Today, we welcome back a long-time friend of The Property Voice, as Kemi Egan returns to share her story. From a self-confessed 'sporty-nerd', Kemi had a tricky experience with running her own sports physiotherapy business to such an extent that she even had to live at the business premises, taking showers at a nearby gym!
Faced with the prospect of needing to find cash very fast due to the loss of 6 months income after to a major insurance client collapsed, she pounded the motorway miles relentlessly before achieving financial freedom through property...and a whole lot of hard work besides.
More recently, Kemi has diversified her property interests and taken on a systematic business-like approach to all that she does in the process. Her latest project is a 90-unit scheme with a financial backer that she originally said no to an offer of significant funds from many years ago. That act alone displays her integrity and the ability to focus on building strong relationships.
Do not wait for permission, Kemi says, instead become what you need to become and make it happen! I hope you enjoy listening to Kemi's understated confidence and inspiring journey as much as I do.
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Resources mentioned
Contact Kemi Egan for the raising finance resources mentioned hello@kemiegan.com or check out her website and here is a link to her book The Power of Real Estate Investing
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Transcription of the show
Today, we welcome back a long-time friend of The Property Voice, as Kemi Egan returns to share her story. From a self-confessed 'sporty-nerd', Kemi had a tricky experience with running her own sports physiotherapy business to such an extent that she even had to live at the business premises, taking showers at a nearby gym!
Faced with the prospect of needing to find cash very fast due to the loss of 6 months income after to a major insurance client collapsed, she pounded the motorway miles relentlessly before achieving financial freedom through property...and a whole lot of hard work besides.
More recently, Kemi has diversified her property interests and taken on a systematic business-like approach to all that she does in the process. Her latest project is a 90-unit scheme with a financial backer that she originally said no to an offer of significant funds from many years ago. That act alone displays her integrity and the ability to focus on building strong relationships.
Do not wait for permission, Kemi says, instead become what you need to become and make it happen! I hope you enjoy listening to Kemi's understated confidence and inspiring journey as much as I do.
Property Chatter
- I think we became a nation of buy-to-let investors. Kemi hi, how are you doing?
- Hey, I'm good, thank you.
- Excellent, really good to see you. And thanks so much for joining me obviously, and obviously sharing your story with the Proxy Voice Community once again. 'Cause it's not the first time obviously, but I think, really looking forward to understanding quite a lot about you and your story and the inspiration. Hopefully, that's going to give us also thanks for joining us today. I appreciate that.
- Oh, no worries. Thank you for having me. It's always gåreat to talk to you and hopefully, we'll have a really good conversation and maybe some cool stuff will come out of it,
- for our listeners.
- sure. I'm sure it will always seem to when we get together. So what I'm tending to do at this point is really just talk about my guests and their story kind of beginning to end. And so what would be really great is just to get a sort of a picture of your life before property. Would you mind just taking us there? So we can sort of getting a snapshot of what your life looked like and who you were, what you were doing just before. You're getting involved in property. Is that okay?
- Yeah, for sure. So I've got to property quite early actually. But not without, some errors along the way. So I initially went out to be a physio. That was my big goal. I come from a family that doesn't have, wealth or financial backing. My mum was a single parent. It wasn't the easiest upbringing It's just, it was pretty tough, but as we like to say, right, education is the solution to everything. So the big goal, the big driver was always to go and get to university and do that. So that's what I did. And I was incredibly proud of myself. I did my undergrad and that was fantastic, but it wasn't enough I had to be something else because the more you study and then the next level, surely, more money comes or more this comes, a more that comes. And then that was before at the time I knew that wasn't necessarily the case and traditional education has its lacking. So did my undergraduate did my master's degree, and I went on and opened a private practice. And the reason that I'd opened the private practice this is a recurring theme through my career. Is that the NHS is just incredible. I will defend it to the ends of the earth, but in many ways it has limitations. And a lot of those limitations are the ability to actually treat some people and get in there and help some people because there are financial constraints and everything else that goes along with it. Yeah, the waiting lists are enormous. And then, there are some guidelines about how you interact with people. And the point is that you're not supposed to make people feel dependent on you to solve their problems. We're supposed to help them solve it themselves, which is fine. But if I knew that I could just get my hands in there, like fix a problem. Why wouldn't I? So I opened this private practice because I knew that if it was my business, I'd have some more control and I could treat some people without charging them. I could work with this, that and the other. And I could give back in lots of different ways. That's what I really wanted to do. Some of that comes from being younger and really sporty. I got hurt quite a lot, but my mum couldn't afford to have us to have me seen by anyone. And so I spent quite a lot of my youth in very much of pain and I was limited in some of the things that I was able to do and able to aspire to because I just didn't have the support and the resources. And I didn't want that I wanted, and I still want people that want something to probably get it. So I opened a private practice. And it was really great, to be honest. And I honestly, I didn't know what I was doing. Kind of opened the door one day and along we went but a bit awkward business and I made some mistakes and I learned as I went along. And then we were approached by an insurance company. So you know when you have a car crash and stuff anyway, you get referred to get treatment.
- Okay, yeah.
- In this case, we've been seeing a lot of people that's been wrapped, some really core it results in our business. And they come to us and said, "look we want to send a huge amount of traffic, "huge amount of people to you. "Is that okay? "Can you send me a little business?" Oh yeah, I'm okay with that." And then it was a bit later down the process I said, but here's the thing, the payment terms are gonna be 90 days from the end of the treatment plan.
- Okay.
- Now on that
- So at the end of the treatment plan?
- At the end of the treatment plan. So treatment plan is usually six or seven weeks. So you treat them for six or seven weeks, then you can invoice them. Then you get paid 90 days later.
- Right.
- So we're on four,
- About six months
- Yeah, five, six months at best. And that's assuming they then pay it on time.
- Yeah.
- So not ideal, but they're gonna put huge amount of money through the business and its point, I'm pretty young and I'm pretty naive. And we could kind of cashflow the business until these started to come in. So why not? It seemed like an opportunity. It didn't occur to me as why that a company that big would ever get into any trouble. So, it didn't feel at risk.
- Yeah.
- But spoiler alert, I was at risk. That company, long story short, went under and took with it thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds that they owed me. For that six months, I've been bank running the business and bank running the staff and bank running the rent and bank running the business rates and the suppliers and everything else that goes into it on the expectation that this money would through. And it just didn't, it didn't. So I had a couple of choices at that point, I could shut the business and then try and figure out another job or another something, or I could leave my home and move into the business. Ultimately I couldn't afford both, I could barely afford one. And I lived away from home. I wasn't near my family. So if I had moved back into my family, I'd have to shut the business and try and restart and get a job somewhere else.
- Yeah.
- So, and by the way, that tendency and all the stuff that goes on like that doesn't go away because you shut the doors.
- That's right
- If I gave it my home and kind of figured out how to move into this business, I stood a chance at working my way out. I stood a chance of some kind of daylight. So that's what I did on a cold rainy, horrible Tuesday evening. I take my sleeping bag in my backpack. I moved it inside treatment lobby it was the clinic. And that became home for a while until I tried to figure out a way out of this big old home.
- Wow, yeah, I mean, that's commitment. I mean, did you have all not cons in the place, or did you have shower and cooking facilities or anything like that?
- Nope, so I bought a microwave that did some kind of oven thing. Yeah, they don't work either. Well, one of those to hope electric.
- Oh yeah,
- things was crumbling down. Yup and across the route, was a gym. So I got a membership at the gym to shower a couple of times a day, so that's kind of sneak in and out. That I'd go shower before some of my clients and at the end of the day go do the same thing again.
- Wow yeah that was an interesting and tough time I'm sure. So you had to like at least a six-month gap in your cash flow or holding your cash flow. I guess there are a few lessons you probably picked up along the way there from that experience, but you were sort of, you made a decision really to kind of keep it going, try and keep it going. So that's commendable And, I'm sure that you wow. There's a struggle there obviously. But there's an awful lot of grit that seems to come out from an experience like that, would you say?
- Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I think some of it, again comes from a bit of a challenging upbringing that. Okay, grit, it's just kind of a given you, you're just, okay. Decide to shut the clinic, how to decide it's bankrupt. It would have meant not paying staff wages and not paying suppliers and not paying these people. They're not people. And that wasn't something that was tenable for me. So there had to be a better way and the only way I could do that was to, work a bit harder and dig in a bit deeper and scrap and hustle and fight and find a solution. The solution didn't come from where I thought it would come, it came from property, but ultimately I found a solution. So yeah grit is it's everything.
- Yeah, it is. So tell us that. It's interesting, you said the solution came from a different direction, not what you were necessarily thinking it would do. So what happened? What was the light bulb moment or what was the events or encounter or how did this all happen? How did property come across your radar?
- Yeah, so I've been working in this situation for three or four months and I'm doing every hour I could, and every day I could think there had to be a way forward, right. There had to be some kind of something would happen, but there are not so many hours a day. When you owed that much money, it doesn't matter how much you charge per hour. You're just not gonna get it back. I couldn't work hard enough. One of my patients actually is a very, very big developer. I didn't know this at the time, but I started to talk to him about some things. And he was like, "Oh, this is what I do." And cause he drove some nice cars and his cars changed every couple of months and his whole family will work there. And I'm like, this is interesting. So I started to talk to him a bit about it. And as he's kind of telling me some more bits to bits of what it does, he left the clinic one day. And I sat down at the laptop or the computer desk and just typed in, how do I make money quickly I think, and again, some kind of property things flashed up and I was like oh interesting, what is it? And I clicked on and it happens to take me to some landing page for an event. One of the free taster session thingies and that's where I went. Now I'm gonna say that with every Kevin, I can find that it's is not a get rich quick. It is not a Hail Mary it is not a what was he not rich It's not the golden goose or the golden egg or the golden something. It can be fantastic. And in my case, it did some amazing things. But if anyone's watching this, particularly around such a challenging time, your backs against the wall, please do not decisions and do not buy into someone telling you that you can get rich quick in 30 seconds with no work from property. It's not true. That's it?
- You got rich 30 seconds through property, did you?
- Yeah so anywho next day problem solved, yeah.
- I suspect this is a thing.
- Yeah and that's really interesting. What's the make? And I'm like, okay if any of this is true, if anyone can make it work, I can not because there's anything special. But like you said, I've got the grit, I'm killing myself, working every hour. God sends us is I'm also doing something that is gonna be profitable. So I bought a basic package of something. I can't remember how much it was or what it was I guess like 5 grand and I got the basic information about JV partners and this and that. So I'm like, okay, well I get the principle of rent, I guess, the principle of passive income. I get like I can't work any harder. And I get that this seems to tick all those boxes. They okay I know if I went networking. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have a clue how it should be done. I didn't have a clue about any of that stuff. So I just went and just did some stuff and it worked. I got within about a year within that year, got over a million pounds JV partners They have really nice portfolio off the back of that with none of my in cash. Really quickly then and I knew what to do with say had a really, really fast when our turnkey investment, so into the company. Well, what is really interesting is that it took a few months of this happening. So approximately let's say we get six minutes on the line and the property stuff's killing it. I'm still going every day in the clinic, it took my friend say to me, "Kim, you are aware that you're making like X times more "from property than you are from this. "So what are you doing?" So I actually applied the principles that I'd learned in property investing in terms of, cashflow projection and managing money. Used it to sort some of the business side of the clinic managed to sell that, and off I went full time in property. So it was an incredible 12 months from the point of brokenness. It was a journey. But yeah, and that my career.
- Wow so basically 12 months from the, either the Google search or the attending that event, you were full-time property
- Yeah.
- It also turned around your business by the sound of it and packaged it up to sell it.
- Yeah.
- And you said that was actually through applying some of the principles, in fact, that you've learned through the property business. So in terms of the strategies that you were following then just to be specific in property what sort of strategies were you, were you doing to start out with at least?
- So, initially, it was, did a lot of single less buy refurbish refinance because of the lead gen that I was in, the ratio was building happens to bring in along with it. As some of the options, it happens to bring with it, some rent to rent deals as well. So it was a real cash flow, heavy bottom of the pyramid type investor.
- Yeah, on my end, there was a little bit of lime break up there. So I just wanted, forgive me if I ask again just for clarity, but did you say the relationship that you were in was that, what relationship was that, sorry?
- 'Cause the relationships I was building with like estate agents and with maintenance men and with builders and with window cleaners, everyone that we went out to find leads, to kind of buy properties or support our stuff that couldn't be bought or that wasn't the best solution for the owner.
- Yeah.
- So it brought with it lease options and renter rents and other kinds of way and wonderful things that we were able to utilize as well.
- Sounds like you had quite a toolbox that you were carrying around with you and just whether it was a BRR deal or rent to rent deal or lease option deal, you were kind of applying different types of solution maybe.
- Yeah, well I think, I have generally been late and this is something we had a bit of a chat about this before we came on Nazis. There's something that is increasingly important. And I think it's something I can pull through with me, when we talk about having win-win situations, right. We talk about making the solutions when winning but how often is that actually the forefront of your mind? And I know that at times in my career in property, sometimes it's because of lack of time, sometimes it's lack of thought. Sometimes it is being too busy and just doing too much then actually I'm just like, can we just get this done and move on, just get it done and move on. And you're not stopping and saying, well what else do you need? Tell me what you need and I will do my level best to find that solution for you, but at the time, because I was in, or I was just coming out of a financially horrible situation because it's who I am as a person, anyway, I had real empathy with all these homeowners that were having whatever struggles. I'm like you know what I get it. Believe me, I get it. I can't tell you quite why or how I get it right now, but I do. So yeah, you tell me and I will try and figure it out and a combination of authenticity and actually giving it down in combination with a base, took a very basic at the time, understanding the principles of these strategies. I mean, the actual kind of got through deals really, really fast. And they were deals that I was really proud to stand behind because they did no problem, which meant we do wonderful, and help out sort of the bulk that if you'd asked anyone at the time, they said, "oh, that's crazy or that's too much effort" or "you'll make an extra couple of hundred quid doing this." But it didn't matter, it didn't matter. What mattered was that they were getting what they needed. And that I was being able to pay the bills.
- That sounds good. I mean you coming from a good place by the sound of it and just as a bit of timestamp when was that? When was that sort of the first year? How many years ago would that be now?
- That's a good question. Nine, 10.
- 9 or 10 years ago.
- Yeah.
- Okay, that's cool. And so after the first year then, what happened next? So you were full time in property at that point and you didn't have the clinic anymore. So, what did you do next? What was the next phase? What did that look like?
- The next phase was much of the same. At the time I was investing in a long way from my home and yeah, just kind of kept going rage, trying out, trying out. I think a couple of things happened at that point. The first was that I realized that was I actually making quite nice money and it was really fun. That's why I was like, after everything that was and I went absolutely hell other than the next year. And then I got to the end of that the second year and I realized that actually life sucks a little bit.
- Well, it wasn't candy. So I had money and I had a lot of that stress off and it was a moderate amount of success, but I had some money by that point and had some nice income and a nicer home and things of that point. But I was killing myself, killing myself because I needed every deal when I needed to be up and down the motorway. And, if I had, if I employed this person, it took some of my cash away and I was really enjoying holding money at that point. So I'd never had any in my life. So it took me getting to the end of that year. Like, burned out I was cooked and then having a conversation, I think with my boyfriend at the time, he was like, "yes, this is crazy. "You're working harder than you've ever worked. "You need to figure this out." And I wasn't ready to hear it at the time. It took me probably another six months of just killing myself to realize, to start thinking about why I got into this in the first place. It was, yes, it was because I was stuck. There are no cons about it, but it was also because I wanted a different lifestyle and I wanted my family to have things and I wanted to be able to spend some time and to spend some with my mom and I wanted to do these other things and I wasn't doing any of them. I guess, I was able to find financial support and financially helped, but I didn't see anyone. I missed birthday parties and Christmas parties and dinners and this and that because I was like put down this motorway. And that's something that I talk about a lot now. People that are kind of coaching or mentoring in property at the moment is building the business that you want and that fits the lifestyle you want. Because I think if you look at what a lot of people would have you believe what a lot of social media would have you believe is big is best, do more, do more. maybe, maybe do more, I didn't stop. Let's not pretend this I carried on, but I did it smarter and then know I brought in a team and I paid for people to do stuff that I didn't do. And yes, that has an impact on your profit margin initially, but actually you're able to scale, excuse me, far higher, far quicker because you're not trynna be at a hundred places.
- Yeah.
- And then you realize funny things like, I didn't want to read a contract. I didn't find it very interesting. So why don't I have someone else do it and I can spend that time with my family. So the next phase is probably trying to align what I thought I actually wanted. Well, what I had it had to do to achieve that and who I had to become to achieve that because I had to change from being the young entrepreneur to being a grownup business owner. And that was hard now, that was tough.
- The what I was gonna say, there's a couple of things you said there. I mean, just especially quite a lot of stuff, I just wanna focus in on, I mean, you talked about the holding money stuff and I think, we all have like a money blueprint and often it's influenced by upbringing or various events that happened to us. So I just kind of wanting to clock that, you talked about it, you were kind of hoarding money because you'd just come from this place of like hardship or lack not necessarily short term by the sound of it, it sounds like it, it was for an extended period. So that's understandable. You also talked about, you kind of wanting to have a business that fits your lifestyle and allows you to do certain things that you did. And you wanted to be smarter about it. Now, the thing is this what I'm identifying. And I think even now you say you wanna have a grownup business. How did these changes come about? How did you just, just wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and go this is what I need to do or was there something else happening, was there an external input or how did that all happen? How did these changes come about? That's what I'm interested in.
- Okay, so first of all, you're absolutely right about the money blueprint and it's unbelievable just how ingrained these things, these beliefs are in us. To the point that for a really long time, I kept hitting a financial ceiling. I couldn't get past the ceiling and it didn't matter how hard I worked, what deal I got I hit this ceiling and I either like investing in something stupid. It didn't ever lose it, but it didn't make any money. Or I did something, I just couldn't get past it. And for me, it became that was the only number that I was comfortable being excited, come from a place of wealth, but it wasn't used to money. So that was a ceiling that I just couldn't break through until I became comfortable with the fact that I was earning money and had a business. So I would say to people, listening, be aware of those things. They are way bigger and way more influential than we give them credit for. And I don't think it's talked about enough and you'll see it as well, potentially friends and family. You have some success with it comes to some nicer things. You might see a bit of discomfort, from other people in being able to cope with the changes in you and in your life and in some ways it's part of the journey but it's not easy, it's not easy. The other bit was about the changes. Did I wake up in a cold sweat? I mean, yes many cold words. None of them brought the answer.
- No
- No, I wake up there were lots of times I wake up and thinking, this isn't the dream. When I this, but I went on that takes a session when I did that course, they told me about financial freedom. I could do whatever I wanted. And this person stood up and said, she went to a spa on a Monday morning. Well, my diary is jam-packed. Like I'm having to put in lunch to make sure I'm bringing me some food or otherwise I'll go hungry. I haven't seen my family for a long time. And along the way, I'm really fortunate and I've sought out lots of different mentors because I think it's definitely both different things to teach. And yeah, for me, the same way as books, I don't tend to read books generically. I tend to try and read a book for the thing I wanted to learn. And so I started reading Sam Carpenter's work, "The System" I can't remember his name, something than a scale-up, "Good to Great" and "Built to Sell." I think is it Jim Collins I was reading stuff around systematization you've obviously got "E Myth" Michael Gerber. And it made clear to me that this was things that were the way, way gone. Hasn't even crossed my mind. And I think some of it, again, if you come from families where you have maybe stuck before you have companies, or it's just conversations that you have, that people do things for you, that's natural. But in mine, if you want something, you work for it. If you want more of it, you work a bit harder. And if you want more, you work even harder. And so I was kind of buying and again, your against your brain, spraying my head against this brick wall. Like I just gotta keep working and keep working, keep working. I had conversations with mentors that were like, you need to outsource the $20 jobs, 'Cause then you can do a $100. I'm like, or I can work harder. I can do $20 and $100 then I've got $120. And it took a long time and my health suffered and I was burning out at real rate, to genuinely understand what it means. I got the words, I got the idea. I could never imagine that stuff will be taken care of. And I wouldn't have to check up on them. That's just madness. No one can do it as well as me. Lovely little wherever you go in there. And then it turns out that lots of people do almost everything better than me. There's a couple of things I'm great at the rest of it I'm terrible. So I shouldn't be anywhere near it. And honestly, I was earning really quite nice money and still like ordering flat pack furniture.
- And building it yourself?
- It had been known. So yeah, I seem to run through the most since putting together this, and I am not a handy person. That's not something I should be doing. So anyway, it took a long time to be comfortable with what would you have and like giving people tasks and setting KPIs and holding others accountable and holding myself accountable. And that wasn't an easy journey. It really wasn't. But that was the kind of the next phase in really being able to set some audacious goals and achieve them.
- Yeah I mean, we were talking about goals. I mean, but interestingly, I mean, a goal in itself is unless there's something behind it, it's kind of just a dream with a label on it, I suppose so I think you kind of, what you're saying now is that you kind of have this evolution, or maybe it was a revolution, I don't know, but into becoming a business owner by the sound of it. So you went from effectively doing everything, yourself, working and hustling and building flat-pack furniture occasionally to kind of bringing in people who are at least as good as you in certain areas, if not better. And then selling them targets and measuring their performance. And as you, I think you used the phrase, it would be, I don't know if you use this exact phrase, but you were saying becoming a grownup or having a grownup business. And we don't get told that do we? We don't get taught in the educational system primarily, even if you go to business school probably. So we'll get told that. And it sounds to me that you were just listening to some of what you said about the book references, you were sort of educating yourself in those areas. I know you said you're kind of massively into study. I know you're into personal development and every time I talked to you about that. You've got like half a dozen references that you give me. So you massively immersed and kind of learning as you go, is that fair? Is that kind of what happened? You have these mentors, some of them were the written books and some of them were actual people to help.
- Yeah, absolutely. I'm a massive nerd. There's no secret there. But also I think some of it is I don't have the answers. And I think particularly in property and on entrepreneurship, there's this kind of I said, what is going to be an enigma. You gotta be the one man behind it this person did that and they've done it all without help. But actually, if you look at their stories, if you spoke to them, you would find that really, really fast. They didn't do it without help. They didn't do it with support. So why are we trying to, and I think the real danger in the whole hustle mentality that we've got at the moment and this whole hustle porn. You killing yourselves people take a step have a breath, have a day off. Being working tough to pull off exhaustion is not tell them to be proud of if you have to do that, something's really, really wrong. And I think particularly in property training and then lots of stuff that I've come across, there's a lot of talk about the hustle. There's a lot of talk about, sweat equity. There's a lot of talk about bigger and better and more and more and more deals. There's a little bit of talk about doing things smart, but no real elaboration. People like to keep those secrets to themselves or that's certainly how it looks. And yeah, I went out, I knew that was the one thing that I was gonna struggle with. Again, I'm not, my nature isn't I'm ticking boxes, spreadsheet kind of person. I love them. I love to have them running my life. I don't wanna actually make them. And you don't know what you don't know. So I didn't even know what's been put on spreadsheets, but someone had said to me, what, make someone okay, I don't know what to do. So it really took pain, small fortunes for business owners, not just what we maybe would call traditional mentors, but people that are actually running their business, for them to open the hurt and show me what was going on, show me the KPIs they used. Show me how they did this stuff. And then help me do it because I could only ask the questions I knew to ask. I couldn't ask the questions, I didn't know, to ask. I couldn't set things that I didn't know existed. And they were real holes I had to plug
- We have a, we all have our blind spots, don't we? Of course, what's that, the competence and consciously and competent, whatever that matrix, the one you're the nerd, you probably know exactly what it is.
- True.
- But I was thinking some of the people I've been speaking to on the series have kind of what was in my head when we started talking for some reason, we're a nation of shopkeepers. Now we used to be a nation of shopkeepers. But I think we became a nation of buy-to-let investors and okay, that's not exactly true, but you know where I'm going, it's, obviously that almost became the shopkeeper of the recent generation. Buy and select sort of emerged. So you buy a buy a buy select property. You try and save up and buy another one. And maybe if you're lucky you good enough to retire comfortably in 20, 30 years sort of thing. What you've done is you've done some of that. Of course, you have, but you've kind of turned it into a business. And I think that's, why I'm really interested in your story is you kind of look, you're looking at property as a business. I always say property is a business, even if you're a buy select investor, but actually what you've done is your kind of business-sized, the whole, model and you've brought in systems, you've brought in people. We haven't even talked about, perhaps other strategies you've gone into after that first couple of years or so. But that's what really intrigues me about your journey is and I guess it's allowed you, I imagine, to scale. And if you can give any clues to the sort of scale that you've achieved over the last nine or 10 years, could you?
- Yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's property is a business. And I think we've talked about it a lot, haven't we? We talked about a lot of the stuff that's put out there and people talk about when they do the figures for deals. I don't know if I've ever seen someone include tax as a cost, or I like to add in kind of double margins, 'cause something always goes wrong. We know that we say every time things cost longer and take costs more and take longer than you know they're gonna do. Okay, cool where is it on your spreadsheet, "oh I didn't include it," just put it in, save yourself the drama, because we also both know that when we don't do it, you pay the price and then you're annoyed you didn't do it anyway, right?
- You're quite right yeah.
- We all knew it. And yet we tried to pretend it wouldn't happen just this once. And then we end up kind of hustling at the end, trying and sort of hours of just building it in and then saying actually it's just not worth it or it is worth it. And I know that I'm gonna have to do this to make it work. But still, about the kind of the scale of the moving on to, I can't tell you that my guide, that was my patient that kind of introduced me in some ways to this has gone on to become a JV partner.
- Oh wow.
- And we are looking at the moment at projects in we have an exchange. I have to be a little bit cautious, but it's a big old lump
- Try not to name the names to protect the innocent Kemi.
- Yeah, that's right. It's a bigger lump, it's probably it's not probably it's 90 shooter flats in Missouri. There is potential to develop at the back of that and on top of that so hopefully that will come off. There were a few challenges with that project. The units are some of the units are on mortgageable size. So, in terms of merging our access and things, you've got to decide what risks we're happy to go with at the point. And this point, to be honest, that product maybe 50, 50, we might move on to something else yeah.
- It's multiple millions, sorry Kemi. It's multiple millions presumably. So if you dial, from a single lap BRR, lease option or rent to rent single units at this end of the scale, fast forward to today, nine to 10 years later, and you're looking at multimillion 90 plus unit development opportunity, yeah. I was just curious. I should have said at the time, but you talked about this patient became a JV partner. Did you also say he kept turning up in different cars and stuff,
- Yes
- Was just wondering if he was just getting in loads of accidents and that's why he came as a patient? I don't know if that's
- Well, I mean, no, but he did have, so he had some very nice cars and he had, he's got some Bentleys and his huge fan of Bentleys. I don't love them, but they were in the area that my business was in they were pretty unusual, so brought a lot of attention, but he also had some smart cars. He's tiny, he's a big old guy's six-foot or maybe And he would turn up sometimes in this smart cars and I'm like what are you doing? And he's like, "wow." He was at the time he was doing some big developments in the Tottenham area. He's like "parking is terrible." So I can just shop this anywhere and leave it.
- But in your back pocket, as you walked down the road in.
- I thought that was quite funny.
- I know that was a sort of slight lighthearted digression, but equally, if I know some elements about this individual and trying to piece things together from other conversations we've had once they might be a developer for doing big things and driving Bentley and occasionally a smart car was he sort of a big heating type of person or was he a sort of a more everyday type of person? And how did you connect beyond the patient, a physio relationship as it were, how did that progress just curious about that.
- Yeah, so I mean there's zero chance he's ever gonna watch this. So this isn't a problem, but he is an east end land through and through, he started off, I think with used cars, he's owned nightclubs. If there's a way you could hustle and make some money, he's done it. He didn't do the traditional education stuff and put almost no stock in at all. He's the best, he's the best guy. And he's my first patient. And so I had a big glass site to this clinic and this guy comes down inside here, banged on the glass. He's like, "babe have you got any appointments today." And I was like what "I've been waiting for ages "for you to open have you got any appointments?" And I was like mm-hmm
- And that's how our relationship started. And he wouldn't know, he's an incredibly wealthy man, incredibly wealthy. He's just completed a 900 home development. That was pre-sold actually pre-sold it to a council. But you wouldn't know it outside of his Bentleys, of course, he's fun, he's kind, he is rude in terms of like he's got the bumps. But even though it, and so we just had conversations and we talked about some things and I knew, I didn't really know what he did, but I knew he did some stuff. So occasionally I'd ask him for some advice.
- Yeah
- I had a bit of a run with a staff member. So he's like, "talk to my lawyer he'll sort you out" That so gave him hand. And the relationship came from just that from having a relationship, it didn't even wanna knew what he was doing. And I had started on the path, I didn't for a second envisage that he would be a JV partner because, why would he work with me as he is? He doesn't need me for anything
- Yeah
- And he has, he can get or anything he wants he can get. But I had devalued quite dramatically. My experience, my skills, the different things I bought the fact that actually he just wants to work with a nice person and when you're doing a lot of the big stuff that he's doing and buying out shopping centres and stuff, maybe not, everyone is not nice. And so you want to work for the nice person. I have been talking, and I'll be really honest and this is a big step up, no done some demands and stuff. This is a big step up. And I had that conversation with them and said, I haven't done 50, 60, 70,000 square foot. This is huge. And he was like, Kemi, you're never ready. No one is ever ready. So let's do it. I've got the team, I've got the resources, I've done this, just trust me and put in the work, deliver your side of this job and it will be okay. And that was, I think probably something that I've learned in the last year maybe, quite a recent learning. And I know again, we've talked about this quite a lot, but you often wait, I think you wait for people to give you permission. You wait for, to feel ready for stuff. You wait for the right time to step up levels. No, one's going to give you permission. It's never the right time. You just gotta do it and know we're working on a project at the moment, right. And it's a nice little lump.
- Yeah.
- And again, I'm gonna be cautious, but a lot of what we're bringing to this again is our skills and our experience and our knowledge and our ability to take something from, Oh, you could do that with that to this is how you do it A-Z. And if that works, we will benefit from that. If you can get a deal over the long venture firm that quite nicely no one told us it was okay to do that, but we understand the value that we can bring to these projects. And the marketplace will value in my experience, your skills way more highly than you will value them yourself.
- Yeah.
- So, if they're looking for partners, don't undervalue yourself. Don't wait for someone to tell you what you are worth.
- Yeah, such a good lesson. I mean, about how long was it between banging on the door "Hey babe" to becoming a joint venture partner? What was the time interval would you say?
- So the year that I shut the practice we spoke and he came to me and said: "what you up to what sort of deals you're doing?" And I told him about these houses and they were up North, so little houses. He said, "I don't wanna do, "I wanna bank keep, but I don't wanna do like one or two. "It's just not worth my time. "I wanna do 50." I was like that's quite a lot of houses.
- And he's like, " yeah, can you run 50 refurbs?" No, we can't run 50 refurbs. 'Cause the time is all that Sophie, I was seeing all myself. So I'm like, wow. I mean, if I do 10 a day, I can get around the board in a week. And I was fine lunch on Thursday. So I won't do that. And I actually declined that first investment I was like I can't really kind of what it was worth. It thinks about 5 million, maybe a bit more in purchase costs and then more on a refurb, but I'd said no. I can't make it work on the scale he wanted, I wasn't ready again I felt like I needed someone's permission to do that.
- Yeah
- So in reality, I probably wasn't experienced, I wasn't ready to do that. I wasn't running a business. I was just hustling. And so it was a couple of years after that, that we first worked together and that went fine. Now has some challenges but it went fine. But this project in particular, one of the things he said to me when we were talking about it and laying on the terms of our to JV partnership and what would work and stuff was that he was really comfortable that I would make it work because at a time that, the money would've been really nice. I turned it down Because it wasn't a good fit. I didn't feel like I could deliver it. I didn't feel I could bring my half of the partnership and I wasn't to do that. And that showed to him that I valued him, I valued his relationship, his friendship, and I'm gonna lose that. And I was being honourable, I guess. And that has given him the confidence to come along and do a bigger thing of me down the line.
- Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot to be said, isn't there about going bigger and not putting a glass ceiling on, but at the same time, not being reckless and just saying yes to anything and everything. I think equally, it sounds to me like he certainly came to you first. You were just, having, as you said, I think you, your exact words were, you were just developing the relationship. He was just being you. And it just evolved. And it's interesting because even when I think about some of the people I've worked with from a joint venture partnership, point of view, you don't just meet them and then they give you 5 million grand. It kind of doesn't work that way. If you just meet them and also five-minute credit definitely doesn't work that way. So yeah, it's about people first. It's about building a relationship and see if he is a good fit. I think, yeah, sorry.
- Let's just say like, until a point earlier in the conversation, like, is this actually a good fit for them? Should they be putting their money into property? Maybe they shouldn't and the hopeless things going wrong, or people are left, not feeling good about it, us that they probably shouldn't have been in there anyway.
- Yeah
- I get a lot of people that come through and they say "I need to get my cash out of this deal. "Can you, who are your kind of "what to my options are this, "the project's gone slower than I thought it would be" in terms of, so they're the private investor and they've partnered with someone who's doing development. I'm like, okay, well, why do you need your cash out? Are you still being paid? And it's like, "Oh because my kids start school in September. "And they said that they will be done in August." I see you didn't give yourself any leeway here. That was never a good fit. And I think to have the relationship first and have this conversation first, and so you know whether or not it's possible, right? Can you have a conversation with them? Can I bring more than money? And I know some people say, well, their only job is to bring the money in this true in many ways. But actually, if something isn't going quite right, if you have a bit of a bond and you're like, I suppose you've got any ideas, have you come across any of this in your working life, in your experience? What do you think about this? Well, you don't want someone to say, I put the money that's your problem. What you do want is that to make this a success, we're all in it together. So let's have a chat and let's see what we can come up with. Maybe your answer comes from you as the receiver of cash, but you just needed someone to bounce those ideas off and have a chat. But yeah, he was fully in it with you.
- There's a couple of things that are really important. I think the first thing is the responsibility on us as the recipient of funding. And you've kind of said it in a couple of ways now, 'cause you said, you said no to what would have been probably quite a life-changing amount of investment the first time. Then just touching on the point of, well, this isn't whatever this is, isn't for everyone, if you've got all your life savings and it's EMR for something very personal to you like school fees or for building your own home or whatever retirement. Is it the, 'cause of property and nature, property projects, in particular, is unpredictable, to say the least. So, maybe, and they've got a clear timeline and it's all of their money and they've got a specific use for the amount then, we should advise really, we should take the lead 'cause sometimes not all the people come coming to us are sophisticated frankly. So, with this type of matter, maybe they think, oh, I can make quite a lot of money in property. They've heard about it. If I give you my money, can you give me some decent returns? Well, yeah, we can. But there's some, the reason they've got decent returns is they carry some risk and there's some unpredictability about it. So even if I'm guaranteeing you a fixed rate there's still some unpredictability about my project potentially. So I think it's important to highlight the responsibility that we have. And I think equally I agree with you what you say about partnership. So even if it's just a money exchange, I'll invest with you and I want this return. And even if it's a fixed rate and it's a fixed point in time, and they're not really that involved, there is more of passive investment, because of the nature of what we're involved in there's a likelihood that we'll have communication at some point. I found some of the people working with me now most closely I've actually really had to value in a number of different ways and I don't pretend to know everything. And so they've really added value, all sorts of things. Like I'm just gonna go and research some structures about our limited liability partnership. Would that be okay? Yeah, that's okay, crack on. I've got some ideas about, use of SSAS pension funding because I've got one and I'm rubbing shoulders with people who've got them. Would it be okay if I shared that with you? Yeah, that's okay. So we're bringing value to me as well. So anyway, I digress. So it's a responsibility part and it says, partnership know partnership is a thrown out phrase, but I think, and it can mean different things to different people. So it might be a small PE partnership sometimes, but the ability to collaborate. So it's just, we really want to underline that point. So we forget labouring it. But I know you sit the same way from conversations with...
- It's hugely important and it really is undervalued. I'd like to have JV quite early days, but someone, I didn't actually like that much, to be honest, and I'm not convinced they liked me. It was purely, very financial.
- How did that go?
- Yeah, it, I mean, it went fine, but it was a long nine months and every time framing off, it's like, Oh, I don't want to answer this. And there was a slight delay with remortgaging. I don't know what the challenge was at that point, it was something I can't remember. But there been a slight delay with remortgaging and it wasn't a disaster. It was like seven, eight weeks because I had to get some work redone or something redone. And in normal times that would've been a problem, but because the friction was already kind of there and it was already a little bit laboured, it just made it unbearable and unnecessary, so a lesson that I've learned, the partner didn't learn it right away. I did it a couple more times because it was in the early days, and it was a time thing. I thought you had to take on everything that's why we talked about this before. But when I learnt to say no that things got much better. And I started really enjoying what I do and this JV partner of mine, he isn't for everyone because his language is lively and he's a lively guy and I'm a bit of an introvert. So I'm not that loud. So it's quite an old yin and yang situation, but it gives me so much energy. He's so full of life. He's so funny that I really look forward to talking to him, even when I know that he's going to challenge me. Even when I know that I've let some of my inhibitions or my phase of my baggage or whatever it is. And I haven't pushed something, I haven't negotiated hard enough. I haven't done this hard enough or to a sound that he would like. Even when I know that conversation is not necessarily going to be comfortable. He's not going to give me a pat on the head and say, well done. I don't mind the chat because he's got my best interest at heart. I've got his, and I really want the project to work we want to work together. I don't need him. He doesn't need me we are choosing to do this.
- Yeah
- He could go to other people I can go to other people but we want them to. And that's a pretty special thing to be doing.
- Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, I'm just thinking about, I'm drawing some conclusions and maybe thinking about piecing some of these elements together so much you've been talking about and so much I could talk about, but just maybe start to think about, well, you took there about some of what you've learned, but what have you learned a lot across the last nine or 10 years that we could sort of summarize for people listening to this and watching you
- For me personally, I learned that, so I now use three words quite heavily in everything I do impact, income and influence. I learned that income was great, but it wasn't enough. I needed to make a bigger difference to have an impact, to feel satisfied. I didn't think that was true at the beginning because I came from nothing. I just want some cash, but it was true. Everything I've ever done. When I went about the physio thing I wanted to have an impact there. I wanted to go to help people that wanted a sporting career. I wanted people that can access private health, gets you to be able to get some of it. And now I want to, and what the impact I've wanted to have over the years has changed. And my life focus has changed, but I want to have an impact on homelessness in the country. I wanna use some of the things we're doing to look at how I can have a bigger impact on homelessness. Domestic violence, domestic violence has always been a big thing for me. And I'm looking at what can be done there Equally I have my book and like to coach and I mentor people because I want to have an impact in everyone that thinks that wherever they're from or where they are now they can't achieve things, you can that's the impact of them. And I've learned that. So to answer to your question. My biggest learning is that I'm not gonna be flipping across and say money doesn't make you happy because it kinda does. It makes things easier. It makes life easier. It gives you some nice experiences and some nice stuff, but for me, it didn't make me complete or anywhere close to it. I'd say for me, completeness comes from having an impact and it comes to being able to influence things. One of the things that I've never forgotten I'll tell you, and you can make your own judgment when the book came out we did a huge launch across the U.S. and the U.K. And one of the reviews on U.S. Amazon and someone said this to me, I hadn't seen that said "I was gonna have my home repossessed. "And what I learned in the book "stopped me from having my home repossessed." That is something that's never left me. And I don't think it ever will. I hope it doesn't because I think that's to be able to have an impact on someone is a real honour and that kind of everything and what I'd like to be influencing, what I've learned is that what I really care about is influencing some social policy, influencing the way we go about things, influencing the way we talk and the way we teach and the lessons that we give our children. Because not much change from when I was a kid or when I was at uni when I started here, even someone who started this 10 years ago, not much has changed. We're still giving children the same lessons. We're still subconsciously telling people if you come from a certain place when you look a certain way, or you don't look a certain way, or you do this, you do that, you can't achieve. And that's not really acceptable. So I guess I've learned that like we care about more than things than I thought I did at the beginning. I've learned that people and relationships are everything and rightly and wrongly is perfectly fine to say, we're not a great fit. That's not a problem. That there are millions of people, 7 billion people on the planet. Be a great fit with someone else that's okay. And I've learned that you're never ready for the next step. We never feel ready. Just do it. Take all the precautions you can. Learn everything you can get as good people around you as you can, but you'll figure it out. Just take the next step. And don't wait to be given permission, permission won't come.
- I love the permission thing. I mean, what's the phrase "it's easier to seek forgiveness "than it is for permission." Probably best not to be seeking forgiveness too often, but yeah, rough, but also what you say. I mean, I know it's a well-worn phrase to talk about your journey, but you just go full circle. You said something at the beginning of our conversation about who you become along the way. And all of these things shape us. We're rough diamonds and we're having all the rough edges knocked off us so that we can sparkle. And so when you talked about, for example, maybe you started with one of those Is, which is Income. And then, Steve Jobs says, "you joined the dots, looking back." Impact you kind of had anyway, but you've just evolved that and changed it. And then like you, as you've, I was gonna say found your voice, but that's not the right phrase. But as you got more confident in your voice in this area, you've been able to impact and influence people as well, along the way. And that story about someone, making a difference in someone's life because they read your book is amazing, by the way, it's "The Power of Real Estate Investing," just cause I know you're too modest to mention it. And we had a little joke earlier that it's not on the shelf behind you, but
- No, it's not Well we said, didn't we? I should have like facing out on every space.
- Yeah, exactly. If you've got more than one, you can do that. The Power of Real Estate Investing, Kemi's book which is well worth a read. I know you're too modest to mention it, but I think, that's really interesting. That's sort of the three I's that you've got now that you speak about a lot in this one. We talk about those sorts of topics quite a lot as well. And I think it's one of the reasons we resonate with one another, but you equally helped me with some of my own glass ceilings in some recent conversations. But some of the opportunities we're talking about now have been in that area and it's because of the conversations. And I think it is also about a good fit working with people that there's a good fit. So I'm certainly feeling there's a good fit in our conversation. So I'm looking forward to that evolving and my glass ceiling being smashed and everything, that goes with that.
- You're right though, it's an absolute journey when I started I didn't think I could achieve anything. I did you know. It was a Hail Mary and hope. copy of success and though I can achieve anything, nothing could go wrong, everything was fine. I had all the answers did a bit more. I was not quite true. Now I'm kind of back to, I think I can achieve anything I can put my mind to, but I also know that I need the support and I need friendships. I need great relationships and I agree, grit, JV partners. And that's kind of for me, it's a bit of an epitome have come of many journeys you go on when you embark on this, especially if, when to go into it full time. And if you don't, by the way, that's perfectly fine as well. I often say that I don't love property and this might seem counterintuitive. Some people love the bricks and the mortar and the whatever else, whatever I really don't, I don't, I love, but it's done for me and my family. I love the impact that I have been able to have, and the influence that I've been able to have. And I love the income that it provides but don't feel that way about blueprints and architectural layouts as well. And that's okay. Fit, swipe where it fits in your life and allow it to help you on your journey.
- Yeah
- Maybe it's not necessarily all of your journey and that's okay.
- Yeah, I think so. It was described, we've got the mountain stage, stage by stage you can't necessarily see the peak. So you just go and you've got a different perspective at this point and you go to that level and you've got a different perspective again, and you can see a bit further up and the view just changes and that's life really, we change and evolve, but I think it was Carolina Dumcheck who came on the Women Property Series that I had last time out who said that she tried to go into property and she was much more of an interior designer. And so she actually flipped back and just worked as a service provider to property developers as like an interior designer. And that kind of thing. So as you say, it's not for everyone and I'm really interested when you said you don't love property. It's a means to an end, or you can be, and it's great when people do love property as well, but I think it's what it can bring and then allows you in your case, by the sound of it, to make an impact and bring some influence to bear on the sound of it as well as the income stream. So there are loads that I could keep talking forever, but just thinking we probably ought to draw a line on our conversation at some point, probably around about the hour mark Kemi. So I don't know if you've got any parting thoughts but even if you don't have any passing thoughts that perhaps you wouldn't mind sharing how people could get hold of you if they wanted to connect, that would be really great.
- Yeah no, I didn't really have any parting thoughts. I do I think we've had a really lovely conversation. I hope this has been valuable to your listeners. If you do wanna reach out grab me at hello@kemiegan.co It's quite busy in books, so bear with, but I'll definitely definitely get back to you. We talked a lot about JV partners, so we'll say there is on my site, it's being rebuilt, but it will still be on that page kemiegan.co/gift written like 23, 24, 25 pages. Something about this huge problem about raising finance and about partnerships and about how to kind of do that. Some of the things I learned that might be a little bit valuable as well, but yeah, if you wanna grab me hello@kemiegan.co
- And was that gift or gifts
- Gift, gift.
- Gift, I'll make sure even if we're saying two or three.
- You're right
- Okay, perfect can we, So it always a pleasure. Thanks so much for coming. Yeah, you're definitely one of the real people I think people are gonna get a lot out of just, listening to what you've shared with us today. I really appreciate it and value it. Thank you once again.
- My pleasure thanks very much, Rich.
- You're welcomed, take care.
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