In this episode of Property Investory we will ponder how we all have the same 24 hours in a day, yet time is a stopper for some of us. We also hear her tips for motivating yourself, how to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and what to do about it, as well as get some insight into her life as a grandmother and what she and her granddaughter can teach one another.

Timestamps:
00:42 | Sometimes We’re Not Ready
06:01 | Life is Hard, Pandemic or Not
10:58 | Pick Your Entry Price Point
12:59 | Become an Expert in a Suburb
16:22 | The Art of Planning
21:30 | Holding Yourself Accountable is Key
23:57 | Be Realistic, Don’t Overcommit
26:36 | Find Money Partners, But Not at Home
01:01 | Identify Your Strengths, But Also Your Weaknesses
05:00 | Make the Time, Make the Money
08:35 | Belly Fires and Firm Foundations
11:54 | Out of the Mouths of Babes
14:09 | Make the World Your Oyster
18:03 | Asking the Right Questions
21:32 | Book an Appointment— With Yourself

Resources and Links:

[00:02:02] You need to know enough about property to question whatever is happening in that deal to be the devil's advocate. Because it's your money, your borrowing is on the line. So you should need to educate yourself. 

 

This is Property Investory where we talk to successful property investors to find out more about their stories, mindset and strategies.

I’m Tyrone Shum and in this episode we continue our discussion with life, business and property coach Jill McIntyre. Following on from a previous episode we delve further into motivation, interesting characters she’s come across in her career, and what she and her youngest family members have learned from each other.

 

McIntyre describes another big property stopper; the one of not having enough time.

Jill McIntyre:   

[00:00:31] Well, we can all tell ourselves we've got no time. But we've all got the same 24 hours in a day. So how come it works for some, and not for others? So if you've got no time— and it could be very legitimate, you might have a busy household of young children that are all preschool age, so it's pretty full on at home— but you might have a pretty full on job as well. And you're wanting to branch out and get into property more and advance and do that more.

[00:01:01] I would suggest it is very, very important that you identify your strengths, rather than 'I haven't got the time', because the more you identify 'I haven't got the time', all you're doing is reinforcing the thought within your own thinking that you haven't got the time. And even if there was part of you that didn't want to believe it, soon you'd be believing it at full height, 100%, full on. So go back and identify your strengths. What can you contribute to a deal? 

[00:01:34] Now, it might be that you've got some money. It might be that you've got some money in your self managed super fund, for example, and you purely would be a money partner. You could be a percentage in the deal, or mezzanine finance. And so you could be the moneybags in the deal. But at the same time, it is important to everyone, if you aren't giving money into a deal, you need to be able to read a feasibility. You need to know enough about property to question whatever is happening in that deal to be the devil's advocate. Because it's your money, your borrowing is on the line. So you should need to educate yourself. 

[00:02:18] So if you've got no time, and you're going on the train, or you're driving in the car, listen to Tyrone's podcast. And think about educating yourself on the people that you interview that are so varied, Tyrone, on all of these aspects of property. Now, the more that you do this, and when you finish and you get to work, you've got three minutes, just record on your phone, what were the top five things that you got out of that interview? Because again, you might have enjoyed that interview and got those top five things. But by the end of the day—and it's been a busy one— that interview this morning, and those top five things is totally gone out of your mind, never to return. 

[00:03:03] So if you don't jot those down, or you don't make a note or record them, then make an appointment with yourself to go back at some point before you close your eyes that night, or the next day to make a note of them, you'll miss them. So it's very, very important to identify what you can contribute to a deal. You might not have time to do research, but you might be very, very visionary and very good on checking feasibilities. And so that could be angled at checking feasibilities. This is what I'll do. Because you've had some experience in numbers, you might be an accountant, and you might be a good number cruncher. But also you're very good and very quick at finding solutions to the numbers and how it could work differently or how to set up a company trust situation that would help the team overall. 

[00:04:03] So identify what your strengths are. It could be that you are handy, or a tradie, that you could get into a deal that could be the sweat equity. And you might not have a lot of time. But at the same stage you might in a week's holiday that you could have, have a good 10 or 15% or 20% input into a deal because you've done sweat equity and done all of the renos, the main structure work of putting a new kitchen in, or reconstructed a kitchen or a bathroom in a cosmetic renovation, and you've done it all in a week. And leave the painting to everyone else but you've got to put foot in the door from your input of doing it. Where normally you would think, 'I haven't got the time'. Make the time to work on where your strength is. Maximise and monetise it.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:05:00] Have you had a client who's got an example of saying these things? I'm pretty sure every client probably comes back and says that's the reason why they seek out for coaching and mentoring as well, too, through you, Jill. But what can you think of, maybe an example of most recent client that sort of talks about this? And how would they be able to change that mindset?

Jill McIntyre: 

[00:05:21] If they feel 'I haven't got any money'?

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:05:24] About time?

Jill McIntyre:  

[00:05:26] Yes, at that time, if I feel I haven't got any money or time, it's very much about if you haven't got any time, another way, you could think about, okay, the household wakes early in the morning. And if I got up 20 minutes earlier, before the household woke, what could I achieve in 20 minutes, or 15 minutes every morning. And some people might say 'I get up at six o'clock anyway'. But if you got up at half past five, and had 20 minutes or half an hour, every morning, even three mornings a week, you could make time. 

[00:06:05] Now the other thing that you've got to remember is to give gratitude for what you've done in that time. Don't be looking at the negative of 'Well, I haven't really achieved much this week', look at what you have achieved and the pluses and say well done. Because it'll be more than what you would have done if you had have done nothing. So start to think about how you're going to make time. 

[00:06:36] And it's funny, when I was talking to a client that's going to do another taste tester with me in a couple of days. And instantly, he said, I get up every morning. And for an hour and a half the television's on and I'm floating around, I've got young children, lots happening. He said 'I could put a lot of that 90 minutes to better use'. And it's when we start to think like that, wow, 90 minutes every morning, that he feels that he's wasting that he could put to better use, even if you used a quarter of it. What a difference each week would make.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:07:19] Absolutely.

[00:07:21] I was flabbergasted of 90 minutes every morning. And we can all do that. But yes, the kids need doing and lunches need making, and all of this. Set your plan in place. Nothing's gonna happen if you can't set a plan in place on paper, and then work out how you're going to commit to it. And follow through, and accountability.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:07:46] It's always like that, isn't it?

[00:07:47] It is hard. But, what's your desired outcome? If you were saying to me you didn't have time and couldn't fit it in time. And I'd be saying, 'Okay, now let's get the bigger game plan going here. What do you want to achieve in the next six months?'. Now, in all of the time that you and I have been together, and I've been coaching with you, and we've been having discussions, I don't say, 'Tyrone, let's look at your five year plan'. Because I think what we need to do— people do their five year plan, 10 year plan. But let's face it, if you haven't got your next month plan, three months plan, six months plan, nine months plan, 12 months plan— if you haven't got that in place, how are you going to get to three and five years? 

[00:08:35] Build your firm foundation now. Build your habits now, that work for you. And then, your three to five years, as time's gone on, you and I are talking about longer plan things, what you're going to be doing, when to buy, other growth within your business, Tyrone, as well. Because you've got your firm foundation in place, and it's working. But it's working because you've set up and made it happen. Because the fire in your belly is motivating you to move on and achieve. Would I be right there or wrong there?

Tyrone Shum:  

[00:09:14] Yeah, absolutely. And that's the key thing, is that you got to have that fire in your belly. Otherwise, if you're not passionate about something that you're doing there, there's no point in doing it. And it would just be basically a chore or mundane, and you just wouldn't get up there's no motivation.

Jill McIntyre:   

[00:09:32] Absolutely. You wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:09:34] You wouldn't. 

[00:09:36] The funny thing is, we've all got fire in our belly. But for a lot of people, the flame's gone out. So, the next thing would be... if I look at any one of my clients, and they're achieving absolutely fabulous things along the way. Without doubt, really grow things stablishing businesses around property. Buying property obviously, bringing in joint venture partnering, identifying their strengths in what they're doing in their specific business, and then maximising and doing streams of income that are growing from them. 

[00:10:13] Matt Jones is a typical example of these. Where all of those years ago, starting with Matt, just any buy, reno, subdivide— no, it was a buy, reno, sell deal. And he had about six of these meetup groups. And it was the fire in Matt's belly and all of the clients that I work with, that needs to be knighted, that needs to be stoked, that needs to be continually added to, and it's the best cure you could ever have. And it's free.

Coming up after the break, we get into what another big property stopper is.

[00:11:29] But also, to go deeper than that. They need to identify what their strengths are because they've been so consumed in the negative things and the negative outcomes, rather than the solution side of things.

McIntyre discusses one of her more unconventional clients and what works for them.

[00:18:03] And I've got different clients, another one in Queensland is very much growing his business around property— yes, they're all around property, of course— but my guy in Canberra, he sublets. And he is just doing amazingly, but he's now got a team with removalists, with even the energy companies, like electricity.

We talk about how your thinking can determine your success.

[00:19:20] And we need that. We need to have a business thinking in property. We need to think like a business, and this is if you've got no time, you've got no investors. Think like a business.

And that’s coming up next. I’m Tyrone Shum and you’re listening to Property Investory.

McIntyre discloses another one of the property stoppers she often sees in her clients.

Jill McIntyre:   

[00:10:59] Well, not knowing your strength, I think would be the biggest one. And it was funny, I've been talking to another couple this week. And they've just come on board as new clients. And it's in identifying that then so totally consumed in what's not been working for them, rather than what has been working for them. But also, to go deeper than that. They need to identify what their strengths are because they've been so consumed in the negative things and the negative outcomes, rather than the solution side of things. But they haven't been focusing on what they're good at. 

[00:11:54] What we're good at comes so easily to us, and it's even strange this morning, I've had my seven year old granddaughter here. And I picked her up and took her to school. And I was talking about her strengths and weaknesses. And I said to her, 'What would be Granny's strengths and weaknesses?' Because she's having trouble being autistic, with a couple of areas with reading and things like that at school. So honing in on her strengths and weaknesses. But first for her to identify my strengths and weaknesses. And she said to me, 'You can't hear', and I said, 'Yes, that's my weakness. But my strength is that you can hear for me'. And trying to even educate her, at seven years of age, to flip her thinking about what doesn't work, and the frustration that she gets out of not being able to read and do things, to work on how we can turn it into a fun situation, rather than a heavy duty situation. 

[00:13:05] So we need to identify, first of all, the things that we are good at. And we need to maximise and monetise them and stop spending time on the things that are our shortfalls, the things that we aren't good at. Because my betting is that the things that we aren't good at, 99% of people who would be listening would be spending four times as much time on the things they're not good at rather than planning in, taking for granted the things that should be their strengths, and maximising them. 

[00:13:40] So flipping our thinking is very, very important, into an 'I can' mode rather than a negative mode, flipping our thinking into our strengths. You've heard me say before, Tyrone, is our knocking, dying. Now, many, many memory. And he said many years ago, I'm only good at 5% of what I do. The other 95% I leave to other people that are better suited to a task than what I am. 

[00:14:09] And this was, for me, when I heard that all those years ago, it was like getting the bricks off my back thinking I've got to cover every aspect of whatever I do. Like property, for example. I don't know enough about property when I'm starting off and I've got to cover every angle. If I stop and think 'What are my strengths in property?', and bring it in with and work with people who are better suited to some of the tasks than I am. And once you really grasp that and get that into your plan and your action plan, the world's your oyster. Because your thinking is very, very different. And going from there.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:14:51] It's really interesting that you mentioned that, because the thing is is by the time you learn everything— and this is what I've been thinking through as an example— in terms of say, I'm looking for actually a specific type of person for my business to help me with, say, marketing. And previously, I had an assistant that was helping me, but I was thinking, by time I trained her all up and provide all the training and experience and all that, it will be at least 12 to 18 months before she can get up to speed. 

[00:15:19] Whereas if I find someone, which I can easily find within a month or something like that, who has the experience, has been doing it, and he's looking for a role or a job, to come into my business to help with the marketing side of things, that would save me so much more time. And it's no different in terms of property. Whatever skill sets that you may not initially now have, you may have skill sets for communicating with people— I'm pretty sure most people and talk with people— you may have lots of good relationships with people who might have some money like investors, that's already a strong skill set. I'm pretty sure most people do. 

[00:15:52] But in terms of the details about the property, you can bring someone in who has done development who has done subdivisions with those kind of skill sets, and tie it back in together. And there's no reason why you can't do that. It's just your mindset thinking you can't. Because even before I started working with you, Jill, I had all these roadblocks, I had all of these stoppers. I was thinking, 'I don't have enough money to do it'. Guess what— three, four years later, after working with you so closely, I put in quite a number of deals without having to have my own money invested in there, and had investors supporting and helping. And they've made money as well. Yeah, it's happening. So I had a lot of these stoppers for me, and breaking through them, changing the way I think and, and look in a different way, I've been able to actually achieve what I wanted to initially achieve anyway, when I first started with you. So I'm a living example, to be honest.

Jill McIntyre:   

[00:16:44] Well, you just fought, Tyrone. I've worked for the last couple of years with a beautiful man in Canberra. And he sublets properties. And he is absolutely the epitome of success in how he gets the right people to work with. He's very unassuming. He seems to be able to ask the right questions. And this is a big one, Tyrone, we don't ask the right questions. Because quite often, we don't know what questions to ask. 

[00:17:25] And say with you, if it's going to take you 18 months to train someone up, you need to be also bringing this into a business plan that you're doing and documenting it. Because if that person left you, all of that could be when you could do audio, or what some sort of footprints that the next person could automatically do it that you don't have to physically go through step by step by step and try and trying them again. We need to be thinking like a business and putting it down that everything is systemised with what we're doing. 

[00:18:03] And I've got different clients, another one in Queensland is very much growing his business around property— yes, they're all around property, of course— but my guy in Canberra, he sublets. And he is just doing amazingly, but he's now got a team with removalists, with even the energy companies, like electricity. He's got good deals happening there. He seems to get deals, he's even got someone cooking at home for an absolute song. And he's got a guy who does all of the project reports, who set up with a business thinking about how to refine and systemise his business. 

[00:18:49] But still the one important point that he does all the way down. It's he interviews, any potential client, per room. And then he gets the feel of whether they are they right or wrong. 99.9%, he's never off the mark there. The rest of his business is systemising and handling it. Because he's learnt the hard way about asking questions and following through with those questions and systemising it. 

[00:19:20] And we need that. We need to have a business thinking in property. We need to think like a business, and this is if you've got no time, you've got no investors. Think like a business. If that's the problem, that's the solution. Then follow through on it. I know we're probably running out of time. But if I could go back to when I first started life coaching and I would sit a task every day from Monday to Friday, where I had to go and try another avenue that day to bring on a client— it might have been handing out flyers, going to health food shops, going to meet up groups, going to ring people that I hadn't spoken to for ages— every day, for quite a considerable time, five days a week, I was not allowed to put my head on the pillow at night until I got out of my comfort zone and I'd done something that was a bit different to what I'd done the day before, and the day before that, in a way of getting clients all of those years ago. And so, we've got to get out of the comfort zone, we're gonna get— yes, we're vulnerable— but we will live through it. And we will say the sun come up tomorrow and have brekky at the same place probably, and the same time, and probably the same brekkie. So we've got to get over it.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:20:44] We're creatures of habit. And when we actually jump out of something that isn't normal, or what we'd like to do normally, it's a bit of a push. But once you change that habit, and you actually see that you are doing it, it becomes very much part of you. 

 

[00:21:01] And I'll give you another example. Initially, I hadn't done podcasts for a while. And then getting back into it was really, really hard. If I didn't keep up the consistent effort, I don't know if this podcast would still exist today. It's all about setting those habits. And as you said, if you just block out, say, five days a week, or whatever, it is, a specific time that you're going to spend to work on your business or property, then it will happen. And you've just got to dedicate that. And that's what I've noticed, you know, once I make that change, everything falls into place.

[00:21:32] It's funny, Matt Jones, for example, is a good example again, and obviously I still work all of these years later, 14 years later or something like that, but very closely. Every Monday— and if I go back to when we started coaching, and for years I don't know that he does it now— every Sunday night, he'd have an appointment with himself. Every Sunday night, he would set and just go over and review what he had in the week ahead of him. So that he knew absolutely everything was happening. And then he would, in that Sunday night, review what happened in the last seven days, and go back, and what do I need to follow up on? What haven't I done? What could have been done differently? What's the flow on from that one? So it was just purely having a meeting with himself. 

[00:22:24] You don't always need someone else by your side to be having a meeting. But it was a structured meeting that he would have every Sunday night without fail. And it's important. And I do this with myself, even this morning, I had my journal out And at times, I would sit down and I'll do a mind map or a growth map about where I'm going. And it's just me. But it gets my creative juices working also. But it gets me out of a comfort zone. But it's written down on paper. So it's absolutely there. And it's in black and white, there's no grey areas. And then the action plan and the strategies come in after that to make it happen.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:23:06] Wow, I love that, it's a great reflection. If you do that every week, you can start to see growth. And when you start to see that growth, the momentum keeps building and building. That's great.

Jill McIntyre:  

[00:23:17] And also in general on a regular basis. And don't shoot yourself in the foot if you feel that you haven't done something. Give yourself a pat in the back and say congratulations, and well done. Awesome.

Thanks again to our guest on this episode of Property Investory, Jill McIntyre.