We bring this sprint challenge and mini-series to an end this week. The last 6 weeks of this first quarter of the year has been quite an adventure.
Yes, there’s achievement and yes it’s also been bloody hard work at times to realise that achievement too.
However, there’s always something to learn from our experiences, both good and bad.
The title is to soar like an eagle...rise up high, the view’s better up there and there’s less for us to bump into. More than this, the biggest lesson of all these past few weeks was a somewhat unexpected one... How belief can grow inside of us. We just need to give it the opportunity to grow.
Join me in the wrap up to this sprint challenge to see how it went and also what there is to learn.
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Transcription of the show
We bring this sprint challenge and mini-series to an end this week. The last 6 weeks of this first quarter of the year has been quite an adventure.
Yes, there’s achievement and yes it’s also been bloody hard work at times to realise that achievement too.
However, there’s always something to learn from our experiences, both good and bad.
The title is to soar like an eagle...rise up high, the view’s better up there and there’s less for us to bump into. More than this, the biggest lesson of all these past few weeks was a somewhat unexpected one... How belief can grow inside of us. We just need to give it the opportunity to grow.
Join me in the wrap up to this sprint challenge to see how it went and also what there is to learn.
Property Chatter
Welcome to the property voice podcast helping you to navigate safely through the world of property investing, get the lowdown and updates, insights, and outcomes on all matters property with a splash of entertainment along the way, the property voice or voice to trust among the crowd. Now, let's get started with your host, Richard Brown.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the property voice podcast. My name is Richard Brown. And as always, it's a pleasure to have you join me again on the show today. Well, we're at the end of this mini-series, this spring challenge, I decided to launch for quarter 120 21. So you've obviously seen the final half, if you like of the quarter, over the last few weeks or so. And today's the last day of well, the last time last podcast before I finished the quarter, technically, I have an extra couple of days to go. So there is there's a couple of things still in play, which might still land and tip the quarter, you know, into what has been a really good one into an absolutely stellar one, effectively. So I hope you've been following along. And the long and short of it is basically I set myself some goals for the year. And I decided to set myself a spring challenge for this quarter in particular. And I was measuring four key areas of my business activities, my property business activities, and I broke those down into the property assets under management, the business acquisitions, because I'm looking at mergers and acquisitions as well at the moment, various property companies, private financing to underpin some of the some of those acquisitions, whether it's in blocks and portfolios, which underpins the property assets and the management, or indeed, with the business acquisitions as well. And then finally, I've got my book project, which I've been working on. That's the property financing book.
So the point of the last few weeks was just going to give you a blow-by-blow account or updates as to how I've been doing and making myself publicly accountable. As a result of this share. I'm hoping to share extra snippets along the way some elements of what I'm talking about are not everyday activities that many in property would be getting involved in necessarily, of course, with other people they are but I just wanted to, you know, is it kind of a fly on the wall, exposing a sort of thing. And it kept me honest, it kept me accountable. And I wanted to make sure, of course, that when I came to the podcast each week, I had something to say. So I guess it motivated me as well, I think and that's going to be one of the takeaways and you know, making a promise or keeping yourself accountable to others. Is an external motivation. And it helps drive you on two types of motivation, internal motivation, and external motivation. Because internal motivation is really what I want to do. And the external motivation is if I tell you what I'm going to do, then maybe you'll ask me questions. So So there we go. So let me just give you, first of all, the scores on the door, so to speak out, how's it gone? Well, I also got a bit complicated because we reset the goal. During the quarter, we decided to 3x our goals, which was kind of crazy. But we did. So originally I was looking to is, let's say property assets under management. And that was going to be in the area of blocks and portfolios. and wanted to grow that by about three and a half million originally, for the entire year. So and that would have been quite a significant growth in terms of my current property assets under management. And yet, midway through the quarter, we decided to 3x everything. So that actually grew to around about 10 million, calling at 10 million for the year that is now in in the first quarter that would have translated us to originally about 850,000 in incremental assets under management. But having 3x date, it'd be you know, 2.4 million essentially.
So how have we done? Well, really because of landing a whale of a deal we've got we're under wonder, subject to contract. 6 million pounds basically is is where we're at right at this moment in time. So I come from the finance director School of Business rather than the salesman School of Business, which basically means it will not I'll translate that I mean, I've worn different hats By the way, salesperson and finance director, General Manager, etc. But you don't count the money until it's in the bank. That's the finance director school. Whereas the salesperson, generally speaking, it's like, if you shake hands on it was good enough. Me. So really, I guess from a finance director's point of view wearing that particular hat, I'm cautious and I want to make sure that that deal gets over the line before I go and spend the money. So do think, so to speak. So 6 million subjects to contract is one that we've had agreed, and we've got offers out on other opportunities as well. I'm not sure if we're going to get any in by the time the quarter closes on Wednesday. But you know, you never know. So that's been good news, I've got another offer I've got to make actually earlier this week. So who knows, maybe it'll get a little bit better. Let's see. So that's similar, obviously, that will make a significant indentation into the annual goal, let alone the quarterly goal. And I might revise my goal, again, depending on whether we get this, you know, agreement, this purchase over the line. But for now, as I say, Finance Director role, I'll be cautious until we've done that, and then we'll revisit things a little bit later. But the great news, I want to come back to the great news because it has some of the learnings or perhaps wanted during the summary. And then we had business acquisition. So myself and business partner are looking to actively acquire property related businesses, mainly agency businesses this year. So we're under heads of terms for our business in the region of two and a half, 3 million pounds annual turnover. And that's going through a due diligence process as we speak. Due Diligence is hard business acquisition, especially when it's a share purchase because you're also taken on all the risks and the legacy of that particular business. So there's quite a lot of things to look at, in all fairness. So one tip I might offer is where possible, to acquire the assets and not the shares. But it's in this particular case, it made sense to acquire the shares. So that's why we're doing that. So we set a goal, Originally, it was a million pound turnover in acquisitions. By the end of the year, we three acts that during this quarter, so that would that would translate as 3 million annual turnovers this year. And this business will this got a current turnover about two and a half million. We're expecting that to grow. Post-post-completion, I think we'll probably do the goal with that particular business on its own, frankly. But just as just to spice things up again, we've got another offer out which were optimistic, cautiously optimistic finance director level, called cautiously optimistic. It's another business 600,000 turnovers.
So if we basically break the 3 million goals, if both of those, you know, go through to completion. So again, cautious, will they go through if they do fantastic, we've essentially achieved our goal for the year with those who are opportunities coming through. And then private financing, to underpin those acquisitions effectively. Well, there's a bit of a stretch on here,in terms of the money that we need to raise from a private financing point of view. And it's been fascinating, frankly, the learning curve, the networking, the creative thought, the reaching out the different types of structures, that we are looking at these days, effectively to fund this level of, or activity. Now Originally, it was three 3.5 million was private financing raised target, we 3x, that so grew to 10 million for the year. And it would have been about 2 million for the quarter. We've Sorry, no, it would have been Sorry, I beg your pardon, it would have been a million for the quarter. And I've got pledges, because some of these are working their way through the system got pledges of 2 million pounds. So we've more than doubled what we set ourselves out to do. In terms of private financing rates for the quarter, they're so pretty chuffed with that. But we've got a lot more work to do, basically. And so we've got some interesting conversations lined up people who provide mezzanine finance, for example, family offices, SAS pensions, private funds, syndicates, high net worth individuals, we're reaching out into those circles because we're going to need, you know, mezzanine finance or crazy equity to be able to, you know, fund some of these operations or revolving credit facilities. The fact that the revolving credit facility I alluded to that was coming through, still hasn't come through. So that would have actually more than doubled the pledges that we would have had, we've had the pledges are there, but the money hasn't come through yet. To be fair, so. But that's been fascinating. And in fact, when I get on to the book in a second, the chapter that I wrote over the weekend was on property bonds, shares, and mezzanine finance.
So, it was one of the most interesting chapters I've actually written. And that's because it's right where I needs to be right now this is also growth for me in some respects you know conceptually was aware of many of these types of financing but to write about it to be rubbing shoulders with people who provide this type of funding it's been fascinating I really enjoyed it and it's stretching me and helping me to grow and to develop and hone my skills as well so that's been a really good outcome but in terms of the goal for the book project I set an original goal of writing 50,000 words in q1 and i actually achieved that goal a couple of weeks ago so I reset the goal already to 60,000 words by the end of q1 and at the moment i'm looking at i think it's about 61 62,000 so i have not only breached the the original goal but the revised goal as well it's not i'm not going to 3x the the word count don't worry that will be quite a long book but essentially i would say that probably 85% of the content is now it on paper I think there's a couple of chapters to polish off there's one that's in draft I haven't even included in that word count and then we've got things like some case studies or use cases that want to add in as well and they'll be an awful lot of editing and and that kind of stuff that goes into the book as well so i'm hoping that it will still be the spring when the book will be launched promisee financing and you can probably tell just from that last chapter that's not going to be your everyday book on property financing yes there'll be a chapter on bicyclette but there's i think about 18 chapters at the moment so i think the the traditional financing buy to let mortgages commercial loans bridging finance the ending the development finance are in there they're four of the 18 chapters the some more strategic set chapters and then the rest is really content different types of financing structures whether it be traditional finance with every alternative finance whether it be creative finance so i'm really excited about this book actually i've enjoyed the process of writing I found a rhythm that works for me which is basically get up early on a saturday and a sunday while my wife is having it having a lion and crunch away at the keyboard to crack out some numbers or do some numbers of words that is or to do some research for that end so it's been good are looking to continue that and hopefully we'll get the book polished off and it'll be out soon so if you want to be one of the first to hear about that then just drop us a line podcast do I know not not podcast drop it to karen admin at thepropertyvoice.net asked to go on the book launch list and she will make sure you hear about it as soon as we're ready to go to the launch and so there we go so they're the goal so it's just been amazing frankly and i think more so why would you want to say here right couple of things the first thing to say is this that making yourself accountable makes you accountable so me just putting myself out there every week and just telling you what i'm doing and what the progress is going doing i'll be making rather really helps to focus the mind so that's the first thing first observation the second observation is when we actually three out style goals during the quarter in a strange way we didn't really believe it from being honest with you we said it but i'm not sure we 100% believed it but by saying it it starts to change your thinking it starts to make you think of possibilities you know i think you might remember the phrase was it's it's impossible unless we start to think think less about the impossible and more about the less so we started you know well where can we find bigger deals how can we fund bigger deals was really at the tip of our mind what about businesses where can we find these sort of businesses are we going to restrict ourselves to certain business sectors we're going to stay in we're going to stay in our lane but we're not necessarily going to be 100% down in one particular alley so to speak so i think it changed our thinking and our belief grew as a result so that's really interesting if I look back i don't think you get instant belief but if you start talking about it if you set yourself a goal that stretches you your brain you know starts to work on the possibilities and you grow into the belief i think that's one of the biggest takeaways i'll actually make about this whole process actually and it's probably a bit of a lesson in terms of how the rest of the year is going to unfold and how i'm going to set goals in the future in fact one thing i'm probably going to do is give you an update maybe every quarter.
So a build up won't be like every six weeks it won't be a six week sprint like this has been perhaps but I will probably just check in with you and that will be another way of keeping me accountable as well so i'll do that so that was that was an interesting thing and the other thing that came to light or another piece of the learning and I've called it i've used this phrase a little bit over the last week is soar with eagles or soar like an eagle so when you're flying at you know great height like an eagle there's not a lot you can run it not a lot of trouble you can run into and you've got a great you know view of the horizon thinker spoke about this someone who other weeks actually and so i've been talking about a mastermind group and people are really struggling to find deals you know it's really hot out there the average residential homeowner and sort of based market is hot you know the stamp duty window has been extended there's two there's two at two extensions isn't the one till about the early summer and there's one till the autumn and the ones the autumn is driving you know the sub 250 1,001st time by market and if you're an investor hunting in those you know waters you're going to struggle to find good deals because you know first time buyers are out there looking and it's this competitive so what I mean is if you can rise up and you can rise up in different ways you can rise up in terms of size of deal you can also rise up in terms of where you're looking whether it's his you know so looking just on the portals look off market use deal sources director vendor use referrals for example to access deals from different places you can also look to arbitrage which is find something in one market and converted into another market so you know auctions might be a good idea in that respect but equally excuse me equally I think look at you know maybe the retail and commercial sectors and repurpose you know those commercial buildings into residential would be another thing to look for so soaring like the eagle doesn't necessarily mean you're a great height you know it just means you know being precise it's a precise hunter and eagle report so be precise in what you're looking for and and look in different places for your food if you like so I think soren like an eagle is a really appropriate metaphor really for those but I think the biggest lesson of all is you can grow into your belief you don't actually have to literally believe it on day one you can grow into it that that's my thinking anyway I know that napoleon hill would say whatever the map the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve I do believe that to be true but when you're setting yourself a really big challenging hairy audacious goal
I'm not sure if you do 100% believe it straightaway and you convince yourself with your words you convince yourself with your actions and if your mind starts working on different possibilities so I think if i've learned anything over the last six weeks and indeed the six weeks prior to that of this quarter more or less it's been that is that you can grow into your belief so I guess the big takeaways for today are soar like an eagle which means don't be on the floor with all the chickens okay soar like an eagle go looking for deals where the chickens are looking okay and the second thing is yes it's that big big goals and if you don't believe it straight away just keep working just keep saying it and eventually you can grow into that belief the possibilities were revealed themselves and you know i'm not bragging but you know things have happened as a result of that so I think I may have surprised myself in all honesty so that's been that's been amazing thanks for bearing with me over the last six weeks on the spring challenge i don't know how you found it drop me a line i'm not sure i'm gonna repeat it very often but I just wanted to do something a little bit different this quarter that is the end of the challenge the if you want to know anything about how i'm doing and where i'm finding deals or how i'm structuring things just drop me a note i'll be happy to share that and don't forget obviously if you'd like to know more about the book the financing book drop us an email there but yes the show notes are going to be over at the website thepropertyvoice.net and if you would like to talk to me podcast at thepropertyvoice.net is where you can find me i'm pleased also to say i've got a new apprentice program that's launching on the first of april we've got four bright and breezy apprentices who've committed to join that process so i'm looking forward very much to working with them over the next 100 days and no doubt you'll hear one or two bits as we progress along the journey with them as well so another fly on the wall opportunity you hear different people from different backgrounds looking to achieve things in different ways and go through the process of the apprentice program so that's exciting i'm looking forward to that and yeah i guess i guess that's it isn't it so thanks very much for listening once again this week on on the property voice podcast and until next time
thank you for listening today now head over to thepropertyvoice.net for more inspirational content and get updates through our mailing list join us next time on the property voice podcast and if you enjoyed the show please don't forget to rate us on itunes