Welcome to Me & My Journey

Business is a funny world. I'm two weeks into properly starting to run my own business, and I've learned so much.

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first blog post for SimplySwales. These posts will usually be in video format, but for my first one, I wanted to introduce what you can expect from this and tell you a little about what I've done in the last two weeks and what I've learned.

Firstly, you can expect these posts to be in written or video format, where I will share with you my journey to becoming a property millionaire. (I'm just saying that because it sounds cool. Honestly, I just want to build a successful business that is fully systemised and produces me great passive income. But if we become millionaires along the way, we won't complain, will we? :)) While sharing my journey, I will offer tips and tricks to help you not only become a successful business owner but also attain a powerful, positive mindset and much more. As I grow the business, you may also see posts from other employees offering their tips and tricks, as well as their experience from their side of the business, whether that be the numbers side of the business, gathering leads, interior designs, and plenty more.

So join me on this journey, and you can all see a young, ambitious, normal lad from an estate in Leeds build something in the world. So what have I been up to in the last few weeks?

Free Property Event in Manchester

I got back home from America three days before the event. I didn't plan to go, mainly because I didn't know about it, but I got an email from Alasdair Cunningham, telling me to secure my free ticket. Now I was part of Alasdair's property launchpad, which includes online training as well as live training events and I thought this free event was only free to me because I was part of this course, so naturally I wanted to get my money's worth and felt obligated to go. Thank goodness I did go!

Property Entrepreneurship Bootcamp Event

This was my first real live event and I didn't know what to expect. I certainly didn't expect the energy to be as high as it was; the room to be filled with likeminded people and the energy in the room to feel completely judgement free. Here more about everything I learned and my complete experience here, in this video. Enjoy!

Agency Malarky with Joe

I got really fortunate that one of the academy ambassadors, Joe, is from Bradford; with me being from Leeds this was perfect. He was up for helping me out by showing me the ropes of going around agencies and building relationships. I got to pick his brain about a lot of different things and it was a top day out. But seriously, some people really don't like people trying to build their own successful business, we literally got thrown out of one place and verbally attacked! Watch the video to find out more!

After spending the day out at agencies with Joe, I had a much better idea of what I needed to do to fully immerse myself into the business and start to dominate Leeds as a property entrepreneur. The next day, I went to a property viewing and right next to the property was an agency, so I decided to go in and just wing it, hoping for the best. Well, it was brutal. I didn't explain myself well, I didn't pitch myself well, I was all over the place, and we just got nowhere, ultimately resulting in me building no relationship whatsoever and making a fool of myself. But with this failure came huge character-building, and it made me realise what I needed to do to create more success for myself.

Joe knows the business exceptionally well, and he's got the gift of the gab, which allows him to wing it and get results. Now, I'm not too bad socially, but I don't fully understand the business currently, and I've got no reputation or results to my name, so I decided I needed more of a strategy going into these places.

This was my strategy...

I searched for potential rental deals on Rightmove, then I noted down the agency, giving me a conversation starter when I went into the agency. Along with this, I had some marketing material - a makeshift A4 poster explaining exactly what I'm looking for in Leeds. It had my company details on there, including my contact details. I used this because I didn't have my professional leaflets yet, but it's also useful if you're trying to save money! (Which I always am).

So, how did it go?

To be honest, it went fantastic. Let me let you visualise it. I would walk in and ask to speak to the letting manager. They would often direct me or put me with the rookie of the letting team because they didn't want to deal with me. At this point in my career, I am taking what I can get, but I found there was a pro to it, especially when going into the smaller agencies. The younger people were easier to influence, but they are also more open-minded. With these people having more of a responsibility due to the size of the agency, I was able to talk my way into opportunities. After the small introduction and hello's, I would inquire about the property I was interested in and explain exactly what I wanted to do with the property. Then, I would introduce them to the poster, explaining exactly what we do as a company and what we're looking for.

With this strategy, I felt a lot more confident going in. The marketing material made me look a lot more professional (told to me by agents), the agents took me a lot more seriously, and I got some really good leads that I'm continuing to follow up with. Something I noted is that I struggled with the bigger agencies in Leeds on the letting side of things: William H Brown, Manning Station, and a few others. This is mainly because they have their company systemised in such a successful and efficient way that they don't need me, and they have such a filter of staff that it's hard to speak to someone who can really give you an in to their portfolio. But over the next three years, it's my goal to get an in with Manning Station!

Overall, a very successful day, and now I am just continuing to plant more seeds as well as watering the seeds I have already planted, being consistent with them, singing sweet lullaby's in their ear until the money trees grow.