Simon Zutshi, CEO of Property Investors Network (PIN), emphasises the significance of community, connection, and support in addition to education. He introduces the concept of "who not how," advocating for leveraging others' skills rather than doing everything alone. The interview delves into the sale of PIN to entrepreneur Roger Hamilton, with Simon staying on post-sale to aid in business growth. Simon also discusses founding CrowdProperty, a property crowdfunding platform, and offers advice on building a property portfolio for long-term financial security. He stresses the importance of mentors and relationships in overcoming challenges and outlines his plan to step back from daily operations by 2027.
Welcome to the second part of Kevin Whelan's interview with Simon Zutshi, CEO of Property Investors Network (PIN). In this part, Simon discusses why education alone is not enough and the importance of community, connection and support. He introduces his concept of "who not how," focusing on leveraging others' skills and talents rather than trying to do everything yourself.
Kevin asks Simon to explain the sale of Property Investors Network to entrepreneur Roger Hamilton. Simon details how the online business valuation increased during COVID lockdowns, leading Roger to make an offer. Simon agreed to stay on to help grow the business for a few years after the sale.
Their discussion then moves to Simon's other business ventures. He founded CrowdProperty, a property crowdfunding platform, in 2013 to provide smaller investors opportunities to fund larger development projects. To date it has funded over £850 million in projects.
Simon also shares advice on gradually building a property portfolio as a pension replacement over the long run. He emphasises finding mentors and building relationships to solve "how" problems through a network of talented "whos." Finally, Simon outlines his plan to step back from day-to-day operations of his businesses by 2027 when he turns 55.
Resources In This Episode:
>> Property Investors Network [Website]
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>> Become a member of WealthBuilders
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Speaker 1 0:03
The purpose of wealth talk is to educate, inform, and hopefully entertain you on the subject of building your wealth. Wealth builders recommends you should always take independent financial tax or legal advice before making any decisions around your finances.
Christian Rodwell 0:21
Welcome to Episode 233 of wealth talk, and it's part two this week of Mr. Kevin Whelan's interview his head to head with Mr. Simon zushi, the CEO of the property investors network. And hopefully you managed to catch last week's episode where we played part one, and we've had some great feedback. And so do let us know if you enjoyed that you can always get in touch with wealth builders very easily either through the socials or dropping us an email Hello at wealth builders.co.uk. So this week, we are playing part two of the head to head interview, and Simon talks about why he believes that education is not enough on its own and the power of community connection and support. But also he dives into the concept of who not how. So stay tuned to find out more about that. And then Kevin digs bit deeper into the sale of the property investor network. So Simon zushi actually sold his company. And he talks about this in depth, the process that was involved in that sale to entrepreneur, Roger Hamilton. And finally, they dive into different areas of investment, such as crowdfunding, and p2p lending. So hope you enjoyed today's episode. And I hope you're enjoying the first in this head to head series. And we'll be bringing you a heads heads with more CEOs every month moving forward. So here we go. Part two of Mr. Kevin Whalen And Simon zushi. Head to head.
Speaker 2 1:54
So when the trend we're going to be dropped in another business, then I think it's important to get the distinction between one of the things we say in in wealth builders, for sure. Is focus your way to security. Yeah, meaning having enough money to be able to give up the trading time for money. Yes. And then diversify your way. Yep. To independence and then legacy. And you're just kind of replacing or repeating some of those things that we say, yeah. But your diversification, let's just go back a step then and say, Well, how did you move from a place of you had the idea you did the work on the property, you created the first networking meeting, you've now got 50 meetings across the country. Typically, what two 3000 people coming into a meeting,
Speaker 3 2:37
not quite as it used to be private, more prior to COVID is probably about 1800 people a
Speaker 2 2:43
month coming through. And so even if there's nearly a couple of 1000 people, you're getting exposure, and you're not there speaking it every night,
Speaker 3 2:49
right? So no, definitely we have we have a great network of hosts, people who've done our training have done very well, who stopped to say, Hey, I'd like to run a local meeting, or they've taken over for a meeting who's kind of moved on. And so a lot of people who are working, who don't quite understand this, say, why would you share all this knowledge? Why would you teach other people? Well, it's couple of reasons. First of all, me teaching someone else how to invest in property has no impact on me, if there's so much property available, it's not like I'm kind of going to be denying myself anything. So there's no problem there. Secondly, the lose scenario is that it's a win, it's a win win, it's a win win, because I get paid to teach. I paid very well, because we have great success for our students. So that obviously brings a good price tag. And I'm doing what I want to do. And it's interesting when someone when I can tell when someone's still working for someone else, because they don't understand that freedom. And that choice that you can do whatever you want to do, if you've got your base covered, you really do have that freedom. And somebody will do want to sit on a beach or travel around the world or do nothing. First off, that's great. That's just not me. I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 3:56
Well, in some respects, the way you describe your property journey at the beginning, you don't have to be the super creative, the super entrepreneur, where you've got all this in a passion that I can see from you as getting out. Even if someone wants to build property methodically, they can gradually build that up as a massive transition does it
Speaker 3 4:15
and I'm also I'm not saying you should give up your job far from it, actually, when the best ways to make money is have a really well paid job. And mortgages as well. And it helps you get mortgages. Exactly. And if you love what you do great, but the challenge is what if you can't do that job? Or if something happens to you, or hammers that employer or that industry, then what do you do? So by very slowly and methodically building an alternative pension, alternative income stream, you've just been really smart. And property is probably one of the best ways to do that. Because if you did a business, theoretically, I mean, I was I think when you start a business, you have to be involved. So you have to be the catalyst. So there's time and effort there. But eventually, you can get other period and again, a lot of people think they have to do so they have to Bucha EPIK kind of do it on the cheap, well, actually, no, you can go and raise money, which is what I did for our property. So I bought the team in, we've raised several times. So that again, you don't have to be training is it's really come all comes back to understanding the value of your time, your time is your most precious resource. You can go and make more money, you can earn more money, you can't get your time back. And I'm not perfect for any stretch mode. But I'm I'm constantly trying to focus on what's a good use of my time, or what's not a good use of my time.
Unknown Speaker 5:27
And what are you doing now then, once you focus today,
Speaker 3 5:30
while I'm here, I'm here because we have a relationship. And there's an opportunity to maybe talk to other people and teach them about why they should be getting a property. So I'm here investing in my relationship. I'm here investing in your customers. What's
Speaker 2 5:44
the big picture for you? What are you seeing is the the future for you in terms of what you're focusing on other than to prop outside? Because now you're as a CEO, you're the mouthpiece. You're the visionary. For the business, you're doing the training, you're not turning up at the meetings? It's interesting, I
Speaker 3 6:01
still do quite a bit of the train, because I like to do okay, yeah. So you can choose to or not, yeah, we have other people doing it as well. But I do a lot, because I love it, you know, but you don't have to have other people who can do it for me, I genuinely don't do the network meetings, I have a great team who's running that business for me now. I like to feel as if I'm making a difference. I like to feel like I'm having an impact and training some of the ways I do that. I am rewriting very soon, or we have the next edition of my book coming out. I've got my new book coming out all about property magic. Yeah. And I've got lease options, magic coming out very, very soon as well. And I think that's a really good way to get to lots of people and change their thinking. And because of all the conditioning people have. You need to keep on chipping away at people's beliefs. And keep on giving them bits, snippets of information, hoping at one point that Oh, hang on a minute, that kind of makes sense. Let me look into that a bit more. So I've got a lot of information. So I podcasts, like you a lot of videos out as well. And I think if you put great content out a lot of stuff out there for free. People can really check you out before they decide to maybe come and do something further with you and invest in themselves and do some training, I think it's really important to do check people out, do your due diligence. And I think what a lot of great content out there is a good way of giving out and a lot of people watch my videos and have learned and done things from those without having to do training. But I also know when people come and invest in themselves, they become more investable. And also it speeds up and accelerates the point to which they can retire and replace their income. Yes, because
Speaker 2 7:33
in the traditional way of building a an income security people would work for 40 years. Yep. And now you and I took a lot longer than perhaps we could teach now. I think people can do it in 14 months. Yeah, I would definitely never mind for years. So yeah, why not speed that up? If your hand so I get that. But I do get your point about getting more information out with integrity and authenticity. Because an object at rest stays at rest. We said that earlier on. But sometimes it's just the angle of the approach. Yeah, they like you did when you said, Oh, when I went to Ross Whitney, they framed it in a slightly different way that something dropped. Yeah. And that's all you really need to do that. So
Speaker 3 8:12
human nature, sometimes we need to hear things several times before it resonates with us. Yeah. Or we just weren't listening first time around. Because other thing, if you read a book or watch a movie a second time around, you'll notice things you didn't the first time the exact same book, Why? Because we're a you're in a different place, because you've been through it once. But also, you can't take everything in first time around and and we have this thing called the reticular activating zone. And ahead makes us focus in on certain things. And depending on what we're thinking about what our goals are we focusing on different things. And that's why it's so important, I believe, to keep working on your mindset. Because as human nature is quite negative, we look for dangers. And so we look for negative things to keep ourselves safe. There's so much false stuff that isn't really a risk, but it's perceived fear and danger, we need to cut through all of that, and focus on the positive things. Because otherwise we think about negatives think neg things gonna happen to think about positive things and manifests that positive things are gonna happen to
Speaker 2 9:07
you. Okay. So I'm getting that you're, what the principle is then, for people to choose part of their wealth building and property. And it's a easy one to replicate. It's an easy one to do part time. Yes, and all of those things, but come on Simon, where they are now taken over? Why do they need to pay for education? So
Speaker 3 9:28
most information out there is free. And sometimes people are watching us pay for education. And I'd say well, I don't think the 23,000 people who are my subscribers on YouTube are all multimillionaires yet. But I've given them something why not? What what's stopping them do it? And the thing is, first of all, knowledge alone is not enough. And so there's almost too much knowledge out there that doesn't overwhelm what I think when you pay to go on a course, what you're paying for is not just the two or three days you're there you're paying for the 20 or 30 years of knowledge of the person giving the training. And they're condensing it distilling it down to a step by step process that you can follow. So you don't have to work it out yourself. Whatever I want to learn. So I'm learning about AI myself, I don't want to go and try and watch YouTube video, I've paid to learn from someone who's really good. And I'm speeding up my learning curve, anything I want to learn about, I'll find someone anywhere in the world, who I think knows what they're doing. I've got great results. And more importantly, they taught other people to do what they do, because there's a big difference between someone knowing something, and some will be able to transfer that knowledge in a good way to someone else is applicable. Yeah.
Speaker 2 10:37
And it's so obvious now, when people are successful at that, because of things like Trustpilot, you can see whether the Yep, successes as well. And look, I agree wholeheartedly. With your view, I share that view that education is the precursor to all forms of wealth building, but it's only one step in that process. And we've mentioned some of the other things like good coaching young communities, definitely connections to other people, I think you and I subscribe to a point of view, which is the who not our principal, definitely. You explain that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 11:07
So a good friend of mine who I met through networking, actually Dr. Benjamin Hardy, he was in a group called Joe Polish 25k Club, which is a group I used to fly to America, I stopped doing COVID Because they did virtual things, but fly to America three times a year, just to sit in a room of really smart people. And they talk about business and all sorts of things really. And this one event I went in and they tell you where to sit, and I sat down next, this guy and very young guy was less than 30. At the time, just got on really well talk to him. Turns out he was doing his PhD in psychology and writing a book. And he got up and did a little talk at this particular presentation I was at, and it blew me away. It was amazing. He knows so much about this topic. And I love mindset. So I invited him to come over to the UK, we flew him over to come and speak at property Magic Live, which was my big annual events. And it was his first ever paid speaking gig. I've got that little claim to fame. And now he's got five or six international bestsellers. And one of his books is who not how so written in conjunction with Dan Sullivan, who's the founder of Strategic Coach, there's a good SEO, another good SEO definitely, the the concept is, well, a lot of people think they need to do everything themselves. Whereas actually, there are some things you're really good at some things you're not so good at. So why not focus on things you're really good at and get other people to help you with other interview, find people who've got a passion, and they buy into what you're doing as well, you can get a much better result. So for example, I know you have Christian, who's helps you with all these podcasts, he loves, This is great at this, you know, and and so he does a lot of the work behind the scenes for you. So you can focus on being the host and the presenter, right, without worrying about all the other stuff. And because we can only do a certain we only have a certain amount of bandwidth to actually get things done. Yeah. So by finding other people, other team members, so one thing about how do we do that is who could we get it? So it's a great book, who will not help? I bet Doxygen harder and Dan. So I think it's
Speaker 2 13:07
a great book. And I've read it too. And the way we articulate that is whenever you're encountering a problem, on your way to building wealth. That's a how problem. Yes, reach out to a who. And what we're trying to do is people like you were who's a Christian is a brilliant who works with us and wealth builders, but just try and build a big black book. Yes, of outstanding people. Let's actually take a sidestep here, because I'm gonna just talk about the business a little more, because some of the principles we talked about. Definitely well pillars, I want to see if you resonate with them. When we're looking at good businesses. We're saying number one, be outstanding in your niche. Yep, definitely. Number two, the business got to work without you. agree with that one? Yeah, definitely at number three, wherever possible, create recurring income. Yeah, I want to challenge you a little on this. Because I've seen your business model understand what it does. Yep. You give lots of brilliant free content. You encourage people to come in and sample some of those things to make sure they resonate. And yes, yeah. And then they pay a bit more to do more, and then they can invest and go deep and deep in deep and deep, including your 12 month mastermind programme. Yeah. Where's the recurring income Simon?
Speaker 3 14:22
So it's a really good point. Actually, it's a one flaw in my business model, I'll be perfectly honest about that. Is and I realised when we did the very first mastermind, because I write and by the way, mastermind of last 17 years has evolved, what we teach is very different what we first taught, because the markets moved on different strategies and things. But when I did it, I thought, Well, I'm gonna teach people everything they need in a year, and we're going to support them and coach them, etc. So they won't need anything after that. So we didn't we didn't to some piece of people said at the end of the day, what do you do now? So there isn't a thing. You've got it all you don't need. You don't need me. And we still had pain they could go to pin so Have a community but hadn't really realised. At that time even I'd done mastermind, how important that higher level community was right. So now we have our mastermind our graduate programmes. So we look after people ongoing and some people dip into that when they need it. Some people don't need it, because they've got everything needs from the year programme. And also we are creating, so we have a little bit of a community and on a residual thing with pain, people can join pain as a membership thing. But we are creating a new membership programme, that will have all sorts of resources in there. That's a continuity plan for the business. And when you sell a business, and remember, this is not my business anymore, when you sell a business, if you have a recurring income in the business, you have a much better multiplier on that.
Speaker 2 15:43
Exactly. According to John Warrillow, who wrote a great book called Built to Sell. Yeah, probably. And when I interviewed him, he said the number one factor in the valuation of any businesses the predictability of the recurring income, definitely, yeah. And it's good that you've been humble enough to
Unknown Speaker 16:01
get everything right, you know.
Speaker 2 16:02
But how did that affect the valuation of your business? You mentioned a couple of times, and maybe you could explain, it's not your business anymore. So you've gone through a process walk me through the process? Yeah.
Speaker 3 16:12
So in 2020, when the world was falling apart, and everyone was at home, and they were had a lot of time on their hands, and sometimes they had lots of money on their hands, and they couldn't go out and spend it. Anyone who had an online business actually did very, very well. And we have a lot of home study programmes. We do lots of webinars and things. And so our business actually shot up what we had 2020 and 2021, were actually our biggest years, our most profitable years, because we didn't have the cost of running hotel events, because we couldn't, and hotels, people sometimes go to an event and they look at how much you make from the ticket money. I think it makes us both don't realise how expensive it is to hire hotels to sound people, the crew, the hotel rooms, you have to have a team etc. So they're very expensive, two pounds a day couldn't about? Yeah, it's a lot, it can be a lot. And and and you know, sometimes we were looking at a, we're doing an event later in the year, and we're looking at paying a de delegate cost plus 15,000 pounds per day for the room, you know, and other costs. So it is a really expensive thing to do. We didn't have any of those costs. So actually, it was a really profitable year. And you're familiar with, obviously, Roger Hamilton, who's the creator of wealth dynamics, which has an amazing testimony, you talked to people about that, which helps you understand what's your flow? And what's your natural talents. I had been a client of Roger for many years, he was one of my mentors. And so he knew my business very well. And for a couple of years, he'd been talking about, you know, he was thinking about, do we want to sell the business? And I said, No, I don't really want to sell etc. And then in 2020, when all of the online businesses, the valuation shot up massively, because what was happening, he came to me said, Simon, I know we talked a few times about this fall, but I would like to buy your business. I said, Well, I don't if it's for sale, really. And he explained what he was doing, I was doing a big roll up on the New York Stock Exchange to an IPO initial purchase offering where you float the company, and you need certain turnovers. So he wanted to buy my business and a few others to have enough of a turnover to be able to justify to do that. So I was made a really good offer. And he said, Look, I want you to stay around for a few years to kind of guide and grow the business. And I was happy to do that, because I like what I do. And so I got some some cash, I got some shares. And yeah, that was how that all came about, really. And there was a long due diligence process, they looked at everything we do, and all our books and our accounts. In fact, we've been running for so long. And we have, although we don't didn't have a recurring model, really at that time, we had a lot of track record. You know, I think track record is really important a business is people credibility, and they need to make sure that's replicable. And you have systems to keep that new business coming through. And we just got a very good evaluations, I got a good offer, I couldn't really
Speaker 2 18:56
refuse I guess, okay, and how's it turned out? Well,
Speaker 3 18:59
it's never quite what you expect, you know, when you don't own it anymore. A lot decisions that are not mine. And in a way, that's good. I have a manager director who runs a business now, and some of the things are not quite the way I do it, but it's not my choice anymore. And actually allows me to focus on what I love to do, which is the content. So there are some really good things. SharePoint hasn't performed as well as it should do for various reasons. So you know, that's, that's not great. But you know, I'm kind of I'm happy where I am at the moment, I'm gonna be staying on probably a little bit longer than I expected. Because we're doing really well and I'm putting things in place for the day I don't have to be there because at the moment, it's not a business that runs completely without me, you know, it's not in that's it's not a true business. You get the definition earlier, some of the doesn't require you. Well, it does require me but that's because I make it require me because I like to be part of somebody getting your own way down absolutely does a great saying and you need to get out of your own way. If you really want to grow and eventually sell a business but Michael Gerber from the E Myth talks about either you're buying a business you're selling it, which means either you prepare it, so you could potentially sell it. If not, you're buying it because you have to be in it, you're buying it every day, you have to be there running it. And so a big fan of that, and putting systems and processes in place. So you don't have to be there if you don't want to be there. And
Speaker 2 20:16
not every business that is ever sold his soul. Because there's a recurring income many businesses don't have absolutely on recurring income model, but they've got other things in place. Yeah, so
Speaker 3 20:26
having having a good loyal customer base. Imagine, you know, in our community, so people who might read the book, or come into our 3d accelerator course, quite the one mastermind. We also people who go to pin meetings for years and years and years, not right, there's suddenly they decide, okay, I'm just gonna go and do mastermind now. So the fact we've got that base and such a good reputation that has a lot of value in itself.
Speaker 2 20:48
Yeah. But you've diversified business, too. You mentioned a business earlier on called Crowd property. Yes, grab that.
Speaker 3 20:54
Yeah. So I think it's important when I'm teaching other people, I still need to be investing myself and I am investing because you've got to keep up to date, you know, I, I could have stopped back in 2003. When I replace my income. Also, I have a lot higher income requirement now. But I'm married now. Exactly. It's a lot more now. But I think it's good to keep up to date. And so back in about 2010, I started doing some bigger developments where I wouldn't do just single houses, I was taking care homes and creating them into blocks of 2045 units, whatever it might be. And that takes a lot of money. And actually development, finance can be very tricky to get it's very complicated. And development, finance, people generally don't understand property, their finance people, not property people. So it's kind of frustrating. So I was using other people's money is what I teach my students, I do what I teach my students. So there are people out there who've got cash, and more cash. So they need themselves and might be in their business might be their pension might be in their bank account, whatever might have inherited it. And I was giving people a great return on a boring, simply chunks of 50k multiples of that. And doing my two I was sometimes entirely cash. And what I was doing something that you talk about, I was offering people, many different returns on investment. So getting return to the money, but also they get to return investment to their knowledge because they can look over my shoulder and learn what I was doing. That's we teach our students to do this. Yep. So I've been doing that for well over a decade. And then in 2013, I went to the vet, actually, of Roger Hamilton event, it was a business. And so I'm always going and educating myself in that particular one, I was actually on a panel being interviewed by Roger and a couple other people about our businesses, and I was talking about pain. And it was someone on a panel called Simon Dixon, who had a business called bank to the future, I remember him. And it was a business that help new businesses raise money for funding. So they were doing EIS schemes, entrepreneur investment schemes, enterprise investment scheme where you could raise money for a business and people invest, they get some tax credits and things. That's a good scheme. And he was saying how they were raising money for businesses. And he was talking about crowdfunding and peer to peer lending. And I had heard a bit about it, but it's very early days back then I didn't really understand it. And I thought, Wow, I wonder if instead of working with, you know, 10 to 20 people on a development project, we'll put it in chunks to 50k. Maybe there are people on my database, who don't have 50k, to invest, but they'd love to get a better return on money than are getting in the bank. And also the lots of my students who are doing mastermind who are using their own money, they're running out of their own cash and had great developments I thought wouldn't be good if we could create a platform, that's FCA regulated, which has to be takes care of all the due diligence all the legals or the admin and people we find great property projects and put them on the platform where money can come and they can pledge against different projects, or even use their pensions, etc. And they get a great return. And we take a first charge security on that property. So the best kind of security account on behalf all the lenders are just an idea are back in 2013. And I thought, yeah, I've got the community to support that. But the people with the deals, or people in pinner might have money. So because of that business, I was able to launch this new business back in 2013. And we we did a raise, we went on to bank to the future where it's 150,000 pounds on a on a is a CD is actually so those people who put money in pretty well. And that's how we got the business off the ground. And I knew some people projects and we encourage people to put money in and and to date. I'm just a little short latest figures, but we funded I think it's over 850 million pounds gross development value of projects. So it's not the loads of about the value of the projects. We funded over a entrepreneurs getting close to a billion pounds worth of projects in a 10 year period. Which is pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 24:43
It is and it's got an incredible track record of repaying as well. It has Yeah,
Speaker 3 24:46
yeah. And you know, property things go wrong. Sometimes in particular in COVID. There were lots of projects delayed and we've got some projects that are delayed, but all the lenders get penalty interest and out of about 400 projects. I think we've done now I think we've had one or two, where there's been a little bit of capital loss, which still is pretty low percentage, really. But we encourage people to diversify. So if you're diversified over a number of investments, you're still gonna get a very, very good return. So yeah, it's pretty good. And we've got, we've got private individuals, so put money in, we've got family offices where people are pension in. And also we have several institutions, our biggest has put 100 million in. So there are lots of diverse streams of funding within that in case any of them ever dry up, I will always be able to fund good, profitable projects. And that has nothing to do with the sale of the business. Note that so that's completely separate standalone business standalone business, obviously, we were able to launch that through my other so they're connected businesses in that, you know, a lot of our our students became borrowers for crowd pocket. And a lot of our pain, people became lenders, but it's now much bigger than pain. It's totally separate company, separate shareholding. And I'm still the majority shareholder. But I have people running the business for me. So I have very little to do with it, which is great. How do you see the exit on the exit? We are building to sell that eventually? And I think probably, you know, who knows, but I think a bank will probably come along, if you imagine we've got a big lending book, where we're paying a high rate of interest to all lenders, a bank has kind of a much lower cost of borrowing could come in, and potentially add 10s of millions of profits instantly to their to their baseline. So that's got to be a pretty good multiplier on that. One. It
Speaker 2 26:34
sounds like an interesting opportunity. Because if you're paying people who might, one would perhaps call them angel investors or something similar, but they need a higher return on their investment. Because there's no retail throughput. Yep, have huge volumes of money. But banks have got that. And therefore the arbitrage or the difference in value. Yes. is easier for them, isn't it so I can easily see how that could be a banking exit at
Speaker 3 27:01
some point. Absolutely. And a fully systemized business or is prop tech so or even in a way, not even in the way. And I learned that from Roger about getting out of the way. You know, so I was in the early stages got a set out, we got we got the things like made it possible pinches through it. So I did a lot of the initial stuff with the team wasn't me on my own. We invested we put some people in to get there quicker. And we really we weren't the only people doing it. There are a couple people at the same time. But those are fallen by the wayside. Now, you know, no one has been as successful as we have. And that's credit to the team who were running the business.
Speaker 2 27:32
And it's often the way though, isn't it? When pioneering businesses create something new? You get look alikes, and copycats. Yep. But for some reason, somebody survives and then thrives because you'll just fall by the wayside. Sometimes it's
Speaker 3 27:46
good not to be the pioneer. Pioneer, makes some mistakes. And there's that saying about if you're the frontier frontier, you end up getting errors, and you're back. So so there's there's an advantage of that. But then again, there's something to be the first. You know, we were the first property network. We're the kind of we weren't, we were probably the first remaining crowdfunding site. I've done quite a lot of innovation within the property industry over the years.
Speaker 2 28:09
But that probably comes from you, uniquely you because you've got that creative wealth dynamic, so to speak. Yes. That ability to be thinking big picture all the time and that Yep, I'm sure your brain never switches off, right? No, he
Speaker 3 28:23
does it very hard for me to relax and unwind Much to my wife's upset.
Unknown Speaker 28:27
So how is the work life balance?
Speaker 3 28:29
Not as good as I love what I do? I'm probably a workaholic. Kevin, and I are workaholics. We have that excuse of Well, I love what I do. It's getting better. We have lots of nice holidays. And I have two puppies now that keep us busy as well. They're like our kids really? Yeah. So yes, it's getting better. And I have actually committed to my wife. And I've said this to a couple of people now. April 2027. Okay, I don't think I'm going to be doing my property business anymore. It will be running, we'll be racing it we're still going. But I don't think I'll be that involved by then. Because we totally set up and other people running it for me. But I'll be doing some sort of other training, I'm
Unknown Speaker 29:08
sure. Because I love doing training, what's the significance of the date?
Speaker 3 29:11
I'll be 55 at that age. So we'll be 55 in six months or so well, then my birthday is August. And I just thought you know what I feel as you get older, I don't quite have the same energy I used to have and so it's important to make sure you don't wear yourself out want to make sure I live a very, very long time. Not sure I get to 100 But who knows.
Speaker 2 29:30
And I could never Dan Sullivan is preparing himself to live to 140 see, yeah, someone I think
Speaker 3 29:35
127 was the because he he has this runner, he he might be 146 but I think I decided 127 There's this thing called the life extender. The heat exercise he does and um yeah, so and I like to be over 100 I'd like to get that that telegram from the Mauna Kea through the Mauna Kea by that point who knows where
Speaker 2 29:50
that will be no Saligram to get Yeah, talking about telegrams are often short and sweet. Let's bring this to a conclusion. I'm sure people will appreciate we kind of rambled through a whole range of different things, including property and business and people not taking action and some lessons that are embedded in there. I've encouraged people to listen to this more than once, see if they can get a distinction. But summarise their biggest mistakes you've made that people could definitely come. If I could go back, what would be the big mistakes? You'll say? No, I wouldn't do that. Again. Keeping
Speaker 3 30:23
it short, sweet. We haven't got enough time still got all my mistakes, Kevin, but a couple, but I'll give you a few. So a property mistake was and I've kind of touched this, but I want to reinforce because it's so important. When I was investing, at first, it was very much a hobby. It was a part time activity. And I did not realise how significant property investment because I didn't have anyone like me, teaching me. So so I try and instil in my clients. Get on with this, just put put some time and it does take some short term sacrifice. But for some time and interest, get your income set up within a couple of years, then you got the rest of life to do whatever you want. So that's a practical lesson and cycling anything else? Yeah. Also, in my business, I've been a bit too trusting I think. I think we kind of like to think people like us. And so I think it's important to, you know, make sure you do your due diligence and research on people and check people out properly. Couple of mistakes I've made, you know, we have agreements, and, you know, sometimes you need to put things, always you need to put things in writing. Yeah, it's a document thing. That's a big mistake. I see when we tell our people, you know, even if you've got a partnership with your, with your relationship partner, put it in writing what you're doing, because sometimes relationships don't last, you know. So that's one lesson. And then we touched on it again, but it's a really important lesson. You need to value your time. If you really want to be successful, whatever you're doing, whether you're in business, whether we're in property, value, your times most important assets that don't try and do everything yourself, think about who the who's who could help you, and try and delegate things out. So you're focusing on the things that you're really good at, and when you add the most value, and get every people to do everything else for you. Cool.
Speaker 2 32:08
And as I said at the very beginning, this is the very first in a series of CEO to CEO head to head conversations. If you were having a CEO conversation with someone else across the table, who would you want that to be with? While someone
Speaker 3 32:25
who I admire definitely, from a young age has been Richard Branson, who doesn't. And I was fortunate enough to go on a business trip to Necker Island with a group of people and meet Richard and, and he is attributed as anyone could pay to go to Necker Island, but it's no guarantee which isn't actually live there. Anyway, he lives on mosquito on which is next door now. But at the time, he was living on Necker and this particular trip, they pay more money to go to make a very big contribution to Virgin and it was just his charity, so that he's there for the week. And he likes meeting entrepreneurs and things anyway. And so that was really interesting. And, and meeting him. He's actually a very quiet person. He has this big extrovert kind of character party, you know, central the party, but actually is of quite a shy person. But actually, I almost learned more by speaking to his kind of resort manager, who we did a q&a with who's worked for Richard Ronny neckline for many, many years. And just understanding the way Richard works, and he has a great philosophy. He has a real work life balance. So he works in the morning, in our neck, while you're not allowed to work in the afternoon, you have to be off, you have to be enjoying the water sports and by the pool, whatever. So. So I think that that's a lesson home life life balance, really. But I think he's a great CEO in that. He's not the person doing the work. He's the figurehead. Yeah, he's the brand. He's the culture and the ethos, but he has all these people below him who run the businesses. And he pretty much just kind of does the PR basically, he turns up smiles and you know, and, and he's the thought behind it. And obviously he has input into the business, but he's not running the businesses. And it's a huge distinction. A CEO isn't shouldn't be doing the Do you have the lieutenant's doing the do for you, and you are there orchestrating the army? And that's that's what you should be doing as a CFO.
Speaker 2 34:20
I think Roger Hamilton put it that way. Doesn't it doesn't do the orchestra with the back to the audience. Yes. You're doing that work. Well, thank you for orchestrating yourself to get here today. My pleasure. I see you're starting to further up the beard. And I'm actually
Speaker 3 34:34
just I just went to the barber to to actually trim it down. Actually. This is the cut down version.
Speaker 2 34:40
All right. Well, very, very much Richard Branson look like now. So Simon, thanks for coming today. Sharing. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 34:50
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