ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT A LIFE OUTSIDE OF YOUR PROPERTY BUSINESS?

This month, I want to talk about your life outside of your property business. Growing the assets and increasing monthly income is important, but so are your personal goals in life, Whether that’s to have three-day weekends or live overseas for three-six months of the year… you need to plan for this in order to make it happen.

I’ve been in this industry for around 20 years now, and in that time my attitude towards my property businesses has changed (…quite a lot!). In my late teens and early 20s it was ALL about the money – I would work all hours to bring in as much cash as possible. I socialised a lot during that time too (I had the energy back then).

But as I moved into my 30s I found myself wanting to travel and explore the world, and that’s when it hit me – my business needed me in order to survive, and that wasn’t good. I couldn’t be free to travel because I needed to physically be in Cornwall to run the business.

I spent the next few years building a successful letting agency that could not only manage my HMO portfolio exactly how I wanted, but also survive without needing me in the day-to-day running of it. Once I achieved that, we would spend six weeks of the year in Australia and New Zealand, which was my goal at that time.

Now my personal goals and vision have changed again. This year we will spend eight weeks overseas, and when we return we’ll be purchasing a motorhome to travel Europe for a few months too (my early 20’s self would be horrified at the thought of living in a motorhome!).

My clients have similar life goals too – travel more, explore the world, have experiences. But some just don’t believe it can happen because they can’t imagine how their business will run without them.

I like to show my clients that if I can do it with an HMO portfolio and letting agency, then they can do it too! One thing is for sure, having decent systems, detailed procedures and good VAs plays a massive part in having a successful life outside of the property business. If I didn’t invest the time into the systems and procedures, I wouldn’t be able to outsource to my amazing VAs… and without my VAs, having a life outside the property business would be very difficult.

You may be wondering “how will I buy when overseas?’’, or “how will I do my refurbs when travelling?’’ We plan our trips around these, but if you have a good team around you, with structure and systems in place, you should be able to manage this from a distance. Remember, there is internet around the world (and for us motorhomers there’s Starlink too).

You will still do some work whilst away. Property is never 100% passive. And maybe, like me, you enjoy certain aspects of work. I built this property coaching business so I could work from New Zealand with my clients… and I absolutely love it!

I’m not going to tell you a life outside the business is perfect. Of course being away from the business means there are missed opportunities as well as potential growth loss. However, if your goal is to travel and have experiences with loved ones, this is something you have to factor in.

A lot of my clients (and myself) have reached a point in our lives where we’ve built a portfolio, and although we certainly want to continue growing, we also want travel and enjoy life too.

If you want short work weeks, or to spend time travelling, I highly recommend that you start planning now. Start by asking key questions like, if you were in Europe for a month:

• how would the phone work?

• who would manage emails?

• communicate with clients?

• what about emergencies at the properties?

• where would keys be kept? And who would do tenant lock-outs?

• how would you manage maintenance?

From the answers to these key questions, one-by-one you can create a system around them. Then the secret sauce really is having VAs. Systems and procedures on their own are not enough to give you your time back… having VAs to run the day-to-day ‘in’ the business is what gives you true freedom.

You can absolutely do this, but if you don’t want to do it alone, or don’t want to start from scratch on all the systems and templates, then that’s what I’m here for – I can help you.

I give you LOADS of tips and info on how to do this on my socials. And, if you’d like to chat things through then book a zoom call with me (your first one is FREE).