Successful Strategy and Goal Setting for 2010

Self Development Culture

The current culture is to invest in ourselves through personal development. We attend the seminars, read the books, learn online or through virtual learning CD’s – all of these are great, but have we actually put any of this into practice?

Research carried out in the US shows that those who write down their goals are far more likely to achieve them. The biggest surprise is that the 3% who wrote down their goals, planed out how they were going to achieve them, and reviewed them regularly were earning in excess of all the other 97% put together. Are you willing to be in that 3%?

I challenge you in 2010 to achieve more than the next step in your progress towards financial independence, and to know categorically how you are going to get there – you’ll just have to follow these easy steps to success.

Motivation, Vision and Goal Setting

Goal setting, and writing down what you want to achieve is not enough on it’s own, which is why we all have enormous to-do lists that grow from week to week instead of shrinking. One reason for this is that we get straight into the action mode and we forget to ask ourselves why we are doing the actions in the first place. The other reason is that we are so busy analysing and delving into the detail and research that we forget to take action. So how do we overcome these prevention tactics?

First of all you need to ask yourself what you are hoping to achieve. Write down all the things you want to achieve, reach for the skies and put onto paper all the goals that you are dreaming of, hoping for and would like to have achieved in the future. Are they work related, property related or fun related? Whichever category they fall into they are all great for spurring us on to achievement. When you have your list, put a ‘£’ sign by all the items that will make you money, put a ‘☺’ by those which will bring fun and happiness into your life and put a ‘’ by those which fall into both these categories.

For each item, starting with those marked with a ‘’ write yourself some specific details of WHY you want to achieve these things. The reason for this is that if you don’t know why you want them you are less likely to stretch yourself to achieve them when the going gets tough.

The vision is the ‘what’ you want, the motivation is the ‘why’ and the goal setting is just the action plan. So if you don’t want to set yourself goals because it just means more work that you feel you ‘should’ get on with, follow this process and you will find your ‘to-do’ list becomes a ‘can’t-wait-to-get-on-with-it’ list.

Successful Strategy Your Way

Who are you comparing yourself to? When you go to the seminars and see very successful people trading their wares and telling you all their success stories are you inspired or overwhelmed, or both? There is no way that we are going to achieve what they have in the way they have achieved it, but what we can do is to use their know-how, their knowledge and their systems. Work out what it is that you want to achieve and put the action steps into place to achieve it. That in essence is how we set our strategy. We are not in competition with anyone, but we are in charge of our own destiny. That means that only we can take action towards our ultimate goals, but we may as well use other people’s success to get us there quicker.

Mind your own business

Are you so elated when you get home from one of the seminars that you are desperate to share it with everyone? This is a common reaction to anything that fires us up, but have you noticed what happens when you do this? The other person hasn’t been in the same place as you and isn’t ready for the information. They haven’t learned HOW to do what you are suggesting so it causes them stress. They have no pegs on which to hang the information you are giving them, so they back off. They start to find all the faults with the system and whilst you know how to counter their arguments, they are really not ready to listen. The effect is that they end up pouring cold water on your enthusiasm so your motivation and drive starts to dwindle.

So what should you do to counter this dampening effect and maintain your motivation? You should ‘mind your own business’. Keep this to yourself and find suitable times to introduce the ideas slowly. Remember – other people have not been in the same place, they do not have the same knowledge right now, and that is why you are ready to take action and they aren’t.

Are you stopping your own success?

When we listen to the experts they make it sound so easy don’t they. They are at the end of their success story looking back, and they have left out the details of the obstacles they faced. But what really stops us is that they have opened up a way to be really successful and when we step out and start to take action, because some of the potential obstacles have been taken away for us, we end up running before we can walk. There are so many potential options for creating wealth or reaching our goals that we become frightened of the potential achievement. How are we going to control all the interest we create by advertising for BMV property? How are we going to buy all the property that we make offers on? What happens if…..?

In order to control this fear of success, we need to understand that we don’t have to do it all ourselves, that if we are bombarded with deals then we will fix that problem when we get there, but most importantly we need to attach a ‘good’ feeling to this potential success instead of the ‘constriction’ we feel that prevents us moving forward. Imagine that you have had enormous success and you are coping well with it. You have put in place measures to deal with it, and you have found some great people to delegate some of the admin to who can help you at very little cost.

Success reaps financial rewards, and when you get there, a small payment for admin help will be nothing in comparison to the income you can generate when you let yourself go and give yourself permission to achieve your true potential.

Is your world still flat?

12 years ago when we wanted to change our first mortgage to a Buy-to-Let they were brand new and most banks weren’t offering them, no money down deals were unheard of and as for one-day bridging and re-mortgage, well people would have thought we were mad. Now we find that some of these mortgage deals have been withdrawn and the idea of rent and buy back and other options stand in their place as the next new idea.

What new deals and strategies will emerge over the next few years that wil give us even more evidence that the world is round?

I still have clients who tell me “cash back is a thing of the past” or “no money down isn’t possible” and on the very next call I speak to a client who is doing both regularly.

What is it that you believe can’t be done? What would happen if you borrowed someone else’s experience and you believed it was possible?

The answer is that you would soon find a way to do the ‘impossible’. Use a new belief system, use other people’s experiences, use whatever it takes to imagine your new world and to make it a reality.

Having a coach to work with you to set great goals and strategy and to challenge any negative beliefs you may have helps you to leap up the steps of financial progression.

Financial progression is the path we take through stability, security and independence to Financial Freedom. Yvonne will be teaching the secrets of moving through these steps on her 7 steps to Financial Freedom seminars.

Wherever you start off there are always new paths to take. The trick is in identifying the route that works for you, your circumstances, your personality and your skill-set. The best bit is that you can change your mindset to boost your confidence and achieve financial progression faster and embrace the round world.

The Mount Everest Effect

If you have set yourself a goal that is significant and is going to stretch your abilities and your intellect then you will at some point come across the Mount Everest Effect.

You start by looking at the goal and realising it is too big for you to tackle. The action you need to take is prevented by the height of the mountain you will have to climb to get there. So how do you overcome this?

First of all you need to break the journey down. Have you got all the tools and information you need? What would be the first step? Where is base camp? How many camps do you need to aim for on the way up the mountain?

What you will find is that over the last few years you have been doing the preparation and you may even have passed the first few steps along the way. In which case, make sure you look back down the mountain and see how far you have come. Wow! – this can be really empowering when you realise that you are not in fact at the bottom of the slope, but you are already part way towards your ultimate goal. When you are part way up, the summit is no longer as far away, and there are not as many camps before the top as you started off with. Make sure your sights are set on the next camp, and not the summit or you are likely to become overwhelmed again.

One step at a time, a clear route map and the detail of what you need to do to achieve the next steps are the keys to success.

When you write your goals, don’t simply write out a to-do list, make sure you know the task, the detail of how you are going to achieve it and put a date alongside each detail so that you know what you have to achieve and by when. If you just stick to the to-do list, then you might eventually achieve your goals but you will find yourself drifting. Make sure you have set some deadlines, make yourself accountable to yourself, or someone else and then you will achieve your goals more quickly than you would otherwise.

Make 2010 your most successful year yet by following these steps and you’ll be looking back this time next year with such a feeling of achievement just because you took the time to set your goals, understand your motivation and create a vision that is yours to achieve. This will be your ultimate success strategy.

Published in Landlord Zone Newsletter – December 2008
By Yvonne Emery

7 Steps to Recruiting Your Next Property

Often when we start something new we assume that we know nothing and have to start from the beginning, but that’s just our perception of the situation. Whatever we decide to do, we take with us the resources and experience of all the other areas of our lives.

Many successful business people who come to me for coaching presume that they don’t know how to succeed in property, but I know they do, and I’ll tell you how they know and how you know too.

Have you ever applied for a job? Perhaps you’ve even been involved in the process of recruiting staff into your team or business. Whichever way, you know how successful companies go about employing the best staff to help them to move towards their ultimate goals.

The secret to having a successful portfolio is to understand the process of recruiting property to work for you so that you can move towards your ultimate goal too. It sounds easy, and I’ll show you just how easy it can be.

1. Assess what you want to achieve – set your vision and work out whether you want capital growth, cash back, cash flow, pension security or financial freedom. Look at the first year and consider what you want to achieve, and then write it down.
2. Write the job specification – What characteristics, skills and attributes would you like your ‘candidates’ or houses to have. Perhaps you are good at renovation, so you might want your house or flat to be in disrepair. It might be that you want to buy at a specific percentage below market value – what is that percentage? Write yourself a detailed list of all the aspects that you are looking for both essential and preferable. Consider which locations are going to work, how easy they will be to rent or sell and what type of people they will attract?
3. Every good company has more than one role, so it may be that you need to write two or three different specifications to meet all your requirements. It’s always a good idea to build your portfolio from several different types of property so that you are more easily able to ride out the storms of market changes.
4. Now that you know the type of candidates that you want in your business you can start the process of recruiting suitable applicants. Whether you prefer to search the web, ask Estate Agents, get leads and deals from property clubs or use your local contacts, both you and they know which properties will work successfully for you.
5. When you have narrowed the field down to appropriate properties you can check them rigorously against your specifications and you will know very quickly if they are worth interviewing or not. You will also know your best sources.
6. When you interview each property you will be looking to match the job specification again, and this time you will get a feel for the advantages that a property can provide for you. There may be extra features that the agent has failed to mention, both positive and negative, and that will help you to narrow the field even further.
7. Finally, you will know by now which properties you will want to make an offer on. You will also know the return you will get for each property if your offer is accepted. As with all businesses the fit needs to be good for you, and that is why you will pass over some, and yet other people will invest in them. If you are clear on what you want to offer, and how that property can help your portfolio then you are far more likely to make appropriate offers and not waste time chasing ‘interesting’ deals because you know absolutely whether or not a particular property fits in your portfolio.

As you repeat this method of recruiting houses you will find that each time the process becomes easier, more successful and you will find yourself working smarter rather than harder.

The benefits to you are that you understand why you need to buy the next property, for which role you are recruiting it, and what your returns will be.

Whatever the market is doing, you are still in control of the properties you are purchasing as you know the outcome you will get from each one.

The consequences of not having specific criteria for each purchase is that you end up with a real motley crew of properties and you’ll have no idea what they are providing for you.

To make a real success of property investing you will need to find your system of recruitment and refine the process so that you recruit the right property each time.

Successful Strategies Despite Market Trends

The best way to get ahead in property investments is by setting strategies and making sure you have achievable goals along the way. However, the way that is best for you will change over time, so you need to review your strategy on a regular basis to keep up with the changing market. Building successful strategies will help you succeed whatever the property market is doing.

Do you have a clear and specific strategy or system?  The word strategy can either ignite our imaginations or fill us with fear.  Most investors find the next ‘bargain’ and invest.  The successful investor starts by working out what they want to achieve from the investment.  Whatever your motivation for investing – passive income, capital growth or an alternative pension – make sure you understand why you are parting with your money.  You are the author of your own investment portfolio and you can adapt the way you invest whenever you like.  Even if you are using someone else’s system to purchase property you need to ask yourself what your required outcome is.

If I had started out with written goals and a strategy I would have progressed far more rapidly with my investments and understood my required outcomes.  Now that I have applied coaching techniques and worked out my own strategies I am more focussed and have specific targets to aim for on a monthly basis.  Often we put off writing things down, believing that having them in our heads is sufficient.  But just putting our goals on paper makes them more concrete and increases our chance of success.

• So how do you set strategy?  Ask yourself the following questions:
• What do I want to achieve through investing in property?
• Why is this important to me?
• How am I going to achieve this? i.e. What shall I invest in and when?

If you are working towards financial freedom, then be very specific about how much passive income you will need to replace your existing income.  Instead of having a goal to own 10 more properties by 31st December 2008, write down how much passive income you want to achieve by the same date and work out HOW you are going to achieve that.  Write down the type of property you will need to purchase and how many you will require.

Turn your back on negative press and focus on your strategy.  If a property gives you the return on investment you require, it fits your strategy.  If it doesn’t contribute to what you want to achieve, then it’s not for you.  When you rely on your own experiences and strategy then you will really know whether a property is worth investing in or not.

(Yvonne Emery December 2007)