Soundbite: Every property investor needs a Freddie!

 
 

I always carry a little notebook around with me to jot down ideas for the podcast and magazine articles. Of course, these days its not exactly a paper notebook, it’s the notes feature on my phone…but you get the concept. In fact, the notebook on the phone is an example of what I want to share with you today in this cryptically titled episode.
Every property investor needs a Freddie…which does in fact have several levels to it…the main one as far as today’s share goes being more LEVERAGE. So, let’s discover exactly why I want to urge you to find your own Freddie, smartphone notes feature and a range of other perhaps less than obvious methods of leveraging yourself besides.
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Transcription of the show 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 on the show again today.
I always carry a little notebook around with me to jot down ideas for the podcast and magazine articles. Of course, these days its not exactly a paper notebook, it’s the notes feature on my phone…but you get the concept. In fact, the notebook on the phone is an example of what I want to share with you today in this cryptically titled episode.
Every property investor needs a Freddie…which does in fact have several levels…the main one as far as today’s share goes being more LEVERAGE. So, let’s discover exactly why I want to urge you to find your own Freddie, smartphone notes feature and a range of other perhaps less than obvious methods of leveraging besides right now…
Property Chatter Over the past couple of weeks, I have without really thinking about things too deeply, banged on about what I have been getting up to. Two weeks ago, it was the projects that I have under way so far this year and last week it was far more microscopic, as I shared what I did around my meal times and naps in one day of my own property world.
One thing in particular stuck out on reflection from both of these episodes though…Freddie!
If you recall, Freddie is an architect and project manager that supports me with our projects in Brazil. This weekend, we once again went and did some shopping…this time for a boiler, taps, sinks and that kind of thing. I was glazing over after about 15 minutes of this rather dull activity, apart from when I got to select a rather funky & flexible, kitchen tap before then I drifted off again.
The reason that I could get away with drifting off is that Freddie had everything completely under control. He had his clipboard with him, which contained 3 items: the plans for the project, the costed schedule of works and rather surprisingly a bunch of receipts, specs and warranties from our last project as well! He was driving and knew where he was going too. My role was to give the nod when there was an efficiency or quality choice to be made, to speak up when design actually counts, hence the taps selection and finally, of course, to pay! We are working to a labour plus materials contract here, in case you wondered why I’m trudging around the shops with my credit card lol.
So, what does Freddie bring to the table then?
Well, he brings around 30 years of professional training experience as an architect and project manager, that’s the first thing. He knows far more than I probably ever will in this field and so I rely on the knowhow that he brings to me and my projects.
He also brings local knowledge, which you could argue is part of the same thing, but when you consider the fact that I am investing in a totally different country, a UK equivalent to Freddie is simply not going to be as effective due to not knowing the local lay of the land. For example, he knows the way to charm the building secretary or Sindico to get what we need in terms of access and effective working arrangements on site; they usually have a superiority complex, despite being essentially administrators that get their service charge for free, so he works his magic on them. He also knows that the doormen are literally the gatekeepers…as well as being the Oracle on who’s who in the building and also the local neighbourhood. Finally, he knows how to navigate the system of permits, approvals, legitimate short-cuts and all the rest of the red tape that exists in what is quite a bureaucratic country like Brazil.
Besides his knowhow and processes, he also has a vast network too. To illustrate, we are accessing handmade kitchen units from out of state at a fraction of the price and with higher quality than we can source locally, because he simply knows these people.
Freddie is also passionate…and not greedy either. He genuinely works hard and enjoys seeing his clients being satisfied with their projects. No two projects are the same, as he customises his work to the client, property, specification and outcome in hand…although we are duplicating some elements of our last project, as it makes no sense to reinvent the wheel either.
In a nutshell then, I leverage all of these elements of what Freddie brings to be able to scale up AND also de-risk my own property projects. When I leave him, he just gets on with things. We get updates by WhatsApp and we switch to a remote communication style in a similar fashion.
Now, earlier today, my UK Freddie…whose name is actually Phil, gave me a call on Skype by the way. Whilst I am here on site in Brazil poking my nose into a couple of projects, Phil is busy overseeing three live projects and at least one, possibly more, pending ones in the UK.
Phil is in the UK what Freddie is in Brazil. He also happens to be an architect and project manager and before you ask…no you can’t have his number…he’s MY architect and project manager OK! When I get back to the UK, I will pester Phil a bit more in-person and probably go to site, mainly to shoot a video or two, but in the meantime, he makes sure everything ticks over for me.
Just to ram this point home, I also have James taking care of matters in Chicago for me, although to be fair…James is not the same as Freddie or Phil in that he specialises in finding projects more so than managing them. We are still building our team in the USA and so we do need to locate our Freddie or Phil there too, so look out for a podcast from the States in the near future too.
So, essentially what am I saying here then?
Well, I retain the ultimate accountability for all of my projects, that’s the first thing, I don’t shirk from that – it’s my fault if it goes wrong. However, I do delegate some of the authority and also the responsibility to my key people and in particular my project managers. Freddie, Phil and James are quite literally working when I sleep at times it has to be said. None of them work for me full-time and they have other business or client interests too. This suits us all, as I don’t have the pressure to pay a salary regardless of my project activity and they do not have all their eggs in one basket either. However, I am able to leverage or gear-up their knowhow, contacts, network, time and experience to make my property business far more scalable than if I tried to do all of this on my own.
So, in what other ways am I leveraging then you might ask?
Well, the obvious one is financing, of course. Besides mortgages and bridging finance, which many of you will also be using to a greater or lesser extent. I am also using alternative financing avenues such as private lenders, JV partners, developer & vendor finance and probably one or two other avenues to be able to make one of my pounds (£s) go much further than a pound (£) would normally take me. I am not reckless, but I do utilise financial leverage, especially during the project phase of a development before settling into a steadier long-term, fixed-rate financing arrangement.
You can hear more about the various financial leverage ideas in the podcast series before last, when I spent about 6 months probing the minds of many more expert or specialised people than me on the subject if you would like to check that out.
So, what else?
Well, during the intro, I mentioned the notes feature on my phone and of course this is an example of leveraging through systems.
Taking you back around fifteen years ago now, I was fortunate enough to be sponsored by my then employer to go on a business excellence programme. This involved visiting around nine different companies all around the UK, who were building a reputation for their business excellence and their customer service in particular.
Whilst many of the companies had an obvious service ethos, outlook and so competitive advantage, but with one of the companies that I visited at the time it was less obvious to me. It was TNT Express, which is now a subsidiary of FedEx. They didn’t really have a culture of excellent customer service as such, although I am sure they paid attention to that too. What we were shown was their automated sorting warehouse, which used conveyors, robots and integrated software applications to improve the speed and efficiency of their operation. Possibly ahead of many of their competitors at the time. Perhaps rather embarrassingly, it came as something of a surprise to me that you could achieve excellent customer service through back-end systems, but following that visit and since then it has really stuck with me.
So, the point is…not only can be improve our customer service through systemising, but we can also leverage through them too. Simple things like being able to process payments on the go from our mobile phone, or store, save and instantly retrieve the gargantuan amount of passwords we have in LastPass, or speak commands to control various devices in our homes and properties, or send an AST renewal for a digital signature from half way across the world and so on… All of these systems or apps plus many more besides, enable us to do more with less and more quickly too. They are productivity tools in the most part that allow us to leverage our time therefore.
So, Freddie and Phil are examples of people that allow me to leverage my knowhow and time. My private investment partners allow me to leverage my personal funding capabilities and also my time again, as they are faster to move from interest in a project to funding than mainstream lenders. My iPhone, along with plenty of other systems and apps, allows me to leverage my time too.
Then, I have my network. This includes you dear listener in fact…so thank you in advance! They say; ‘your network is your net worth’, which despite being a little bit of a cheesy expression, perhaps ranking alongside ‘if it’s to be, it’s up to me’…are both also very true! Perhaps not so obviously, but still true all the same. Let me illustrate.
I met my business partner through a mastermind group springing out from being a member of an online community of property investors.
I met one of my private investor partners through a referral from one of my property managers, another through a property workshop that I hosted and several more from listeners to this podcast and readers of my book and YPN column.
I met Freddie and Phil through referrals from friends or industry contacts. These in turn have also brought me property deal opportunities, which of course in turn also presents them with additional work opportunities to make it a truly symbiotic relationship.
You get the picture then…cultivate your network and you will also cultivate your harvest at the same time. However, a word on effective networking first.
The first thing to note is that the harvest comes in the autumn, whereas the seed planting comes in the spring…and this process is repeated every single year. That’s why I recently reconnected with a few people that I have not connected with for a while myself. To be honest, I find keeping in touch with people to be a challenge at times and so if you are listening to this thinking ‘that bugger hasn’t bloomin’ well reconnected with me has he?!’ Then, be a saint won’t you and make the first move…perhaps again? I would love to hear how you are getting along; I admit that I am busy or at least pre-occupied, but I’m not too busy to reply to you listening to my ramblings week in week out that’s for sure
Furthermore, do you remember what I said a few weeks ago about the ‘give and the get’? Well, in order to get something, we also have to give something. And with networking, it is often the case that we have to give something before we get something too. As a by the way, if you want to understand this concept a little more, then I would recommend that you get the book The Go-Giver. In fact, in the spirit of giving…if you have never contacted me before, then drop me a quick email, Twitter message or whatever communication method takes your fancy. Say hello, be nice and then just ask politely for me to send you a copy of the Go-Giver book, or my book if you prefer…it’s just as good! The first 12 people to do so will receive a copy of the book completely free of charge…just as a way for me to give into the community a little more! Of course, what I will get is a new contact for my network, so the price of the book is a small price to pay to do that. But I give it to you gladly, as I want to see you succeed in your property journey.
OK, so let’s draw some conclusions as I’m almost 2,500 words in now.
Leverage can come in many forms; people, knowledge, systems, network, finance and so on…map out these headings and make a plan to explore how you could potentially gear up or leverage through each of them to help take your property business to the next level.
Remember though, Freddie and Phil are mine, so go and find your own OK! But, slightly more seriously, WHO can help you to scale your property business in terms of knowhow, time or funding for example? Give some thought to that as they may not necessarily be an architect or project manager. Aha, so they could be a builder, a letting agent or property manager, a broker or accountant, a potential finance-backer or even someone just one or two steps ahead of you on the journey to help signpost the way too.
In the same way that a BTL mortgage can leverage up a pound of our money by a factor of 4 or 5, so too can people, systems, knowledge and networks achieve similar results for us as well. Not many, if any, successful people in life did what they did or achieved the results they achieved by going it alone and relying on the power of their own minds and physical abilities alone. None of us is an island…now go out and cross that body of water to find the countries and continents that can take you places on your property journey that you have never been to before…
Right, the glass of Merlot is almost empty now, so I’m off for a top-up. I hope that you enjoyed the share this week. Remember that the details of how to get a free book out of me and also the show notes can be found over at www.thepropertyvoice.net. Or, if you want to talk about anything from today’s show or just talk property investing, email me at podcast@thepropertyvoice.net, I would be happy to hear from you!
Once again, all I want to say is thank you very much for listening once again this week and until next time on The Property Voice Podcast…it’s ciao-ciao.
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