Adaero Property

Can you guess what the highest paid skill of the super successful is? When I asked this in a group coaching call a load of great answers came up – networking, sales, marketing, plus a few more. All of these skills and activities absolutely play their part, but what really underpins any answer we might come up with is one overarching super skill. And that is steadfast consistency. 

Some reading this may have also seen Darren Hardy’s recent series on the ‘Success X-Factors’ where he lifts the lid on 10 common factors of the world’s most successful people. Well, X-Factor #7 in the series is Steadfast Consistency. And this one really struck a chord with me, which is why I wanted to write about it – both to anchor the philosophy in myself, and to serve as a helpful reminder to anyone reading this for whom it resonates. 

We all know that the greatest Achilles Heel to our human behaviour is the fact that people are typically terrible at staying consistent with positive behaviours. Everyone sets goals or makes resolutions at new year, but very few achieve them and even fewer maintain them. All those promises and intentions that people make drift ever so slightly until they just drop off a cliff. Its a sad truth that humans lack commitment and the ability to sustain the promised activity/behaviour over a long period of time. 

This is where Darren reminds us of that meaning of commitment we’ve heard so many times before, 

“COMMITMENT IS DOING THE THING YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO DO LONG AFTER THE MOOD YOU SAID IT IN HAS LEFT YOU”. 

That last half of the quote is the decider – the bit about ‘long after the mood you said it in has left you’. You see, people tend to set goals when they are in an empowered, ambitious, heightened mood. You know the score – the punctuation of a new year brings the resolution that ‘this year is going to be different, this year I will add X properties to my portfolio and £X amount in passive cash flow per month’. And it’s relatively easy to be committed when in that mood, but soon the mood will leave and that’s when the real test of commitment will come. This lack of consistency is why most humans don’t reach those dreamy goals. Darren refers to that lack of consistency as the, “subtle stealer of dreams”.

So why am I writing about this? It’s absolutely not to mentally beat readers into a feeling of defeat and ‘why even bother’. No, quite the opposite. I’m writing about this common human fault so we can wage war against it and consciously remind ourselves to STAY CONSISTENT with the practices that will bring our property goals to fruition. 

We have to work on MASTERING CONSISTENCY. 

How you might ask.

When the thought crosses your mind about slacking off on your action plan, consider the massive cost of inconsistency – in other words the cost of not doing that single action but also the potential collapse of your entire progress and momentum. That is why its one of the most important principles of success.

A FEW TIPS ON MASTERING CONSISTENCY

#1: FOLLOW AND MODEL people who are already successful in this attribute and in the area you want the results. Tony Robbins reminds us that, “if someone is successful at anything, and more than once, then they have a strategy, even if it’s unconscious, they are doing certain things consistently. 

We need to make it our business to learn what those consistent things are and create habits, routines and rituals around them. In your property business will that be in relation to the regular communication cycles with commercial agents, will it be the number of networking events you attend, investor conversations you initiate, weekly social media activity, regularly calling through past SA guests for referrals…..? In relation to your health and personal development will that be a certain number and type of weekly workouts, a certain dietary plan, a consistent morning and evening routine. 

This is what you need to figure out and then practice and develop your skill of consistency. 

#2: HARNESS ACCOUNTABILITY. Once you’ve identified the activities that will lead to your goal achievement, stacking multiple layers of accountability around those weekly tasks is one of the most powerful things you can do. Getting things done is a social phenomenon and once you learn how to effectively leverage accountability, it will be the unfair advantage in your corner. In my humble opinion, leveraging accountability is one of the most powerful ways to win the war against that part of our human nature that, if left to its own devices, can be the ‘subtle stealer of dreams’.  And the great thing is outsourcing accountability brings the best results. You can outsource accountability to people you trust, respect and value – ie your spouse, a friend, a coach or a mentor.

It’s not about how you start something, it’s about how you continue. If you stay consistent, even if slowly, the tortoise will always beat the most talented. 

What activity in your property business will you commit to consistency with?

Over time we have grown to appreciate the importance of having a pipeline of property deal opportunities and to have patience not to force things or get too downhearted. 

And the last few weeks have been a very real reminder of the up and down journey to source and secure a satisfactory property deal.

Most recently we had a very strong cash offer (in our opinion 😊) turned down on a bungalow that sat on a nice flat half acre site. Our initial due diligence with multiple agents, our architect and build team validated our plan to extend the bungalow under permitted development and subsequently build 4 new houses on the site. It could have been a cracking little development however, after several back and forths the vendor turned us down. This is one that we really wanted, as we had multiple strong exits, so naturally felt very disappointed with the ‘thanks but no thanks’. I let myself feel properly p#ssed off and disappointed for a few minutes before reminding myself that deal flow is the antidote to deal disappointment.

Within the same 2 week span I very narrowly missed out on a 2 bed house that could be converted to a 4 bed for either a RTB or a flip in the same year, plus there was a great office to self-contained apartment conversion opportunity that another investor just beat us to.

Whilst it would be nice if everything that makes our shortlist for serious diligence could come off, it’s just not realistic. 

So, what’s the point in sharing all of this? People only want to hear about amazing deals coming off and success stories, right? Well, not always. It’s great to share news of deals coming off but from several recent conversations in mastermind and coaching groups, I’ve observed several people experiencing the same disappointed so my hope is that sharing the experience and learns from the ‘ones that got away’  is helpful to refocus back on the deal flow. 

The below is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are seven key points that Chris and I keep reminding ourselves of along the property investing journey:

#1: You can’t be too emotionally attached to any one deal and you certainly don’t want to stay down and disappointed for too long when a deal doesn’t go your way (that could hold you back from seeing the next opportunity)

#2: The antidote for deal disappointment is to have multiple deals to consider, hence the importance of DEAL FLOW

#3: Having a selection of shortlisted deals to consider will prevent you from becoming too emotionally invested in any one deal. With only one deal on the table it can bring about a sense of ‘this has to work’ and that can lead to force fitting, irrational thinking and accepting unnecessary risk.

#4: A decision to proceed with a deal can’t be based solely on the most optimistic outcome playing out. It’s wise to bottom out multiple exits and to see a way to be satisfied with a conservative/secondary outcome.

#5: Deal flow comes when you can be clear about the end audience you are serving, be clear on the kind of properties/sites that meet your range of criteria, and you know the input activity required to uncover the kind of deals you seek.

#6: Getting to a no decision on a potential deal should be framed as a mini victory in itself – it should serve to refine your analysis skills, validate what you really want from a deal and get you a step closer to the good deals.

#7: Keep a record of the deals you have shortlisted and analysed because they may just come back round and present an opportunity to acquire cheaper/or create more value than you previously expected. 

CONCLUSION

Knowing the reality of this emotional rollercoaster that property entrepreneurs have to cycle through weekly, monthly, yearly – this is why mindset is such a big part of the property game. You can’t one up the universe and avoid these highs and lows, but you can develop a mindset to work through the dips as quickly as possible.

What have been your highs, lows and lessons on the property deal front recently?

Has what you read 16 years ago shaped who you are today?

Last April I gave an insight to what I was reading back in 2005 after I did a mini spring clean of my office filing trays – I’d found a plastic folder with 5 articles dating from the summer to autumn of 2005 (picture attached). Just for fun here are the headlines of those articles so you can get a sense of what the green but eager 25 year old version of me was reading:

“Building a fortune out of beer money” – about renting property]

“Fifty ways of saying carpe diem and stop carping” – [50 reasons why everyone should become an entrepreneur]

“The buying game” – [a basic guide to buying property]

“How to quit a 9-to-5 life on £400,000” – [about how to retire before the traditional age]

..and last but not least…

“11 Keys to Success & Wealth” – [what it says on the tin]

In 2005 I would have been a little over a year into building a corporate career, and whilst enjoying it, couldn’t help searching for something more entrepreneurial, and at that point the property light bulb had gone off thanks to reading Rich Dad Poor Dad. 

In property related conversations I often refer to the “Reticular Activating System” within our brains – that part of our brains that when consciously programmed to look for what you want, it helps you find what you’re looking for in the sea of information flooding past our senses. 

By evidence of these articles, clearly I was searching for insights on wealth creation and entrepreneurship back in 2005, and it hasn’t stopped since. It was a trip down memory lane re-discovering and reading these articles again. It’s incredible to think that everything I was reading back then that felt new, complex yet inspiring and exciting is now part of what I am living today. Whilst my wild ambitions and impatience of 2005 haven’t always materialised as quickly as the 25 year old me may have wanted,  (I’m still very much on the continuous growth journey), I’ve nevertheless become what I started dreaming of 16 years ago- an entrepreneur in property. 

Here are the 11 Keys to Success & Wealth that I got from one of the first property talks I attended, and these points were put together and shared by an American property entrepreneur called Jim Francis. Reading through these I was reminded that they are just as relevant 16 years later, especially given the current environment we’re in. Here’s my paraphrased summary of Jim’s words:

#1: DREAM BIG

Jim referred to the common denominator with all the millionaires that he’d interviewed – they all had big dreams and believed they were worth more than a 9-5 they didn’t overly enjoy. All with the dreams, they were prepared to take some risks by taking some of their hard earned money to try something new ie build a small business or invest in property. 

#2: GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

You must attack your comfort zone and get outside of it. Push yourself to try new things, to break your limiting beliefs and poor habits. All successful people know that growth happens at the edge of your comfort zone. 

#3: WORK SMART AND NOT HARD

Millionaires tend to work smarter, not harder. It’s not that they don’t work 16 hour days, but they use their time much more effectively. They have a better plan for making money and if they are going to work 16 hour days, the fruit of their labour will be their own, not for someone else. They make their money work for them in property, in their own business and in the stock market. 

#4: THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

One of the major rules of the wealthy is taking action. While you are thinking about this right now, someone else is taking action. Don’t analyse things to death but do your diligence, make sound judgement and take fast action. 

#5: TAKE EMOTIONS OUT OF DECISIONS

Too often people are stopped by FEAR- fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of rejection. Millionaires learn to conquer fear, they simply look at 3 things – 1st, the investment, 2nd the return, 3rd, the probability of success. If those things stack up they go for it…

#6: TOTAL COMMITMENT

Successful people give their all, they work their 40 hour week job and then put in another 20 hours plus to start investing in property or start their small business. Even if you are tired, don’t let it be said that you “missed your dreams because you were watching TV”. Schedule time for success, take action as scheduled and the results will follow. 

#7: MENTORS

..Are worth their weight in gold. Why? Because mentorship and coaching work! You can only learn so much from a book, a self study manual or a video or a website. A coach or mentor can get you on the path to success quickly and help cut your learning curve in half. 

#8: STUDENT OF SUCCESS

Millionaires never stop learning. They study success habits. They study money, property, business and asset building. They have a thirst for new knowledge and invest a significant amount in training and self development.

#9: BOUNCE WELL

Millionaires have failures. They have lost, but they keep a positive attitude – “I’ll figure it out, I’ll work harder or smarter to get the result, I’ll apply a better plan”. They remember that a flat ball doesn’t bounce, so they have to keep it pumped up. (Great analogy for the current times).

#10: SELECTIVE MEMORY

There are no failures, only learning experiences. ‘If they swing at a baseball they do not remember the 66% of the time they miss, they remember the 34% of the time they hit.’ The problem for most people is that they remember the last time they failed – no wonder they stop swinging the bat. Selective memory is key to success. 

#11: DON’T QUIT

The character of man or woman is not measured in the number of failures, but in the number of times they come back from those failures to attempt to win! Ask Edison – 10,000 plus attempts at making the lightbulb. Do not give up. Success is just a decision and some action away!

I hope these 11 keys resonate and feed your mind as they have done, and continue to for me. 

I’d love to hear which one of these 11 keys to success strikes chord with you right now, shoot a quick reply here.

What kind of activities and tasks occupied your time in (or on) your property business this week?

For me and a team of mentor friends, 4 out of the 5 days were allocated to masterminding – mentoring small groups of property entrepreneurs to help them work around obstacles and add fuel to the fire of opportunities. 

These were 4 highly productive, enjoyable and rewarding days, and during our various group conversations there were several key themes that emerged everyday, even though working with different groups. One of those key themes was all about teams – and these related both to power teams and the building of one’s own business team. Everyone went away with a goal to add a ‘WHO’ ie to add someone to their team this quarter who will help them get more done and go faster. 

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post all about how ‘every property business needs a ‘WHO’ in Q2’. It’s all about how we can step change the next 90 days and accomplish so much more with the help of others. [If you missed it and want to catch up, here it is http://adaeroproperty.com/your-property-business-needs-a-who-in-q2/]

If this is striking a chord with you, where would you bring someone in to help you accomplish more in your property business?

To help you identify the things that you could outsource first, here are 2 great questions that I’ve recently been intentionally asking myself as I work through the week.

ANSWER THESE TWO QUESTIONS:

#1: What tasks am I currently doing that don’t need to be me?

#2. Of those tasks, which ones take the most time?

By answering these two questions over the period of a couple of weeks you will start to identify the tasks that could literally make up a job spec for someone. 

When you identify your highest value tasks and the lower value things that still have to get done (but don’t have to be you), then you can start to allocate your time for higher leverage and greater outcomes. And a virtual assistant is likely to be your first team hire. Even if that VA only works for 10-20 hours a month, that’s 10-20 hours you’ve just got back!

[If anyone is a bit stuck on where to start with the whole VA thing, I’ve captured a 7 step manual on the entire end to end process on how to hire and onboard a VA, you can find it at the bottom of the page here: http://www.devenirplus.co.uk/ebook

Here are some of the activities Chris and I have outsourced/delegated to a VA, a permanent staff member or members of our power team:

-Bookkeeping

-Some social media posting

-General admin (ie utilities management etc)

-An element of property sourcing

-Property Management

-Project Management

-Property viewings

What about you, what tasks would you look outsource/delegate first?

ANSWER 5 QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH AND NEW REVENUE

Reading news headlines today it certainly feels like there is some good optimism in the air for the economy. It’s unbelievable to comprehend how the world as we knew it was turned on it’s head just over a year ago. 

It lead me to reflect on what I was posting about last April when we were just a few weeks into lockdown. In doing so, one of my posts in particular stood out because it ran through 5 great questions and it got me brainstorming again. I felt that now is just as valuable to share these questions. 

Whilst the last year has thrown up a load of problems, it also means there are a new problems just waiting for entrepreneurs to show up and solve (or do a better job of solving). 

In my March post called “TRAIN YOUR PROPERTY ENTREPRENEUR BRAIN AND GET BETTER RESULTS” [link at the bottom if you missed it] I shared the basic backbone concept of a business – that being a CUSTOMER using a MECHANISM of some kind to get a desired end RESULT. In other words start with finding what end result that customer needs. The last year has created many new needs and pain points and that is opening up incredible opportunities for innovative property people and entrepreneurial thinkers.

Last April I sat in on a brilliant one off live presentation that Darren Hardy broadcast this which focused on a specific set of questions business leaders need to ask themselves (and find answers to) to prepare their comeback. He shared a great Peter Drucker quote which went something like this, 

“Great ideas are birthed through the labour of asking great questions, and finding the answers.”

Discovering answers to questions like the ones I’ll share below are what will help you adapt, possibly pivot but either way fuel the next level for your business. 

I’ve selected FIVE questions, from the many Darren walked through, that I felt would be most relevant for those with property businesses. On one hand, these questions are designed to guide us through creative thinking and strategic analysis to help minimise potential risks; and on the other hand, they will help discover the incredible opportunities that are emerging in our new reality. 

QUESTION #1

WHAT CAN WE DECONSTRUCT AND REINVENT?

To arrive at your answer, start by thinking along the lines of what result(s) your property business is already good at delivering. Ask yourself, despite the events of this last year, what hasn’t changed? ie the population still need housing/accommodation, but your audience may have shifted. Then ask yourself – What would our business look like if we started from scratch right now?

Where can you take your core areas of expertise in adding value and now meet a new high demand market? Is it the staycation market? Is it the commercial sector in some way? Is it playing cupid between landlords and new tenant buyers?

QUESTION #2

CAN WE REDEPLOY OUR KEY SKILL SETS?

The skills that you/your company excels at may be a source of growth or new business if applied to a different set of problems.

What are those key skills and where might they be redeployed for essential services or current high-demand markets?

Have a go at listing out what you see as essential services and high demand markets and see where your skills may link in.

It’s fair to say that residential property remains in high demand and there will be many with investment pots looking to access property but perhaps don’t know how to go about doing it. How can they be identified and served for a win win outcome?

QUESTION #3

WHAT ELSE DO OUR CLIENTS NEED THAT WE CAN HELP THEM WITH?

Darren reminds us that we are not in the “product or service-selling business. We are in the problem-solving business for our target client.”

Ask yourself, what else does my target client want or need that I might not currently offer, but could?

Then take this a level further and validate any ideas by testing it/offering the idea to your client base.

QUESTION #4

CAN WE PRE-SELL OR BULK SELL OUR PRODUCT/SERVICE?

This one might be particularly relevant to those in the serviced accommodation space, especially if an injection of cash flow is needed to sustain things.  

Ask yourself – can we pre-sell or bulk sell our accommodation? What kind of incentive can we offer to pre-sell/bulk sell our accommodation to advance cash collection?

During the early part of the lockdown our strategic choice to pivot the majority of our SA properties towards serving our local council’s emergency accommodation needs was one of the best things we did. 

Just this week I met our key council clients to discuss further refinements and how we can position ourselves as a key provider long into the future. 

If you serve contractors, that will be another audience where you may be able to pre-sell longer stays as they will need to book early so as not to be pushed out by the staycation audience. You will know the right blend for your business. The key thing is to think through these questions and then act on it. 

QUESTION #5

HOW CAN WE MAKE IT EASIER TO DO BUSINESS WITH US IN THIS NEW REALITY?

Over the last year we have been forced to adopt digital solutions and virtual interactions it’s opened up an incredible number of ways to reach and engage with new customers.

Darren posed this question which may help your thinking, 

“Using digital solutions and virtual interactions, how can we adjust our business model or work practices to radically reduce costs or rapidly scale our market penetration?”

We already know that property agents are doing virtual house tours, what else could be done along these lines?

No matter what realm of property you are in there will no doubt be ways and means to reduce friction and make it even easier to do business with you, even if that means a reminder to self to respond faster to messages 🙂

I hope re-visiting these 5 questions get you thinking creatively and help to unearth ideas and solutions, whether for new beginnings or for growth  

LINK TO THE POST ABOUT TRAINING YOUR PROPERTY BRAIN

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”- Helen Keller

With the end of Q1 last week I shared a post outlining the importance of investing a little time to review your last quarter and plan out your next. I thought I had a pretty effective process in place for that, but I’ve recently learned about a powerhouse of a question that I haven’t been intentionally asking myself each quarter, until now, and I want to share it with you.

For a few years now it’s been part of my routine to carry out a quarterly review. Acknowledging progress and getting clarity on the next 90 days are what I really value about that process, and I thought I’d been doing a pretty good job with my quarterly reviews. That was until, during my Sunday bike ride last week, I heard a key question that has the power to step change things when I consciously ask it more frequently. 

The book I’ve been listening to whilst training to cycle the length of the country is ‘Who Not How” by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. 

It’s such a powerful book, and the basic premise it this: 

If you want a bigger future for yourself, you have to stop asking yourself, ‘How can I accomplish this?’ 

Typically, society teaches us to focus on HOW, and to work in isolation. That will limit results and cause frustration. But if we want to succeed at the highest levels, we need to shift from a “HOW” mentality to a “WHO” mentality. 

The new and better question we should be asking is,  “WHO, can help me achieve this?”

Here’s one of my favourite extracts from the book that we can all take on board and remember because it sounds like a Dr Seuss rhyme:

“Every WHO needs a WHO, this includes you. Whatever it is you are trying to do, you need a WHO.” [say that out loud really fast for a bit of fun 😁]

It’s only through teamwork and collaboration that we can achieve the bigger and better results. 

The Author Benjamin Hardy makes the key point that, 

‘With each ascending level of success, our ability to achieve bigger and better results will be more dependent on WHO’s rather than HOW’s. By focusing on who we work with rather than how we achieve our goals, our levels of accomplishment and freedom will dramatically increase in all areas.’

Everyone needs a who. I’m a who to my business partner Chris, he’s a who to me, our Ops Manager is a who to us….and so on and so forth. 

STEP CHANGING YOUR Q2

So, back to that initial point about step changing the quarterly review and thinking about our next 90 days. 

Here’s a the powerhouse question I took out of the book to put into my quarterly reviews:

“What are the 3-5 new jumps or progress you can now go for that can make your quarter great regardless of what happens?

Then ask yourself, WHO can help me accomplish this?”

“Here’s a personal challenge, add at least 1 who to your goals over the next 90 days. 

By adding a who your commitment will increase and your behaviour will improve, as a result your confidence that you can achieve bigger results in that area will improve.”

We are in the final stages of hiring 4 new WHO’s into part of our business. More often than not a property entrepreneu’s first hire will be a Virtual Assistant (VA). A few years ago I captured our exact process for hiring Virtual Assistants into a manual (we’ve done it several times now).

Some may choose to pay someone to recruit team members for them, or you can learn to recruit people yourself. I was an executive recruiter for 8 years so I know a bit about recruitment processes and chose to draw on that. 

For those keen to develop the skill of finding and hiring virtual team members, I’ve attached a link to the exact process that we use. I’ve captured it all in a step by step manual with template documents to accompany each step. The manual that can be purchased for a small investment and a donation to a charity that means a lot to us. 

If you’re interested, you can find it at the bottom of this page: http://www.devenirplus.co.uk/

Looking at the quarter ahead, I’m excited by the challenge of adding a brand new who as part of our Q2 goals. 

What could your property business accomplish in Q2 with the help of a ‘WHO’?

Psychologists will tell you that what really makes us happy, what really gives us confidence is seeing the evidence of progress. 

So, let’s not miss the opportunity that comes with an end of quarter review. As property entrepreneurs it’s essential for our sanity and motivation to acknowledge and celebrate our progress. Some of our goals are so big they may take years to achieve, but we CAN make massive progress every 90 days.

Breaking down your goals into 90 day increments is good for focus and motivation. By chunking down your goals into smaller steps you can focus more directly on what’s right in front of you. Not only that, it makes it a whole lot easier to track and measure progress.

You can make tangible progress week over week and then by taking time to reflect on the quarter you can measure that tangible progress to give yourself a sense of movement, satisfaction and from that, momentum. Reflecting on the quarter will also highlight a goldmine of learns that you’ll want to take forwards with you. 

Reviewing each quarter 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.

HOW TO REVIEW YOUR LAST 90 DAYS

Here are a selection of questions, I learned from Peter Voogd, that I’ve been using for a few years now to help reflect on the previous quarter and carry momentum into the next. Use these prompt questions to help you reflect and free flow write for 30 mins or so each quarter about the previous 90 days. [By the way, I use the accountability of writing this post to get my own review done and it only takes about 30 mins].

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 quarter: financial, family, adventure…?

Getting down to business metrics ask yourself:

• Did I hit my business income goal last quarter?
• 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? 

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 quarter?
• What did I do to stay adventurous and feel fully alive?

To help keep you going with the nitty gritty march of each day it’s important to mix it with the things that energise you. Whilst we can’t have meals out or mini breaks just yet, hopefully that’s not too far away. But in the meantime there are still plenty of things you can access from home or on your doorstep as a fun treat. Whatever it is, choose something and schedule it.   

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 connect with and reach out to last quarter?
• 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?
• Am I consistently demonstrating the attributes I want my team to embody?

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 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. As a side example, part of my family legacy work the last few years, and ongoing, is taking conscious time with my boys to teach them one key life value each month.

Peter 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 challenge you to invest 30 mins each quarter to do this. WHY? Firstly, so that you can give yourself the gift of seeing evidence of progress. Secondly, because high achievers always ask better questions, and they are always investing their past mistakes/lessons into their future preparation.

Looking back over the last quarter, what is something that you initiated and achieved, that has made you the proudest?

Serviced accommodation is such a fantastic business to be in, and now that UK travel is set to open up this summer SA operators will be looking forward to big bookings and profits once more. You just need to be sure you are indeed collecting the funds for each booking. If you have SA property available through Airbnb, you need to know this. Don’t panic, you just need to know about it and iron out any exposure. 

Most SA operators don’t expect to have payment issues with Airbnb- surely they collect payment from the guest before arrival, right? What if all this time we’ve had a false sense of security that payment is taken by Airbnb at the time the booking is confirmed?

We recently discovered that operators are actually pretty exposed with Airbnb bookings ie they often don’t attempt to take payment from the guest until 3 nts into the stay, and if payment fails they may not inform hosts until even longer into the stay. If in that time the guest has been and gone the guest can easily get away with a free stay (if they wanted to) and Airbnb takes no liability for non paying guests. 

Can you believe we’ve had listings with Airbnb for nearly 5 years and hadn’t spotted this issue until now? We always believed that airbnb had us covered because they collect payment from guests before arrival. Having discovered that payment is not always taken prior check-in, and if the guest wanted to, they could use your property and leave without paying, I felt duty bound to let more operators know. 

Over the years we’ve had a very low proportion of our bookings from Airbnb since the majority of our business is direct. However this February we had a good month long stay at one of our properties that was booked by contractors working at a local power station. They checked in on 15th Feb and 18 days into their stay we got a message from Airbnb letting us know that they hadn’t been able to collect payment from the guest. 

As you can imagine this came as a huge surprise as we’d never encountered payment issues with Airbnb previously, and we believed that Airbnb collected payment when the booking was confirmed and then released funds to the operator within a day or two of check in. 

18 nights worth of stay and no payment had been collected by Airbnb so in theory the guest could have left at that point and had a free stay. The worst part about it is that Airbnb chose not to inform us when they first failed to collect payment, the guest gets a few notifications first before the host is informed, and that adds more time lag. 

Thankfully when we took this up with our guest we were able to rectify the situation. The point of sharing this little story is to help ensure it doesn’t happen to other operators where you end up losing out. 

There are a few different host forums discussing the same situation which happened to us but here is just one if you wanted to read about it….

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/problem-collecting-payment-from-guest/td-p/660486.

So, what can we learn from this and what can you do to protect your SA revenue?

# Firstly, check your bank account within 1-2 days of an airbnb check in to ensure the money has arrived, and if not you can start to chase it up. 

# You can set your properties up to only allow guests who have provided government ID to Airbnb and are verified to book.  [Whilst the guest being verified by AirBnB will unfortunately not make a difference if the card was declined it does provide a little more comfort as to the validity of the guest].

# If you use a channel manager you can set it up to have all guests complete a digital registration form where they sign to say that any damages can be taken from a credit card which needs to be registered prior to checking in.

The digital registration form can be built into a channel manager so the guest can complete it online and you call them to obtain card details which the channel manager can store and verify using the stripe connection.  You can also pre-auth any deposit which is held for 7 days.

[Note-Make sure you update any airbnb listings with the fact that you’ll ask guests to complete the form and/or take a deposit if you set it up.] 

So, in summary, don’t panic but just be aware that there is a degree of financial exposure when taking bookings from Airbnb. You just need to be aware of this and put suitable measures in place to mitigate the risk and protect the cash flow of your business. 

What constructive lessons have you had from your SA business recently?

May your SA business thrive this year. 😁

I love masterminds! And this week was all about masterminding – over the 4 days working with 23 delegates and their property business plans, helping get from where they are to where they want to be. 

What I love so much about our mastermind sessions is that each individual brings their own unique set of life, business and property experience, perspectives and values,  and when we work together in a small group like this, tapping into that is where the magic happens. 

My role is to facilitate and coach the day from accountability check ins, to creating the agenda, and working through the day’s objectives until everyone has their own bespoke action plan for the month ahead. In doing so we get to draw on the group’s collective intelligence – more often than not, the person you unknowingly need to hear from the most is one of your fellow masterminders. It may be that they have just pushed through figuring out the very thing you are stuck on, there may be an idea shared in one part of their business that you can lift and apply to yours, their recent actions and results may be the social proof you need to inspire your next steps, there may be a power team intro shared, a software tool..or…..it’s an endless source of possibilities.

Observing this all unfold is just magical, and that’s why I love it. What’s clear is that coming to the table with a learner’s open mind means that we have delegates learning from those in front of them as well as from those who may have less property experience. And of course I’m constantly learning and sharpening the saw. 

When I reflect on these mastermind weeks I typically find that common themes and patterns emerge. For those who are curious, here are 4 common themes from this week’s mastermind sessions:

#1: As the CEO of our property businesses we are the ones responsible for making decisions, meaning it’s our responsibility to know what we want and to define the decision making criteria for investments that will inform the search and allow us to say deal or no deal. Without that clarity we can feel lost in a sea of rightmove or in analysis paralysis. 

#2: Whether choosing to be hands on or hands off in the property business, it’s essential to understand the numbers for your chosen strategy- and I mean really understand how the unit economics work and interact with each other. Whilst having a template analyser that someone else has created can help get things started, there is no replacement for creating your own spreadsheet templates to analyse your deals and track your comparables and notes. 

#3: As property entrepreneurs we don’t have all the technical answers, nor do we need to have them, but what is important is figuring out the questions to ask and who to direct them to. 

#4: And finally, to finish with the big overarching theme we finished on this week – creating great deals, service offerings and partnerships is about finding out what people really want and figuring out how to help them get that result. 

So there are some core discussion topics that led to multiple learnings and actions for people this week. To everyone I worked over the last few days, thank you for your engagement, interaction and support for each other –  here’s to a great month ahead.

So what about you reading this, what’s one thing you learned this week that you will implement in the days ahead?

Us humans often need to hear things multiple times before we heed the advice. Just think how many times we’ve heard healthy eating and exercise advice…In many cases we need to hear the same message but packaged in different ways before it sinks in and we action it.

What about in the property investing space- what wisdom or advice did you hear several times before actioning it? Or what about advice you’ve heard but are yet to implement?

There’s a particular time proven business principle that has effectively been applied to start and grow businesses for decades that I feel many property investors are missing out on. By my own admission, I was one of those property investors up until a few short years ago.

Making some mistakes in property, combined with looking back and connecting dots from my past business life is what eventually allowed me to hear and see the wisdom that we applied to completely transform our property business.

Here’s that simple principle now – the fundamental core of an income stream comes down to a CUSTOMER using a MECHANISM of some kind to get a desired end RESULT.

And here’s a simple example:

A beginner guitar player (customer) wants to learn popular songs that will entertain their friends (end result) so they invest in guitar lessons (mechanism).

Here’s a property example from our world in serviced accommodation:

Construction company (customer) wants to deliver a project on time and with decent profit (end result) and a small but critical part of delivering that is to have their own skilled guys who aren’t local to the project, accommodated in a home from home environment near to the site and within a certain budget (mechanism).

In most forms of business, we don’t get to decide what works, our customers do. Some products and services will do ok, others won’t take off at all and others will really fly. When we can pinpoint the thing that really works, that’s where we have to focus and double down.

Going back the fundamental income stream model of CUSTOMER : MECHANISM : RESULT, we can shortcut the offerings that don’t work or just do OK by focusing on the CUSTOMER first.

The majority of property investors are way too focused on the MECHANISM ie they find the property first, and then try to find a customer and a result for that property. This is exactly where we were going wrong a few years ago.

By switching to focus on the CUSTOMER first, we can understand upfront what end result they want and what kind property offering would serve as the best mechanism to deliver that result. Makes total sense, doesn’t it? (Hence the choice of quote from Steve Jobs).

It’s not rocket science and it’s certainly not anything new, successful property people have been applying an approach like this for years, but then so many haven’t. That’s why I chose to write my first book on this simple yet super powerful approach to property investing, it’s called PREDICTABLE PROPERTY PROFITS – 4 Simple Steps to Remove Guesswork and Get More Certainty In Your Property Deals.

GET A COPY OF MY BOOK HERE

If this isn’t your natural approach to property, if you are always starting with the MECHANISM (ie the property) then this is what I’m referring to by ‘training your property entrepreneur brain’. We absolutely can train our minds to flip the script and look at our property investing with a different starting point – the CUSTOMER. Doing this will give you so much more certainty and far better returns.

Just this week, one of the delegates in our group coaching call asked a question related to possibly setting up a serviced office investment for the first time. And you know what, by looking at things through the perspective I’ve just shared, we were able to map out a plan of action and line of questioning that would lead to the answers he needs.

So I’m curious, what will you do this week to apply the late, great Steve Jobs advice in your property business – ‘start with the customer experience and then work backwards?