Transcription
Welcome back to the latest episode of our Meet the Mentor series here at Mentor Me. I've got the honored guest of Mark Cloyd from Property Masters Academy. So, Mark, would you like to introduce yourself?
Yeah, sure. So, um, Mark Lloyd. I've been in, uh, I've been in business around about 34 years. Last 20 or 19, 20 has been in property, property investing, teaching, developing. Incredible. And obviously, that significant amount of time to be in property, you've seen, seen it all, I imagine. So let's go through in terms of a bit of your background then. So what sort of got you into property? Obviously, said you started in business first. What was the, the business experience that actually led you to, to getting into property?
Yeah, I've set up about six or seven businesses. U sold two of those. Um, and around about 2005, 4, 2005, my business partner and I were looking at property, um, just as a something we we wanted to get into, but really didn't know much about. And there was a publication at the time called, I think it was Property Auction News, I think it was called. And we, we subscribed to that. We get these things, they're telling you all about these wonderful things, and how, how the hell does that work? And then we got, um, an email out of the blue, um, just, I don't know where they got details from, but just with a property. Yeah. And we thought, we buy that. Get, seemed like a no-brainer. And kind of put it in perspective, we were running a telecommunications company at the time, so nothing to do with property. And, um, for us, a customer would make 50 quid a month, 100 quid a month. But when you got a thousand, 2,000, 3,000 customers, a lot of money. It's a lot of money per month. So our mindset was still telecommunications. And when we saw this deal, we thought, oh, it makes 50 quid a month. Okay. So we just need quite a few of those. And we were quite prepared for that. Um, little did we know that should be making a bit more, and lots of other things we should have known, but didn't. But we, we got stuck in. Um, and we, um, also bought an overseas property as well, in, in, uh, in New Spain, which was apparently Bulgaria. Bulgaria is lovely. I'm not saying it's New Spain, but different part of the world. Well, we bought a penthouse apartment, nothing, you know, not, not, you basically, we bought a penthouse apartment overlooking into the Black Sea. And it was a lovely place, but never rented out. Yeah. So do quite well now on Airbnb, wouldn't it? It would do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, now it's a lot more developed than when we, we were there. I mean, the Black Sea area, particularly around Sunny Beach, we were around from Sunny Beach, those, you know, the area. And we were quite a long way out, and there was nothing much between us and Sunny Beach. So it was quite, but now there's, it's a lot built up. Yeah, door to back-to-back hotels and so on. And a lot of them is Russian money. So it's kind of, you know, a lot of money in the area now.
So you got started in property in 2005, which is obviously when, well, a couple of years before the financial crisis. And obviously, property was a very lucrative thing going on. Everyone was getting a house, everyone was getting properties. You had 100% mortgages. So how did you quite quickly adapt? Because obviously, you were very much at the start of your journey, property. Obviously, you had significant business experience and in success there. But how, how did you get on with adapting to the, the whole financial crisis? Because that would have been a huge setback very early on in, in your property journey.
Um, well, not really. Um, I mean, having been through a number of recessions throughout my life, this was just another one. And, and I've got a, I'm a firm believer in business that you, you can survive recessions and grow in recessions. I've proven it several times. Yeah. And in fact, we sold our telecommunications company during that last financial crisis, right? And because we had a good offer, we had a good product, but we were a growing company. And I think if you, if you tend to look at the bad news, you're always going to act. Your brain is going to be affected negatively. But if you always look for the positive and think like, well, how can we make this work? And for us, you know, the, the, the financial crash 20, 2008, 2009, is probably when we bought most, a lot of properties. I think we bought 14 properties in 12 months. Oh, wow. That's incredible. Um, and it was just like, we, we were getting discounts, 30, 40% below market value. And because I was relatively new to the industry, I, I, I didn't know that, oh, that only applied in the north of the country. So I got my, my second deal in, in Basingstoke in Hampshire, 40% below market value. So I said, well, actually, it does work in the South. You just need to know what you're doing. And, and I proved that time and time again. And, um, and it kind of, we started growing really, really quickly with the, with the property side. We, we focused on two things, actually. I mean, I want to give the false impression we didn't have a lot, we had a lot of money, because we didn't. I mean, we sold the company at the time was right, it gave us enough to get started. But you soon realize in property, you need an awful lot more money than thought, using investor money and stuff. And so, um, we also, we've got our 14 properties. We then started to see we're running out of cash here. And of course, 14 properties at buy-to-let didn't really produce a lot of income. Um, and so we ran a sourcing business alongside the, the property side as well. And that kind of helped us within our early days because, you know, I was, we were full-time from day one. We sold the company, we were full in. And, and I wouldn't recommend that to anybody. I would say, you know, start on the side, start side. Or I don't like to call it a side hustle, but it's a side business. Business. Yeah, I agree. And, um, actually, you know, take the steps to actually start something properly and then build up. And once you've got to a certain stage where you're earning two, three, four, whatever, pounds a month, then you've got the choice. You can decide, do, do I still want to keep working? Or do I now want to make the transition and grow even quicker? So that's kind of how we started.
Incredible. So it's really interesting, actually, because obviously, I mean, business is business, but going from a telecommunications company to downing tools and selling that and going into property would have been quite a transition. What was the, the passion that you found going into property? What was it that, because obviously, if you've been doing it 20 years, you're enjoying it, you're, you're teaching people, there has to be a passion in there. So what was, like, what drove you actually to taking property? Because obviously, you've already got a lucrative business with telecommunications. What was the, the reason to, to carry on growing that property business rather than sort of going on something else?
Um, well, we saw, we saw properties at a different kind of business. Um, you know, prior to telecommunications, I'd had a utilities company, and I'd had a central heating company. So they were all different products. Yeah. And so I'm a firm believer that as long as the business concept is there, the product you slot in, which in this case is property, makes very little difference to the way you operate. And what we were looking at was the telecommunications industry, which was quite cutthroat. Um, and, you know, we'd lose business, we'd gain business, and you kind of got that constant kind of thing, battle of trying to retain customers and build, grow the business, which we were doing. Um, but with property, of course, if you do it properly, you do the job once, and you've got it forever, or as long as you want it. Yeah. And, and that was a big attraction. So rather than just you taking on customers, we might have kept them for a year in telecommunications, or two years, or three years, whatever it might be, and then someone else came along with a better offer or different kind of proposition, then we'd lose them and have to recoup all that income again. Whereas in property, that doesn't have to happen. Yeah, people always need homes if you're letting out, right?
So you obviously had buy-to-lets, you've had deal sourcing, and then you've also gone into property development, right?
Yeah, we've done lots of things in between. And we, we've done HMOs, options, rent-to-rents, development. So it's kind of a, we've done most of the strategies you've probably heard of out there, and even some you haven't heard of. And, um, it, it kind of gives us, when I'm looking at an opportunity, I can spot so many different opportunities rather than just one. So to get that level of experience, it only comes with time. If, if someone, when we started out, no, I mean, it was like, focus on one or two things, get them right, master that, and then go on to the next thing. And next thing. For us, after buy-to-let and deal sourcing, was HMOs. So we then went on to HMOs. And then we started to get more, more adventurous things like creative contracts, lease options, delayed completions, rent-to-rents, all those kind of things. So it gives you then more options when you're looking at a deal. So when you're talking to a vendor or an agent, you know, does it work for vet? Does it work from HMO? Is it a deal I can source? Can I do a lease option on it? Can we do a delayed completion? Is it a rent-to-opportunity? There are so many different options, but that only comes with experience.
Yeah, I think that's obviously, we'll come on to mentoring a little bit later, where a mentor like super boosts your growth in, in property because you get all this wealth of knowledge from somebody who's already experienced it like yourself, right? So obviously, the, the problem with getting into to property now for a lot of people, um, is obviously there's so many headwinds that that cause you issues. What would you say for the new property investor, they can sort of look to overcome these issues, whether it's the new interest rates or housing around the country? Like, what would you, what would your advice be to somebody that's looking to get started in property?
First step would be get started. Get started. Yeah. I think that applies to everything, right? I mean, yeah, everything. Everyone has all these massive dreams and designs. They're like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. It's all going to be amazing. But they then sort of get caught up and forget to start, don't they? Yeah. But the main things are, it's lack of money. So they, there's perceived lack of money, there's lack of education, right? And, and that you can, you can get in lots and lots of different places. And the mindset. And it's those three things, really. But most people can't get their head over the money aspect. I must, when I first started, I kind of struggled. And it was only probably 18 months, two years, I kind of suddenly realized because when I got my first buy-to-let, and that, that was the easy part. Get, getting the first property. But then you start refurbishing it, and you think, man, how long is this going to take? We're paying the mortgage now, we're paying all these people. All we've got is money going out, no money coming in. So that was kind of a bit of an eye-opener. And we, we were doing sort of baby BTLs, doing nothing big. Um, but then we kind of started progressing and doing stuff larger things. And I kind of got into the habit of looking for bigger deals because you, it takes as long to do a 50 grand refurb, get it back on the market or refinance it, as it does to do a 100, 150, or 200, 200,000 refurb. The same amount of effort roughly goes in. The same, but on the 200,000 refurb, if you've done your figures correctly, you're going to make a lot more money. Yeah. And so we started looking at at bigger things. And, and whilst we still had the B, some of their BTLs, even today, we still have some of those. Even the very first deal that made 50 quid a month, still got today. Makes a bit more than 50 quid now. Yeah, I'd hope so. But, um, you know, the interest rates, all I'd say about the interest rates, when I started, they are where they are now. Yeah. Yeah. I think everyone got accustomed to like, post financial crisis, then being on the floor. Whether I, I imagine they'll probably come down a little bit, but whether or not we'll ever see interest rates again at 0.25%, 0.5%, who knows? No, it was artificial. You know, the government pumped a lot of money into the economy post financial crash. So that quantitative easing, in other words, just here loads of cash, that's put all in, pump it all in. That money ended up in property because it always does. Hence why we've had a lot of the price increases. Um, but, you know, the, the now they kind of start withdrawing that because they've got to, they've got to raise taxes. So they've got to start taking money out of the economy at a time when it's not a great time to do it. Yeah. So that's, that's where we're at the kind of situation where we have the interest rates because they've got to take money out of the economy, the inflation, bring it down. I don't think we get down to, we might come down to about three and a half, but that's going to be about it. I don't think we'll ever go down to the kind of levels we've seen.
Yeah, I think it, it's adapting, isn't it? To the, to the new normal, isn't it? I think anyone that's now starting a property now has to realize that you're not going to get what you used to be able to get with the, the 0.25. So you sort of have to, to look at cracking on. So where do you think the property market is, is going next? Because obviously, the, the inflation, inflation rates have sort of somewhat come down or stayed around the same. Property prices have been, I think they've started to level out a little bit after dropping. Um, where do you see sort of the next trend coming? Because obviously, we're still in a cost of living crisis. So for the person that wants to start, what are some of the things that they should be looking to, to actually get started? Is it that, you know, we're going to see some time to start flourishing now again? Do we think, you know, deal sourcing?
I think, I think deal sourcing is probably going to be the best place for, for most people to start, right? Potentially. Yeah. But I think the thing is, with all my time in business, the best opportunities have always been created by the government. So whenever the government interferes in the market, you guarantee it's going to be an opportunity. So interfering in the market like they're doing at the moment, and they have been doing for the past 10, 12 years, creates opportunities all the time. Now, we've got that coupled with uncertainty because we don't know what's happening with interest rates or inflation. My own view is, I think interest rates have hit the peak, inflation will start dropping. Um, and the interest rates won't start to drop probably about spring next year. So that kind of uncertainty means that prices are, I, I don't believe they're really dropping that much. Yeah, I think they're, they're stable. They, they kind of hit a stupid level and have to a little bit of a drop down. You compare it over the past three or four years, they've not dropped at all. And you now look at inflation, that means property prices now starting to fall behind. So, in fact, there is a real, real-term drop, not just a monetary drop, a real-term drop. So that will need to catch up. But we're already seeing that in rents. Rents are now record levels. That often happens when property prices are slightly slowed down, so rents take off. So you kind of got that kind of thing happening. And if someone's looking at the market, as I said, very outset, there, they should really start. But don't worry about what's happening today, tomorrow, next week, next year. Because if you worry about that all the time, you will never get started. It's all about getting the experience. That's really important. Your first deal, you learn so much on your first deal, just sourcing a deal for somebody else, or doing your first buy-to-let, your first HMO, learn so much. Yeah. And then you go on to the next one, and then you get hit with a bunch more challenges, which is why you obviously end up with a mentor.
So you've obviously done a lot of, of the, the different strategies, as you said. Am I cheeky to ask what your favorite one?
Uh, that's a difficult one. I, I tie it between two. One, I love finding deals. Okay. Okay. That's my number one. I love negotiating deals. I love getting the deals over the line. And fortunately, for the past 30 odd years, I had a business partner who's always done the operational side of things. She's now pulling away from this, this business, so I'm going to be left on my own as of end of this year. Um, so I, I would say deal sourcing would be, is a good one for me because that's the kind of thing that fits my kind of, yeah, profile, dealing with investors. And I've been in sales all my life. Yeah. So getting the deal, getting over the line, great. And it's a relatively simple business proposition, deal sourcing from that. It's finding opportunities. So I've got a deal going through at the moment for myself, which is turning out to be better and better every day. I met my planning consultant out there last week, and he said, oh, we can fit another house on there. My GDV has just gone up another, amazing. So from a, from a deal that I was going to make 150 grand on originally, it's now going to be 500, 600,000. It's incredible from one deal I found on Rightmove. Yeah. A lot of people think you've got to do off-market stuff, and don't get me wrong, off-market is brilliant. Takes a little while to start getting off-market deals coming through. But agents have got tons of deals. And I've just moved to a new area, so, you know, I'm working in my new area. I knew nothing about the area, and I've already found half a dozen deals, of which I've got offers in on at the moment, and one that's going through.
What, what would you say then for, for people that want to start in their area? Because obviously, everyone always talks about location, location, location, right? I mean, and, and I think there's elements to that, but I think there's probably opportunity in every location, right? I mean, correct. If you're starting in, maybe you want to buy local, what would you sort of advise people to sort of get started in their local area, apart from just starting?
Um, well, it's going to depend on what's happening in their area. So they need to do some research in their own area. Yeah. I'm a firm believer that there was a strategy that will work in your area, whatever it is. There is, there will be one strategy. Now, in London, buy-to-lets might not work terribly well. In fact, they don't. Yeah. If you, if you're an overseas investor, what cash cash to sink in? They're going to want to put into London. Yeah. So if you're sourcing deals, then London's not such a bad opportunity if you, if you've got an overseas client base. But for, for you, whatever area you're in, in fact, I'm mentoring a guy, um, at the moment, he's in, uh, South London. I'm trying to encourage him to look for opportunities within his own area, but he's also looking a little bit further afield in, in a couple of other areas he knows. Now, which is fine, because as long as he's got some knowledge in those areas or people in that area that he can work with, then it can work. Because I've done that in the past, many, many times. Um, but there's always going to be a strategy that will work in your area. It might not just be the most obvious one straight away, that's all. And it takes a little, little bit of time. I would say, don't, don't, don't rush into it. Don't think, okay, I need to get a property today, because I see there so many times I see investors getting started out, they're so keen to get their very first deal, and then it ends up being a bad one. It ends up being a bad one, like mine. Yeah, because I'm going to be keen to get, get started. And so, yes, you're going to learn from that, but it could be a costly learning mistake. It might wipe you out completely. It could potentially wipe you out. You know, um, and I was talking to a guy yesterday about his very first deal, he lost 60 grand on. Wow. Yeah. And that could, that could have potentially stopped you from ever getting into property again, right? I mean, it's, it's huge amounts of money when you look at it. And for, for, for the new gen, Gen Z investors that are going to be coming through, sort of in the next 10 years, or maybe some of them are already starting, like, it's already difficult enough to get on the property ladder for, for most people, right? Um, where would you, obviously, I'm going to keep asking you about where, where, where they can start, but what are, what are some of the things that they can do to better prepare to, to getting on to building a property business?
Okay, let me kind of take you back a few years from when I started and what I did. Okay. So apart from the initial bit, when a couple of mistakes, yeah. Um, and then an opportunity arose. We, we looked to sell the company, and at the same time, I had some, um, a letter come through the post inviting me to a property seminar. I thought, oh, that's good timing. Let's, let's go along and have a look. And 20 minutes into this preview seminar, my business partner and I said, let's do it. Yeah. And we made the decision to go along to a, a three-day training course. That was a bit pitchy, you know, using all the NLP techniques and that kind of stuff to try and get you to sign up. But we were, we, we knew this is what we were going to do. Yeah. So from then on, it was just thinking, okay, how are we going to do it? And, and I'm a firm believer of working with people who know what they're doing, been there, done it, show you, show you, show you how to do it. Now, we spent a lot of money, right? We spent with that particular organization, which is the Rich Dad organization, we spent £45,000. Wow. Right. Which included a number of training courses and a mentorship. Three days, by the way. The mentorship was all of three days. You spend that kind of money, you want to get the maximum out of it, don't you? You know, that's, and that's probably, I don't say it's the only reason, but one of, one of the reasons why we were more committed, because we spent that kind of money, you want a return on your money.
I think that that goes into to the mindset part as well, is like understanding that you need to invest in yourself to, to actually see success. And I think, and it's obviously, we've started a mentoring platform, so obviously we try to, to help people get into, to learning something through a mentor because it's obviously the best way to do it. And I think once you've made a financial commitment, and it's like, I see it with, with other things where people can give out free value to, to a certain extent, whether it's a free webinar or it's a free in-person training, when it's free, some people just don't, it doesn't click for them, you know, they, because they're not incentivized because they've not made a financial commitment. Even if you, if you sell tickets for £9 or 20, like people are more likely to turn up and and take it more seriously because they've made that somewhat commitment. And I think investing 45 grand has probably been the best investment you ever made, right?
Talk, talk me through stuff, accelerated, far beyond wildest dreams. I mean, uh, at our peak, I think we had about 65 properties. U, we had a number of different things going on, plus the training company. So, you know, I, I don't think we could have got that acceleration without some of the stuff that we learned at the very beginning. And we've learned lots more since then. I mean, I, I've already done myself personally, two mentorships this year, one in property, one outside of property, to learn different things that I wanted to learn. So it's a continual learning exercise. But you're right, though, in terms of the, the value, you know, price is what you pay, value is what you get. If you, if you're paying nothing for something, then what kind of value do you think you're going to get? Whereas if you're putting something into it, you're going to get much more out of it. Definitely.
So, so coming on to the, to the training company, what was the decision for you to, to actually get, sort of start educating people? Because obviously, now there's hundreds of people claiming to be mentors and trainers, and obviously, it's why we've started a business, right? I mean, because there's red flags all over the shop. But what was the decision that you took to actually start? Because it is giving back, it's your time, as much as you're charging people, but you are giving up time to teach people and build that personal connection with them to, to help them start and succeed with their dream. So what was the, what was the click for you? Like, what actually made you go, right, I want to start teaching people how to do this?
Well, um, with the Rich Dad organization, because we progressed relatively quickly, we were asked to be mentors with them. Incredible. And did that for a short period of time, which enabled me to see behind the scenes, and what I, I didn't like at all. I went on some of their training courses as, as for the company, not as a student, just watching. And the things you were asked to do to try and get people to sign, didn't sit comfortably with me at all. Yeah. And, uh, we ended up having a little bit of a spat. So I walked away. Um, but what happened was, which I was quite surprised about, I, I'd met an awful lot of people in that process. And every course I went to, I made sure that I got everybody's details, phone number, email address, and I built up, started building up this kind of database. And because I was one of the few mentors within the kind of group environment with Rich Dad that answered questions, people knew you. Yeah, they followed me. And I kept getting emails from people saying, hi Mark, just come across this deal, do you mind having a look at it for me? Or I got a problem with doing the lease option, how do I, who do I need to speak to? How do I structure it? And so I, I started to spend an awful lot of time without any reward. It was taking it away from running the other business, really, that building the property business side of things. And, and I just sat down with my business partner, said, I can't keep doing this. I'm going to, I'm going to suggest we do a training day and we start to charge. And because it's just taking all my time now, and I'm, I'm, it's wearing me down, it's quite, it's quite tiring. Yeah. I mean, and I just thought, you know, we'll put on the training day. So we put on a one-day training event, invited people. It wasn't expensive. I think we charged 100 quid or something like that for the day. And the amount of value you get is, yeah, huge. And we sat it in the middle of the country, central. We stuck a pin, that's that place, Coventry, middle of everyone. Yeah. And, and but what at the end of that day, people said, that's a fantastic day. We've just done. Because we, we ran what we call a mastermind day. So come along, ask your questions, we'll give you the answers, or people within the room will give you answers. At the end of the day, everybody wins. The next one, we hadn't planned another one, it was it was a one-off event. Yeah. But for the next 12 months, we ran them every single month. Wow. Um, and then again, you kind of think, okay, we can't keep doing this because 100 quid for the time and effort that's going in, is it, it's not a timely business-wise. Does not make sense. So I, when I went on holiday that year, my partner always used to take away my mobile phone in the hotel safe, so I never had my phone with me. I just got myself a notepad and I started making notes of things and I thought, why don't we just run a training company? And I start, I wrote out a business, business plan for running a training company. And that's how we started Property Masters Academy. Was to actually do something a little bit different. We've changed over the years. We, we used to kind of started copying some of the other models that were out there in terms of the formats of things. But then we said, actually, you know what, found your own lane. Found our own lane. Prefer to focus on mentoring because the disappointing thing about training courses is there's lots of people do them, but very few actually follow up from them. Yeah. So whereas for us, mentoring is not a training course. It's about doing things. It's about implementation. It's about getting results. It's not about sitting back and watching someone teach you something. That's that's a training course.
Yeah, I heavily agree. Like, I mean, mentoring is, you are mentoring, advising them, but if, if the person doesn't do anything, you're not going to move forward. Like, you can sort of get through a training program or training course and like a day event and be like, oh, that's amazing. I've got so many things I want to do, and then never do it. Whereas when you've got a mentor, you've got that level of accountability that says, look, we've set these tasks, you're meant to go find a deal, you've got this deal, why is it not progressing? Like, you've got somebody constantly challenging you, teaching you throughout the process to pretty much, I'm going to say guarantee success, because it is going to be down to, to the individual, right? But I mean, it's, it's the best guarantee that you're going to get from somebody that's got 30 years experience. So you've obviously been training now for 10 years. Have you been mentoring for 10 years as well?
Most of the time, yes.
So you've obviously seen a lot happen in those 10 years and all of these companies come up. What would you say are some of the, the red flags that people should be looking for when they're actually looking to choose a property company to work with in terms of education?
Yeah, God, me, how long have you got? Um, there's a long list. I, I presume what would you say is like the number one that people should look out for?
I, I think if something looks really, really slick, um, there's a lot of money gone into that to do that. Operators that actually operate that way. They, they run a very, very slick kind of marketing campaign, get you along to the event, and it's a heavy, heavy sale. There's a few of them that do that, and they're very successful at it. I mean, they make a lot of money at it. What I would say is, if you're, I would say from the mentoring aspect, the training aspect, I think there are a lot of training companies out there, and, and some of them are really, really good. Um, some started yesterday. So I, first, first question I'd ask is, how long are you doing it? Yeah. How long have you been doing that strategy? If that, if you're, if you're operating one strategy, right? So if you're focusing on rent-to-rents, for example, how long have you actually been doing that? And how many have you got? Right. Have, have you sourced some of those deals as well? So do you source them, or you do a stat? Do you do them yourself? Because a lot of the sourced deals in rent-to-rent, in particular, are not very good deals. So is it a strategy they've actually done? And the same if you're looking at a mentor, whatever is you're looking to do. So, for example, if someone came to me and said, I want to do commercial property, no, that's fine. I have some knowledge of commercial property, but I'm not the best. But I'm not the best to do it. Yeah, I can tell you who is. So check, is it a strategy that they've done, they've implemented, got success at, before being able to pass that? Because you can't guide somebody or push them in the right direction if you haven't done it yourself.
I agree. And that's, that's why we, we vet everyone to make sure that, you know, if they're selling you something, it is something that they are actively doing themselves. Because I mean, knowledge becomes experience is great, great. But if you're not still actively doing it to some element, like you're not in the industry, knowledge becomes old quite quickly. Like the, the market moves very, very quickly. So I think actually having somebody still active and, and still very much involved in the property strategy that you're going for is, is what you need. And, and the thing that annoys me that I see is that so many people are starting these training companies where maybe they've bought one deal of each different property strategy, and then they're saying I'm the master at them all, because because they know how to market better than some people. But I think what you'll find is that the people that are actually have the knowledge, they don't need to to market heavily because people are queuing up already, right? Because they want the experts.
Yeah, I'd also say actually use Google. Yeah. Right? Whenever, if I meet someone who've never heard of me before, I just say, Google Mark Lloyd Property. Sorted. You won't find a bad comment about me. Um, you'll find a lot about me, find podcasts I've done, other things I've done, so you get to learn a lot about me just going online. Speak to other people. I'm, I'm always happy to say, well, yeah, if you want some references, no problem at all. Got, got a bunch. Got so many of them. So got so many success stories.
So, so what are the, what are some of the, the success stories that you could, you could tell us around people that have come through your programs and, and seen some wins, starting their own property businesses?
Yeah, I mean, there's, there's one thing kind of that we have focused a few bit of our energy on each year, and that's, that's what the Property Investor Awards, which are held Christmas time, Christmas time each year. And we've put people forward, and I think, I think I've read online that pretty much every year they've won Newbie Property of the Year. I think six, six out of eight years, we've won, our mentees have won it. It's incredible. And we've got another nominee again this year, they're going to win. Yeah, he's got a very good chance. Mo, Mo worked exceptionally within his, um, first year with us. I'm still in touch with him because that's one of the things we don't tend to lose touch with mentees. And some of them stay for more than a year anyway. Even those that don't, we still maintain contact with them. But he worked so hard in his first year, really, really worked hard. Does some, and with very little money, this was it. His challenge was he had no money. Yeah, very little anyway. So he did some very creative deals where he got managed to get fine investor money, put the deal together, and made money out of it from quite from within, obviously. But became very good at finding deals, put the deal structure together.
Yeah, I think, um, that's always a challenge for most people is, is starting in property without any capital. So what would your advice be to somebody that is looking to start in property but doesn't have any capital? Is it begin networking with investors? Is there a specific strategy that maybe works a little bit better if you don't have cash?
Okay, so the first thing is, decide what you want. Okay? So what is it looking for? Financial freedom, all right? Put a figure on it. Yeah. What is your goal? I, I agree. I mean, just shooting for thin air is, is not going to be what drives you. And don't go for this, this is my, this is where I want to be goal. I want, I want 10 grand a month or 20 grand a month. What's your need goal? What do you need now? If, if what would make a difference in your life now? If, if you're outgoing £3,000 a month, would another £2,000 a month make a difference to your life? Yes, it obviously would, because you've just nearly, you know, 80% increased your income. So, um, so focus on that figure. Because if you can hit that figure, which is a low one, get to the next one is much easier. So that's the first thing is set, set a plan of action. So what's, what's your goal? Then look at ways of achieving it. So there's a number of different ways in property. So if your goal is the equivalent of £2,000 a month, let's say, or 3,000 a month, that could be one flip. It could be one deal sourced, one one deal sourced a month. It could be, um, few rent-to-rents. It could be HMOs. It could be a number of BTLs. But work it out, break it down, all right? And if you don't know how to do that, then find something. Go on YouTube, go on to Google. We've got a YouTube channel. Don't know what's on there now, but probably on there, be something on there. Um, ask questions of people. Then once you've worked that out, you then know, okay, so in order to do that, let's say I need three HMOs, and they're going to, in my area, they're going to cost 300 grand a piece. All right? So therefore, call it 400 grand to make the math simple. Therefore, for each HMO, I'm going to need £100,000 deposit plus money for refurb. Let's call it 50,000. So I'm now with three HMOs, I need 450 grand. So now how do I find that? Okay, that's when you now need to start thinking about investors. So I need to find £450,000. Where do I start? Well, to start, where's the obvious place to start? Family and friends. Why? Because they know you, they hopefully like you, hopefully trust you as well. And I hopefully trust you. It's all about the know, like, and trust. Yeah. Now, if you were to come to me and say, Mark, I've seen you online, I'm, I've got this deal, I want you to invest with me, you, it's going to be no, because I don't know you, don't know what credibility you've got, what experience you've got, if I'm going to like you, and can I trust you? So it's those things. So the people that know you are your best bet initially. But there's always this thing, oh, but no, none of my friends have got any money. The number of times I've heard that. Just, I don't go around with a t-shirt saying I got 100 grand in the bank. Haven't got it on my forehead, right? You don't know. Need to ask. You need to ask. Well, it's a way of asking. You don't go out and say, you've got any money. But not, but the important thing is, and I get everybody to do this, is because they do a brain dump of names. The important thing is it jogs your memory because it's not just you knowing them, it's who they know. So that's how you expand your network very, very quickly, linking into everyone. And I think, um, the next step, obviously, of that, if, if you can't find it within family, friends, is is getting to networking and building your network, building trust within your network, becoming the person that is, is very trusted in those specific areas.
So obviously, then on the mentoring side, what, what is the, the type of mentoring that you offer people that are looking to get started? Because you still obviously run the training days. What, what do you sort of look to cover in those days, um, alongside obviously what, what, what is the mentoring for people?
Yeah, the training days vary. I mean, there, there is one particular course that we do, which is a variety of strategies. It's just more of an insight into property investing. That's really what all it is. Your Day One, that's that's the best place. Covers, you know, all, all number of different strategies, about 12 or 13 different strategies. It's a full cookie jar, but you can't eat all the cookies at once. You need to pick on one or two. But it's, that's it's designed to give you that choice. So, okay, actually, quite like the sound of that one, or I don't like the rent-to-rent because rent-to-rent sounds a lot of hassle, which personally I think it is. Um, so, you know, it helps you pick those out. Um, so, and then once they've done that, the mentoring kind of homes in on on that. So, um, the mentoring we do does cover a number of different strategies, but not with the one person. So we could have a group of people, six, 10 people, that got different strategies. Chances are, that's not going to happen. Two or three are going to be the same, and so on. So, so we're only talking about two or three different strategies at a time, which, because we've been doing it in any 20 years, we can. But for those training organizations only been around a year, they, they only have one strategy. Yeah, which is fine. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that at all. But if you want to grow a diverse portfolio, because there are many reasons why you should, um, because one, one, the economy, for one thing, can make your own HMOs, for example, they did in one of areas. So is why we sold some of our HMOs. BTLs can change, government can change things all the time. So that's a, a lot of information and I think a lot of value, um, that you can obviously get.
So if people want to get started learning, coming to one of your training days or or mentoring, how can they sort of get in touch?
Just reach out to me on social media. Just look for Mark Lloyd, or Google Mark Lloyd Property, or go to Property Master. Google Mark first. Property Master Academy. Go on to a website, send me a message. You'll find ways of connecting with me on there. And I'll have a conversation with you. Perfect. Uh, there's very few people that actually go onto our website and say, I'm going to have that training course. I'd rather speak to you. Say, yeah, it's right for you, not it's not right for you, or come back at another time. Than say it's the right thing to do now. So I'd rather have a conversation and say, well, actually, you know what, you might be better off waiting a few months and come back, or you're ready for mentoring now. You don't need. I, I think that's one of the main things is we want to set people up for success. We don't want them to to buy and fail and then and then not go on with their dream. So.
Well, thank you very much for coming on. I really appreciate it. And, uh, I think there was a lot of value that that people would have got from that. So thank you.