We were recently asked the question 'when is the right time to quit your job?' - this was in relation to our journey in property specifically. 

Now for everyone the answer will be different, all I could give was our experience.

Back in the Summer of 2013, I, Catherine, was offered voluntary redundancy from my job as a Policy & Strategy Officer at Essex County Council. This was the kick up the butt I needed to get out of a job I hated. I had already invested time and money to get educated in property investing. I was also in a fortunate position that Steve had a well paid job in London as a Corporate Finance Manager and when we did our figures, we worked out I only needed to bring in about £500 per month (not the £1,700 per month I had been) and we’d be fine. 

It’s interesting how we live to the money we bring in, rather than looking at the budget we can actually live on. This is a top tip I give to many people who are starting out in Property or Business; work out what you actually need to live on, because then you may be able to free up time, by going part time or living off one wage (if you are a couple) to start your new property or business venture and therefore get to your income goal quicker. 

At this time Steve and I only had one single let that brought in about £200 ppm (which I shared with my mum), although I was actively looking for rent to rent deals and possible HMO (Houses of Multiple Occupation) opportunities, plus I had two part-time jobs that could work around my property training and new business. 

With this additional time it wasn’t long before we started finding HMO deals and upon selling our first home together, we raised the money to invest in our first HMO (and a JV flip deal). The one HMO brought in a net cashflow of £1000 pcm, so well over the £500 I needed to bring in each month and very soon I decided to give up the part time roles as well. 

As soon as I focused time in one area, rather than spreading my focus we found our next HMO and we Deal Packaged that to overseas investors and continued to manage it for them. 

This is my second top tip; FOCUS…Follow One Course Until Successful. I had jumped around a lot, learning about different property investment strategies and now had experience in Single Lets, LHA tenants, HMOs, Deal Packaging & Flips, plus Joint Venturing. This has proved very useful now 5 years on, but the advice I give to anyone starting out, is to follow one path and don’t keep chasing shiny pennies! Learn as much as you can, but then stick to one strategy. 

The strategy we focus on now is Serviced Accommodation and we absolutely love it, watch out for next month’s article about how we got started in it. 

Being posed the question on when I left my job and the advice I’d give others, made me realise that I’d spent 5 long years at Essex County Council working my way up to a pay grade and salary band of £28,500 (before tax) a year. Now, in less than 24 months of running and owning a Serviced Accommodation business, we now bring in an average revenue of £30,000+ each month! 
​
To get my Council salary I had to work a minimum of 37.5 hours per week, now my Serviced Accommodation business is completely leveraged and I only get involved every now and again, so this takes less than 1 hour of my week!

Knowing what I know now, maybe I would have taken the leap of faith to quit my job sooner, but equally you don’t know what you don’t know and Serviced Accommodation wasn’t a strategy I’d heard about until 2 years ago. 

For anyone thinking about whether to quit their job, I’d suggest you think about the following:

1. What can you actually afford to live on? It might be less than you think.
2. Can you go part-time? Or live off your partner’s wage?
3. Make sure you FOCUS your energy in one area, don’t go after too many shiny pennies at once.
4. Get educated in the strategy you want to focus on, it will get you their much quicker and faster with less mistakes. 

All the best for the upcoming month,

Catherine & Steve

ORIGINAL BLOGGED BY THEBOOKRUNNER.COM - Stephen Turner

As some of you might know, last weekend was V festival and along with enjoying some great music on Sunday with Catherine, we enjoyed some great returns on our serviced apartments.
 
While we sat back, relaxed & watched the main stage including Emeli Sandé, Ellie Goulding & Clean Bandit, our systemised and outsourced business created us an income with none of our time.
 
While Jason Derulo played ‘Wiggle, Wiggle, Wiggle’ and our little one wiggled in Catherine’s belly, we didn’t have a second thought about our business as we knew we had set-up everything for it to run smoothly without us.
 
Our serviced accommodation business currently takes me approximately 4 hours to manage a week, 2 hours meeting with our Property Manager, discussing mainly growth & scaling, and another 2 hours responding to investors/finance companies, analysing the figures and answering a few questions from the team. I’m still working to get this time down so I can manage all three of our businesses in this 4 hours and I am aiming to achieve this in the next couple of weeks.
 
This is what is possible, with focussed work and a clear vision, for anyone who wants it. You just need to choose and commit to doing it.
 
Anyway, getting off my ‘Inspirational Iguana’, my ‘Motivational Monkey’ (I couldn’t think of any better animal alliterations like ‘High Horse’) back to V weekend and what it generated for our business:

• 100% Occupancy in Chelmsford & Colchester
• Almost £7K in guest bookings for the 3 nights
• Averaging almost £200 per night across all properties and locations
• Our biggest booking was £1580 for 3 nights (full capacity)
• One sick guest requiring new bed sheets – there’s always one!!!

 
In summary a great weekend for our business that required some thorough preparation to ensure it went smoothly. To help those that are running SAs or considering this strategy, here are my Top 7 Tips (DANCERS) when it comes to big events in your area:

1. Dates:  Find out the dates of all big events in your area (and close by – we had people stay in Colchester going to V Festival in Chelmsford), put them in your calendar and diarise to repeat each year – along with the date the organisers release the event dates and ticket sales (these maybe different)
2. Availability:  You can either then block the dates until nearer the time or increase prices as soon as you find out so you can ensure you are fully booked up
3. Nick Advertising: Ok, not stealing it but piggy-backing off it. Use the events marketing, for your marketing. When they release information, share it along with a link for customers to book your SA, hashtag the event in to posts and advertise it within your email campaigns. (We didn’t need to do this as we were fully booked for the weekend well ahead of time.)
4. Communication: Effective communication with your guests is needed. This includes repeat communication informing them that your apartment is not a place to party, especially as soon as they book so they are aware that charges will apply for noise complaints, mess and damages.
5. Enjoyment: For the guests & the business. A polite reminder just before the event, reminding them to respect your apartment and the neighbours, not to bring the party back with them (“Leave V at V” were my Property managers words) and to enjoy their stay.
6. Repeat Business: Try to tap up repeat business straight away asking whether they would like to secure their stay next year at this year’s prices, or create a follow up reminding them of their stay and the event with a different offer to book.
7. Systems: Our guests had signed contracts before they checked in, were made aware of check-in details, emergency numbers and details of their stay before check-in. Their credit card details were on file, we had a system in place for the cleaners to report damages or excessive mess. We also had the process in place to invoice the guests for the damages that resulted in payment the same week, follow up systems for the guests to be encouraged to leave reviews and finally the system in place to ensure after a busy weekend, all apartments were available and ready for the bookings on Monday as if nothing had happened.

 
So that’s my DANCERS – 7 top tips to having a successful SA business during a big event.
 
As always, I hope you find it useful and you can take some learning to implement in your business. Please ask any questions or share how you get on with big events in your areas.
 
Enjoy your week everyone,
 
Steve

ORIGINAL BLOGGED BY THEBOOKRUNNER.COM - Stephen Turner

​This week I had some things go to plan... And some not! 
 
I'll structure this blog in the format that works best when giving feedback, the sh*t sandwich. I'll start with want went right, move on to what didn't go to plan, which was all to do with getting to my 4 hour work week next week, and then end on a positive again! 
 
So, at the weekend, I enjoyed the sun, went on an 8 mile run before football training on Sunday and enjoyed some relaxing time with Catherine. 
 
Monday we finished our 'baby classes' so now after NCT and Hypnobirthing sessions we're feeling as prepared for the arrival of our little one as we can. 
 
And Wednesday I spent time at Columbus School and College helping out look after the special needs children playing football with them. I love the fact that we've created businesses for ourselves that gives us time to give back, and I really enjoyed being able to bring fun to all the kids there. 
 
So, what didn't go to plan? 
 
Mainly:

1. One of our VAs resigned
2. One of our VAs has not picked up tasks as quick as I expected 
3. There was more of my time needed to get things going

 
What have I learnt?
 
With the management of VAs, if someone goes quiet and it doesn't seem to be working as well as you hope, usually there is an issue that needs addressing. In this case, it was overwhelm. I believe the role the VA was working in does not have too much work to complete in the 40 hours per week, unfortunately though, the tasks involved did not match up with the strengths of the VA. This caused our VA to feel overwhelmed, go in and out of communication until finally resigning. I'm happy to say that she is resigning on good terms and I think this was down to me providing a lot to support to her during her time working for us, especially when she went quiet. In the end, she has resigned and will find more job satisfaction in a new role, I re-advertised and have had over 30 applicants apply that I'll be shortlisting, interviewing and hiring next week.
 
At least this happened now and not a month or two down the line where I could have ended up interviewing applicants in between nappy changes!!!
 
Secondly, I tend to think things will take less time then they actually will, especially when it involves people (which is probably why in a recent dream I had, our baby’s first words were a very formal “Good Morning”).
 
Anyway, I essentially needed to hire my expanded team earlier than I did to get the results I needed now. I knew there would be a learning curve for the team and I produced processes, improved KPIs and detailed team descriptions to help reduce this. However, I didn't do enough to reduce the learning curve and achieve results by now. Although I underestimated this time needed, I can see and acknowledge how much the expanded team are producing within a month of working for me and in the businesses. 
 
And lastly, although I planned fully for the 4 hour work week to start next week, I did not plan for the unexpected. This caused tasks to crop up that were important and urgent (for example further improved processes and answering questions - all needed for the new team to work effectively and accurately) which pushed out my important but not urgent tasks (the completion of our online course). 
 
What this means is that my 4 hour work week is delayed by about 2 weeks (and has provision for an extra 2 hours per week to stay in communication with new team members). 
 
I'm very happy that I committed and planned the 4 hour work week for next week for a number of reasons:

1. If I had not committed to a date, I wouldn't have pushed my processes and team growth to where it is, for it to break while I can still jump into the business, fix it and improve it
2. I committed to the date knowing I have a good few weeks spare before our baby arrives, so I built in some contingency yet played full out as if I didn't have the contingency 
3. I've managed to test, try new processes and softwares and learn a huge amount in these last few weeks that has been invaluable

 
If you read my blog a couple of weeks ago (The 5 P's to a #4HWW), my failure to meet the deadline comes down to:

• Planning - not enough time, not hiring early enough, not having compete, simple and detailed one page process documents for EVERYTHING
• People - again not hiring early enough for the team to be fully effective and not having the right person in place for the role

 
And to finish on a positive... 
Our Serviced Accommodation business continues to grow with expansion into Ipswich and London, we provided some great returns for our investors and we have business meetings lined up with more partners to further our growth around Essex, Kent, Suffolk & London. Great work by our Property Manager.  
 
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and I really hope you can take some learning away that you can put in to place in your business. 
 
Have a great weekend, 
 
Steve ​

ORIGINAL BLOGGED BY THEBOOKRUNNER.COM - Stephen Turner 

This past couple of weeks I have made a lot of progress towards my 4 hour work week, which is good as it is planned in my diary to happen in just 2 more full weeks!
 
So what exactly have I been doing to make it happen? Here are the 5 P’s I’ve been working on:
 
Planning
Planning is very important to reach a 4 Hour Work Week (4HWW). If I hadn’t planned the 4HWW out in to exactly what makes up those 4 hours, I would not have known exactly what it needs in order for me to stick to 4 hours.
 
As a reminder, my planned 4 hours are:

• Mon 7-8am - Assess new investments/business
• Tue 10-10:30am - Reply to PA on emails etc
• Wed 7-8pm - Run online coaching
• Thu 10-10:30am - Reply to PA on emails etc
• Fri 7-8am - Blog & RAP (Review, Analyse & Plan)

By planning this I can visualise what is needed to get me from ‘where I was’ to ‘where I need to be’, and more importantly by actually planning it in to the diary I have a date to achieve it by.
 
To get my weekly meetings with my Property Manger down to 1 hour only on new business, I knew I needed to ensure all systems were in place and running effectively, that he had experienced weeks without my input, to slowly decrease the time of each meeting each week, to focus on not solving problems once as they occur but creating processes that solved it and solved them as they occur in the future.
 
I knew my RAP on a Friday needed to be extremely effective. I need to have all KPI (Key Performance Indicator) data in an easily readable format so I quickly review them, make decisions, ask questions and put plans into place for the following week/month.
 
People
To achieve a 4HWW without people would not work! My businesses rely on customers being satisfied which would not be the case if I had an out-of-office email reply and voicemail stating:
 
I am currently out of office, please contact me between 10-10:30AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Emails over 10 lines will be ignored, conversations after 5 minutes will be cut off.  Good luck…
 
Not a lasting business model!
 
Therefore, I knew I needed the right team around me and as I do not have an office (nor want one) I needed the majority to be virtual.
Over the last few weeks we have hired in a fully qualified accountant to be our Finance Manager for all businesses (and also the person that compiles all the KPI data for me to review on a Friday), a UK based virtual PA to manage emails and oversee the rest of the team and an Online Marketing Manager to keep generating sales for our Amazon based business and the Serviced Apartment business.
 
To ensure I had a team all working towards the same goal I needed to:

1. Set out all the recent changes and provide introductions
2. Summarise each persons role and how they interlink with each other
3. Refine the KPIs so team members were focussed, not overwhelmed or confused, and committed to achieve targets that were fully understood
4. Focus on improved and complete process documents
5. Know how each person prefers to be rewarded (their values) & any learning gaps to overcome

 
 
Products
Products mean a variety of things.
 
The products we sell - I could not reduce my working week if the products we were offering customers were poor quality. I needed to make sure all the products were top quality, as the customer expects (and beyond) and that all my team understood the benefits and features of them all, and why we were selling these.
 
The products we use – this is mainly online technology. Without efficient online tools I would need to be spending more hours in the business. These range from:

• Emails (Gmail)
• Serviced Apartment management tools (Kigo)
• Task management tools (Asana)
• Virtual addresses for our businesses so that we receive scanned mail for our virtual team to manage
• Customer Service (email, Amazon, Kigo etc)
• And the list goes on…

 
A lot have been tried and tested for weeks, months or years and a lot have come from recommendations from our network & team members who were using them.
 
Positivity (& Possibility)
Without a positive attitude this would not be possible. If I thought a 4HWW was not realistic, or not possible, and that a virtual team could not be trusted, or that the businesses needed me to survive and the team would not be able to cope – then all of these limiting beliefs and negativity would have lead me to not push myself to where I need to be and it would have stopped me when I needed to commit to expenses.
 
Positivity and the belief that it will all work (along with all I have put into place) drives you on to succeed in your goals. It also rubs off on your team creating a more positive, trusting and committed team.
 
Persistence (& Perseverance) 
An attitude to keep going no matter what, because you know it’s possible and you will get there is definitely needed.
 
Not everything goes smoothly, our first KPI reporting run was about 50% complete, of that about 10% was incorrect! I did not think “this was not going to work” and take it back and do it myself. Instead I took full responsibility for the result, knew that I needed to further clarify each KPI, where people should be getting the information from, the exact reporting time for them and improved the communication to the team to achieve the desired result next time.
 
There will always be stumbling blocks and things that go wrong, so it is important to stay tuned in to the bigger ‘Why’. Why are you doing all this? Why are you putting the time in to make it this way? And then keep at it until it works, continuously improving processes and the it will happen.
 
Now, there you have it, my 5 P’s of getting to a 4 hour work week.
 
Having recently re-listened to Life Leverage, by Rob Moore, there are 3 ways to use your time. Waste it, Spend it or Invest it. The 5 P’s above are great examples of how I’ve prioritised investing my time to get passive and recurring, long-term benefit.
 
I hope you find this useful, please let me know if it is too general and needs more detail and I will cover it in later blogs.
 
Have a great week and thanks for reading,
 
Steve
 
p.s. As I tried wakeboarding this week for the very first time, here are the 5 P’s in relation to this:
Planning – I got told to bring swimwear and a towel!
People – I would never have tried this if it wasn’t for the mastermind group I’m part of, 2 of whom regularly wakeboard.
Products – We got given a wetsuit and a wakeboard!
Positivity – When I fell off straight away, and then again after being lurched from the wakeboard, I didn’t feel down or disappointed, I knew it was part and parcel of this and enjoyed it.
Persistence – If I gave up the first time I full on face-planted the water (or even the tenth) I would not have had the satisfaction of going from on my knees, to going round the lake and then finally achieving a length wakeboarding properly and standing up. A big thank you to the mastermind group for arranging a great day.