Secrets of Growing Your Property Business with Saj Hussain (Interview 29)
Welcome to the JD Show the purpose of the show is to help you create a dream life and today we have with us someone I have been following for quite some time um I've seen his developments I've seen him on social media and he is definitely an expert either he would say so or not but I know he's an expert and he's a property developer and very well alone in the industry please help me welcome sajasen thank you so much jack much appreciated thank you for being with us on the show um I normally like to bring people who I can see bring value to our audience um and I and I definitely have been connected with you for at least a year and a half maybe even two and I have seen many of your posts i've sort of seen your journey tell us a bit more about yourself where did you start your development or your for that matter your property journey from um yeah so uh I guess in terms of where we are right now there's lots of different things we're doing property there's many different strategies so hmos high-end hmos tends to be my my favorite uh and our core bread and butter strategy if you like that's in and around birmingham and uh you know we used to be flipping houses more so these days market's so strong we're not doing as much as that as we'd like some commercial conversions uh flat conversions building some new houses uh at the moment um so a mixture of things and really i look at it in a way of us we have um uh income businesses and we have capital uh businesses that's why i tend to look at it so quite a mixture of things in property been doing this for about around 15 years now so so where did you start your journey so uh started about 15 years ago prior to that um i'd always really been in business work for myself and i had that sort of entrepreneurial streak if you like from a very young age when i was about 13 12 13 i was selling computer games in school that would uh feed my habit of tech and i t at that time and by the time we'd left school the computer equipment i had set up at home the kit i had at home was way more better powerful and valuable than what they had in school because it became a little passion of mine and learning about technology just fascinated with it at that time this is in the early 80s or a very long time ago and then through through college at state and university let's say we get a bit distracted with other things going on uh but ultimately once i finish university i decided i don't want to redo it for anybody else i did do 12 months of work experience and i think that just really helps cement the idea of i can't be doing this for the rest of my life you know getting every help every day to kind of get somewhere to to do something with people you may not necessarily like and i thought i don't want to live my life like this um and then i just started getting involved in various little businesses and technology is something i understood this is something i enjoyed and the two married as it were uh and i started an i.t company and i did that for about 15 years prior to getting involved in property i did very well out of that i think some of it was just right timing at the time i felt like i was just invincible it was because of me all this has happened and when i look back now i know it wasn't me it was just it was just luck and timing and some of it was a little bit of business acumen but i did very well for a number of years but unfortunately uh i think about a little carried away with it and i started making some bad decisions and ultimately uh you know i lost that business i had to put it into administration pretty much wiped myself out so i've gone from nothing to having an amazing life lots of money to to back to zero with with nothing um and and that's really where the transition then happened to property and you know for a while i was licking my wounds and kind of blaming everybody else and it was it was the economy it was our suppliers it was the staff it was the customer and really the only person you can blame is the one that you look at every day in the mirror and take a little while to accept that when i did start to accept that uh and actually thought about you know we are where we are now because of the the many many millions of decisions that we've made in our life over the of the time that we've been here and even today will make decisions that take us on a different direction and we don't notice this is like a plane flying to a destination and if it goes off course very very slightly it can end up somewhere completely different and we don't know where that destiny is and you know it got me thinking about what we're gonna do with the rest of my my life and uh i had another uh child at that time but this is my fourth child uh then and you know if i'm uh i'm being frank with you the the when the first three were growing up i was really um quite busy in my business life i'm not really around very much for them because yeah mom's looking after them i just kind of get out of the business yeah yeah you know quite nice things for you you know yes because i'm just kind of like this and and that really got me thinking actually i don't want this this is not the life i wanted my youngest daughter was born i thought actually i want to have life that's different now i'm working from home my home office that's how i like we have an office with about 20 staff on a high street nearby but i like to work from home so i rebuilt my business based around i want to be with my family i want to build something that can be generational that live beyond me that'll serve me that'll serve the family that maybe even help other people along the way and that's really what then got me involved in property coupled with the fact that i was fascinated with the sunday times ritualists you know pretty much got the copies right back from the very first one and when you when you look at that and you know i used inspired by reading that and so much money is kept in property or made from property there's got to be something like this and you know in the uh asian cultures in our blood you gotta buy properties i'll buy property yes and i never did and i thought no no i know better i don't want to get involved property i'm running my it business yeah but you know there is something in it it's it's it's a very powerful tool to build wealth and so that's really uh you know when i was going through that change i thought i need to need to do something different and that's how i got involved in property fantastic what kind of challenges have you faced since you've been in property industry especially at the start and how did you overcome those challenges oh man they were absolutely massive massive yes but let's let's pick two or three top well the the first one was um you know i had no money no experience just just this inkling that there's got to be something in this property thing and i understood or let's say understood it's probably the wrong word i'd realize from other people that they were buying property like no money down and these kind of strategies were like pregnant at the time but i just didn't know how i just knew it was possible but i didn't know how yeah and i started uh reading some books there's very little online at that time there are a few forums used to be part of property forum way before facebook yeah um and what i would do learn a little bit then started going along to a few network meetings again there were very few of those at that time started meeting some other people but you know the biggest challenges i just felt like a complete uh imposter in the situation you know imposter syndrome that you know what am i doing here with all these property people i've got a clue what's going on i'm trying to be a property investor and you know i was struggling to keep a roof over my own head and i was talking about buying property for other people and have tenants you know so inside i had this this conflict going on that you know who am i to be doing this and that that was a big big challenge at the beginning um then another big challenge was that there were just so many different ways that you could make money every person you speak to are doing something different yeah or slightly different or a variation of it and then you think which is the right way yeah and you'd go along to a networking event you'd listen to somebody talking about you know they're doing hmos they're making a thousand pounds a month and i'm thinking wow you know i only need a couple of those and i'll be okay that's what i need to be doing and and then the following month somebody else you're talking about they're doing no money down and then you listen to them on the stage and you think well you know that's probably what i need to be doing instead and you can't try to learn that then a couple of months later someone's talking about you know you buy a house for a pound and i'm thinking i've got 10 quid i can buy a few houses let's do that i was like jumping around trying all these different strategies the first two years which is so so hard and painful because really i achieved nothing that i could you know that i could quantify and say this is what i've done other than loads of networking meetings met lots of people and had some contacts learned quite a bit but when i look back now i think the advantage was oh now i hadn't realized at the time i was actually absorbing and learning a lot of information understanding these strategies even though i wasn't really getting the result and the reason i wasn't getting the result is i know now because i've just given up too quickly i'm trying something i've put out in the newspaper 50 quid you know that's 50 quid i've got to get that to get a result one out of the newspaper is not going to get you a result it's not going to give you results yet yeah oh that doesn't work forget it it doesn't work i've tried that move on yeah so because i was just you know uh just dipping my toe in these various strategies rather than immersing myself in there and that that's really why i struggled now and the biggest change happened um when i had something in the shape of a mentor who literally kind of guided me through and the the biggest impact they had on me at the time they looked at what i was doing and they said look you can't see the wood from the trees mean i said all you need to do is put the blinkers on yeah i can stop getting distracted by all these things around you just focus on one thing and um and what one thing and one thing that had become good is speaking to lots of sellers at the time um because i was i was trying all the kinds of marketing things that generate inquiries from people looking to sell their house so i had this huge list of people looking to sell their house i said just focus on packaging those deals and just selling them to some of the other people you've met over the last couple of years and then as i started doing that just focusing on that that's really where i started to build some momentum so the very first thing that i started doing was just sourcing and setting deals onto other people a couple of thousand pounds pound i think the best one i ever did at that time was about eight thousand pound i thought wow my kind of christmas and birthdays have come together all in one it was an amazing deal now look at that kick myself why not should i sell it i can understand why they paid me a thousand pound now yeah why did i say i would have probably made about 100 grand from it yes so um but that's really how it started and then that the challenges at the beginning were that because you know i didn't have any money to to you know to buy any property i was just trying to figure out a way um you know i'd go to these uh prior to that because i'd work for myself i'd never i've never really worked in a corporate environment apart from a couple of stingers of like work experience and stuff um so you know you your circular people are the people you meet and see every day you know you don't see many people or get involved with many people that are you know saying massively more successful those for me were my clients listers accountants business people we're supplying computer equipment networking equipment to them setting their system they were like the peers that i would look up to and see what they're doing and so i didn't really have that so when i started going to networking events and i've found people are really open and helpful i i just couldn't grasp that i think you know i i've learned this stuff about it over many years and i charge a fee for what i'm doing i'm going to charge a lot of money to install the system configure a network server or whatever it might be but you're telling me how to do this property stuff for free what's the catch why are you telling me this stuff yeah i couldn't grasp that at the beginning that's people who are just so open and helpful and then somebody who's still a very good friend of mine in fact we've gone on to do many joint ventures together as well in business um that you know he's a huge background as it as well and he's very very successful they were turning around about 30 deals a month at the time you know that had this huge machine they were effectively running um and i would say to him look you know we don't live very far apart from each other i work in the same area i'm trying to find you in the same area and you're telling me all this stuff what to do and he says look there's plenty of deals out there for everybody yeah there's no shortage of deals if you can help people along the way you know what it makes a difference and it will help you back in the future and you know i'm just so grateful that i had that conversation because that sent me on a different path and it made me kind of more open more helpful and now you know i do a lot of content on youtube and kind of the platform the stuff and people who send me messages like you know they've learnt more from my free stuff than a paid course and why do i share it and it makes me think about well because somebody kind of put me on that path years ago that you know you just freely give you know the business will just come yes um and that that's been that mindset so so i've got very good at finding deals uh i building relationships because that's ultimately what it was about is building relationships with sellers building relations with buyers managing that process and then starting to to grow the business from there yep you know it's amazing that the two challenges the main challenges that you you mentioned i think pretty much most people that i speak with face similar challenges first of all they they initially when they start because they don't know what they're doing they feel it feels fake like they're impo you know and and that is that that's lack of confidence um and that's something a lot of people face i think the second one i think you mentioned is uh clarity which strategy to focus on um and that's something again a lot of people get confused about i think it's i i call it the shiny penny syndrome it's more it's more that because you look at one strategy and say oh this is making that much money and that one is making that much money and you never really focus on one long enough period of time to make it profitable or for that matter systemize enough to do so i think like i said i come across this and i think most people face these two challenges massively lack of clarity or shiny benny syndrome or lack of confidence in terms of thinking am i a would i be able to do it can i do it do i know enough uh you know even even even i know seasoned investors sometimes who uh who go from one strategy to the other and they still have this lack of confidence can i make this strategy profitable uh and i see that all day long yeah uh i'm not gonna lie to you no i feel that still today you know i'm looking at big deals i'd be getting these deals i have this experience and i think as you said you have to build that confidence first of all you have to have the belief in yourself yes exactly you have to have the belief that look you know even the biggest building in the world the the the biggest property portfolios the most successful people they all start at the beginning exactly because that's where we all start but they have confidence luck experience money whatever it might be but they all start at the beginning and if we accept that that's where we're all starting as well and we'll find a way as long as you've got that inside you that you know that drive a passion that belief you'll find a way to do it and start looking at these uh bigger things for sure yeah internal conviction is key i i mean for those of you who are listening and watching to this and literally irrespective of if you know how to do something if you do not have the internal conviction if someone doesn't have the internal conviction that they can do it it's just never going to happen for them i believe and irrespective of the size of the deal you might be looking at irrespective of the the kind of business you might be looking at and the potential it might have if you do not have that internal conviction it's just not going to go anywhere um regardless of how much effort you put into it you know i've seen people putting effort into something but they just don't internally believe it's going to happen for them it just never does does it yeah that reminds me you know i've been on a lot of courses because i used to say i learned from everybody in anybody anybody has to give you something on there i want to learn and you know i've done so much learning and personal development stuff over the years and one thing that i i had this conversation with the one the trainers wants and there's a look there's a room above it's about 50 people in that room there's about 50 people learning a pacific strategy at that time and he says to me i can guarantee you if we put these people together in a year's time probably two of them will have done what they're learning here today most of the israel has given given up along the way and i just couldn't believe that i said what do you mean i mean we're all learning this thing it's amazing what you're sharing and how you're going to do it because because they don't have the belief they think either like i said they get distracted by shiny penny syndrome or it's a case that they give up too quickly and you know all strategies work they make them work yeah but you've got to make them work that's true and you've got it so when we see somebody sharing a strategy they're making this much money from this strategy wow but they you know we don't see it's like that success mountain you see where you see the bit at the top and and the iceberg and you don't see everything underneath and it takes a long time to happen but we just see the end result we think it's overnight success but they might have spent many many years mastering their craft and their art to get to that point and we just see the presentation and wow that's it that's what we need to do but yeah it's like the athlete that runs you know um you know world records 100 meters they didn't just turn up that day and just to run that world record they have trained for years and years to get to that point i think that's what people don't see and sometimes people don't like when i share these kind of stuff and i say look i'm a realist yeah i'm all for big dreams but i'm a realist as well yeah you've got to apply these things to make it work it's not just going to land in your lap no it's not no it's that that's true i am a bit of a balance of realist and idealist i i do believe that if you come across the right idea at the right time um or for that matter the right uh potential property project at the right time and then you manage to find the right people to to get it done you could grow very very fast uh so i'm a bit of an idealist and realist at the same time but yeah i i do believe without the hard work you're just not gonna go anywhere but at the same time let me ask you a couple of things in the same context i think the idea of hustle has been sold massively like i believe either is the likes of garyvee and i have a lot of respect for the guy i've learned a lot from him or for that matter many of other speakers and trainers out there who sold this idea of hustle my experience has been that if you just hustle it's not going to work no i agree so what are your thoughts on that that's just my my observation and my experience just doesn't work just with hustle i believe unless you are strategically creative and you position yourself correctly and then you do it you know in in a smart way something that's going to pay you 10 times more than just pure hustle yeah what are your thoughts on that yeah absolutely you know i agree with you when we talk about hustle we talk about hard work and grafting just kind of just you know grindstone just getting on with it working as long hours as you can and your housing and those things are important but on its own it's not adequate there needs to be some um some intellect that needs to go into that as well there needs to be strategy there needs to be a plan you know like saying okay army birmingham it's we need to get to london as fast as we can you know let's go go go go and and somebody kind of said right right you know uh well um let's see if we can get a train or kind of hire a car or something and whatever and they're just panicking because you're not thinking you're just trying to just go go go do do do where somebody takes a step back and says okay who can we farm can we get a flight can we get on a plane now and be there an hour or you know 20 minutes or something whatever it might be so it's it's applying some strategy as well and first of all i think the biggest mistake that's often made is a lack of direction and that is that ties in with strategy where are you going what is it you're trying to achieve so you work out this is where i'm trying to get to you okay well we're here right now this is where we want to get to so which is going to be the right strategy for you and people pick strategies based on what they see in others and i said what you need to do is pick a strategy based on what you see in yourself yeah so for instance i mentioned the beginning that uh you know one of the things that i was very good at was building relationships with sellers and buyers of property and i kind of utilize that but let's say that i was very introverted i was brilliant at spreadsheets and analyzing all the detail but i did not have those skills to those softer skills or building relationships would i have had the same success in sourcing no absolutely not because they're different skills yes now it doesn't mean you don't need one or the other but certain skill is going to help you progress and when we pick up which is the right strategy for us you think about which is the resources you bring into the table how much time money skill experience that you have where are you based in the country what's the property cycle like based on where you are in the country as well so for example in birmingham's active market if i say right go out there five 25 below market value property it's not going to happen it's not that they don't exist there's very very few and far between it's gonna be like trying to find an evil in a haystack so what we've got to do is plan a strategy that's going to be realistic for us so then when we're working hard we're working hard because we've got a road map we've got a plan that we're following and we're heading in direction and you need to build that knowledge because you try something you try to see how that works you might tweak and improve it and sometimes we talk about hustle people put their head down and that's it they get on they don't look up and they don't take a breath of fair breath of oxygen you've got to take a pause you've got to review where you want you've got to decide is this working because sometimes if you're doing the same thing again and again and you you're not getting a different result you know we say that's the sign of madness because you're doing the same thing again and again you're expecting a different outcome it's not going to happen because you're doing exactly the same thing so the output is going to be the same but when we talk about hustle sometimes people know i've just got to keep going yes to an extent but you've got to pause review where you are reflect on what's working and say okay how can i tweak this i'm not talking about doing a 90 degree turn i'm talking okay how do we change this very slightly because this isn't working how can i change it slightly this way and try that and sometimes we've got to realize something isn't going to work at all and then at that point we need to chuck in the towel now sometimes people say look you know failure is not an option you don't give up but you sometimes things aren't going to work no no no yes that's the case that's rare because if you've got the right direction you've got the right knowledge you know you've got the right drive about you find a way to make it work yes yes i i've learned the hard way i think cutting your losses show is a very very important skill to learn if you believe at one point it's not just about not giving up it's about being smart about not giving up so there are times when if something isn't working you may want to reflect back and say is there a creative way to do it and if not i cut your losses show and it's a very very important skill i've learned like i've learned it the hard way yeah i've got three questions sure one is how do you deal with the emotional cycle because with business and and the way you started i mean you must have gone through some seriously emotionally draining times how did you deal with that i have three so i'm gonna i'm gonna start with all the three questions how did you deal with the emotional cycle how do you compare opportunities because when you get to the stage that you are at the the good thing about being where you are at and unfortunately i am at that stage as well is the number of opportunities we get and how do we compare which ones to work on and within the same context there is a concept called you know this is something you know and this is something you don't know that you don't know how do you find a way to learn what you don't know that you don't know does that make sense yes yes it does i'm making some notes i can remember that's why i'm repeating all three questions so yeah but let's start with the emotional cycle here yes yeah i mean certainly you know when you work for yourself you have not opted for the easy route there's going to be massive highs there's going to be massive blows and that's just part and parcel of life and you know i'm i'm a a firm believer in god and god has a path written for us and you know i'm very accepting whatever is in my destiny i accept that i get on with it and so that helps me to some extent deal with emotions if that's what's testing for me that's what's written for me that's what i'm going to do i've got to do my very best yeah and i'll leave the rest of it to god as i say so that that's a way that i used to help me manage my emotions and um i think emotions are something you should understand really deeply as much as we can because people are driven by emotions and property is a people business and business is a people business is about understanding people and emotions so just understanding emotions i think is really important and the place to start is ourselves i have to understand how we manage our emotions how we deal with our emotions and so one thing i try and do is i don't let things get to me i say i have a very thick skin it doesn't really bother me water off the ducks back you know if somebody else has an issue or a problem you know i'll try and work with it but you know if it's if it sounds like um uh you know i'm not reactive in that way i guess that's what i'm trying to say i don't let it just get to me and i don't respond or react to my job very i'm more reflective and measured in terms of you know how i deal with things and uh on the and only so i have two sisters no brothers and uh you know an asian culture that's a little bit strange you have a from a young age you end up getting a lot of uh oppression responsibilities and stuff and i guess from a younger age um i i felt like i i had to prove myself and i kept a lot of emotion inside i can't not sharing that's kind of stuck with me and it just my emotions don't show very much i don't know if that's a um a helpful answer but that's how i tend to that's how you deal with it there's not right or wrong it's just how how one person deals with it yes but i'm very conscious of other people's emotions so i'm very mindful of how i might say something in terms of the impact that we'll have for the other person and how will make them feel so i am very conscious of emotions uh um and understanding them and then you're you're the question about opportunities um yes you get to a position where you know you're chasing and chasing chasing deals then this pivot happens and you don't notice it immediately and that pivot is you end up getting more deals coming to you than you go chasing that's right but often a lot of them aren't great deals that's because you're just more people know what you do and what you look for so for example a lot of people know i'm interested in hmos developments flat conversion so we get a lot of stuff just sent to us but most of it isn't great so i'd say probably 95 of what we look at gets dismissed very quickly um and because we have a fairly clear criteria so we operate in a few different businesses and we're very clear in terms of what we're looking for in those i unfortunately have a team of people that work with me so uh you know if i was going to analyze every deal we just wouldn't get anything else done so we i tried to get the team to swift through them quickly does it look like it's got any potential can we start a conversation with if it has we explore it further and take it from there otherwise we you know we just dismiss it fairly quickly um we're very straightforward on that point we'll just say look this is a fit our needs for this decent reason and that's it so i must have um i don't know maybe five to ten people messaging me a week on various different platforms on social media saying that they're the source of look at that they can find me deals and my favorite question is tell me about the last three you found in birmingham and for most people i never hear from them again someone's been on a course they've learned about sourcing and they've said to him just message everybody and tell me sourcing property which is fine i understand that but you need to come with more than that yes you see there needs to be some substance i mean i would approach and say look you know i'm just getting started sourcing and i'm looking at certain type of properties i'd like to understand what you're looking for so maybe i could try and help you so you find something that might be right for you that's more straightforward rather than coming as that you know you're some um huge sourcing business yeah i'm gonna ask you to to prove that you disappear on me yes um so that that's i i find uh that question really helps filter out people very quickly occasionally people come back and say so i've done i think okay great so let's you know have a conversation and explore a little bit more about what you're uh what you're doing but things involve strategies that we do evolve over time as well and i mentioned earlier the blinkers um how it's really focused and so what i learned to do was do things really really well and then transition into something else are you got something working well then you start building something else that's working well then you start building something else rather than spreading yourself in having lots of things running all at the same time yes and i'm only able to do you know half the things i even do because the people around me because the team of people who helped get things done there's only 24 hours a day how much can you actually do you know what can you be involved in um and as i said my my time is probably the most precious and valuable thing that i have and i'm quite conscious about that and precious about it as well um so i try as much as i can delegate passings to other people rather than me trying to to to deal with every uh everything yeah no that that i mean it's impossible to do uh it's it's got to be delegated i i in fact i don't uh start on any strategy uh until and unless i know that i can automate and delegate everything well almost everything um otherwise i just wouldn't work on the strategy regardless of how profitable it it can potentially be because if it's going to take my personal time long term initially you have to set it up and you know you know systemize everything but if it's going to take my time personally long term irrespective of how profitable it might be i just wouldn't do it that's my strategy yeah i think that's important i think either you've got to build systems or people if you combine the two that's even better yes so um you know i i like creating the basic system and structure but not necessarily getting into nitty gritty having to do that i just like to have key people who can take responsibility for that so right this is your thing this is your baby you look after it now yeah i'm here to help and support you but you know i've got to build this thing and that's where i like to to work and and that kind of moves on to your other question about you know we don't know what we don't know and this is i love this phrase and when i first heard it i had to process it my brain about five times what does that mean what does that even mean and but it's so obvious we don't know the things we don't know and so when we venture into something different in property and there's i'm sure you know i i i think i've got a lot of experience in property property investing but i'm sure there's so much i don't know and that's why i'm happy to put my hand up and say look i'm always learning and i'm always willing to learn and i'll probably always continue to learn and because that's how we grow that's how we get better now sometimes you come across stuff and you think that smells a bit bs to me you get that sometimes and that's okay but you keep an open mind and you don't so when we're looking at things that we haven't done before so i'll just use the example of building houses like i wanted to build houses for a long time but i said a long time the last few years i've been really itching to get into kind of building houses and um but there's so many pitfalls and things that you need to understand and so there were two things that i was looking for that had to be right before i made the decision to start on a project the first one was it had to be a project that was going to be a very large profit margin and percentage-wise can be very very healthy profit because i knew that i was going to have some learning on that there's going to be some trip-hops on that so there needs to be enough profit to absorb all those and still come out the other ending oh we've made it rather than getting wiped out on something like that because then you start talking about projects like multi-million pounds and stuff you're no longer talking about hundred thousand and even a hundred thousand pounds is a lot of money but when you start talking about millions of pounds you know you've got to be careful in terms of what you're doing that was the first key thing for me then the second one was which addresses we don't know what we don't know is who can i work with that already has this knowledge and information that can de-risk the project for me yes and this comes back to my preference of working with people so i partner with somebody um somebody i've met a number of years ago a networking event we connected with gel but we never really found the right type of project until this one came along and then it was just a good fit it was a great fit he's a quantity surveyor by trade he's built a property uh for many many years and um has done his own project as well so this this worked out really well for us i've got a great partner on board yeah and there's a good profit margin so we'll deal with it and has it gone completely smoothly no it doesn't there's lots of hiccups on ups and downs but we'll still come out of it with a decent profit and you know a great experience of doing that and i'll definitely be going on to do to do more but the one mistake i'll share that because for me people is a key thing and a mistake i made about people further earlier on um was you know we tend to connect with people like ourselves so you know you hear somebody you see somebody watching somebody what you do subconsciously you look for similarities and create a connection in your brain yeah you think okay that person is like me because we like people like ourselves so subconsciously we make that connection and so for example um you know unless i'm speaking somebody and we're getting on really well i think we can like a house on fire this is amazing we should go into business together and this was a this was kind of how my brain would think you know 10 12 years ago uh and even earlier earlier than that and we should do some stuff together we should join ventures because what you do you find that you get on really well because you spot those similarities in each other and i said people like people like themselves however when it comes to business there's different parts of that business there's different uh skill sets required there's different personalities need to make it work for example some people are much more detailed and technically orientated and something but a big picture really not interesting the detail and you've got to get all that right to make a business work into who's going to be doing what and you know to make a success of the business but what i found was that let's say you know i'm a fairly big picture person and um i i'm bouncing off the wall with somebody else's big picture person great we're going to go into business this time next year rodney we're going to be millionaires yes let's do this you know you're kind of you know you're energized in that way but what you're doing you're amplifying your strengths but you're amplifying your weaknesses as well that's right here so nobody wants to do the accounts now we've got this massive skill shortage where both of us are over here nobody really wants to do this and somebody gets forced to do it they don't do it well and stuff so this is what i realized you know some years ago i think this is a mistake i'm not saying you don't do business with people you like but there needs to be balance in terms of skill in terms of who's going to do what to make it work and so then you know i started becoming much much more um uh mindful of who i'm partnering up with lots of partners in different projects and things i have but now it's about so is it going to be a good fit how is it going to work and you know i uh the way i've built my business really using other people's money that's kind of you know how we talked about that part but that's how i built the built the business so rather than just partnering with people now i think but how can i just give them a great return so that way they're not going to have an influence over what i do and how i do things i just get on with it yeah let me do what i want to do and if you're partnering on a project then there needs to be different skills that we bring into the table to really make this work otherwise what's the point that is true that is absolutely true in fact i've learned that the hard way as well initially even i would uh speak with someone and there's you know similar values similar interests and you know we can see some sort of similar sort of temperament uh and then we'll we'll say oh wow you know we can we can you know get into a partnership or whatever but over a period of time i i've learned that if you look at a football team or for that matter any um athletic team it's a it's different skill sets that that can come into picture you have a and if you just bring everyone who's a defender or whatever it's just not gonna work right so you're gonna have different skill sets different temperaments different sort of uh psychological profiles in fact a lot of people don't go into psychological profiles i've lately been going into psychological profiles of people when we are hiring because if you are taking someone who has got yeah and i think we see this in business right you tell someone something to do and and they they kind of maybe do it half-heartedly or whatever uh or for that matter they make a mistake or you know and they end up you know they go and speak with a client or a stakeholder and then there's a mistake made and then we end up losing that uh client or whatever and then that's all psychological profiles coming in lately and in fact i got introduced to psychological profiles a few years ago and and i only lately started using this but so i i definitely agree with you that it needs to be a combination rather than just one kind of skill set coming into the but just not going to work we use them extensively we use them when we're hiring for sure yeah because i've made that mistake again as well when you interview somebody it's you're getting a really right this person can be brilliant within the team but that's because you know they understand people they understand personalities you've connected really well in that way but actually they're rubbish at the job that you want to do exactly exactly so you might like then i think it's brilliant but you're not hiring them to be your friend you're hiring a specific role and they've just been able to do that well so that's where the psychometric profiling type tests i think are fantastic whether it's disk or you know whilst dynamics or whatever it might be you that you're using i think it really uh really does help and you know the other thing you mentioned there is like we've talked about the team and the football team and there's all different skills involved absolutely but one thing that drives them all and binds them all together is your values and your ethics and i think that's important to me that you know our values and our ethics in line you know people can have different personalities however but ultimately you know if for me it's about you know i just want to run a clean moral business we're not interested in ripping anybody off we're not interested in any short-term quick quick kind of deals here and there as it were we want to build long-term solid businesses that everybody benefits from and everybody's singing up the uh of the same sheet as it were and you know when you just emphasize that all the time and that's how you are that's how people see you what happens you just attract the right type of right type of people and you know earlier on when i was raising money for deals and uh again this thing come to experiences and life experiences and i remember having an investor come on board for a deal that i had funds for lined up for a deal to do but that investor had to pull out they couldn't get their remortgage done in time and another investor stepped in and i and i accepted the money from that investor to do this deal but i just looked at the money coming in rather than who it is that's bringing that money in and then quickly determined it turned out that you know this is going to be really difficult they were just too demanding in terms of what they want they wanted to influence and drive everything and i thought no this is not how this is designed to work this is not the plan and not the intention but it was my fault i have to take responsibility because i didn't think through that and that made me become much more conscious going forward about it's not just that somebody's bringing the money it's case that these potentially i call them funding partners people are bringing money to your your projects but they're still partners so you have to still like the people you know understand them what they're about because you're working with them and with this particular one what i did as fast as i could you know i found the funds from another source got them out of the deal and i said hey look you know here's you finished early take some profit and just go you know we can't work together um and you know there's a few occasions i've lost money um uh out my own pocket to make sure that it fits it ends on a good relationship people are happy what they're doing and they can move on because i want to move on from that situation yeah um but it's taking we know we take these learnings that we have to apply them as we go on through life and business i think that come that's a part and parcel of business right i think we we kind of learn with experience radio from here my question is how do you uh do deals with people's money how do you find more people how do you pitch these are the questions i think a lot of audience would love to uh know your uh perspective on yeah i guess um unfortunate in the sense that i raised literally millions and millions millions of pounds of other people's money in private investment and that's my preferred route most of we buy for cash and it's not my cash it's an investor's money that we use to to buy deals and i said look you know it's it comes back to relationships because what you're doing it's it's um think about it as a funnel a marketing funnel sales funnel it's a funnel what you're doing you're running campaigns to raise investment effectively that's what you're doing the first thing that happens is people need to be aware that you even exist and what you do so it's awareness so the first stage is there just needs to be awareness and as you said earlier jack that you've you know followed my stuff or watched my stuff and so consciously probably over 10 years now that i've been putting good value out on social media and uh you know sometimes better than others or effort is better than others in terms of how much and how often we're doing that but you know putting stuff out there sharing stuff helping people openly and what that does that raises your awareness of people become aware of you that you exist yeah at this stage you're not rushing to do business with you they just know of you that you exist out there yeah you're this person and they know there might be that might come across your stuff it might be that somebody else spoke about you or something and this is where being consistent is important as well because you want people to see the same message all the time and not be confused about that person what does he do what's it you don't want that you want it to be clear in your brand about what is it that you do and and then the next stage is that no like and trust effective people need to get to know you a little bit better they need to like you and trust you so those three steps those next three steps are really if you like um how uh social media has helped me and before i used to run events which around networking event uh in birmingham and outside of london it's the biggest property networking event that would uh happen and that's because you know you create a great environment people on a company network and i'm not focused on what people call front-end sales yeah i'm not interested in trying to make money straight away from somebody i'm interested in the long game if the right relationship will happen and because that means you forge strong relationships you find good people to work with the whole thing the whole thing works so then you're not obsessed that i've got to make money right at the front yeah it's like having a shop and you've got great products in there and you say people look just come on you know look around there's no pressure you don't have to buy yeah but as soon as you walk through the door somebody jumped straight on you and said right what are you here to buy today let's come on let's help you spend some money do you see so it's it's that experience i'm trying to create i said look here's my world come and have a look and learn right help with anything great when they're ready they will then come back yes sometimes some people will tell you marketing self that's crazy you're leaving all this money on the table but i'm quite happy the money i'm making see because i'm interested in the long term relations because so much will come from that we talked about like deals earlier and raising money and these things happen because you you build really really good relationships over there over the years with with people yeah so so we talk about know like and trust and the easiest way to do that these days on social media you just share your journey it doesn't matter if you're starting out you've done no property whatsoever this is not about hey i've just got my next keys just standing outside this property it's not about that this is about just sharing hey look i'm looking at this project and this is what we're looking to try and do with it and here's another area that we're looking at you're just sharing the journey and some people will resonate with you and others won't but you can never please everybody and that's the mistake people try and make on instagram they're just trying to please everybody no you don't need to please anybody be yourself and you'll attract a certain type of person to you and those people need to have the opportunity to get to know you to get to like you and get to trust you and remember people learn across information different ways like siri hear it feel it you see so you've got to be doing multiple things that connect with different people allowing them to to effectively subconsciously build these relationships with you and then if there's any transaction that's going to happen that will come then after that that will be the uh the fifth step if you like so firstly it's awareness people that need to get to know you like you trust you and then the transaction happens and so for me there's two types of transactions people either come to me or what i say is um they they come to learn from me what i do so they can do for themselves which essentially is mentoring of all they come to um uh for me to effectively do it for them which is investing with me so they effectively like my two types of needs that um i'm looking at but if you're following me online that wouldn't necessarily be obvious because i don't i don't kind of drive that message by doing a much more gentle way create a create an ecosystem that people kind of come in and look around and think oh i like these people what they do and how they work then it starts conversation great if it doesn't that's fine it's not a problem exactly yeah i i absolutely agree with that yeah so yeah the key message is first of all you've got to start and start sharing your message because nobody knows what you're doing then how are you ever going to do any business how you're going to invite people to invest with you and secondly don't be pushy don't expect to happen on day one you know i've still not met somebody at a networking event and 15 minutes later they pulled out the checkbook and says how much money are you looking for me it doesn't quite doesn't happen yeah it's about relationships and allowing people to go through this process so they can make the the decision on that and i've got lots of stuff on youtube about raising money and stuff so you know you can look that up before watching this fantastic where can people find you where can people follow you um because i think you've got so much value you bring on the table people really need to kind of watch your stuff watch your content and how can people even work with you yeah so um most stuff i just put out online so you can find whichever platform suits you mostly tends to be facebook youtube linkedin instagram they're kind of the primary platforms that we put stuff out on um youtube is probably where most of my content goes my kind of video content and um you know you can just message me on whichever platforms i said there's really two ways i primarily can help people one is they learn from me what i'm doing so they can do for themselves which is mentally the other way is let me do it for them i either invest in money and i uh depend on what project we're running at that moment in time that tend to be the two ways i can i can help fantastic uh for those of you watching this you'll find a link right left up below the video somewhere where you'd be able to follow hussein i'll leave a linkedin link first of all for you to follow as well as youtube uh so i would definitely recommend you to go and watch like i said i've been observing i've been following uh satsang for quite some time and there's lots of things i've learned and you'll be able to learn as well in the journey and it's all about i think i think one of the key takeaway messages from from this video is internal conviction um i think without internal conviction irrespective of if you are a newbie or you are a seasoned or anywhere in the middle it doesn't really matter you could be worth 100 million or you could be worth 100 100 pound in your pocket doesn't really matter internal conviction is the key um and if you stand out there and say oh i want to do this but you don't have that internal conviction it's just not going to happen for you but if you stand out there with confidence say i'm going to make this work and every strategy actually works for as long as you make it work um that is the main key takeaway uh from this uh uh you know interview that we are doing from with satsa and he's coming from experience i'm sharing my experience we all come from different experiences but the key takeaways are very very similar in many cases so please do whatever you do do it with all your conviction otherwise just don't do it because you'll you'll end up wasting your time thank you for listening thank you for watching have an absolutely amazing day and uh watch out for the space for our next interview subscribe to our youtube channel uh if you're watching it uh if you're watching this on any of our or if you're listening to any of our podcasts download share with your family and friends so they could learn on the journey too have a fantastic day thank you sad sir for being with us on the show thank you so much jack was such a pleasure it's an absolute pleasure thank you
2021-02-26 03:54
