will 2022 be your best year yet? Will it be the year that you create positive lasting change?

If, like me, this is what you continuously strive for each year then you’ll want to read and implement the message in this post. 

I wish I could say the 3 magic words came from me but alas, they did not. Here, all credit is due to big Tony Robbins. What I’d like to do is share his message with people in property – and I’m confident that for those people who resonate with this message, you will take these 3 magic words and make great things happen this year……and well beyond. 

Are you ready for the 3 magic words? Here you go……

For lasting positive change……RAISE YOUR STANDARDS

If we want to change our life for the better, the foundations and key component of making that happen is to raise our standards.

What does that actually mean?

Tony reminds us that, “ lasting change is different from a goal, people don’t always get their goals, but they do always get their standards”.

To frame standards another way, everybody in life gets their ‘musts’, they don’t always get their ‘shoulds’. 

If you think about it, everyone has a list of things that they ‘should do’, especially property investors ie I ‘should’ find more deals to analyse, I ‘should’ network more, I ‘should’ work to a clear set of investment criteria, I ‘should’ plan my week/day before it starts, I ‘should’ speak to more commercial agents….

You get the idea, however the ‘shoulds’ rarely happen. 

BUT when you decide something is an absolute MUST for you, no excuses, you commit to yourself that you will find a way or make a way, that’s when we really can find a way and make things happen. 

Is there an area in your life where you need to shift a ‘should’ to a ‘must’?

Here’s the powerful thing at play when we make a ‘should’ a ‘must’ – it doesn’t require any willpower. Tony explains that when we commit to a must it becomes part of our identity and the powerful force at play is that human beings absolutely follow through on who they believe they are. In other words, ‘we all act consistent with who we believe we are’.

‘The strongest force in the whole human personality is this need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves’.

That line there is gold, read it again and think about it. 

Who do you believe you are? What kind of property investor/entrepreneur do you believe you are and define yourself as?

If you define yourself as the kind of property entrepreneur who only deserves to do small single unit deals, or the kind who tells themselves I can’t source rent to rent deals then guess what, that’s where you’ll be stuck. 

Most people are living their lives based on the standards and beliefs they made choices about at some point in the past

Whatever people have their identity attached to, they live – ‘we live who we believe we are’.

OK, so now you know the 3 magic words, how do you apply these in your life and in your property business?

You need to decide what your standards are for important areas of your life, and back those standards up with rituals.

We don’t get results without rituals ie some sort of action that we do consistently.

The people who get these rituals done each week don’t have more time than anyone else, they’ve just made it a MUST. 

So as an example, physically – if your standard is ‘I am an athlete’ then you will do whatever is necessary to maintain that identity and your ritual will be to complete certain workouts X number of times per week. 

Another example:

For me as a property entrepreneur & investor, one of my standards is to raise my hourly rate from my 2021 level. So the ritual to back that up will be to identify lower value elements of tasks I currently do and delegate or outsource them, and to consciously ask myself – ‘is this thing I’m working on at the level of my target rate?’ (Thanks for the awesome podcast on that Dan)

‘Wants don’t get met consistently, standards do.’

So, here’s a quick 3 step summary for you to action:

1. Define your standards
2. Stack up your reasons why those standards need to be a must for you
3. Create and design weekly and daily rituals that deliver your standards

I’d love to hear, what STANDARDS will you set for yourself starting now.

If you followed my post last week on ‘Intelligent Reflection’ then you will have neatly put a metaphorical ‘bow’ on 2021. In other words, the point of last week’s post was to highlight the fact that there is so much value in what you have done, experienced and accomplished in the last 12 months that you need to go harvest that gold through intelligent reflection. 

If you missed that post and want to go back you can find it here: 

THIS 6 PART REFLECTION PROCESS WILL SUPERCHARGE YOUR ANNUAL GOAL SETTING

WARNING: This post requires some heavy mental lifting but if you’re serious about your growth this year then read it to the end, and more importantly, take action on it. 

So, with the reflection bit done, the natural next step is to follow up with some deep thinking around setting the right kind of goals for YOU, and creating an implementation plan for them. That’s what I’m going to outline here.

So, what do I mean by the ‘right kind of goals for YOU?” Well, before jumping in to write out your goals, please be clear in your mind that they are psychologically optimised goals that are congruent ie your conscious and unconscious mind are aligned in relation to the goals you set. Getting this right at the beginning is essential!

By way of quick explanation, if you were to set the goal of doubling the revenue of your business, on the face of it that sounds great but what would the reality of that mean, and what would be the secondary and tertiary consequences of pursuing it? Eg. would it mean working twice as many hours, sacrificing weekends with your family, less sleep, more stress? Or can you genuinely see how to accomplish the outcome on your terms. 

All I’m saying is just be careful to choose goals that are aligned with what you really want. This quote from Stephen Covey captures my point perfectly:

“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step gets us to the wrong place faster.”

In the goal setting process it’s easy to get excited in the now by writing down a big goal but the science of achievement requires us to connect the dots between a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) and what exactly we need to be working on quarter to quarter, month on month and how we’re using our time each day.

The big rationale behind artful implementation is to take the time to do strategic planning now so that at no time during the quarter are you at the desk on a Monday morning wondering what to do to get started (or at least it will be significantly minimised).

An implementation plan prevents that brain fog, but sadly investing the time to create such a plan is the most common part of goal setting that people skip. But not YOU, and not this year! It’s often looked at as too much like hard work-  and you know what, it is hard mental work! Most good things do require some uphill struggle, but it’s also where we can get most clarity. I heard a brilliant quote a while back from one of the greats that ties into this point, it goes;

“People have uphill hopes, but downhill habits”

– John C Maxwell

In other words, we all want the things that require ‘uphill’ efforts, but are we willing to put in the work that builds the ‘uphill habits’ that will get us there?

You need to take your big 2022 goals and translate them into a project plan. This part of the process is uncomfortable, which is why people skip it but having a well thought through 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 on that plan.

Here’s a quick summary of the process for artful goal implementation that I’ve been taught and continue to use each year. (Chris and I do invest multiple hours in goal planning in the opening days of Jan)

IT’S TIME TO BUILD THE FOUNDATION OF YOUR YEAR!

STEP #1: List your key projects

Taking everything into account, list 5-20 projects that would have an immediate impact on your property business. With this list you are thinking up all the growth driving activities that move you closer to achieving the BHAG (ie various strategies and tactics you want to try that would/could result in a net positive to the business).

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

– are you able to complete each of those shortlisted 3 in a 12 week period if you focused on one at a time (ie allocate each project a full 12 week sprint)?

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

– prioritise those projects that can feasibly meet the above

STEP #3: BUILD THE OUTLINE PLAN

Now for each project, build the outline for your implementation plan by completing a handful of answers to these 4 foundational productivity questions:

For project 1

#1 What specifically needs to happen…to get started? To continue? To finish? Can you specify now what your completion point will look like (really push yourself to do that)?

#2 How can you measure progress along the way? (ie no. of viewings/offers per week. Booking revenue, occupancy by month..) When answering these questions think about what can be ritualised/repeated by you and/or your team. Think about the input activity required to achieve the desired property outcome.

#3 What deadlines need to happen within 12 weeks? Think it through and allocate deadlines you can put into your diary (and physically PUT those deadlines into your diary). These will serve as milestones and checkpoints towards your completion point and get your mind clear on hitting them by certain dates.

#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. It’s a fact that getting things done is a social phenomenon so enlist the power of public declaration. 

Do the same for Projects 2 and 3. It’s a good idea to have no more than 3 projects in a quarter, and if one is particularly all consuming then stick with just that one project for the entire 90 days.

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 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. With clarity on what your goals are and your planning complete, now its all about taking action consistently each week, measuring the progress and feeling good about showing up to put the effort in. [HINT – one of the keys to sustained productivity is feeling good about what you do. So please don’t look at what didn’t get done or how far your dream lies in the distance, instead show up, put the effort in each week and celebrate that step of effort input and the progress it creates]. 

I’d love to know if you complete this exercise, let me know if you do and you will massively increase the likelihood of following through. 

To your growth and progress in 2022!

I hope you’ve been enjoying some quality family Christmas time, making memories with the loved ones you are able to see, and replenishing yourself to sprint out of the gates for Q1 2022.

I love the magic that Christmas brings, but also the quiet space from the busyness of a typical week. These final few days of the year and the first week of the new year offer us the time to pause for reflection and design, with intention. I hope you look back on your 2021, and despite some challenges of the year, you can acknowledge all of the incremental progress that has been made on your journey in property investing. It is important to think about the past year intelligently because past performance is the best predictor of the future.

Reflection is one of the most important things an action oriented entrepreneur can do – why is it so important to reflect and acknowledge progress? We tend to unconsciously discount the progress we have made and be painfully conscious of the shortcomings in the immediate future. 

If that sounds like you, then this quote may be helpful, “Things are never as bad or as good as they seem”. It’s been attributed to a few different people so not sure who originally said it. 

So, this instructional post is building on a mini tradition for me to share at this time of year – and it contains absolute gold for you, if you choose to invest the time to work through the following 6 sections and answer the questions for yourself and your own last 12 months in property. 

This intelligent reflection forms the most important part of the year end review – a powerful way to reconcile the last 12 months and transition into planning the next 12. In my questionable opinion it’s essential to punctuate this time of year with such a process. I am starting this exercise myself now and it forms the first part of the overall review and goal setting process that I invest significant time in over the final week of the year, and first week of the new year. I will follow up this with my summary on the goal setting process next week.

Happy New Year and wishing you health, wealth and happiness in 2022!

Below are the 6 phases of the intelligent reflection process with all the questions for you to answer. 

PART 1 – GRATITUDE REFLECTION

*What new capabilities did I master?

*What behaviours really caused me to win?

*What are my personal current strengths?

*What are the business’ current strengths?

*What were your biggest accomplishments this last year?

*What marketing or business development won this year?

*What was the best thing your property business created for you?

*What was the most extraordinary value or customer experience that you created? (who did we really move the dial for?)

PART 2 – CONSTRUCTIVE REFLECTION

*What were the most important lessons learned?

*What were your weak points, what do you need to improve?

*Are there any threats to your business or market?

*Any missed opportunities?

*What are the current weaknesses of your business?

*Were there any ways to improve customer service in the last year?

PART 3 – GETTING REAL

*Specific metrics for your business this last year (what was it you were focussing on? What were you trying to grow? What were the conversion rates you were trying to improve?)

*Products/services I sold in 2020?

*2020 gross revenue?

*2020 Expenses?

*Split expenses into 3 categories- what percentages were:

Marketing _

Operations _

Income/Salaries/dividends _

*2020 net profit

PART 4 – MEASUREMENT (need to compare year on year, power of measurement)

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your:

[assess all those that are relevant to your property business. NB, even if you don’t think you are marketing there is a good chance you are ie your version of lead generation may be networking to identify potential JV partners]

*Lead Gen –

*Lead conversion –

*Customer fulfilment (following through on the promise)-

*Human resources (are they the best people in their roles)-

*Financial Systems (how clear on numbers month on month)-

*Market research –

*Satisfaction of the people in the business –

*Satisfaction with your work life balance –

PART 5 – LETTER TO YOURSELF

Write a  letter to yourself (having reflected on each section). Write it as if you’ve gone back in time and are writing the letter on 1st Jan 2020 explaining the bumps, scrapes, wisdom to come (and wow there were many unexpected bumps due to covid). So to give you some guidance notes, you could be writing to yourself about what you will face (in the year that was), where you will despair, where you will draw strength, what beliefs will be tested, what capabilities will be gained, don’t forget all the good stuff to come. 

Why do this? This exercise helps you examine the past with a present perspective. It works on the idea of reconciling expectations from a year ago with where you really are today. Essentially, this puts a proverbial ‘bow’ on the last 12 months and who we have become. 

PART 6 – NAME IT

What single word would put a name to your 2020? (look to be constructive with this). 

See you next week with part 2 on the goal setting process. 😁

[P.S I’d love to hear if you actually do this]

Over the last 4 years, my blog post in the final week leading into Christmas has followed the same theme – about ‘presence’ over presents. 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.

I hope you’ve had a fantastic year in your property businesses, and after pushing hard to finish strong all December we can look forward to some quality down time this Christmas. It’s such a special time where we can really be intentional about making memories with family and friends.

Each Christmas week I like to share a few ideas I’ve picked up over the years about how we can 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 started this 2 Christmases ago for each of my kids and in each year that followed we created wonderful memories and photos together and I know that they appreciated the 1-to-1 time when often 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.

-Every 2 years my extended family get together and for that occasion my wife and I organise a surprise dress up night with a twist, a little like a secret santa where we all buy an outfit from a charity shop for another family member on a £25 budget. There are 18 of us so we donate in the region of £450 to various charities by buying up old clothes and random accessories, and then after the party we then donate all the goods to Cancer Research for them to sell on again. 

I hope some of these ideas resonate and helps other property people out there to be fully PRESENT this Christmas and to create rich memories.

 Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas

Last week I shared a post that was well received – it was the one about habits and how your habits will form your identity. So in follow up to that I wanted to revisit some more great wisdom on habits, this time from the book Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg. I wanted to highlight something crucial that this book points out, something that all property entrepreneurs need to do yet so many fail to. 

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! [Whilst that shouldn’t be difficult at this time of year, the point here is about creating an ongoing habit around it]

You want to achieve a certain goal in property, yes? Celebrating along the way 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 property related 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? – If Yes, then that feels good, you create an inner feeling of success, your inner ‘shine’, as Fogg calls it. 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 chasing 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.

For me, I find that the ‘shine’ comes from answering the following question with a yes – ‘Did I do what I said I would do, for as long as I said, without distraction?’

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 you can celebrate by sharing it here?

One sentence I heard spoken in a podcast a week ago has resonated so strongly with me that it’s been front of mind ever since. 

Those words came from James Clear being interviewed by Ed Mylett, and here’s what he said,

“Every action you take is like a vote for the person you want to become.”

Isn’t that powerful?

I don’t know about you but knowing that one sentence makes me incredibly intentional about a) being clear about who I want to become, and b) taking the right kind actions to become that.

So why is knowing this important to you?

Well, we are fast approaching the end of the year, a time that we naturally punctuate with reflecting on who we were the last 12 months, and envisioning who we want to be this time next year. Whether you are just starting out in property or growing an established property portfolio/business we will all be having thoughts along these lines. 

We will all have an idea in our mind of the type of property entrepreneur/investor we want to be (and if you don’t use this post as a prompt to get those thoughts on paper 😊). If you were to paint a picture of you in a years time, the normal reaction is to start with WHAT you want to have ie a certain number of properties, a certain value of portfolio, a certain monthly cash flow or bank balance. That’s all fine but we also need to think through WHO we need to become in order to make those things happen.

Time to throw in one of my all time favourite quotes which captures this sentiment neatly,

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

For things to change, you have to change.

For things to get better, you have to become better.

If you improve, everything will improve for you.

If you grow, your money will grow; your relationships, your health, your business and every external effect will mirror that growth in equal correlation.”

-Jim Rohn

Now to circle back to the main sentence that prompted this post “Every action you take is like a vote for the person you want to become.”

James Clear explains that if we can master the right actions and habits then we can start to cast votes for this desired new identity.

Quite literally our habits will form our identity. 

So as you start to reflect on your year in property, and future vision about the property investor/entrepreneur you want to become, I encourage you to consciously design the habits that will make it all happen. 

Will the habit be related to a certain morning routine to kick start your day? Will it be related to posting your property activity twice a week on social media? Will it be related to a number of viewings or agent conversations, or number of possible deals analysed?

Tell us 1 habit you are establishing that will help form your desired identity as a property investor.

Can’t wait to read what gets shared 😊

Here we are in the final thirty something days of the year. Well over 300 days down and we’ve all invested a massive amount of energy and dedication to put ourselves in the position we are now in, and we want to finish strong. You do want to finish the year strong don’t you?

Wherever you stand with your property goals, what can you do to make sure you have that final big sprint to finish the year strong and go into 2022 with confidence and momentum?

A few years ago I shared the true story of a runner who was able to consistently lead the field but who always lost in the final stretch of the race. His coach, who had observed and analysed the runner’s race habits and results, pinpointed the problem – in the final stretch he was always looking over his shoulder at the competition and in those moments would be overtaken.

The coach’s advice, which proved successful, was to ‘fixate on breaking the tape’ and ‘don’t look over your shoulder. You can’t be afraid when you are out in front and alone. When you look over your shoulder you switch focus from the positive goal of winning to the possibility of someone overtaking you.’

This same thinking is what we all need to apply to our respective business situations in the final weeks of the year, if we want to finish with a winning feeling. In other words, to really focus on our goals and protect ourselves from distractions.

So if you want to finish 2021 strong, focus on breaking the tape and don’t let temptations of taking the foot off the pedal distract you.

Here are 5 STEPS TO MAXIMISE THE END OF THE YEAR:

(I got these 5 steps from a Peter Voogd podcast)

Step #1 AWARENESS

*Have full awareness of what you’re doing and how you’re operating in the final stretch of the year.

*Do the opposite of others i.e. at this time of year, most people are starting to eat unhealthy, drink more, take the foot of the work pedal but if we want to differentiate ourselves we have to do the opposite – step up the exercise, keep the diet in check, plan effectively, don’t sell yourself short.

STEP #2- STACK UP MOTIVATION WITH WHYS

*Figure out WHY you want to have an amazing end to the year AND build MASSIVE MOMENTUM going into 2022, and write the reasons down.

*Look at these reasons regularly and use them to push you through while others are easing off.

STEP #3- WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING AND PRIORITISE

*Best way to get rid of the overwhelm and fuzzy thinking is to write everything down. Get it out of your head and onto paper.

*What GETS SCHEDULED GETS DONE

*Write out clear expectations for your business for the end of the year and clear tasks for each person, whether it’s just you or if you have a team – it’s about working more strategically and intentionally rather than doing loads of hours so we can all be more present with our family when we choose to be.

STEP #4- CELEBRATE WEEKLY PROGRESS

*Celebrate weekly progress rather than focusing on perfection or living in ‘the gap’ i.e. focus on what completed or how far you’ve come in the last year, be grateful for what you got done rather than living in the gap of where you think you should be”.

*This next bit of advice is gold, and my favourite quote of the podcast – “You are exactly where you need to be, to learn exactly what you need to learn, to get the lessons that you need to get to build an amazing future”. Don’t beat yourself up, bet on yourself.

STEP #5- WHAT IS YOUR GAME CHANGING HOLIDAY ROUTINE

*The ritual you create to solidify getting back in the zone.

*It’s hard to build momentum when you take breaks, but at this time of year you need to, and when you do you’ll want to be fully present. So to allow yourself to be fully present during down time, maximise what you do leading up to the break. You’ll then feel amazing taking time off with your family.

*In advance of taking your time off, think about and write down a ritual to get you back in the zone. For example, I like to bullet point my ‘pick up points’ before I break for a holiday i.e. a simple instruction so I know exactly what to do first having disconnected for a week. 

What are you doing to keep your focus on breaking the tape and finishing the year strong?

As time goes by I recognise more and more how ideas and experience from other industries and businesses can be lifted and applied to property. What about you, do you see that too?

As a quick example here are 6 ideas, by no means an exhaustive list, that I’ve taken from other areas of life/career and applied to property with great effect:

#1: PRE-SELLING AND STARTING WITH DEMAND

This first point is a biggy and has been the single most important idea I’ve applied to property. It’s been game changing for us and has completely re-shaped our entire investment philosophy. 

I used to start by finding a property based on its location or relative price compared to nearby property, the end users of that property were generally an afterthought, or evenleft to hope. However following a painful experience in Serviced Accommodation we promised ourselves that we would never rely on guesswork again. 

Thanks to a couple of American software entrepreneurs, I learned about the concept of starting a business by finding the demand first and then pre-selling the solution. This is exactly how we built our SA business the second time round, and what I’ve written about in my book “Predictable Property Profits: 4 Simple Steps To Remove Guesswork And Get More Certainty In Your Property Deals”.

#2: ACCOUNTABILITY

Going back to that same era when I met those software entrepreneurs, I also met a business coach/psychologist who taught me about the powerful social phenomenon that is accountability done right. He taught me about a constant weekly cycle of deciding 3 proactive tasks to hold myself accountable to with a suitable partner/coach. I initially used this practice to start a software business but later applied it to starting a property business. Having a regular and structured accountability cycle has been at the foundation of my habits for building out our property businesses, and it has shaped the way I mentor and coach others to help them draw the best out of themselves. 

#3: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Ever since being introduced to books like Think And Grow Rich through my student summer work, I’ve been reading books of that ilk. I’ve heard it said by Tony Robbins that our success in anything is about 80% psychology and 20% tactics. When it comes to starting and growing a property related business, that most definitely holds true, I might even say it’s more like 90% psychology and 10% tactics. By understanding this, my ongoing commitment to personal growth through books, courses, podcasts etc has been a huge contributory factor in starting and growing our property businesses. Most reading this will know that personal development and property go hand in hand, and the sooner you get to work on the mindset aspects the more success you will experience in your property businesses.

#4: RECRUITING

I had a career in recruitment and executive search for almost 8 years before leaving for the world of entrepreneurship. I’ve drawn on skills and practices from that career and brought them into property more times than I can remember. Like property, recruitment is a people business, everything is about communication and managing a process from start to finish. Whether that be a process for finding and selecting power team members, JV partners or actual team members, it’s very similar. This year alone I’ve drawn on those former skills to recruit 7 new team members into our business (5 virtual and 2 local).

#5: VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS (VA’s)

Following on from the point about recruiting, I first learned about recruiting a Virtual Assistant in 2013 from those same software entrepreneurs mentioned in point 1. Back then it was to help with market research for my software startup. I would later apply the same approach to recruit and manage VA’s to help in our property business to help us with sourcing, research and bookkeeping. In fact it was one of our VA’s who found the guest house that we bought in 2018. If you don’t already have a VA, make that one of your actions, not only will you get more done but it will keep you ACCOUNTABLE to focus on higher value tasks and delegate the lower value tasks.

#6: VALUES

Whilst closely related to point 3 on personal development I chose to single out values as a separate point, purely because of the huge impact it has had on our property businesses. Having read ‘The Values Factor’ several times, and invested in a weekend course with the author, Dr John Demartini in 2016, values have sat front and centre of our property business. 

Understanding our highest values has been and will be like a North Star to us. It’s given us clarity on why we do what we do (in life and in property), and that’s helped us tap into the fuel source required to get started and keep going in property. Understanding our values also provides us with a filter through which decisions can be made, goals can be created and strategy crafted. Values steer what we do in property and how we do it. 

IN CONCLUSION

So what’s the point of all this? Well, I hope it serves to show that no matter what career and life experiences you’ve had to date, there will be things unique to you, certain competitive advantages, that you can lift and apply for the benefit of your property business. That’s part of the fun of this journey, like what Jim Rohn would say, “See what all you can do with all that you have”.

So, what do you have that can help you in your property business? I’d love to hear, and who knows, by you sharing it may inspire others to apply something similar into their property business. 

Please hit reply and share what you’ve borrowed from elsewhere and applied to your property business. 😊

Back in 2019 I first started to familiarise myself with the Local Development Plan for the area I live and invest in. It’s not for the faint hearted, we’re talking 200 plus pages! Having wrapped my head round it initially, it was then filed neatly away and not reviewed much since.

One of the things I love about masterminds is that often it’s not new information you need but rather being reminded of something you already know that you will now do/do again. 

This week’s mastermind conversations reminded me of the importance of being familiar with the local development plan and to select property opportunities that are congruent with what the local plan wants to achieve. 

In whatever part of the UK you invest, the local authority will have prepared and published a vast amount of research that will significantly help inform your property investment decisions. Reading through your Local Development Plan (LDP) and speaking to the Housing Department of the Local Authority is a great place to start.

This little post will help explain what the LDP is, what you can expect to learn from it and importantly, where you can get your hands on it.

WHAT IS IT?

Planning authorities are required to prepare a Development Plan to set out a planning strategy and policies to guide the future development of their area. The Development Plan explains where new developments such as housing, business and retail are likely to be supported and where certain types of development should not occur. It provides a framework against which development proposals can be prepared and assessed.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT TO LEARN

Here are some key areas of insight you can expect:

*The spatial strategy element of the LDP sets out key locations for growth – this will highlight where the majority of new development will be in the county and reflect the geography of opportunities for the location of new housing.

*These plans will point out the areas of housing construction, and with that comes potentially new schools, employment opportunities, community centres and renewable energy projects, as well as infrastructure and associated works.

*The Local Housing Strategy will highlight housing unit requirements per annum and the reasons why.

Population / Household Change – Referring to National Records of Scotland or The Office for National Statistics will provide population projections in your area along with household growth, which will either provide comfort or otherwise in regards investing in that area.

*Economic Development / Tourism – A member of the Economic development team will hold a calendar of all your regions events and key contacts, which should enable you to effectively target potential guests in respect of the tourist market.

*Health and Social Care – this part of the plan brings some understanding of the projected demands for healthcare with existing services will highlight projects like community hospitals and possible care villages.

WHY IT’S ALL RELEVANT TO YOU

*If you are choosing the strategy of single let or HMO’s you will want to better understand the population growth patterns, potential reasons for demand and the most suitable areas based on this.

*If you are developing apartments or houses to sell, you will want to understand the areas where such developments are required and where planning policy will encourage it rather than hinder it.

*If you are operating Serviced Accommodation, you will want to understand the Tourism trends in the region and other potential reasons for a sustainable demand in short stay accommodation (ie what development is bringing contractors to the area?)

*If you are planning to invest in commercial or mixed use property, you will want to understand the plans for each respective High St or industrial area in your region. You will want to understand what mix of commercial use class the Councils want to encourage or minimise and how they want to make their town centres viable.

A bit of upfront reading and understanding of your local area could have massive benefits to your investing.

WHERE TO FIND THE LDP?

If you simply google ‘Local Development Plan’ along with the name of your local Authority area, you’ll be able to find the page of your Council’s website where these documents are published.

As a final note, I’m sure being in touch with all the above is similarly of interest to you as a resident in your local area.

For a bit of fun, and accountability, why not reply with a quick post once you’ve located and downloaded the LDP relevant to your investment area?

The title of this post poses an important question but one that is often overlooked by many investors, my past self included. 

What I’m referring to here is a big challenge that comes up regularly round the monthly mastermind tables – and that challenge is figuring out where to start ie what strategy and what location. When someone begins to invest in their property education it’s very common to become overwhelmed with the choice of property strategies, because they are all great. And by wanting to do everything it can very quickly lead to getting results in nothing. Can you relate? 😊

That’s why I thought it would be helpful to share some examples and strategic questions that can help you pinpoint a strategy to focus on and get started with. And more than that, I truly believe that of all the property strategies there will be one that aligns most closely with who you are and the type of investor you want to be. I also believe that typically everyone has some kind of unique competitive advantage, although they may not see it initially, once identified it will allow them to get going a little bit faster and with a bit more ease than the next person. 

In my own case when Chris and I first joined forces and went through a number of courses in 2016, we tried to do about 4 different strategies all at once. For 3 months we were busy idiots scratching the surface with multiple things but not producing meaningful results with any of them. 

When we did decide to focus on one thing (that being R2R serviced accommodation) results came pretty quickly. They were short lived however as our first outing in SA was not a success – but that’s not what this post is about, back to finding a unique competitive advantage. 

When I look to help early stage investors identify where their unique advantage may lie we typically start by looking at what they know (ie career to date) and who they know (people in your network) to see what comes up. 

In my case it was digging up the ‘what I know’ that led to reminding myself of a timeless entrepreneurial business principle I was taught by some mentors 2 years previous. By applying this principle of finding the demand first to our R2R SA strategy it completely changed the game for us. [If you want to read about that in detail I cover it all in my book Predictable Property Profits 😊].

SOME EXAMPLES FROM OTHERS

What I always find fascinating is to see what unique competitive advantages pop up for people when we go through a series of questions and answers. 

We’ve had people:

*identifying potential sources of SA demand within their existing network 

*uncovering people in their network to JV with in some way

*realising they can combine what they already know with a certain property strategy and get started with more focus and confidence than previously expected

*realising they can use what they know from their career to pinpoint investment areas

…..the list goes on.

What I’m getting at here is that I firmly believe all adults can find a little something that can help them along their property journey purely based on who they are and what they’ve done. 

To explore this for yourself, think about what you already know from your life journey so far and how you could apply that to one of the property strategies you are aware of.

Alongside that, think about who’s in your network who could be a potential end user of a property strategy or someone who could help you in some way. Think back through all your networks – school, university, different jobs, sports groups etc. 

Property is a people business and when you see the various property strategies as ways to solve problems or help people fulfil a desire then it can really help bring clarity. 

QUESTIONS FOR FINDING ALIGNMENT WITH PROPERTY APPROACH & STRATEGY

Going back to the point I made earlier about wanting to do all the strategies, one of the ways I’ve found to help arrive at a decision is to first get clarity on what kind of property business owner you want to be. That can help narrow the focus and rule out certain approaches and some of the strategies. Here are some example questions:

*How do you want to be involved in your property business?

*What kind of tasks and activities do you want to be doing in your property business?

*What kind of tasks and activities do you NOT want to be doing in your property business?

*What kind of property people do you want to be engaging with regularly? Eg residential agents or commercial agents or homeowners or business owners? (you get the idea)

IN CONCLUSION

Thinking through the answers to questions like the ones above can lead you to that focused starting point we all need or the next strategy to focus on for growth. 

I’d love to hear if going through these questions for strategy alignment and identifying a potential competitive advantage brings a few lightbulb moments. 😁