Ownership vs. Control: Creative Strategies with Paul Stapleton

Welcome back to the Girls in Property Podcast! In today’s episode, Athena speaks with successful entrepreneur Paul Stapleton, the driving force behind several businesses and property companies, including Trading Made Simple Academy and Peak Performance. 

Athena explores the timeless question: Is it better to own assets or just control them? Paul shares his insights on this topic, along with valuable tips and advice for property investors. He also recounts his inspiring journey in the property sector, discussing how he got started, his current goals, and his vision for the future.

Navigating the nuances of ownership versus control can be challenging, so be sure to tune in for an engaging and informative discussion that sheds light on this important topic. 

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Transcript

0:02

Good morning everyone. And welcome to today's episode of the Girls in Property podcast. How is everybody doing today? I know a lot of you are back at school. I hope everybody survived the summer holidays and is now raring to go for the end of the year. So for today's podcast, I have somebody fab I would love to introduce you to. He's great. He does amazing events for peak performance. He does great stuff within actually teaching great education within the industry as well. and all around a pretty okay guy as well. So today I would love to introduce you to Paul Stapleton. Hey Paul. Hey Athena, thanks for having me. That's alright, how are you today? I'm good, I'm good, I'm recovering. I'm recovering today, busy weekend. I love that. And how have you survived the summer holidays? I know you've got children yourself. I'd say barely, barely and expensively I've survived. what have we got? We've got Thursday, they go back. So just a couple more days and then it might, no, no, they would have had eight and a half weeks off. So it's a long time. It's a long time. you remember being kind of their age where we used to have that length of time off? And I used to think it used to fly by, but as a parent, I bet it feels like a hundred years. You know what, in the parents group chat, a lot of them said, I can't believe how quickly it's gone. And I was like, am I the only one that has been counting down the days? This has felt like an eternity. you're running out of things to do. The attention span is so short now. And when you're trying to work in between as well, can make it quite difficult. I know. And you've got your daughter's birthday coming up as well. So yeah. have, I have the big, the big Swifty party. So yeah, yeah. I love that. And I love that you're a dad as well. You know, there's so much more I always feel to people than just that what you see kind of from the property elements and kind of this, this, know, you've got your business side, but then you've got your dad's side as well. Just like the mums have got theirs. And I love seeing the differences in almost the personality changes as well, which I love to see. So it's good fun. It's the driving force. Yes, the why, absolutely. So Paul, before we crack on with today's podcast, can you first of all, for anybody who maybe doesn't know you, doesn't know what you do within the property world or actually, you know, yourself, could you first of all, introduce yourself, tell everybody, because I know you've got lots of sort of your hands in different pies within the property world and know, peak performance in the other businesses that you do as well. And just tell everyone a bit about you, maybe an interesting fact about yourself and we'll take the conversation from there. Yeah. So I am based in a Southeast London. So I'm on the South coast, nearly near you. And I've been in property now, it's coming up to nine years. I've always loved property. Didn't really know how I wanted to get into property. Didn't have the funds to be an investor at the start. But also knew I didn't want to be an estate agent. And my background is sales. So I've been a sales trainer for around 13 years now. And I just kind of fell into property through one of my sales roles and I found deal sourcing. And that was kind of the light bulb moment at how much money you can make without actually buying assets. So that was my introduction into property. And then as you said, I have a couple of events. So I have Peat Performance Events, which is a entrepreneur London based event. Now taking it online. We're now doing VIP events as well. So That's great. That's all about entrepreneurship and business and it's, it's forging relationships outside of property that you can actually using property as well. So for me, some of the best networking I've ever done have been non property specific events. You're meeting business people that would love to invest into property, but would never think of attending their local PPN or pin meeting for instance. So That's one of the driving forces for setting that up and why we encourage lots of people within property to attend non -property related events as well. As you know, we're launching the Manchester Property Social that you're going to be speaking at next month. So that's really exciting. I'm really passionate about property and events, but ensuring that there are 120 % value that you get. for your ticket, there's no upselling or anything like that. There's food, there's music, there's drinks. we've got that launching. obviously earlier in the year, we launched the property and entrepreneur summit, was an absolute hit. Again, you attended that one, 400 people within property attending, learning not just only about property, but more importantly, about the bits that you don't get told. So the business element of it, because as you know, as a business owner, you wear every hat within the business and you become the lead generator, the marketer, the financial director, the administrator. So it's educating people on every aspect of business as well as property. Yeah, I love that. And what I like particularly about the events that you put on is that they're just really cool as well. They're not stuffy. You know, you can go to, we've all been, let's face it, Paul, we've all been to so many of these events, which are really stuffy, really like everybody comes in a suit. And you're right with what you said, actually, you know, even sometimes just going to pure property events can be a bit samey. Whereas even when you go to like speak to different like business people that's really, really interesting. And actually at the Property Entrepreneur Summit that I attended, up in Milton Keynes that you did, I met so many new people as well. I met so, and made so many great connections from that, which I loved. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. And I can't wait for the Manchester Social because again, it's different once again, it's an evening do. I hear that the hotel, everyone keeps telling me that the hotel, the Allen in Manchester is absolutely beautiful. Yeah. And by the way, I've never been to Manchester before. I know, I remember you saying... be my first time. So everyone has already told me that they're taking me out and I was like, okay, I'm terrified. and yeah, I just think it's going to be great. And I love, I love particularly, and I should say this on this podcast, actually, I love how you try and also really help to elevate women and represent women as well, which is so great. And I know that you're particularly doing the Manchester event with Danielle, for example, which I think is a fantastic partnership. So yeah, I really love that and I look forward to seeing more. And I, all people, know how hard it is also to put on events. You put every hat on possible and then it's like your wedding day where then you don't even enjoy it because you want to make sure everyone else is enjoying it. And you're just on a massive come down on the days after as well. And it takes a week for you to kind of that realisation to kick in once you start seeing people posting about the event and realising how much value it added. But yeah, just touching on what you said, we really are trying to push for like 50 % female audience, 50 % female speakers as well. And that's mainly because I think Equally, we can learn a lot from each other as well. We've all got very different perspectives and it's not easy getting that split on the stage because as we know, property has always been known as male dominated area and that's why you have created this community for as a safe space and what we're experiencing is trying to get the speakers that we want that are female. It's childcare issues, it's traveling, it's there's all these things that a bit more difficult for a female speaker than there is for a male speaker to just say yes to every speaking opportunity. it's it bless you. sneezed. Apologies everyone, I sneezed. I love how the camera followed you as well. But yeah, it's a lot more difficult. And I know at the last event, I think you and I even spoke about it, we didn't hit that 50% target. But our original speaker list was actually more females than males. But we ended up having only 30 % female speakers just because the level of no's that they can attend was so much greater than than men, we really are trying to make that thing. But this event, we've hit it. We've got a complete down -the -middle, 50 -50 male -female speaker. I know, so that's great. what? I didn't know until you told me that that had happened. I didn't know that that was even a thing that was something almost of an issue. And just to repeat to the listeners what Paul was saying there was this idea that you would ask female speakers to come and speak and they would just say, no, I don't feel confident enough to, or I just don't want to do it effectively. that's family time off. Family. they're working hard during the week and to leave the family on a Saturday was like a non-negotiable for them. And they, yeah, massively. But would a guy have said that? Potentially not. And that's an interesting conversation almost as to why the mum felt she couldn't leave, but a dad could. And there's so much behind that, so much psychology behind that as well. But I think we should try and encourage as many... females to speak as possible because at the end of the day, when we sit in the audience, we want to feel like the person who is on the stage represents us and has our back. That's what we want to see. That's why we keep going to these events and we want to feel encouraged. we just got to keep going with it, don't we? And I'll be there, I'll be representing. Definitely. I know we were really interested to look at like this split on the audience as well being a male dominated stage that event out of 400 we still had just under 150 females there which I think for a weekend event was an amazing achievement as well. So I'm looking forward to seeing the stats at the next event to see how a more dominant female stage will impact the audience split as well, so it'll be really good. be really interesting. And then Paul, if you were talking about something that you're celebrating at this moment in time, what would you be celebrating? You know for me this year I would I would say property wise there haven't been some major wins. I would say my business model this year has been heavily affected by interest rates and labor and sort of labor coming in and all of the kind of people worrying about what's going to happen if labor did come in and that's restricted them from investing over the last few months but my biggest wins have probably been the amount of collaboration I've done this year. I think I wouldn't have had the success in my events and everything else I'm doing right now if at the start of the year I didn't say to myself and to my goal journal that 2024 is the year of collaboration. It was the year where I was going to assess who's aligned with me, who's in my space that I no longer want to be aligned or need to be aligned with, and who can I add the most value to and that kind of be vice versa. like you and I speak all the time, we've both got great communities and we help each other promote whatever it is that we've got to our audiences if we think it's beneficial. And I've kind of used this year to forge those relationships a lot deeper because I do think that there's more to collaboration than there is thinking everyone's your competition. I think even your competition you can collaborate with as long as you're aligned. So There's more than enough to go around. There's more than enough to share. And I think there'll be certain things that your community would see value in what I do that you don't do and, and, and vice versa. So that's been my biggest win this year is just the sheer level of collaborations that I've been able to successfully do. And the number of incredible speakers that we've been able to get on our stage that if you asked me a year, two years ago, would they be obtainable? I'd probably would say. they would be out of reach. I love that. And look how the co like your confidence with it has grown as well where probably now you're like, no, we could do it. We could definitely get that speaker. Like if I don't know that person, I at least know somebody who knows somebody who will know who that person is. And I love this. My, my whole ethos, which is exactly what you said is collaboration, not competition, because why, why, why wouldn't you? You're so much stronger together and you just can't know everything. Can you Paul? And you've built this amazing community where it's like, look, I know what I know. And if I don't know it, I certainly do know somebody who will know the answer. And so you then all come together and as long as you've got good people around you, doesn't even need to be between the whole female male thing, as long as it's just good people around you, then you can build something quite incredible. And that's obviously why you decided to team up with Danielle and do like the Manchester event and other people you've collaborated with. And I just think it's great. And I love that actually, you know, there's this whole evolution and growth of a person and you've gone, you know, what collaboration is. is the thing that I'm doing and it's very much in line with what I'm doing as well. Like I'm doing loads of collaborations. There's some really exciting stuff that I can't announce just yet, just because it's being finalized, but some really awesome collaborations on my side as well. And it's just great because it's just also more fun. Like property and businesses, it's so boring. It's so boring. And it's really lonely and you doubt yourself. And it's always great just to be like, actually, should we have a meeting and go for lunch and, you know, chat about it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Greek food, Lebanese, all the way. I'm here for it. But that is what it's all about. So I think that's a brilliant celebration. And I love that. And I love the authenticity and the realness around the fact that you're honest about, look, I've had to take a shift because things have changed because of what... the universe is doing and labor and interest rates and things. So yeah, love that. Love that Paul. And then for me, my really interesting celebration, I'm actually going to do a whole other pod, like a solo podcast about this is today, which today, by the way, for viewers will probably be about three weeks behind. So today is the Monday, the second of September. I hand back the keys today to my rent to rent service accommodation properties today. And the reason I'm actually celebrating that is because, and someone said this to me the other day, and I think it's a very important thing to just say, and I'll go into why in more detail about this. I'm as happy today of handing the keys back that I was the day I received the keys. And I think that's such an important thing to s yeah. It's just an important thing to say. It's like, it's okay to be as happy returning the keys as it is to accept the keys because And there comes a point where you're like, I've outgrown this. I've received what I've needed from this. And I'm now ready to move on to the next thing, which is effectively acquiring assets. Like I already have my buy to let portfolio. I now want to go and buy and build and build my wealth through it. And I'm kind of like, like rent, rent got me to the dance, but I didn't need to continue it. And the contract came to an end. We were deciding whether to renew it. And I just said, no, I don't. I I'm not looking to even move forward with this because service accommodation. is a full -time job. You know, was obviously, to do rent -to -rent service accommodation you have to manage it yourself in order to make a decent profit. very passive, Paul. Very passive. No. Listen, my arse is it passive? It is not passive at all. I mean, you'd have seen, I don't know if you saw my stories the other day, it was like Sunday night, nine o 'clock at night. And I went off and had to go and fix this window situation. I had to drive half an hour there, half an hour back. and fix this window because there were two of them and one of them had broken their arm. So they couldn't quite get the window up or get the window down. And I had to go and do that. And I remember thinking to myself, you know, why am I doing this? what purpose does this serve me anymore? Which is zero. So I'm really excited about me evolving in the next steps of my journey as a property investor. in terms of what I want to do going forward, which is definitely 100 % buying, acquiring assets, working with investors to do so. And I'm really excited for the next journey. So yeah, I think that you can celebrate receiving keys and I think you can celebrate returning keys when the time is right. I think that's an okay thing to do. yeah, yay. Win, exactly. So Paul, let's talk today about creative strategies. Cause a lot of the listeners, You know, they might, for example, not be in a position at this moment in time where they have either investors, you know, the click of a fingers or the monies in order to go and buy their own properties. So they've got to think creatively about, right, how can I generate income either enough to buffer, let's say the job that I already have or actually replacing the job that I have. So first of all, how did you start off within this world? How did you get into it, learn about it, and then develop into who you are today? So, as I mentioned at the start, I was a sales trainer and I would go into state agencies, insurance brokers, recruitment companies, and I would train their staff on the art of selling. And I bumped into a friend in the high street who I always knew was in property. I didn't really know at what level. And we got talking and he was talking about how he was having a nightmare recruiting a sales manager to manage his team. And We went for lunch and kind of sounded like something that I would enjoy. It kind of sounded something like I could offer you the sales knowledge if you could give me the property knowledge. And they had a team of eight sources and it was just an incredible business model that they had. They had a sales force of 70 people in a single office and they wanted me to train. the sources on how to negotiate more deals and win more instructions. But it wasn't your standard sourcing. It was things like fractional sales. It was all about title splitting. It was all about getting blocks of flats and being creative with that. So my entry level was, for me, what most people aspire to start doing maybe two, three, four years after being successful in property. And I think because there was so much money to be made at the start of my career doing these creative things, that that's what led me to never really want to be a landlord right now. It doesn't appeal to me because I just know if I invest my money into creative strategies, the return on investment is so much greater than parking money for a passive income. So my very first deal was I was tasked with going out to find a block of apartments in Liverpool. And we found a block of 10 one -bedroom apartments in Liverpool on Rightmove. It was listed for just over a million pounds and we managed to get the price down to a million. Now the strategy was all about title splitting it fractional sales. So we would say we're happy to offer you a million, but what we need to do is sell the 10 flats to 10 separate investors. So every time we sell a flat, we give you the lease to issue and we would make margin. So we worked out the flats worth 120 ,000 pounds each. There was a 20 ,000 pound margin. We sold them at a 10 ,000 pound discount. So we sold them for 110 per flat. And we made a 10 ,000 pound commission off of each sale to our investors. And then when you sell the last unit, you then take over the freehold and we would sell the freehold on as well. So on a sale like that, for instance, we would make a hundred thousand pounds in commissions for selling the units. And then we would typically have a freehold worth about 50 or 60 ,000 pounds. And that was my entry level. And that was my very first deal in property, which is the complete opposite to what I train my students on right now where they're making three or 4 ,000 pounds for sourcing a refer project. And that's kind of what excited me about properties that every deal is different. No single deal is the same. And we can look at deals from multiple angles. And if it doesn't work one way, it's not a dead deal. There's always a way that we can make it work. The only issue tends to be price, right? If we can't agree on the price, then that deal can't go any further. If it doesn't work for HMO, maybe it works for service accommodation. If it doesn't work for a standard buy to let maybe it works for social housing. So there's all these things that I love about it. And it just gets that creativity flowing on every deal. I love that. And so your first deal that you ever did was really sort of quite, you know, something that we would aspire to, as you said, after about two, three years, you were sort of just thrown in at the deep end. Do you think that was a good thing for you just to sort of get straight into it at the deep end? so, so for me, I thrive under pressure and I love to start as a means to go on. So I don't like to play it safe at the start. Like with the summit, for instance, this year, very first event, no proven concept. Let's go for 400 people. Never been done in my eyes. 400 people with ticket prices over a hundred pounds. Never been done. But it gave me the push and we sold that event out. And it's the same with property. For me, starting at the highest level just sets me up that I can get to my end goal a lot quicker. If I started at ground level up, it probably would have taken me a solid four or five years to get to where I wanted to be. But I've kind of gone full circle now because now I'm doing standard buy -to -lets. So I've kind of started at the top and I'm working my way down. But I found my niche and I found where I think there was a gap in the market. albeit at the moment it's a little bit slower, but that's cool. That's, that's probably right. There's peaks and drops and you ride it out and then you position yourself for the, for the uplift again. But that strategy wouldn't have been possible without the team in place that he had set out. So as a newbie saucer doing that independently, that would never have been achievable. We had departments dealing with leases, free holds, progressing the sales. We had a team selling the deals on to investors while we source them. So it was an incredible setup and just a great, if you like, apprenticeship. It really was. I've never gone through any formal training on any courses. So I'm self -taught through being a sponge and making mistakes and learning from those mistakes. Yeah, so would your, if somebody was like in a similar position to you then, actually what you did was you almost got in with a company, this company that taught you in the field how to do it and then you use their team to then go and fly effectively, is that what you're saying? Yeah, so I was with the company for two years. And then they were very much going down the route of new build. So it kind of changed the dynamic, which I didn't really enjoy. myself and one of the directors actually went off and set up a new business together. And we did, we did, it was a vital at business. And we started doing things like social housing, supported living, and that was fun as well. But like with everything, every time something gets really good and really profitable, some form of legislation comes in place and then we have to reset and see what's working again. Yeah, I absolutely love that. And now you teach you teach others how to do it. And what was what was the name again? So obviously, this is deal sourcing. But remind me of the name again, that you specifically use in terms of taking the difference between the yeah, I don't know if this is an official name. This is what I call it. But I call it overage sourcing. So it's taking the overage between the price that you agree with the vendor and the price that you agree with the buyer. So if we agree the unit is worth 120 ,000, we can get the owner to take a price of 110 and our buyer is willing to pay 120, the market value. then on completion, instead of us charging a buyer's fee and upfront finder's fee, we just invoice the seller the difference to pay us so the 10 ,000 pound difference. Yeah, and what would be your expenses in that? What would you have to pay for? Do have to pay for like their solicitor fees, anything like that? No, so that typically is our net fee. But there are instances when they may suggest a solicitor and I may have had a bad experience with them. for me, yes, the money is important, but you don't get the money unless the transaction goes through. So investing 900 pounds to say, we will pay for you to use our recommended solicitor means that I retain full control of that deal during sales progression and sales progression is like one of the biggest things in my course that I teach that people who have maybe been on two or three other masterminds have never heard of before. They think their job as a sorcerer is to find a deal and sell it to an investor. But then a lot of sources complain that their deals fall through. And it's because they're not taking responsibility of what I think is the most important stage, which is seeing it through the legal process. think we rely on these third party businesses, solicitors, mortgage brokers, lenders, surveyors, that we don't know to have the same motivation to get that deal through as we do. They don't. And they're also very busy for a very low fee as well. If you think the average deal takes maybe three months of conveyancing, and it's very expensive to run a practice to charge £900, There's not a lot of money pound per hour in it to incentivize you as a solicitor to actually care. So I learned quite quickly that hiring a full -time sales progressor in my business was probably more important than having more sources or more salespeople because without that person, I always I've seen that you've been at the driving range lately. So I'm going to use my analogy. It's like a game of golf. So I always say that sourcing is the tea shot. The chip on the green is the selling the property. But then the putting might take you 10, 10 parts to get in the hole. That's the sales progression. That's the thing where it's problematic. And until you get it in the hole, you haven't, you haven't finished. And that's, that's the completion. So that's one of the biggest things that I train and I'm quite passionate about is you have to understand sales progression. If you want a high ratio of deal to completion. So many people say 50 % of deals fall out. and it's because they don't take responsibility of the full transaction. So as a sales progresser with their job, and I'm sure it's more complex as this, but I'm just thinking if I was trying to progress myself, it's of course about, you know, chasing up, making sure things are done, making sure things are needed. Like, is it more than that? Like what would a sales progresser do? So, so you use the word chasing up, which I think is the thing that most people do. And when they're chasing, they're chasing for updates, when in reality, what you need to be is you need to be a person of value to the solicitor to the mortgage broker. So you understand the timelines of what happens like most sources will just be chasing exchange, but contracts haven't even been sent. Survey hasn't happened yet. We've not even got mortgage offer. Searches haven't been returned. So it's like, Until you understand the timeline and the milestones between memorandum of sale and exchange, you can't help them. But if you understand what they're waiting for, that's when you can add value to them. And that's when you'll get them onside and they'll prioritize your cases. So for instance, my sales progress would say, she would create a spreadsheet with all the timelines on, and she would say, where are we at? And they would say, well, we're waiting for searches. What's the estimated date for those searches to be returned? and they would say the 12th of September. And the 12th of September, she'll contact them and say, have you received the searches yet? No. So she will pick up the phone, she'll call the local council to chase those up, because she knows the solicitor doesn't have time to do that. And the more times you do that, and the more cases you work with that solicitor on, the quicker that relationship forges and your priority on your cases become even better. And another little tip that I always say is stop taking referral fees from solicitors and mortgage brokers, because what will happen is your cases won't be priority because they're low value tasks to them because they're earning marginal margins. So I always ensure that my solicitors, my mortgage brokers retain the whole of their fee. We don't take any, any kickbacks or anything because I want them to feel motivated to prioritize my task. So if I have a question, I can text them. 8pm on a Friday night and they will respond to me, but that's because they see value in working with me not another uneducated source of chasing them for something that we're two months off of for instance. And you're so right actually regarding like an example like the searches, because in the past it might have been that you chased them saying, one of the searches returning 12th of September, okay, and then you almost leave it at that. And then you wait and then if nothing happens, say, you write and you say, when are they back? And they say, not yet. And you chase them three days later. Whereas I didn't think, well, at the beginning, I didn't think that actually you could then go and actually call the council yourself and be like, right. what's happening with the searches and actually employing somebody within your team that that is their sole job to make sure that the process goes through. That's such an interesting job title and description to have. Yeah, it really is. it's how I looked at it was job that I didn't want to do as well in the business. So freeing up my time from what I would say is a very, very time consuming role. Because as you know, you can't say right between nine and 10, I'm going to do sales progression and expect a solicitor to be waiting for your phone call. You're going to call them three times a day for a whole week until they return your call probably. So you need someone that is on that phone. all day long making those calls. And if you can work with a single solicitor, that makes your job a lot easier because then the sales progress will make one phone call to talk about 10 cases rather than make 10 phone calls to speak to 10 different solicitors. So those relationships are really, important. Such a good idea. Is she full -time in your team? Part time at the moment. But yeah, last year for full time and a partner as well. So share in the business. I love that. It's so interesting because as a business owner, I'm thinking about now expanding and growing and that type of thing. And it's about understanding the different types of team members I might want within my team about where I'm at and what I might need. And it's really interesting when you talk to other people and you're like, you know, what team members do you have? And all sorts, I hear about all sorts and I'm like, I didn't even think about that. So that's really, really interesting. I like to break it down to like high value, high priority, low value, low priority tasks, and then write every task within the business. And for myself, purely focus on the high value, high priority stuff, the stuff that's going to bring in the money. And then I think when you understand, I was told if you understand your value, your worth, your pound per hour, anything that is below your pound per hour, you shouldn't be wasting time. Yeah, exactly. can outsource it cheaper than you doing it, for instance, I don't go and view properties anymore unless I need to. I will pay an independent company like Viewber for instance, to go and view it. It will cost me £120 for them to view the property, do a condition report, give me 12 images and a video walkthrough. But it will cost me that in train fare anyway, to travel up north. And it will also cost me a whole day, which is more than £120. So... For me, paying someone to do that, it buys my time back to spend on high value, high priority tasks. And it's also great that if you can present a deal to an investor that has a third party report rather than your glossy brochure, it actually allows them to make more of an informed decision based on independent advice and reviews than you as the salesperson. That's true. That's very true. That's a good point. And also I see you do like so much for giving out like free webinars and advice. And you know, I see you in the community groups, WhatsApp community groups, and you're always offering your expertise, you know, freely as well. So what, what do you, like what types of webinars and things, what do you enjoy doing where you're like, right, I want to help people. I want to give this knowledge. What's your favorite stuff to do and help with? Yeah. So we do one at the moment called the property sourcing kickstart. So it's that it's people that want to get involved into property, but kind of similar to where I was, but didn't really know how to, and maybe they're exploring rent to rent. Maybe they're exploring being a developer, but I think property sourcing is that foundation that everybody needs. When you understand how to find deals, how to package them, how to financially stack them. Whatever you then go on to do within property, you're already set up. But I think the main trait that you need for property sourcing is not the knowledge of property, it's relationship building and retention. think property is definitely a relationship game. And one thing I say to my mentees is don't focus on individual deals, focus on relationships with people that have access to multiple deals. So don't call an estate agent up about 123 London Road, for instance, call an estate agent up first and build a rapport and a relationship. Spend your Saturday getting boxes of donuts and going into every single local agent in your area and getting to know them so that when you do come up with a weird and wonderful way, maybe like over -insourcing or an assisted sale or a lease option, it's kind of softened the approach already. You've already got your foot in the door and you're not an unknown person. So, I like speaking to people about different ways outside of what they're being taught on one-pound crash courses about go on to write, move, read a script, put an offer forward. I talked to them about the real way that I've done it. And I think because I come from a sales background, I think more psychologically about an approach and how you should sell to someone and stuff like that. So I really enjoy doing those. And like with all the events, I'm actually quite uncomfortable. selling my courses and, and selling mentoring. I'm super enthusiastic throughout the webinar. And then at the end, it's kind of like, and if you want to learn more about our course, you can maybe possibly being a salesperson, you wouldn't think that. for me, I think if you sell yourself well enough on podcast, on stage, at an event in a WhatsApp, wherever it is, people will naturally see enough content from you to feel comfortable to approach you. And ask you about your services. And that's what happens with me. I like to work with a small amount of people so that they get ultra value. So if I really did put myself out there, I wouldn't be able to offer the same services I do now. But yeah, think people people buy from people like themselves. So sell yourself and then the rest will come. Well, this is the thing and then it's more meaningful connections. It's more, it's more raw. It's more real. Definitely. And I know, I know for a fact that when you do give out all of your information, you'll then, you know, I'm talking about you particularly, you're then seen as the expert in that particular field. So when someone thinks, I wouldn't need to learn about sourcing or overage or whatever it may be, they then naturally gravitate towards you. But it is funny. It is funny that you say that because I used to be really similar to you and we both have sales backgrounds. Mine used to be obviously in the travel industry. And isn't it weird that we come on these webinars and we give loads of advice and we answer loads of questions really confidently. And then when it comes to actually saying, I also do offer this service and this is what I do. And I remember the first time I ever did it, I watched the webinar back, which is hilarious. And I'm like, and then, you know, I do have my course that I sell and this is the prize. And I was really meek with it. And I was like, why? Like it's a goddamn good course. Like, you know, it's actually going to help people like sell yourself and It's weird, isn't it? Because that's what you would say to somebody else, but then you have this like almost imposter syndrome that, you know, we're all human beings at the end of the day. So this imposter syndrome that almost just takes over, doesn't it? You know, it is for me is I think when someone attends a podcast or they attend your event and the whole, the whole evening has been amazing. They've learned a lot and they've got a lot of information to take away and they're, they're up here, they're on a high, but then you've given them all that value and you're going to end the night on trying to sell them something. You kind of bring them back down. And I like people to. finish a podcast or finish my webinar or finish an in -person event on that high. And for them to make their own decision if they saw enough value in that event to come and approach you or even if you just target it two days after the event via an email as a follow -up, that's cool. But I think there's something to be said for people leaving an event or a webinar on a high rather than that's just another event that's try to sell me something. I think that's really important. And I think what I've done is I'm always applying things that I've learned from going to other people's events. So I hate going to events and hearing the pitch. I completely shut off. And I can always hear it before it's coming. I can hear that tee up. can almost hear the music gradually going up and up and up to introduce this pitch. I don't enjoy it. Other people don't enjoy it. I always liken it to adverts at the cinema. Nobody wants, nobody wants that. Just want pure value. But I do understand from an event point of view, like you do that if you're offering a free event or you're charging one pound for an event, something has to pay for that event. Events are expensive to run. But if like your event and my event, like the summit, for instance, you're paying a hundred pounds, 200 pounds for a ticket. That's the price you pay for the luxury of going to an amazing event and not being pitched to. Exactly. That's exactly right. And that's what I did for the Girls on Property retreat. The speakers just gave pure value and that's what it was, which was really enjoyable. By the way, I really liked the adverts at the cinema. Just going to put it out there. I really enjoy them. I mean in between the film. in between a film like Channel 4 or something like that. That's fair enough. I was gonna say, I get to you all the like cool movies coming up. I know, I know. I actually really like the cinema. I love the cinema. It's nice just to go do something a little bit different. But yeah, I love it. And I think that you're completely right. I think it's about giving value. And like you said, people naturally then gravitate towards it. I mean, the podcast, for example, is fantastic. And then people that then want to find... you know, the guests through the podcast or even myself, they then come and either find you directly or come and ask me. And I just think that's great. And just, always say, if you, if you hold up a torch and you just stand still and you're just a good person within this industry and business, people, will naturally attract people to you. People, people buy from people they like. It's just always been the way of life. And I think, I think that's really great. So yeah, I love what you do. I love what you represent. I can't wait to continue to keep. you know, attending more events, hopefully speaking at more events and representing women in the industry. And yeah, just really excited to see what you do with everything. Because I think you're really making waves in such a positive way in this industry. So I'm fully championing you and fully supporting it as much as I can. I think it's great. Yay. And then just to finish off Paul, in terms of a property disaster, because let's face it, like property is not plain sailing. you know, and this is the fun bit of the podcast where the reality check of, right, this is actually what happened on one of mine. So do you have like a recent example or like one of your first examples? What have you got as a juicy story for us? Yeah, I think because I don't develop and refer like my, my experience of a disaster is probably not as exciting as some of your other guests. But I think from a learning point of view, going through property and maybe not having that formal education, learning from my own experience, there's probably been a couple of experiences that maybe your, your community, your audience would learn from. And I think just having a good knowledge of everything and having a good knowledge, having people around you that you can call on when problems come up is really helpful. But I've had two instances where things have gone wrong and I've lost money in deals. And I'm a true believer that a mistake is only a mistake if you make it more than once. If you learn from it and you put things in place with your due diligence to prevent it from happening again, then it's just all part of growing. all part of learning. One deal where we came unstuck was not understanding the rules around flying freeholds with mortgages. So not understanding the impact of if there is a large proportion of a building overhanging another one on a flying freehold, if it was over 20%, it would put you into tier three lending and you were looking at 10 % interest rates. Our clients learned the hard way of actually paying for the legals and everything until that became apparent. We actually lost a really good client through that because of us not in their eyes doing the correct due diligence on the property. And it wasn't a case of not doing the correct due diligence. It was just a case of not, not knowing what you don't know. I think a second one was looking at a property that looks amazing and thinking just because it looks amazing, it probably is. We, we took on an amazing property in Skegness that had been refurbished to really good standard. And our business model is that we always sell tenanted properties and with tenanted properties, obviously they have to be compliant. So you get your gas safety certificate and you get your EICR certificate, say the electrics have all been tested. But when you're selling a homeowner occupiers property to an investor that's vacant, EICR certificate isn't a legal requirement. It's not necessary. even though the property looked amazing, it wasn't until our client deleted on the property and went to tenant it and had the electrical survey done that we realized behind all the beautiful cladding on the walls and stuff like that were unprotected wires and they used the wrong cabling and it ended up costing our client nearly five thousand pounds to put it all right. disaster wise, I wouldn't say there have been huge disasters, but they've been massive learning curves. And I think for anyone that is out there doing property. I think you have to have a contingency for those expenses. And for me, reputational damage is something that I'll always try and prevent. So when things like that happen, I do reimburse my clients, even though it wasn't my fault. I think, as you know, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation, a second to lose it. And it only needs one bad client with a vendetta. to go to town on you for a lot of people to hear. And then that kind of just gets out of control. So for me, even if I don't feel like it was my fault because I wasn't aware of it, I will try to remedy that situation as well. So yeah, not really the big disasters, but just learning experiences through sourcing. I love that. And I love, I love how you come at it from such a different angle as well. And I've often said one day, even though I'm really dyslexic, I really want to write a book. And the book I want to write is all about others, property disasters and stories, because I think stories is what is what I love. I love to read stories and people's experiences. And that's such an interesting one. And just, just before I end this podcast, Paul, something just to touch on, which is so interesting is that you have made the decision from what it sounds like. And please correct me if I'm wrong. that you've decided, as you said, not to become a landlord, not to almost purchase these properties, but to utilize them and control the assets as opposed to owning them. And I think that's such an interesting decision that you've made because I don't know about you, but you often hear the quickest way to be wealthy is to purchase the assets and obviously get the capital appreciation and all of that. So are you, do you stand by the decision that you've made in terms of going, no, I don't need to own them. I'm just going to control them and I'm going to get my lump sums. And that's how I'm going to. kind of operate or do you think that that's leading you to them purchase one day? So I have an income goal, a passive income goal. not like right now, I'm earning the income goal that I want to be earning, but I have a passive income goal. And that income goal is over five figures per month that I wanna be earning. For me to get there through building a buy -to -let portfolio, it's gonna take me a lot of time. There just constantly seems to be things being introduced that every time you probably make a bit of profit, you then taxed on it, or maybe you have a void period or maybe the boiler goes, or maybe the roof leaks and a whole year's profit can be wiped out in a single problem. And I think looking at it from the point of view of the kind of properties that I'm sourcing for our clients, would that tick the box? Would that itch the scratch that I have? Would that get me closer to that financial goal? Absolutely not. If I had 35 ,000 pounds right now, would I stick that into 100 ,000 pound property that's generating 600 pounds a month? It's maybe netting 200 a month. So two and a half grand a year net. If that's no problems, 100 % occupied, no void periods. Is that exciting for me? Not really. But looking at a property that is in need of some works. that would be a great property for one of my investors that I could take on as maybe like an assisted sale. If I could put 3000 pounds into a property to make 15 ,000 pounds, that's more money. That's 10 % of the money I would lodge into a property, but I'm making five to 10 years worth of net profit from the buy to let in a single transaction through assisted sales. And that return on investment for me, when you do a couple of assisted sales at 300 to 500 % ROI. It makes you question why anyone would go for 10 % ROI on a buy to let. And the other thing is, I don't like to waste money. So when I look at stamp duty, when I look at legal fees, when I look at bridging and interest rates and stuff like that, with an assisted sale, if I can eradicate all of those buying costs, and my only cost is the refurb, that is a no brainer. So I have a pot of money that keeps working. And when that pot of money gets to a certain amount, in my head, I feel that is enough to buy me a particular asset that I'm looking for or assets that isn't residential, it would be commercial, that would give me a long term lease or a long term contract with a a tenon. And that would get me the income that I'm looking for on a monthly recurring basis. Now it might take me another 10 years to get to. But if I keep turning that money over and making 100 200 300 % on that money, I'll get there quicker than I will probably working my ass off for the next 30 years, adding a buy to let once or twice a year. So yeah, it look it may change, but I've kind of stuck to that for the last five years. And I kind of stand by, I think You and I, we like to do lots of things and we're always thinking, we've had lots of conversations about how we can grow our events and that. I've got three events going on and that's because every time I feel like I've perfected one, I need a new challenge. So if I'm working really hard to earn money and I'm parking it for a long period of time, yes, there's capital growth, but I still think the 200 % I make on a assisted sale. It's still not comparable to 10 years, capital growth and the income that I would make off of a buy to let. So I get really itchy feet and I always want to be doing something new or scaling something. So I think having that pot of cash to constantly work with and not think, right, I've spent all my money and now need to build up another cash pot to go and buy my next asset. I think that's maybe my main drive on not being a landlord. Yeah, I love that. And I love how well you've articulated that and how it works for you. And when I speak to people, it's so interesting in the different perspectives. And I think I'm still trying to find my, way that I want to go, kind of the direction at the moment. It will be that I'm going to go and do my first HMO conversion. And it's an interesting one. it's, I've looked at assistive cells and one actually I nearly did an assistive cell on one. It was right just before it and then it didn't quite go through, but. You're right, there's so many different ways that you can actually control assets as well in very different ways. yeah, interesting chat staple, really interesting in different ways it can happen. So just before we finish the podcast, if people wanted to get in contact with you, wanted to find you, get a bit more information about the free webinars that you do, or just have a chat, where is the best place for people to do so? LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, just under us Paul Stapleton. I'm on all the platforms. So yeah, anywhere like that. Anyway like that. Okay, perfect. And then I'm Athena Dobson underscore official on Instagram. We're of course Girls in Property on Instagram as well. So come and say hi and also on Facebook. And then just a reminder, we've got the Girls in Property community group as well. So do come and join, just DM me the word community and I can have a chat with you. And on Saturday, the 7th of December, we've also got the Christmas Gala. I've just confirmed now that we've got all the casino tables, we've got the photo booths, we've got everything going on there. So it's just gonna be like a great night. meeting really amazing women in property, great connections. There should be between 80 to a hundred of us. So come and join and have a bit of fun. And then if you need any help regarding sort of starting out your journey on mindset or really getting to grips with, with getting yourself going, then DM me the word mindset and we can either jump on a discovery call together or I'll give you access to my free property course as well. But yeah, Paul, thank you so much for coming on today. I've absolutely loved it. I love the chat and yeah, I'll speak to you soon and hope you will go out with some Lebanese food soon. Sounds good. Thanks Paul. Bye. Bye.