News - Small Business Insider

How to fall back in love with your business

Posted on May 6, 2021 Written by Administrator

Your business determines the person that you are and the life that you live. Yet, for so many of us, the organisation in which we work is our enemy, not our friend.

Every day, I work with business owners who are frustrated, resentful and overworked – I have been that business owner myself. These executives are never the most profitable, the most effective or the most fulfilled in their business.

I can trace a clear pattern in my business journey; the times when I have been at conflict with my business have, without a doubt, been the hardest. The treadmill of productivity and output becomes draining and makes it easy to lose sight of why you started in the first place. During these periods, I have inevitably found myself less effective, lacking in motivation and surrounded by negativity. I have also been making less money!

In 2015, I made a very specific decision. I was going to build and sustain an environment of total motivation in my business. I was adamant that I would develop a relationship with my business that was functional, happy, mutually beneficial and filled with love. I wanted to run an organisation that I always spoke about kindly and provided an environment of support for everyone within. I aspired to create a business that people were drawn to because of its deeply attractive culture. It would allow me to attract the best staff, win the best clients, align with the best partners, and ensure that I worked with purpose and passion every day. My business was going to be the kid that EVERYONE wanted to hang out with.

Thankfully, I had worked in and with over 400 businesses, and I had a lot of insights to support my approach. Elation Experts – the organisation I have today – is my happy place. I have built this relationship through 3-key principles.

When taking control of your professional destiny, you need to focus on these three areas. Doing exactly the right amount of the following will ensure that you fall back in love with your business and you create somewhere that everyone else can love too.

What do you put in?

One of the key drivers of the human condition is our desire to add value. We want, perhaps even need, to know that the impact we have is positive. We want to be recognised. We want to know that our talent is influential. We grow when we contribute, so focus on this every day. If your business is a place where everyone has a chance to shine and contribute in a meaningful way, you create a powerfully positive environment.

Ask yourself and encourage your team to ask questions like:

What areas of the business can I improve on today?
Where do I have a really positive impact, and how do I ensure I use that influence regularly?
How can I harness and encourage the strength of others?

A wonderful business plays to the strengths of every team member. The great communicators lead the meetings, and the fantastic innovators contribute to new ideas. Have you identified the strengths of yourself and your team? Are you making the most of those strengths?

Make sure that you speak with everyone in your team regularly to give them the boost they need. This allows you to have a real impact and witness the tangible results in daily business operations.

Consider each team member, including yourself, and think about their strengths. Now look at whether that person is doing work that plays to that strength. Are they in a position that allows them to contribute that strength to the business? If they aren’t, then look at how you can change this and help to give them work they will feel is making a positive impact.

Look for ways to feedback to team members how their contribution is making a difference to the business. Everyone likes to understand how they fit in and how what they are doing means something in the bigger picture.

Purpose is a great motivator. By helping people see the value they add when they are at work, and understand the benefit they are bringing with their skillset, you will automatically motivate them. As a business owner you must not only ensure that you personally are adding tangible value but also that every person in the team has a chance to shine.

If you can give and create a sense of purpose in your business, you will thrive.

What do you get out?

Growth and development are key measures of human success. For some, this might be hitting a target, or learning a new skill. For someone else, it might be repairing a broken item or creating a new recipe. We measure development in very different ways, but without it, we stagnate. A business in which all members can realise their potential is one that attracts the best.

The questions for your business and your team are:

What personal development will make me more powerful? (Training/Coaching/Mentoring)
How can I stretch my team to ensure that they grow every day?
How can we create a culture of feedback that means everyone’s potential is realised?

A business that has a culture of personal development, layers learning on even the smallest of tasks. It embeds personal development planning, individual training budgets and plenty of extracurricular opportunities.

Every week, ask your team to report on the three biggest barriers to success, and find a way to develop the team in order to overcome those barriers.

Consistent improvement is highly motivating – for you and your team. If something motivates you, it’s difficult not to fall in love with it. So, make sure your business is motivating everyone involved in it.

Where do you get your energy?

Running on empty is the quickest way to failure. Often professionals who are not seeing the results they want continue to push harder: a recipe for burnout. Resting is not seen as a productive way of achieving more. But being full of energy creates an environment of success. If you get a sense of joy and balance from your work, you perform far better.

These are the specific questions you need to focus on to ensure you and your team are efficient and enthused:

What is the best way for you to relax and de-stress?
How can you make sure your team are recharged daily?
What signs will tell you that a team member is overworking and underachieving?
How comfortable do people feel about asking for support?

Keeping your business full of energy guarantees sustainable output from your team. This requires agile working – allowing your team to work on key tasks when their energy is high, and permitting them to step back and recharge when required.

For my team, taking 15 minutes to meditate at lunchtime or running/walking meetings make a huge impact. If deadlines are heavy, we will stop for a full hour and have a team lunch before addressing the task with full commitment.

Resting makes us strong, and I recognised that when I started permitting myself to stop, I became much more effective. The same applies to everyone on the team – they need rest, and they perform better for it.

I love my business. I wake up every day knowing that I am going to spend my day doing things I love, that add value, with a team of people who feel the same. I have a purpose, I feel successful, and I know the future is bright.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen Dunne-Squire is founder of Elation Experts, which is on a mission to empower SME’s by giving them the knowledge and skills to increase revenue, build powerful sales opportunities and create committed, loyal teams that are motivated to drive change. Karen is a sought-after keynote speaker and creator of The Growth Framework, an award-winning methodology, applying ‘Big Business Corporate Insights’ to SMEs in a way that makes practical sense for them.

www.elation-experts.co.uk

www.linkedin.com/in/kdselation

Profits from property without owning a single property

Posted on May 1, 2021 Written by Administrator

There are large potential profits to be made in property. However, to make money in the property world, you need to have a fair amount of it to start with, either in the form of already owned property or access to funds to acquire property.

But this is not actually the case.

You can make a good income without ever buying a single property yourself by employing a rent-to-rent strategy, which does not require a huge financial investment to get started.

Is rent-to-rent legal?

Many people think subletting must mean something dodgy. Yes, there have been shocking stories of people profiteering from overcrowding properties, with rogue landlords not having properly licenced HMOs (house in multiple occupation) and cramming three or four people into a single room. But rent-to-rent is a very different proposition.

Rather than taking advantage of people, rent-to-rent aims to add value to properties, turning them from scruffy, poorly maintained properties into warm, comfortable homes ─ something the property owner may not have the time, money or energy to achieve.

The model has actually been around for a long time when it comes to commercial property. Commercial leases are long-term full repairing and insuring leases, where the tenant takes on all the costs of repairing and insuring the property. Now the model has been adapted for residential landlords.

So, rent-to-rent is perfectly legal when it is done with the full knowledge and consent of the owner and when the correct contracts are in place.

Here is how rent-to-rent works:

You sign an agreement to rent a property, usually for a term of three-to-five years.
You pay the owner or letting agent a guaranteed rent and usually you take on paying the bills, just like a normal tenant.
You improve the quality of the rental property before renting it out to tenants for a higher rent than you are paying the owner.
The difference between the rent you receive from tenants and the rent you pay the owner or letting agent after the property running costs is the profit that you make for your business.

While the basis of rent-to-rent is pretty straightforward, the trick is finding properties that you can add value to. It is by adding value that you make income from managed rent-to-rent properties.

Why would a landlord give a property to you?

HMO landlords and letting agents have problems that you can solve. Landlords and letting agents want the rent to paid on time and for the property to be looked after. And these are things you can offer in a more specialised and focused way than a high street letting agent.

When you learn how to describe your solution effectively, you become an irresistible option to your perfect customers. They know you can be relied on to keep the property in good condition, provide a good service to your tenants, and that they will receive their rental income on time every month.

How much time and effort does it take to be a rent-to-rent landlord?

In the beginning, it is going to take you a few hours a week as you will be moving furniture around and completing improvements within the properties you manage. Once you get set up, it will probably take you a few hours a month to keep the property looking nice and the tenants happy.

If you have, say, five rent-to-rent properties in your portfolio, you will spend around fifteen to twenty hours a month on maintenance. Even with an average profit of £500 per month, per property, after bills and running costs, you will have got a profit of £2,500 per month. That is £30,000 a year for working a lot less than 40 hours a week while building your profile in the property world.

Is rent-to-rent right for you?

Of course, rent-to-rent comes with risks. You need to ensure that you understand it fully and that your business is legal and compliant. But if you would like to get started in property without actually buying property, rent-to-rent is worth looking into; making money from something you do not own may be the perfect choice for you, and it does not require a huge up-front financial investment.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephanie Taylor is co-founder of HMO Heaven and Rent 2 Rent Success. Stephanie launched Rent 2 Rent Success to help professionals who want to get involved in property, but feel stuck as they’re worried they don’t have enough time, money or knowledge to get started.

Through her inspirational Rent 2 Rent Success YouTube channel, podcast and website, Stephanie debunks the myth that you need large sums of money to get started in property.

Her book ‘Rent 2 Rent Success, our ethical 6-step system to get you started in property without buying it’ is now available.

https://rent2rentsuccess.com

https://www.facebook.com/rent2rentsuccess

https://www.instagram.com/stephanietproperty

https://www.linkedin.com/in/missstephanietaylor

https://www.youtube.com/rent2rentsuccess

https://rent2rentsuccess.com/podcast

Find out more

Learn about Rent to Rent from the government’s property ombudsman The Property Redress Scheme
Find out how to do rent to rent ethically with the Free Rent 2 Rent Success Guide and Masterclass

Time to get off the buy-to-let bus

Posted on May 1, 2021 Written by Administrator

There was a time when being a landlord was a sure-fire way to make a good return on your money. Not only did you get reliable equity growth over the long term, you also had the benefit of rental income from your tenants while you waited for the value of your bricks and mortar to increase.

In recent years, the wheels have started to fall off the rent-to-buy bus. The first screech indicating trouble came from George Osborne back in 2016. He saw landlords as a soft target for beefing up the treasury’s coffers, and over the next four years, landlords’ buy-to-let mortgage interest and fees ceased to be tax-deductible. This made a significant number of portfolios unprofitable and forced thousands of landlords to leave the market altogether.

As if this wasn’t enough, the government also introduced a 3% additional stamp duty penalty for all second home purchases, including landlords purchasing buy to let properties. This significantly increased the cost of entry into property investment and dissuaded many people from entering the fray.

But not all of the bad news has come from the taxman. The rental sector has seen a significant increase in the amount of regulation directed at landlords. Rogue landlords—those failing to provide decent and safe accommodation for their tenants—have been rightly criticized in the media. Consequently, the regulatory requirement now imposed on landlords has stepped up significantly, and this has added substantially to the cost of maintaining a rental portfolio.

So, where does this leave existing and prospective landlords today? Is property investment still a good long-term strategy, or has the taxation and regulatory reforms over the past five years made the prospect of property investment unviable for the investor looking to generate long-term capital growth and income?

Interestingly, the government has recently gone out of its way to create some significant property-related opportunities. These opportunities lie not in acquiring buy-to-let properties but in building the new homes that will help the government reach its 300,000-a-year target. They have done this by creating a raft of permitted development rights that allow non-residential buildings to be converted into residential homes without the need for planning permission. The answer, says the government, is to convert the ever-increasing number of brownfield sites that are well-suited to redevelopment as housing instead of building on our highly prized green belt.

But surely the major homebuilders have got this market sewn up? As it turns out, they haven’t. The significant majority of brownfield opportunities sit way below the scale necessary to interest the likes of Messrs Barrett, Persimmon, and Taylor Wimpey. The government has recognised this and is instead targeting small-scale developers, many of whom will be undertaking development projects for the first time.

This repository of buildings that are ripe for residential conversion has been increasing of late – look at the number of redundant stores in the wake of the recent collapse of Arcadia, Debenhams, et al. As our shopping habits have changed, so many High Streets have become ghettos. As these primary brands depart our town centres, the secondary retail around them is also affected. There is likely more to follow; when the furlough scheme ends, we will see a significant number of businesses collapse, and their properties, whether retail, commercial or industrial, will become vacant. One struggles to envisage there will be a sea of buyers waiting to snap them up.

So what’s the government’s plan? Well, they would like to convert many of the empty properties in our town centres into residential homes. And with people living once more in the centre of our towns, this will fuel demand for the ancillary services and facilities that the local population will require. This will include entertainment, dining venues, and boutique-style shops, where town centres once more become a destination for shopping and entertainment.

Where does this leave the humble landlord? Surely property development is more complex than snapping up a couple of buy-to-lets? Interestingly, the strategies are not as diverse as you might think. Some landlords undertake a renovation or a conversion of their buy-to-let properties before they rent them out, and many small-scale development projects are not much more complex than that. It is a highly leveraged business. The small-scale property developer has an army of professionals on their team, including a project manager, all of whom have a significant amount of experience in development. The developer’s key actions are identifying the opportunity, appointing the team, and ensuring the finance is obtained.

Ah yes, the finance. Don’t property developers need to have a small fortune in the bank to develop their projects? The answer in most cases is ‘no’. Whereas landlords typically fund their buy-to-let deposits personally, developers often secure a significant part of their deposits from private investors. The remainder of the asset capital and the development funding is obtained from a single commercial lender.

What are the skills that this new small-scale developer might need? Interestingly, very similar skills to those of a landlord, senior manager, or business owner. There has to be an overarching understanding of what’s involved in development, but most of the heavy lifting and technical issues are delegated to the professional team.

So, what are the advantages of development over buy-to-let investments? Well, one major difference is the speed with which capital is created. You can expect a small-scale development project that would typically return a six-figure profit to be completed within 12 to 24 months. For a buy to let investment, the pay-back period is usually a lot longer.

Arthur and Martha are a case in point. Both have £50k to invest in property, and each quite likes the idea of buy-to-lets. Arthur is a traditional sort, and he uses his £50k as a deposit on a £200k three-bed semi and then rents it out to a nice family. He clears around £300 per month in profit, but it will be several years before his equity growth enables him to remortgage and raise a deposit for buy-to-let number two.

Martha, on the other hand, uses her £50k as the deposit on a small development project, a retail building that can be converted into flats using permitted development rights. She obtains the remainder of the financing she needs through a commercial lender, and she expects to receive her profit of £150k within 18-24 months. She can also make up any deposit shortfall by tapping into private investment.

And while Arthur is still waiting for equity growth (and occasionally dealing with tenant issues and broken boilers), Martha has made enough profit in 18 months to buy three of Arthur’s buy-to-let houses AND has £50k left over to start her second development project.

Project things forward and, given that it’s possible to run multiple development projects at once, you can see how Martha’s portfolio growth could be stratospheric compared to Arthur’s. Or she could simply opt for a six-figure income and spend the money on whatever she wants.

Not surprisingly, this hybrid landlord-developer role is starting to become popular, as existing landlords discover that small-scale development is well within their capabilities. Plus, many are currently more than a little frustrated with their lot as a landlord. Now could be the perfect time to try something different.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ritchie Clapson CEng MIStructE is co-founder of propertyCEO, a nationwide property development and training company that helps people create a successful property development business in their spare time. It makes use of students’ existing life skills while teaching them the property, business, and mindset knowledge they need to undertake small scale developments successfully, with the emphasis on utilising existing permitted development rights to minimize risk and maximize returns.

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https://www.instagram.com/propertyceotraining/

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