Raising Finance: How Susannah Cole Secured £8.3 Million & Paid it Back

Raising finance is the bit so many of us get stuck on. We find the deal. We can see the potential. And then we hit the part nobody teaches us. How to actually fund it.

For a lot of women that wall feels huge. Asking for money feels uncomfortable. Like we're being pushy, or haven't earned the right to ask yet.

This episode is here to change that.

In this episode of Girls in Property I'm joined by Susannah Cole, founder of The Good Property Company, who has raised over £8.3 million in private finance and paid every penny back.

Her story proves fundraising isn't about being the loudest person in the room. It's about relationships. Because that's the real secret. Raising finance isn't a transaction. It's trust, built slowly through honest conversations and consistently good work.

We cover the mindset holding so many women back, then get practical. The three main ways to raise finance. How to attract your very first investor from scratch. How she raised that £8.3 million in three and a half years and managed every relationship without losing credibility.

But this isn't just about money. It's about purpose, health, and celebrating every win along the way.

If you've ever wanted to raise finance but had no idea where to start, this one is for you. Take the tips, trust yourself, and play to win.

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Transcript

0:01

Good morning everyone and welcome to today's episode of the Girls in Property podcast. Right, ladies and gentlemen, I have a very, very exciting episode for you today. When I saw and I reached out to this person to say that I would love to get her on the podcast, which was actually some time ago, but because she is fantastic and busy and traveling and doing everything, the timing just wasn't quite right, but the timing is right now. And so she is here, she is ready. We are gonna give a jam packed episode and I just love the energy of this person. I've heard from various people in the industry, like how great she is, what she does, just the sort of the knowledge in which this woman has, but also the energy in which she encapsulates, because you know that I'm all about energy as well. So believe it or not, this is going to be the, not just the only podcast I'm going to be doing with this woman, because when we had the conversation about what we could talk about, we literally said, well, we could do this or this or this. So I can tell you first and foremost, this will be the first but not last episode that I do with this fabulous woman. So without further ado, I would love to introduce you to you all, Susannah Cole. Hey Susannah. Nice to be here and we are in a hot day today. It's gorgeous, isn't it? And you have just come home and are just gonna go away again. I know, I know. So it's the heat wave at the moment. So when we're recording this, it's the bank holiday heat wave. I think it's like 30 degrees outside. technically we could be anywhere in the world, technically. could be in Ibiza or Spain and I could be in Barcelona, but no I'm in Bristol currently and you're at home Bristol, I'm in London. So there we go. But I am absolutely so stoked for this episode today because the thing is Susanna, I don't know about you, but when majority of women come and slide into my DMs, have conversations with me, whether they're just starting out in property or whether they are experienced in property, no matter what, the conversation always seems to come back to this idea of how do we raise private finance? How do we do it? If they've got money, it doesn't matter. They still want to raise private finance because they want to move to the um asset holding that they want to do. And they need to raise, let's say a million, as opposed to 50,000. When women are starting out in property and they don't have the funds and the finances to get going, again, they want to raise private finance because they want to go and do a flip or a BRRR, which is by refurbished rent refinance for anyone who doesn't know. And so... It seems to me that money seems to be at the center of all of these conversations. And I think what I would love to do today is to really encourage the listeners to understand how you have gone about raising finance and to show them that we do not come out of the womb with a black book of contacts attached to our umbilical cord and how we actually can do that and how we can inspire and encourage others to do it as well. So The topic of conversation today will be about raising finance and I would love, love, love to hear your story about you. Maybe if the listeners haven't heard from you before, tell your story, who you are, get them to get to know you and then show them the story of very briefly how you actually went to raise your first bit of private finance before you had any black book of contacts, any experience, anybody knew your name in the industry. Okay, we might be talking a while. think I think raising finance, especially for women, I think we've got an advantage. em And I think we've also got disadvantages. And if I speak very, very broadly broad brush here. So I think raising finance is is both a genuine mindset, because it feels really sleazy, doesn't it? Can I borrow money? Horrible. We're all very uncomfortable. I think it's a process. And then I think you need to have really strong operational efficiency. is to make sure the investors' money is as safe as possible so that both parties win in 99% of the cases. There's always going to be one or two that isn't going to work out well because everyone's taking a risk. And I think women, in some ways, are, you tend to see the crash and burn are so much more often men, I know that's not correct English, in property. And what I love about the guys is like their chuspa, their chest, know, boom, know, chest hanging out. And you're like, go, But with that, the level of risk taking, know, and I'm speaking very generally here, is much more significant. So when they succeed, boom, they succeed big. But when they fail, boom, they fail big. Whereas broadly speaking, broadly speaking, a more female approach to to business is a little bit more measured. And so as a result, we may well be more careful guardians of the responsibility because our chutzpah Our confidence level is not so boosted that we're ready to jump off a cliff and hope we make the parachute entirely on the way down. We've probably got a few things planned first. So yeah, I think there's a different approach. So mindset, I had a real, well, I had lots of disadvantages and advantages. So I ran Fair Trade businesses when I was 22, when my daughter was little, when it really was the beginning of green and black chocolate and you know, fair trade teas. And I decided I was going to change the world by selling consumer goods. And I I giggle at myself, but I grew it from a little pasting table to five shops knew we're trading all the festivals of three and a half done Dodge van. I was the only hippie with a filing cabinet and a complete understanding of conversion numbers for every festival that happened. And all of the other hippies would come into the back of my van and say, right, Susanna, tell me the numbers. And I'd go, you know, let me predict for you. So you can see operational systems. So I was like, what was your at Reading? What was your take at WOMAD? Okay, you should be predicting this take here. Cheers, Sue's. Probably go off and do some naughty things. Well, I was like, okay, go to sleep now. And then I ran, then I decided to get my corners rubbed off. So I had four corporate jobs. There is a reason why I'm saying this. And then I was like, right, okay, I love those jobs in so many ways, but I hated the lack of freedom. And because I was single parent with two children, I was being responsible for But interesting, the third of those four jobs was marketing director at the SS Great Britain, which in Bristol is kind of our premium or number one museum. And after I got given the job of marketing director em by quite a genius director of the museum, utterly eccentric, quite genius with some gaps that were complete gaps to his makeup, but incredible genius as well. He went, yes, and by the way, you're also responsible for fundraising. Right, I've got a lot of experience in that. And there was a tremendous woman in my department, technically I was her boss, but she was superb called Vanessa. And so what I saw was the process of fundraising from a nationally and internationally recognized museum with high net worth individuals, as well as obviously, formal funds that you applied to. So you had the kind of third party charitable sector funds, but you also had individual fundraising from high net worth individuals for whom the museum was incredibly important. So I didn't see sleazy, oy, lend me some money, I'll pay you some interest, I hope it goes well. I saw professional, you know, conferences for the Association of Fundraiser, I've forgotten the association name now, and I saw professional fundraising at really a tremendously skilled level with Vanessa. So I had a real advantage that it flipped my mindset from... this feels a bit salesy and uncomfortable and god I'm asking for money to actually there's a clear process where both parties are getting something from the relationship. Obviously with a museum they're not getting their money back, they're not getting interest but they're getting a philanthropic um need delivered to them and of importance. eh and an inner satisfaction with fundraising for property, it's clearly everybody's hoping to win and gain some profit from it. So that was a real plus, a real advantage because then I took the processes I'd learned from this tremendous woman, Vanessa, who technically was my... m It was one of my team members. Technically, I was managing a performance, but frankly, she was teaching me and then I brought it into property. So from the beginning, I saw something quite classy and I saw it something that was very clear, had a start, a middle and an ongoing relationship management process. Hmm And so it allowed me to understand the importance of the relationship. Right now I've got physical memories of particularly Vanessa, but also other dignitaries. know, it was the great and the good were on our board in Bristol doing one-to-one show with important fundraisers through the museum and through the ship, which is an iconic piece of history, maritime history for the UK. So I thought, well, I'll take those processes, which is get to know people, take your time, don't ask for the money straight away, understand their motivators, because it's going to be what's important to them that drives the decision. Can your projects fit roughly what their motivators need to be? Have you done enough qualification of them? Spin up, know, the spin up qualification is a good one. And then Can you get to know them and can you run multiple relationships at the same time to the point that they land appropriate to the deals that you've got? Simple, she said. Yeah. I love that. Beautiful. And you know what? You've just said something perfect there. So first of all, I love the fact that's where you started because it gave you the other aspect. And you said something there, which is you've just proven something, which is that they were willing to invest in this museum and things without actually a financial return. And what I find quite interesting is I think a lot of people assume that a lot of people want to invest for a financial return. And so they go in with that as opposed to actually asking the question of what it is that you are seeking. What is it that you are looking for and asking the questions as opposed to anything else. and sometimes it is philanthropic, philanthropic, is that the word? Thank you. My dyslexic brain wasn't dyslexic then. And doing that, and I think that sometimes it's about this. So for example, let me give an example in this. It might be that there is something where a person is trying to build a home for women who are escaping domestic abuse. And it might be that she needs investment. And rather than a person actually doing it for a financial gain, they're doing it because they have their own story of what they went through as a child or as a mother or whatever it may be. and they want to invest in you because it is something that is important to their soul, their heart as it were. And relationships I really think is the key to this and really feeling like that. The other thing that, yeah, go on. And even if they are looking for a financial return, it's not normally, you've got three types of investors which you might get into, but it's not normally, I want X percent return on my money. It's normally, I want to send my children to a school. I want to buy a camper van. I want to, you know, retire. I want to retire my wife or whatever it is. And so there's a human story that then needs funding. Yeah. So do you know the question I always ask my investors whenever I go and I have these conversations? I always want to know what they're going to do with the money. I always say to them, so let's say that it's a 10 % return and it will be like 30 grand or whatever it would be. I'd always say to them, so what's your plan for the money then? And I do it in a really conversational way. And they're like, oh, the kids needs spending for the boarding school. or we've got this once in a lifetime trip up to Australia. And because I used to work in travel, when they said that to me about the Australia thing, I went, where are you thinking about going? And they're like, we're going to do AS Rock, we're going go down to Sydney. I'm like, right, when you go to AS Rock, you got to do this, this and this. They then lean into you more because you've taken an interest in them about what it is that they're doing. And then they understand about my background working in travel, my operational side of things, because you need a lot of operational side for travel. So. Absolutely. It's always about what you're to do with the money because money is just the vehicle. What is it that you actually want to do? And another thing you said Susanna, which I loved and I think it's really important for the listeners is around your transferable skills of what you learned. So whenever I somebody come to me and they're getting into the property industry and I'll say to them, right, what do you have to give? What have you got? I can't believe the amount of women, the amount of women that say to me, oh, I don't have any skill sets, I don't have this. I'm like, hold on a minute. What did you do? What did you used to do? You know, and they'll say, I used to do this, this, this. I'm like, right, there's your transferable skills, right? So you used to work in customer service. So you understand how to overcome objection, rejection. You understand how to handle people. You understand the relationships. Like, oh yeah, I never even thought about that. And I'm like, That's your transferable skills with you. So before we jump into this more of it, because I want to hear about these three different types of investors. My ears perked up at that bit, I was like, right, before we do that, on this podcast, I always love to celebrate and I love to celebrate us as women because I don't know about you Susanna, but do you feel like we don't celebrate enough? We're always moving to the next thing, the next thing, and the next thing, but we don't just take stock of where we are. Yeah, I mean, people like Richard Branson probably do. But yeah, yeah, I think if you've got an entrepreneurial brain, and I was chatting about this with a really good friend of mine on Saturday on a very long walk, if you've got an entrepreneurial brain, as soon as you hit milestone, you're on to the next one. You hit milestone, you're on to the next one. And in fact, I've got a super friend of mine that lives in Barcelona, because I live in Barcelona half the time. And we were doing a kind of walk and talk digitally yesterday because we're in different countries at the moment. And we were saying exactly that. Celebrate and be grateful for where you're at before. Yes, yes. So yeah, we need to celebrate more. Well, I'm visually showing you my celebrations, if anybody can see me. um Here, here, here, here. So what this is, is if the question is, what are you celebrating? um Being alive. Being alive. not going to go into big dive on this, but in my 40s, in COVID, because why would a person do anything other than that? I got diagnosed and I'm, you know, organic food, CrossFit, yoga, don't smoke, barely drink, you know, all this stuff. So you know what's coming. We're about to jump off a cliff. And I got diagnosed with, ready? One, two, three, four, four and a half cancers in my 40s. Yeah, and property absolutely saved my life. so I'm, I'm when when what am I celebrating being alive and cancer free, I got no problems. But, but every time in the early days, when I passed a scan, I got another piece of m gold jewelry that were made for me, or that was really important to me. So these are from a lovely little shop in in born in Barcelona used to go in and like have lunch with them and then they design some jewelry. Yeah. So when you're in the MRI and you know it's terrifying going in and wondering am I going to get a good or a bad result here? Instead of being scared I go in and listen to Stevie Wonder because an MRI is nine Stevie Wonder songs always starting with superstition because I was channeling a very good friend of mine who's actually went to the Olympics for Olympic weightlifting so I needed his strength and you'd like and we've designed the next piece of gold jewelry can't wait to get it so better be good results kiddo because I'm wanting to celebrate with that. So yeah, and I think there's something around gold and Romans, Egyptians, that for me, it was talisman. So I'm going to be on descans for the rest of my life every six months. Property saved my life, spent over 100 grand because I moved my care to the Marsden. So I had a very dysfunctional department here. I genuinely wouldn't be alive if I'd not been able to spot as a business person, hey, you're very dysfunctional. Bless you. No, thank you. I'm going to make my choices. So I've spent six figures on my own care. in the end, which is I'm very grateful to be able to do so, but I was so slightly irritated that that was necessary to remain alive. So I'm I celebrate being alive and being an entrepreneur who lent into it to make sure that I had the best team on my case with gold. with gold, with gold. Wow, mean, incredible. I've got goosebumps just listening to that. That's incredible. do you know, what a story, honestly, Susanna. And there are so many just inspiring people like yourself. No, no, no, no, no, no. Do you know what? Celebrate being alive. Absolutely celebrate being alive. you know, it's such an interesting one because I have this conversation with people all the time, you know, who want to come into the programs or masterminds whatever it is. I say, right, what do you want? What do you want? And they say to me, I want money. And I say to them, that's not the answer. Like, what is the money for? Like, what do you actually want? You know and then you get it out of them that they want to go on a Disney cruise or they want to go to the Bahamas or they want to like not work so they can take their kids to school and I'm like exactly and for you you know and this is what I say to everybody like for example right you know if they like cut me and you down the middle like literally down the middle and I can sense it's the same for the both of us it isn't property that actually comes spewing out of us I mean it might be for you but it isn't for me okay okay okay for you it might Yes. For you it might be, for me it doesn't. For me, it's that property for me is the vehicle that allows me to travel, that allows me to live the life the way that I want to live my life, right? And so people are always like, let's talk about property, let's do this. And I'm like, actually, can we just talk about like travel and dogs and things like that? Because, and for you, was the property was the vehicle that saved your life, literally. because it gave you the money to give you choices to say, I don't want to do this. I want to live. I choose to live. I'm therefore going to spend this money absolutely wisely. So on, my health. Yes, well there was a couple of steps. I do find property in of itself fascinating, but it's the entrepreneurial side of property. And as you know, I live half the time in Barcelona in a nine minute, sorry, 11 minutes from the beaches, my apartment, which I bought for cash six and a half years ago. So that was quite helpful, wasn't it? Because then I had a place to recuperate and it was an early moment. I'm not going to go into the difficulty that a dysfunctioning team brings. but you know it the fourth biggest cause of death is medical negligence or malpractice so we know we know it brings very difficult moments and the early stage was I was when somebody when I said to the nurse and what if it's stage four and she said we stopped treating you now uh the thing about women in property and women in business is you again have another superpower like I'm small I'm five foot two relatively small woman You're teeny, you're teeny tiny. Yes, ah what can really happen is that sort of inbuilt misogyny which is for men and women where women are overlooked. Now uh I do mind it enormously but I just think my revenge is always to own more property and have more assets and be able to make my own choices. I don't need an external revenge, need an internal strength. And at that point I thought, well I don't need to argue with you because you've highlighted exactly what your department would do, you'd let me die. And I just thought, I don't think so. So front-facing, I'm polite because there's never a really reason to be rude to anybody. Back-facing, I don't know if you would like allow me to swear, but you can imagine what I was thinking inside. And I just walked home and I mean I already had good money, but we just sold six houses, had a war chest, job done. And the minute I got the diagnosis anyway, I just didn't go back to work for three and a half years. So there was never, and at no point, so I was doing every single thing and cutting edge and, you know, went into read about 1,200 papers. Cause I'm very interested in the scientific aspect. My view was like the sky cycling team, let's do 1 % of everything that could improve things. Because if I've got X % chance, then if I can just increase 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%. So, and then, would say, you you're wasting your money. And I just thought, I don't think I am. eh And then just switch to world-class oncologists. property can bring you quiet power. It doesn't need to be loud. didn't need to say to the nurse, listen kiddo, I'm an effing multimillionaire and I've got plenty of money to be able to do with, because that would be gross thing to say. em But don't make an assumption because I'm a woman that I cannot fund a serious amount of top level medical care just because I'm nice and polite. know, so, and I don't think property needs to be shown off. You know, those nurses had no idea and there was never a need for them to know because that was intrusive to our work together, such as it was. Mm. Yeah, well said, Susanna, definitely. And you know, that's really inspiring, actually, what you've just said there. Something that I'm really going to ponder on because sometimes it is actually in like the quiet moments and the still moments, as it were, that actually the greatest power comes, you know, not by being the loudest, not by showing off, not by all of that. I know some other women in the industry. who have been in a similar position to you and they don't really like, they don't really want to talk about it or like to talk about it because they feel that it's quite personal to them. um And, but I take such, such inspiration and I've always been the person that says health first, health is wealth. I've always believed health is wealth, always, you know, and... There is no point being the richest person in the room if you are unhappy, unwell, can't enjoy your money. Like what's it all for? You know, if we're gonna, I've suffered through burnout twice, like what, and I, I, and I remember looking at myself going, you know, what is the point in this? What is the point? You, you've defeated every purpose that you ever wanted in terms of building this. So. something in us that drives us forward as well that we enjoy the drive, we enjoy the move, you know. So all that happened was property definitely saved my life because it gave me the choices. And also having been in business for 20 odd years, you could see the functional stroke dysfunctional aspects and say, whoa, I'm with a C-lister team. I need to be with an A-lister team because that's going to impact directly on being alive. Let's switch. em But yeah, my... sabbatical was supposed to be six months chill out and barley and it turned out to be that instead well it's fine so yeah celebrate being alive but still but you know that that still build the assets for the future that in theory were just going to be like whee but in practice saved my life so i didn't expect that but there you go fine onwards Love it. Love it. Love it. And you know, I'm going to take a similar theme. I'm going to take inspiration from you. So I'm going to also celebrate my own celebration of how I now use money for choices as well. So my celebration is that I was in Ibiza and I was sitting on a sun lounger enjoying like a drink and it was Thursday and I was due to fly home the following day on Friday. And I sort of went, I looked at my diary and I went Why the hell am I going home tomorrow? Why am I going home? Like, what for, basically? Now, I knew that I had podcasting with you on Monday and I needed to get home and I needed to sort some things, but I thought, I'm just gonna look. I'm just gonna look on my phone to be like, can I even do this? Can I change my flight? And I said, right, easy jet. I'm gonna fly home Sunday. How much is that gonna cost me? And it was like 40 quid, and I was like, yeah, that will do. And I was staying, to be fair, we were staying in a really, really nice hotel. And to be fair, was quite, it was quite, it was quite hefty to say, to stay the extra two nights. But you know what? I went, I sort of went and I sort of sat very quietly, very, very quietly. And I said to myself, like, put it this way, it was as much to say the extra two nights over the weekend as it was to stay for the four that had already been booked. And I was like, do I do it? Do I do it? Do I do it? And then I went, do you know what? it. I went yeah, I went I worked bloody hard. I'm already here. Like life is for living. You could be dead tomorrow. I've lost so many friends, family members, like you know, you can't take it to your grave literally. And so I changed it. And so in that moment on a sunbed within the space of about 25 minutes, I changed my flight. I went to the reception, I booked the extra two nights, I paid for it on my credit card. I sat on my sandlanger. I ordered another drink. And then we went hiking and we went out and did like the most amazing dinner in Tiberia town on the last night. And I was like, do you know what? This is what money is for living life. And for me, that's a celebration because the old me would have had this whole identity of, no, don't enjoy yourself too much. You've already had four nights. Don't say any more. You've got work to do. You've got prior commitments. this version of me is like, no, I live in abundance. I deserve to live in abundance. am going to live in abundance because I can and because money can be made from anywhere. Spend money, make money. Spend money, make money. Like let it flow. before I, but as women, feel like we, feel like as women, we're not allowed to say that. We're not allowed to, that's showing off. That's her being greedy. That's her being, that's disgusting. Whereas for me, I'm like, no, talk to me about how you want to spend your money. Talk to me about how you want to live your life. I think it should be celebrated. Yeah, it should be, it almost is the driving force of what are your values? How do you want to be? Who do you want to be? How do you want to relate to people? You know, and anything is possible if you decide to put in the other side, the commitment to it. But I always think that decisions should be made kind of roughly based on principles. So before we came on, I said that I'm on my version six or seven with the Nellis Saga, a good property portfolio. And m so I'm using Claude at the moment. really interesting to look at if this then that and lots of different portfolio analyses that would take me a lot longer than it takes Claude, it's 20 minutes. So yeah, I've got a 23 page report that's version, I think it's version seven, version C number four or something. But I don't say, hey, open world, what's it for? I say, what are the clear guiding principles? And then we start with clear guiding So, are the clear guiding principles for me who loves travel? and speaks a couple of languages to then work backwards. But another clear guiding principle for me would be I want all of my personal homes to be mortgage free and I want a significant amount of my property portfolio to be mortgage free. So what are those clear guiding principles and then how do we work backwards? So I don't have the world sky open with unboundary choices. They sit within my overall principles, if you see what I mean. I do. And funnily enough, it tends to roughly work out because that's almost like your life business plan. So what is it you're looking to do? And then how do we work backwards to make that happen? Which is where fundraising comes in, because without the working capital and the strategic plan and then the operational delivery, you're not going to be able to deliver this. You haven't got the oil with which to grease the wheels to make the business work. But I always think the principles would be a What are the clear ones for you? Are you wanting to be high-loaned value? You want to have things paid off? And then when you're raising finance, how long do you want to be working in that cycle? Because the principle there is not, hey, for the rest of my life, I really want to make a bunch of other people rich, even though I'm so pleased to have worked with 99 % of the investors I work with, such super people. 1%, 99 % amazing. But the principle was always fundamentally this was for me and my family. And if it can really benefit you and your family along the way, then it's almost like I'm a train. You might decide to get into the train and be a passenger for the ride for one deal, two deal, three deals, five deals, 10 deals. But there'll be a point where you say, okay, you my journey's finished as the investor. I get off the train and Suze is gonna chug along because now she's got her assets paid off. Because so I believe that fundraising is a really important growth part. It's like the the the fire went or the explosion when the rocket launches. But eventually you should have it all paid back. You know, I did eight point three million and paid it all back. Right, so let's talk about this because I think this is the real juicy bit of this podcast. first of all, let's just talk about that because I think that was said in such like a wishy-washy way. No, let's just take a moment just so that the viewers hear what you just said. How much have you raised in private finance? 8.3 million and paid it back, all of it. em And I raised 600,000 as an absolute beginner in 12 weeks because I needed the money, full stop. Right, so 8.3 million pounds is what you've raised. I mean, that is just, that's incredible. That really is. And then window-wise, how long have you actually raised that between? That was in the first three to three and a half years and then it was worked through and then paid back. Okay, so in three to three and a half years, you raised 8.3 million pounds. Yes, in two different manners, either joint ventures or in m loans. And you've got to balance the risk and reward and the responsibility. And again, this is where I think women are probably quite good because they're like, well, listen, nobody's getting put on the streets. So we've got to balance the risk and reward. So it'd be super easy to only borrow the money and have interest rate. But hey, kids, what if there's a black, you know, what if I had been eight point three million in debt to people? eh and gone along to the hospital and they said, you've got cancer. And I went, better not kill me. And didn't work for three and a half years. That wouldn't be a fun place to be. Thankfully, it was all sorted by then. So some of it was private finance, where you're lending me money on direct interest rates, some small and large numbers. And some of it was joint venture, where we're buying and selling. So the risk sits on the property. not the risk of my shoulders, whereas the interest rate, no matter what happens with the property and the deal, whether it works out or not, I'm obligated to pay back and pay the interest. So I always tried to balance and I could have raised so much more. I actually chose consciously to stop and don't need to. So and now actually lend money rather than borrow money, but I could have chosen a more risky route, but I decided to always balance the two. to make sure that the risk was, can measure it. My view was, if it went horribly wrong, and I had to be stuck in a job for the next 20 years, could I pay everybody off? And I never raised beyond that. On interest rate, I have to pay you interest, if it went horribly, horribly wrong. So again, I'm trying, I didn't tell people that, but that's what I did. That's how I managed it. that's how you do it. So let's go in detail because I know we've just touched on some but I want to, as if the listeners grab a notepad and pen and they're listening to this for the first time and try not to understand it and digest it. Let's talk about the three different ways that you can raise finance and let's give a bit of education here. So give me number one, how someone can raise finance. In terms of the actual structure of the thing, yes, a very simple, hey Athena, m we get to know each other. I've asked you the three questions. What's your objective? What's your time frame and how much is your money? Objective being the life goals we talked about when, you know, I want to go traveling in Greece and I want to be, you know, have more of my expenses paid. When do you want to do that by in six months time? How much money at the moment have you got to make that happen? Okay, I've got this much money and I'm thinking, okay, if she lent money to me, I could pay her interest and that will fund her Greek trip. Okay, so do you see I'm straightaway going, does my model fit her need? So that would be, hey, m can I borrow money from you, please? uh And this is the interest I'm going to pay you. And then you transfer the money. Obviously, you know, we do all the money laundering checks, you know, we do data protection, I do my assessment on you. I'm not just going to be like... Hello, I don't know where you've been. don't know whether your money's laundered or whether it's straight money, you know. I definitely had some em chaps with gold teeth who'd recently been released from Her Majesty's large HMO saying, schools, I got money. I'm like, honey, I know where your money comes from. Don't touch it. No, thank you. As I was squatting down the gym and then I was like, squat, get back to your back squats. So you've got to make sure it's all above board. I'm very black and white about that kind of thing. So straightforward loans. The second, I actually only did it in two ways. The second for me was a very simple joint venture. So again, hey, you got money. You would like to go and enjoy yourself in Spain or Greece or wherever you want to travel and prepare to put the work in. Let me find a property, identify it carefully with a lot of research, 45 pieces of research. five estate opinions, 20 solds, 20 on the market. So future, past and present. What's the likelihood of what it's worth? Let me manage the builder. Let me do the selling. You're like, weee, the beach view is lovely. And I'm like, brilliant, you have fun, but you will own it. em I'll put restriction on it. We'll have a legal agreement. So I never touch the money that you use to buy the house. The only money I touch is your builder money. And I don't start. project and we had two people who were little bit naughty so we don't start a project until you transferred the entirety of the builders money so that it's very clean and then every single week you get information from me saying this is where at here's the photos here are the invoices paid here's the ongoing you know profit and loss and if you want to get involved we would have a 20-minute call once a week at the same time every single every single week and I would do all my JV meetings on the same day so it was back-to-back you know 12 hours Yeah. And apart from that, you'd be like, wee, I'm off on the beach. And then when it's sold, we split the profit 50 50. So I'm not needing to even have any of the money to buy the house because it's in your name and you're feeling very safe about it because you own it. so you have the asset in any case. It's dead simple. I kept it very simple. You have a kept you actually kept the property in their name yeah okay yeah them feel safe. Why do I need to own the property if we're going to sell it? And em occasionally they would then turn around and say, actually, we love what you've done and we want to keep it. Okay, that's easy for you. A couple of times I had the property in my name and that was just to do with the investor circumstances, whereas they had the money, but maybe they had some difficulty credit scores in the past. So they wouldn't have gotten funding so easily. but they were still appropriate to be an investor. But usually it was in their name and it was the simple rinse and repeat. And usually they'd be flips then usually they'd go to sell. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. That bit makes sense. I was trying to work out of if it was the biorefurbished rent refinance. I was like, that's interesting that the properties in their name were actually talking about flips. I'm not married to them and I don't want to keep any long term assets with anybody other than me, because it's my business. with the direct lending, know, people would, I would have different amounts of money depending on how much people were lending. But I frequently would have a private mortgage, which is an off the shelf package. It's basically a mortgage. They get first charges of private mortgage. And I frequently would have the entirety, now listen up folks, 100 % of the property purchase and the entire refurb cost lent to me for an asset that I was keeping because I'd been able to source it so well. So not 75 % or 70 % like a bridge, 100 % of the purchase plus the refurb cost. So. then the fact that I had been able to source it so well, and then I would, so it's basically like a private mortgage, and then I would renovate it, get it refinanced into the normal buy to let and pay back the investor. Right, so the investor would essentially act like a lender. It's just that it's private. Yeah. And you do first charges where the money was big. You would do second charge or floating charge or equitable charge. And I'm not a lawyer. I my loyalty with that stuff if the money was much smaller. But I had a rinse and repeat line of credit with a couple of people who trusted me that were like, Suze, 100 % of the money plus the refill cost. Go kid. And hurry up because we want to be paid. So hurry up and buy more property because that's the only way we get paid from you. Okay, I will. Yeah, because this is the thing I think you just said it beautifully there. I think that when people naturally feel like they're going to an investor, they really, really believe with their mindset that it's like they're going with a begging bowl and they're like, please give me some money. it's like, it's almost like they have this mentality that they're asking for a favor from the investor. And I'm like, no, not at all. The investor wants you to bring them more deals, wants their money to be used well. They don't have the knowledge. They don't have the ability. or even desire to go and do this, they want to be on a beach in Bermuda somewhere earning better interest while you go do all the work. So it's a shift. borrowing the money, then they're not earning. There are three, there's a pyramid of investors. There are three types, if you like. So, and just think of a triangle if you're not watching. or pyramid so the lowest level and I don't mean low in a status level but just in terms of maths the lowest level sort of I know this won't add up but 50 grand ish and that's folks who would like to get a bit of a turn on their money I usually use that for refurb or whatever and um and they're quite quick to lend because it's not it's not gonna they're not gonna lose their life savings usually on that kind of money you know and and it helps them sort of get a bit involved in property. The middle tier of the sort of 150, 200 to... uh and those are two types of people. They're either smaller entrepreneurs who maybe sold a small business and want to look over your shoulder and usually they'll maybe want to joint venture with you or they're high level corporate people that have got their savings and again are so sick of the corporate job but they don't yet have the confidence to go and do it themselves so they kind of peek over your shoulder for a couple of deals. Now it's not an earn and learn, absolutely not, but they do a I'll play JVs with you and then they're like, thanks, Sue, I'll go off and do it myself now. Okay, fine. And then your top tier, your diamonds at the top, those are usually entrepreneurs who've sold their businesses, you know, maybe they've made five or 10 million quid. So they're not 100 million quid folks. They're still individual thinkers seeking out opportunities. They're probably looking for five opportunities and you'll be one of them. So they're like, you know, we want to give you a line of credit for half a million or a million a year once you've proven yourself. It'll take longer for them to agree to work with you because you are not going to change their life. Any money you make is just about keeping the money moving. Nothing will change in their life really. So they've got more to lose emotionally than to gain. But the bit that they've got to gain is once you're a steady repeat deliverer for them, it's like you're their... you know, it's like, that's the long term contract, even though it will be project by project, because they're like, okay, I know you're good. I know we can work well. Great. Let's do the next one. Let's do so. So at no point do they draw back from that relationship. And they're a little bit bored sometimes, because these have been incredible people who have built amazing businesses, been super involved, been in the center of it. And suddenly, they popped out with all their cash and a bit like, so what does What's the meaning of life? you're this, yes, you're this scrappy entrepreneur trying to grow and, you know, as you're developing your systems and hopefully become more more sophisticated and systematic over time, and they love the buzz and the energy you're bringing, and you will get the most incredible informal mentoring from people who have, you know, been there, done it 20 years earlier, not in property, but in other businesses. So you'll find you'll talk about the deal for two minutes and the rest of the time you'd be talking about other things. Honestly, that literally happens to me. That literally happens to me. So they always say the same thing to me. They're like, Athena, I see so much of myself in you. They're like, 30 years ago, I see me in you. And they always, and you know the other thing that they end up wanting to do, and they do it from a place of love, they do it from a place where they probably see me as like their daughter or something. They're like, I actually want to give you some really good advice here. And they're like, I want to, and they literally like want to give you advice. They're like, ooh. do this, don't do this. Have you thought that they then want to start introducing you to like all their people and then you almost become like, dare I say, almost like a daughter figure to them that they then want to just take under your wing and they just want to like keep you safe. So then they're like, yeah, use my money. ah I'll show you this lawyer. I'll show you this and some of your connections and then you do a really good deal with them and then they want to introduce you to the next investor and the next investor. And that's how it's all worked. Honestly. that's right. It's brilliant. And then I'm giving them loads of travel advice, travel tips, like they were going to go and do some trip and I was like, no, do Malaysia instead. And this is how to do it. So I like showed them on the laptop how to recreate it and it just works. That's literally it. about, so that's, we're noticing the exact same patterns. So that's what you're getting, but also what are they getting? They're getting excitement. They're getting energy. They're getting meaning. I mean, they're getting good money and absolutely they are. of course. meaning. They're also getting a reminder because, these are growth orientated people because they would not have built businesses if they were a bunch of moany, rot bags and, you know, blamed everybody else. So these are people who like creating and growing and developing and moving things forward. Right. But they're also getting the they're getting confirmation often that thank goodness I sold my business. She is so busy, you know. So so they would kind of plug in and almost get energy. by all of the stuff I had going on and then they would leave going I'm off to go play golf now I'm so glad I'm doing this and you're doing that so almost reinforced they got the buzz they got the top out they got the energy they got the direction the meaning everything and then few you know I don't need to be doing that 12 hours a day now so so it's they get a lot from the relationship to because it's meaningful. it goes back to fundraising being people. Now, I don't think the relationship would survive you not being good at operational delivery on property. Of course not. They want an A-lister who's going to deliver, not a B-lister or C-lister because you're going to deliver poor projects then. eh But there's a lot more to the fundraising for the top of the triangle about a swap of other things other than property. And it's a great working relationship. I've got huge regard for all my top investors years later. Hmm. I agree with you. let's say that listener is listening to this right now because I know the type of listeners that will be listening to this and the way that they DM me and they're going, do you know what ladies? I love it. Love the energy. Like I'm here for it, but they might be sitting there going, I'm starting with nothing. Like I'm starting with absolutely nothing. No credibility. No, no skin in the game. Nothing. How do I attract? Where do I find these investors? Where do I find them? How do I get my first one? Yes. And everybody thinks it's a secret place where the investors are. And actually it's an incremental step-by-step process. So eventually what you describe, they'll introduce you to each other, you know, that, that kind of golden connection starts to happen. But in the early days, you've got to start and build. So. I've got huge regard for Simon Zuzzi. In my opinion, I've known him 20 years. I saw him last Friday, came rushing up to check how he okay. You think you're such a good guy. But m I'm going to tell a story against myself. So in the early days, m you need to get people's contact details. So quite early on, said, so in the early, early days, I would be walking into a property event and I would be shaking with nerves. because I know nothing, they know everything. I don't feel I can offer anything. I feel intimidated. It was a lot more male. I would often be the only lady or one of two, you know, and, and so I would have a thing saying yield equals annual rent divided by purchase price and a little torn piece of paper with lines on it. It was in my purse. It was the only blinking thing I knew about property like 20 odd years ago. And then I'd, I'd breathe in in the holiday and put it back in my purse and go, come on girl, let's go, you know. And I would be shaking because I would be like, this is really intimidating. But what I did was follow what I learned at the museum, which was I'm going to get every single, so most people will go into an event and they'll corner three people and they have amazing quality conversations. They'll come away going, that was amazing. And I'm like, and what did you achieve? That's not your goal when you go to an event or even digitally online. I would go into a room, can't remember how many people in the room, you know, literally shaking. but trying to stuff my hands in my pockets so they wouldn't notice and stand firm. And I would collect as many contact details as I possibly could. And in those days, it was cards. So if I met you, I'd say background and travel, very dynamic, eh really interested in women succeeding. And while you and I were there, I'd be asking you, what are you looking to do in property? When are you looking to do it by and what kind of money have you got to do? I would get everybody's money out them within two minutes. And I would only have a three to five minute conversation with you, Max, and say, listen, Athena, it sounds like we've got a lot of similar possibilities. I know you're here to meet other people and I don't want to intrude on your time, meaning I'm also here to meet other people. But I just love the fact we've got so many people in common. We've got so many fundamental based beliefs, despite it being different ages. So would it be okay if we maybe had a call and I'd either book it in your diary straight away or I'd say, would it be okay if tomorrow morning I could give you a wee bell and we could arrange a time to follow up? So you're not feeling like, man, she's only here to swipe numbers because I'm openly saying it, you're here for this and so am I, but I just love this initial connection. Could I follow up with you next, this week? And then I would go around that room and I'd always collect 75 % and above of the room. I would insist on them giving me the details, which I would do online as well. And then the next day began the mission. And at no point did I enjoy that fundraising hello, but I would pick up the phone. I would have a spoonful, dessert spoonful, not teaspoon of Nutella for every single phone call I made because I didn't like doing it. So you'd be like, hey, Athena, how you getting on? It's Suze. And because I'd written down some things about you. in front of you to say, we're both meeting loads of people tonight. So I'm just writing this down because you're memorable, but I'm going to meet loads of people and I want to make sure I know who you are tomorrow, you know, because I love what you've done. And then I'd be like, we're just opening the conversation. And if you qualified, so there'd be two ways, three ways the conversation would go. Number one would be no fit at all, know, no values fit, no kind of friendship possibility, no networking possibility, and no money, like just we miss each other. um Gorgeous to talk with you. And I try and point you in the direction of anything I'd learned that might be helpful to you, always trying leave you. Number two would be you've got no money, but I still think you're fabulous. Well, brilliant. So then I want to get to know you, but you're outside of my fundraising campaign, but you're still fabulous. So I still want to get to know you. And from a pure fundraising point of view, it's highly likely you might then become a connector and recommend me to somebody else. But I didn't do it for that reason. I did it because, you're fabulous. I want to get to know you. But typically, 33 % of my fundraising people came from individual recommendations. So even somebody without money, I'm going to try my very best to help you. And then number three would be they've got money. They don't want to do it themselves. And we start an ongoing fundraising. campaign conversation. And that would look like five to nine human touch points before we agreed to work together. I'm checking you out, you're checking me out. And so what I'd be trying to do logistically would bounce you from call to call or coffee to coffee. So we're speaking on a Monday morning, I'd be like, hey, we've talked about this, this and this, how about I send you something over? I always had a lot of thud value, brochures. deal reports, things like that. In the early days, I just had my CV, I had my salary. I used to show people my payslip. I had my personal mortgage for my own home and that was all I had. So was like, how about I send you my payslip to prove I've got some money coming in? Just about. And then I'd be like, how about if I was that over to just now and maybe we could have a second catch up, how you fix for Thursday morning? And what we could do then, we could go over XYZ that we talked about. So I would almost create a reason to have a second meeting and set a gentle agenda for that. And so at no point were you feeling rushed because we'd need to bounce five to nine times. So that's going to take two weeks to six weeks. But at each time, it's quite clear that the theoretical agenda is around might we do some work together in property possibly. Hmm, beautiful. I love that. uh Brilliant, brilliant bit of teaching there. Honestly, I absolutely adored that. And I was almost reflecting actually, when you were speaking there, I was reflecting on my own experiences of when I started property networking, and how I would do situations and things like that. you know, I know so many, I know so many people, not just women, I know so many people who probably have the absolute best intentions, take the business cards, etc. Even people that have said to me, even people that have met me at networking events and I've said to them, message me tomorrow. I've just got to go talk to this person. Sounds great. Like just message me. And then I never hear from them again. And I'm like, you need to do the follow-up. I think that it's the follow-up that has. the actual work that's in it, then have that time and those meaningful conversations because it is extremely overwhelming in the moment. There are lots of people in the room and I feel like people get so focused on, you said it yourself beautifully, speaking to one to three people who actually they just really get on with because I know why they do this. I know why they do it. They're scared. They do it. Yes. They do it as a safety thing. They like latch onto a person and they'll just become their best friend for the night. I'm like, no, the whole point is to go networking. And your line was beautiful there because I think sometimes, and myself included, we're very British, right? Very British. And as a Brit, we become like... Let's face it, you only get about 20 minutes to network because at these various networking events, they've got speakers anyway. So you've got to use your time well. And we always feel as Brits that we've got to be polite and another person probably isn't stopping talking to take a breath. So how do you exit from this? And I think what you said was perfect, which is, look, thank you so much for your time. I'm sure you really want to get around the room for your own self and speak to lots of people. I'm going to do the same. was wonderful to meet you. I'd actually love to have this conversation with you tomorrow. You know, what time are you free, et cetera, et cetera, and then carry it on and then, and then leave as it were. So, and I tell them to get a CRM as well, you know, put it in an Excel spreadsheet, put it in. Well, I raised all my money on an Excel spreadsheet. So a couple of techniques that are important and then I'll tell the story against myself and for Simon. m So before you go to the event, book out all the hours in your diary for follow up. And what will happen, of course, is you'll clean the kitchen, you'll wipe out the fridge, you'll make four cups of tea, and you'll have a beautiful workspace. you might start half an hour after you've scheduled in your diary, but seeing as you've booked 15 hours follow up for every single event or if you go online and you decide I'm going to get contact details digitally, I'm booking 15 hours follow up for every two hours I get contact details digitally, you got to do it baby. So even with a clean kitchen and a clean workspace, know, you're like, eventually you're to have to stop doing that and start picking up the phone because it's in your blinking diary. And so let me tell the story again. So Simon, think so, super guy, years ago, they used to let you put your contact details down and I used to make everybody feel like I still do occasionally. In fact, property entrepreneur summit, coming up on the keynote speaker. There's him. And it's a great, great event. should be 400 of us which would be nice and then they said hey you can't collect contact details anymore so I stood at the door of a London event where I was the speaker was say 150 people and said I'm your speaker can I have your contact details please 150 times now quite correctly Simon's office the next day phoned me up and said Susanna and I was like I know I know but that illustrates and I knew I was pushing it a little bit too much But I then used it in the talk to say this, did you guys see what I just did there? I basically wouldn't let you in the room. I mean, not quite. You know, if they didn't want to give me their contact details, but it's quite easy to say I'm the speaker, can I have your number? Because everyone's going to say yes. The number one important for me at that event was getting everybody's contact details to then later on be able to follow up. And if I didn't do that, I couldn't then do the follow up. So yeah, I apologize profusely to Simon's office, shrug my shoulders and went, I know I went a little bit too far, but... Going back to first principles, what was my principle? What was the reason to go to an event? It was to raise money. And therefore I'm running a fundraising campaign. I'm not there just generally. And I've set how much money do I want to raise on joint ventures and how much money do I want to raise in private loans? Yes, it terrifies me, but I'm running a fundraising campaign. So I need to get X for every 20 contacts you get, one person will invest. So if I want to have 10 investors, I need 200 names and I need to have gone through the conversations with those 200 people. Hence the Lysetre. Hence the Nutella. Great, great. I love that. I love a bit Nutella. So Susanna, two things. Number one is we are going to be carrying on this conversation because there is so much conversation to be had from this. So what I'd actually love to ask you, and you know, I'm going to ask you actually on the podcast so that you can't say no to me. I'm going to ask you here. It is, I'd love for you to actually come into the girls and property community to do a whole session on raising private finance because I've had Motul come on before, who's a fabulous man. I love Motul Islam, he's brilliant. But I would love to hear it from a woman actually. I'd love to get a woman on and a female on to really speak about this. And you do it with such fun and such gusto as well. So would you say yes to coming into the community? Yeah? Brilliant. So that's the first thing. asking. Always thank you for for accepting absolutely and then the second thing is is one question I get asked all the time which I think would be a question I can hear again the listeners just saying just to round up this this episode is They say Athena what comes first the deal or the investor? Oh, that's easy. Again, back to time management. And this is where we women are pretty good at this generally, even the ones 30 % of your time on deals, 30 % of your time on investors and 40 % of your time working on your business. Like the folks are listening right now, hopefully scrolling things down. And so you can do that time management any which way you want. I used to have a different colors. So yellow for investors, green, she was for education. Blue was for deals. so I could immediately notice, am I appropriately spending the time? So you either do it individually in little chunks, or you say, I'm going to do one week investors a month, one week deals a month, and two weeks learning very roughly, or learning, growing my business, writing my SOPs, managing my business, doing all the, you know, all the stuff. Or you could say, I'll do one and a half days investors, one and a half day deals, and two days working on the business. oh So, so, but block your diary. It's, it's, it's, you know, for women, if they've got family and they've got the calendar on the fridge, which is the family calendar, it's probably more a female thing that they're managing the whole, you know, everybody's calendar, manage your own diary, be your own PA, come into the week, knowing how your diary is blocked. eh would say that's how I think and then also at the beginning you don't ever pretend I've got deals over don't you just say this is what I'm doing this is what I'm working on and in the early days I took a couple of deals that I lost because they didn't have investors and I did proper deal reports on them and I said I couldn't get this deal because I hadn't done the work to find you em but this is the type of deal I am finding so if that is of interest to you then great I'd love to consider working together Hmm. they had to sign terms and conditions. So I always agreed the principle of working together relationship wise before putting the deal into the relationship. I was never like, Athena, Athena, here's the deal, do you want to buy it? Because at that point, you're going to be like, Suze, get out of the way, show me the deal. Whereas actually, I want to talk to you and say, do you think we could work together in the longer term and work out that relationship first? And then we pop the deal into the relationship. Yeah. So what you're saying is, is actually do both at the same time and manage your diary, manage your time. Yeah. I completely agree with you. Absolutely. And it's always this notion of serving instead of selling. Like you're giving them an opportunity, you're inviting them to this opportunity. And I think where women get stuck is we feel like where it's sleazy, it's salesy, it's all this. And we've, we've grown this identity around this, where people think that money is the root of all evil. We have money blocks. We can't go forward. And I think and I say this all the time, I'm always talking about subconscious and strategy work, which is I'm really leaning into now. It is about upgrading your identity as a person that can hold wealth, that is deserving of wealth to say, actually, I actually have what you need. And you know, the beauty of it is, and I say this, and people really picked up on this now, when I now go to investor meetings, I know that I have what they need. Yes. I've got the deal. I just need the money and I do it with such like cheekiness and such. I just do it with a smile and I'm like, well, it's up to you. Like with or without you energy, literally. And it works because people are like, people have natural FOMO. And so they're like, no, no, no, I want this deal. I want this. Credibility helps and people giving a good name in the industry. But the best advice I'd give to somebody when I first started out and the advice that I would give is never ever pretend that you're anything other than what you are and be really honest with that and to say to people, this will be my first deal. These are my transferable skills. This is where I've come from. This is how I am. And for me, the ones that seem to be attracting the most at the moment would be nurses because of their natural um background with care and attention to detail. So I find that nurses do really well. I find that teachers do really well. Yeah, anything service related within that public kind of sector, find naturally people gravitate towards them. So um yeah, I think just be honest. Yeah, just But do good work as well. So we would do eight 10 page deal reports. We would do 45 pieces or anything up to 45 pieces of research. Now, we would have four or five exit routes for the project if it didn't flip because things can go wrong. So as soon as you're presenting something like that, although things can still go wrong, it looks and is clear that you're putting more focus, you're doing good work, you know. I'm flipping a house and m I spent eight hours upgrading, shall we call it, the state agents m write up and photography, including rejecting the first photos because they weren't appropriate for the sale. You know, it was eight hours and I'm sat there going, blimey, but that's doing good work. and as a result I'm gonna be banking you know seven figures which will be nice won't it? Yes but do good work you know not half an hour on that one it was eight hours do good work and it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. This does take time. This is not passive. This is not easy. This is hard work. This is good work. But as you said, 18 hours for seven figures. Yes, absolutely. 100%. And, you know, and it's really interesting actually because Like you said, I think if I was going to be actually an investor now as I move forward within my own life and I was going to invest in somebody, I think that what I personally would want to see if I was going to give you money is if you came to me with your notion, your idea, and I asked you what the exit strategy was, and you said to me, it's to flip. This is what the price is. This is what we're going to get out of it. And I'd be like, okay, what's your other exit strategies? And I think if the person said to me, the exit is flip, and I said to them, what are the others? What have you thought about? And they didn't give me an answer. Yes. would make me lean back a bit because I would go, you actually haven't done the work necessary for this. You haven't thought about this. I think instead, if a person came to me who had no experience or had just done one or whatever, just in the game and they said, Athena, option A is to flip, option B is to hold, option three is to exit with this, et cetera. I'd be like, right, you have actually done some work here. You have put time, thought, attention to detail into this. that would make me lean in more. So it's less about the time and experience and it's more about the person sat in front of me and what the skill sets are that they bring to me in that moment as opposed to anything else. are two main questions they want. How much money am I going to earn? And then how safe is my money? um And then things that people call hygiene factors. So I remember being approached by somebody who was in a partnership with somebody I fully intended. And she had said, you know, I want to work with you and I want to invest this much money with you in about 18 months because I like to plan ahead. um And it was interesting. I was looking at them and obviously with the knowledge and experience I've got, the one question I had, and it wasn't that I thought they were, but I wanted to eliminate this as a problem, was were they over trading? Over trading really means, like fair play to you, going at great guns, but you're under capitalised. You don't have enough money to grease the wheels if things go wrong. listen, by the way, we all over trade at some point. Hands up 100%. Yes, exactly. Well, you started with what was it? 34 pence or 34 pence? I once had 38 pence in the bank. Multi-millionaire with 38 pence in the bank. That is over trading. It's not a good idea. But most of us at some point stretch to do it. So my one question was really, are they over trading? So because I knew them well, I was like, can I see your portfolio? you, you know, because I wanted to do my due diligence and they just didn't send it. So, okay, if you can't. It's not so much and there was complete trust there. So it wasn't so much that they didn't send it. It was that they were too busy to pay attention to the signals from the investor who was saying how safe is my money? And so just that miss. Now, it was interesting. It was just a hygiene factor. So send the information the person's asking for if you feel that you're comfortable sharing it. And in this case, I kind of knew the inside leg measurement of them anyway, you because I'd worked with them for a few years. can't answer the objections of the investor, is, I'm concerned they're over trading. Can you just give me a snapshot of your current position, send it through in a wee spreadsheet. Then that's about not having done the internal good operational work. because that spreadsheet should be available. You know, should be able to just fling that in an email more or less straight away. And here's maybe, mindful of your time, em here's one of the brilliant things about having to work with investors is it means that your cupboards are clean and tidy. You know what mean? Because if you're having to evidence this, that the next thing, you've got to keep it all tidy. So weirdly, it was like having visitors all the time. You always have a clean house because you're like, well, I need to show you this. So, you know, oh man, a better update. it and I need to show you that man I better update it so there's lots of kind of positives that cascade into I gotta run a clean tidy organized business because these guys are checking it out good it's good you're 100 % right. And the first time you do it is always going to be the most difficult because you're learning on the job and you're doing that. But it's very scrappy, very scrappy. But as soon as you literally have it, you then say that. And do you know what? The only way I can describe this with something I'm going through at the moment as the only way I can describe it that I can resonate with at moment is I've just become VAT registered. So I'm having to do my first VAT report, for example, which is an absolute headache. Absolute headache having to go back through three years worth of receipts and get this again And I haven't got half the stuff that the accountant's asking me for and I'm like didn't know you needed it Now I know I need it now. I know it's there now It's ready for the next one and then you go there So I'm just trying to give an example that's you know a bit different But the first time is always a bit a bit of a headache and then you go forward. So very first years of accounts all those years ago, I used to live in a converted Maltings house. So you imagine like a, you know, a kind of alcohol factory with all the beams and everything. So the kitchen, living room, dining room was very long. And my receipts were spread from one part of the house to the other one by one by one. And you're like, I am never doing this again. And now to give you an example of the return every single week at 11 o'clock, I meet with my bookkeeper, no matter where I am in the world. and then she gives me the VAT position and I just make sure there's always enough money in the VAT bank account to pay the VAT at any one point job done. Whereas the first year it was three days of looking at those receipts hoping Augusta Wind wouldn't lift them up. Yep, yep, pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah, literally. So listen, Suzanne, I could talk to you all day long, like it's so much fun. But my final question to you, because I think it's actually a lovely question for you, just to kind of round this up with the podcast is, is it's a question that was actually asked to me on a podcast that I asked a few guests that come on the guests I want to ask this question to. Because it's a question I got asked that stumped me for about three minutes, three and a half minutes I just sat in silence because I was like I don't know what the answer to that question is so I'm gonna ask you it. Which is as a woman who has been around the world and probably been asked all sorts of questions as it were, what is one question that nobody has ever asked you that you wish that somebody would have asked you? They have asked it, but not deeply and only very dear friends is the one that automatically came to mind was so simple. What's your why? Now with very dear friends, we discussed this, but with people with whom I worked with in property. So my investors, for example, that was never discussed. So I would be asking their why, but they wouldn't be matching in a partnership. Yeah, interesting. And also your why changes. So I know that's a very simple answer, but that's what came up. So I was probably slightly more interested in understanding the mechanism partnership than they were. Yes, often what you can be in when you're raising finance, you're a service provider in some ways, you're servicing their money and hopefully making more money for them. and the deepest, the best partnerships is when you fully understand that the whys match each other. Exactly. of those investors would be relationship, but transactionally relationship. They do two or three deals, you four or five deals, and then off they go. And really what you want to do is you want to land your big investors have matching Ys and be in partnership for five or so years. Yeah. So my Y, em my children were 10 and 12 when I started and I wanted safety and security for various reasons that some other women, I never talk about it, but some other women want. and and now I work with my son who's 29 I'm sure 90 % of the time he enjoys it I'm sure 10% And my why there is that he grows through and up and out my business em with the skills necessary. He's very strong on tech and AI and all of that. So oddly, I got my why 19 years later. My daughters also worked in my business as a student. And so I guess what I'm trying to, for them, it's not the money, it's the apprenticeship of life will give you knocks. You've got to get up after a knock. and I want them to have the skills to be able to get up after knocking in a slightly entrepreneurial manner for both of them because life will come and will knock you. Yeah. So the why is resilience for my family and now resilience for my children. That's my why. Yeah. legacy. Perfect. I love that. I love that. See? Great question. I love it. And you answered it beautifully. So thank you for that. So listen, Susanna, lots of people are going to want to get in contact with you. Lots of people are going to want to get to know you and carry on this conversation. So where is the best place for them to do that? Well, let's promote Zach, my son. So the website, he just vibe coded for us. I was like, well, tell me what vibe coding is. And that's the good property company dot co dot UK. So again, I have a check of his handiwork. I think he's done an amazing job and or social media, know, Instagram, Suzanne Nicole, UK, Facebook, Suzanne Nicole, and my company is called the good property company or LinkedIn, you know, any of the social medias, we've got a team that will collect your messages and send them over to me for me to answer. which would be lovely. Yes. I love that and as always guys I'm Athena Dobson at underscore official girls and property on Instagram as well and like Susanna just said I've actually just rebranded my entire website which is www.girlsandproperty.co.uk done by the amazing Jackie Laws. She did an amazing job. So go and check it out It's got all the information regarding sort of like getting involved with the community the work that I do how you can work with me from a mentoring perspective group program I've also just released a brand new online foundation course for anyone wanting to start in property, which is literally seven modules from how I started out to where I am now and multiplying, et cetera. So if you're starting in property, go and have a look at it. It's a fantastic piece of work that people have fed back to me on, which I'm very, proud of. a good look around it. Yeah, really nice. Yeah, she did a good and the website the website is she just did such a good job. And, you know, if you've just heard me mentioning that the community and asking Susanna to come in, what that is, is there's now 140 women across the UK within that community. So it's built on a circle platform. So there's no WhatsApp, don't worry about it. It's a circle platform. It's very professional, lots of different areas. And it's just gorgeous the way that the women communicate on it and sort of say, look, can you help me with this? Looking at this, this floor plan. Can you look at this deal with me? Can you do this recommendations where we talk about the in-person events that go on. And then what we do as a result of that is each person that's in their different areas. have like ambassadors now. So we'll do like local coffee meets. So me and the London girls went out to an R and B brunch. We're just planning a musical theater trip. Some of the people up in like the Midlands, they're going out for coffee. And so lots of different pockets are now happening in and around the area. So if you are a woman in property and you're like, Athena, feels lonely, it feels isolated, then come into the community and come and do that. And then fortnightly, what we do is we then do calls every fortnight with experts such as Susanna or others that will come in to talk about a particular subject. And then we put it in a library of the information. So we now have about two years worth of a library full of anything you want to learn about property, whether it's rent rent, HMOs, BRR, flips, raising finance, whatever it is it's there and it's only 30 pounds a month. It is the cheapest education you are going to get within the property industry. I want to help as many women as I can and I want to bring the right women together. So come and check it out. Go to www.girlsandproperty.co.uk click on community or DM me the word community on Instagram and I'll come back to you. Isn't it incredible that even property, which is such a bricks and mortar business, can be so digital? So I have a team in the Philippines, in South Africa, in Spain, my son lives in Barcelona and I live there half the time, but not in different locations. I'm letting agent in Bristol, so a very bricks and mortar business, and yet I have six and a half weeks in America, you can manage it from anywhere in the world with the right team. got the wrong team disaster, if you've got the right team, the right tech, the right software, so smooth. People always say to me, they go, Athena, what is your secret? How come you get to travel so much? How can we get to this? The team. The team is the answer, literally. and the ops manual and the training and the firing sometimes, you know. haven't had to do that yet, touch wood, touch wood. Still going, still going with the same team. But I love that. Susanna, I'm gonna give you the final words for today. So what are your parting words for all the listeners? Oh, do it. Good luck. do it, hope it goes really well for you. And in terms of fundraising, I would always say predict your cash flow. So I was paranoid about other people's money. So I would predict cash flow for about 18 months in advance. And I would do that every single week because I just didn't want to lose people money in so far as I could help it. you know, put in safety barriers around their money, but do it because it will give you the freedom and the choice and the life that you're looking for. I absolutely love that and I'm just gonna just go on something that you just said there which I love which is what somebody has been teaching me recently with the work that I'm doing, like subconscious work and everything. He says to me, Athena we never hope. We don't hope it's gonna work. It will work. And as I said, we execute, we receive, we achieve, we go for it and we win always because we play to win, we never play to hope. So yeah, love it. Thank you, Susanna. Everyone, I hope you really enjoyed this episode. Go and check it out. Give a review on um Spotify and Apple Podcast. It really helps with the algorithm. yeah, let me know any other guests you want to come on, DM me, and let me know what you thought of the episode. Have an amazing week. Take care, everyone. Love you lots. Bye.