Finding Investment Properties The Easy Way With Guillaume Black

Hello and welcome to the Property Unleashed podcast with me, Mark Fitzgerald. It's fantastic to have you joining me here today and I have another entrepreneur on the line joining me here as well today. So I'm truly delighted to have invited Gillian Black on and he said yes, which is always a good sign. A little bit about Gillian himself. Following a 10 year career in the bridge engineering industry and delivering world records in that industry of multi million pound structures over eight countries, Gilliam went from full time in that job to going full time in property through high end HMO developments in the Birmingham area. With a passion for studying success, specifically what makes people successful in property. This crossed with his engineering background. He has now co founded Property Filter which is the best sourcing enhancer software out there in the market currently for finding the exact property deals people want. This is giving property investors up and down the country their time back and making this whole process so much easier. It empowers property investors to get more deals in a systematic and effective manner. And the system is unique, it's proven and it delivers. It's changing the way people are investing all over the country and all over the property market. So it is with great delight to have Gillian joining me here today. Welcome Gillian, great to see you my friend.

Thanks for having me. A real pleasure as well.

Quite a, quite a good intro there. You've done plenty of things so there's, there's hot topics there for us to talk about. I know Property Filter at the moment is first and foremost what you're working on and building and I've seen it myself in action. It's a fantastic piece of kit, so we'll get onto that. But what I'd like to know a bit about you, where you've come from, your background and everything, that would be great.

Yeah. So I'm Guillaume Black, I'm originally from France as you will get used to throughout this interview. So my background is in engineering as Mark said. So yeah, I used to work as an expat building big bridges around the world. But I've got basically a very strong. So I'm an engineer but I don't quite like the calculations or I could do like I trained to do like structural calculation and stuff like that, but it was never my flow. So I was always very practical. I always liked the concrete stuff and it's why despite studying mechanical and industry, I went outdoors on site basically on projects and my whole career and basically the way I went through university and got my degree and my whole career has been very practically minded, you Know in by having a strong common sense and a strong observation sense and. And then I basically my career was more on leadership building, building, building teams and delivering projects. So that, that was my background. Yeah so I used to, I, I moved in quite a few different countries building those bridges but it was, it was just taking a turn on me basically. It was quite hard basically 15 hour days, 6 to 15 days in a row and you are expected to work all the time basically because they are deadlines on projects and things like that. So I was looking for a bit more stability and I had because I did a project in Scotland in 201213 the guys in the UK gave me a ring when I was trying to exit basically what I was doing and said come in uk, come and work for us. It didn't mean I stopped moving. So the stability went from international to national. So yeah, I started. So I moved here in 2016 in east London, then did some work in Essex on some harbor there then in Gatwick South Wales, moved to the Midlands, the West Midlands, did a couple of projects around Birmingham and then what really sort of killed it for me is that I was really a practical guy. I spent 10 years inside cabins with dusty boots and there wasn't big enough projects for me anymore and the needs of the business were more into sort of a main office sort of role for me which I did for a couple of years but it was I at the end I ended up, I was crying on my way to work and I was just out of flow. It wasn't, you know, the old commercial side of things, the old political office gossips and things were new to me and I realized I always was a bit entrepreneurial on site with, whilst having, having, having a job so it didn't work work out for me. And so by the, in the same time I sort of had an interest in property which I always, always had. So I bought, I started to buy properties in 2012 in France and, and then when I actually. So a couple of years after moving to UK I, I started to be more committed to moving and settling here because I used to, I used to move countries every nine to 12 months basically. So it was like oh, edge of the one and we'll see where this takes us. And once I was committed to UK I got more interested into other network here and pretty much in the same time I had a bit of a sort of the penny was dropping with the way I was dealing with my investments and finance because as an expat and a young expat I used to be very well received at my local bank branch. Mr. Black, here's a coffee for you. And everything. And basically I bought everything. They underlined on their list whatever the highest commission they had, I bought everything. Never made a penny out of it. Luckily I didn't lose anything. But basically I had this sort of bad experience with financial advisors and I wanted control and I like the concrete and practical stuff. So when I started to look around property in the UK and at the beginning was quite naive, I just wanted to buy a flat, no idea what was a leasehold property, what else. I just wanted to big deposits, pay down the mortgage as soon as possible. I was looking at this, like this at that time, but really the magic. So something really ticked with me when I realized that you could do interest only mortgages and refinancing, which we don't have in France or in most of the rest of the world basically. Which meant I could generate a monthly cash flow from the interest only mortgages and with the refinance I could have control on the performance of the assets. So this is like, okay, this is good. And then I got into it more, set up the first property investment business and then just become, became an accidental entrepreneur because then I had a business for tax reason and all of a sudden, you know, because of section 24 and property. And then all of a sudden it made a huge sense to put the coffees for the business and this and that expenses and then the mileage and say oh, this is great. You know, so and then, and then it just, it just grew like this and I had to do quite a bit of mindset, deconstructing, reconstructing around being an entrepreneur because you know, despite, you know, graduating from some nice universities in France etc. And nobody I know isn't, is an entrepreneur, you know, you know, in England you have, or in uk, you know, someone which parents have got a corn shop, everybody is self employed or you've got people around you who are self employed or have a business. It's not so much the case in France. You graduate and you go and work for the, you know, like FTSE 100 or whatever, you know, like the big companies. Basically that's sort of the, the career path. So you know, accidental entrepreneur. And then I had to do a lot of deconstruction and rebuild around the, you know, mindset and things. So that, that's sort of, that's a bit of a background about myself.

Well, that's good. I mean the whole journey there and, and that's what it's all about at the end of the day, it's to see where, how people have got to, where they've got to, the, the journey that they've taken. You know, it's very interesting that, you know, I, I'm very similar in the sense that I had a real passion for what I was doing corporate way in, in that job and everything. But then you sort of almost when because being being sort of entrepreneurial and everything, you get to a point where it's not enough or, or it's just not satisfying you anymore. And like you say, if the projects, you're doing these massive, massive projects and all of a sudden then you're just going sort of back down to doing smaller projects and probably in yourself you're wanting to do more, you want to push yourself that extra mile and you're looking then how can I invest in myself? How can I invest my money better as well rather than giving it to other people? And I think when you say accidental entrepreneur, I don't think it is. I think it's more a case of it's always in you. You're just looking for the opportunities there to be able to go that step further, to take it that step further. And I think everybody is. But a lot of us get so trapped in the normal day to day and the family life and building up, you know, the nest egg that we don't always take that leap of faith and go out there and try new things. So I applaud you for the fact that, you know, you've come from a different country as well. You've embraced what you found in this country as you're going forward and you've sort of turned that into your own businesses and your own ways of creating wealth and creating, you know, a bit of a legacy piece going forward, which is truly superb. So if I just take you back to, you know, where you were saying that you were upset driving, driving to work and things like that, you know, was there a breaking point for you where you just thought, nah, nuff's enough, I've got to start doing something else, I've got to reach out and try something else.

Yes, basically my, my role has changed quite a lot and I think it's just, it comes natural with seniority in the corporate world. You, you know, you, you get, you get more responsibilities and more, you know, like a different title and different, you know, a different role basically. And fundamentally I'm an, I'm an operations guy. You know, I was, I was on, on site. So I grew up on, on a construction site. You know my parents, they refurb the house around us. There's a lot of self build going on in France. So it's, it's very, it's very rare. People buy properties from the developers so they'll hire a builder to be an architect and a builder to do it for them. But you know, like my sister is going through her own, you know, dream house bound conversion at the moment and you know, everybody does this, most people do that. So I grew up on this construction site with my parents. My dad is a teacher and you know, teacher go on strikes, you know, sometimes and my dad would, we would sit at the dinner table and my dad would say, you know, there's a strike tomorrow and it'd be really good if we could lay this concrete on this and do you know, whatever, pour the lintel or that or whatever. You know. It was just, I was just on the tools, you know, since I was like 12 basically and very practical. You know, I'm very concrete in terms of. I need to see what I, what I, what I, what I build. And then my whole career was like this where I went and I realized my childhood dream. I went to, you know, these are like Discovery Channel grade, you know, superstructure stuff and I was a bit of a spoiled child because I went from one record building to building my own record and did quite, quite a few things like this. And the problem is that it's trapping. You know, you can do so much of this and then the next step is either you stay at a certain level and then you need to be extremely mobile or you go to the main office and actually it just didn't fit for me. So why? Yeah, I think, I guess I discovered the main office for the first time 10 years on and yeah, it just wasn't for me like a 9 to 5 the culture. And yeah, I was used to, you know, having guys where we point in one direction. I used to, you know, I used to. So I worked in like Russia in Turkey and some countries like this where the company would give us like some farmers basically some guys when I knew the name of the tools in Turkish better than the guys who were coming in, you know and then you create this world class team who build the biggest bridge in the world. And so I quite like this thrill here. But then, then the office role is more political, commercial and I said the infrastructure, the infrastructure sort of industry in the UK is very political basically on its, I'm more of a delivery guy and it's Just like I could dance so much and then, you know, it's just. Yeah, I couldn't see myself basically. What. So I was always a go getter, you know, in my career and I guess what's what I had a few disappointment basically as I explained why it wasn't for me anymore. But as soon as I could not see myself in my boss's shoes, it's like I had no purpose. And so it sort of broke it. But it took me a while to really realize it. And it's. So when we were on this course or learning about journaling and stuff and I had to do quite a lot of work around that and deconstruct a lot and I realized I was lying to myself. I had the property things going on in the background and I was always thinking, well, you know, I'll quit at some point. But I was just lying to myself because in my sort of culture and learned, you know, like just mindset. Yeah, I couldn't actually, I couldn't. So I had to do quite, quite some work on that basically.

Right. Yeah. Well, I think mindset and strength in mindset is everything. The stronger you are mentally, the more you want to get out there. It opens up, you know, a whole new world to you. So I think obviously it comes from grassroots. Then you know the property side of things as well with your parents and you know, your dad planning things in when, when there's potential opportunities, which is great, which is great. And that opens your minds up to a lot of things. So do you still have the properties that you bought in France?

No, no, I sold everything between 2018 and 2021 actually because so much more sense here.

So do you think like the property side of things, of getting into property, knowing property is a good investment and educating yourself a bit further in that so that you know what you're doing. Do you think that came from your, your parents side of things or did was it just something that you just found your own path?

Well, it's just I had a very practical sort of education with my, with my parents. So in terms of asset class and stuff. So I've been the busy professional having a good salary for my age and giving my money to financial advisor stocks and shares and all sorts of stuff. As I said, wherever they told me they are the advisors and it's just there is no control with it. And what I like with property for me is that it's concrete, it's practical, you can see it and also you can control the outcome. So you can control by Buying the right thing. You can do your biofiber refinance and then you have a, you have, you control your money left in how much money that, you know, you know what return on investment, that this works. And if you go on the stock market, it's just, you know, you can do your due diligence before you buy, but you can't, you, you can't change it. You can change it, it will vary, it will go up and down. You know, my, my HMOs, I, you know, you know, for as long as I get them, I know the ROI is, is, is guaranteed and, and once all the money is out in a couple of years, you know, then know, even if it goes a bit down or whatever, if I get banded on the rooms or whatever, it's, it's, it's fine.

Well, I think, I think that's, that is the beauty in property. I mean I used to look at the stock exchange and, and the cryptos and everything and well, you have a little dabble and stuff like that in there. You really, you're just investing in somebody else's company. And the sooner I realized that, you know, it's this not a bad thing. Sometimes it's nice to have a bit of money, know, invested into other people's assets and things like that. But your biggest asset is you. The biggest asset is what you can produce. And I found that investing more and more in myself and investing more and more in my own businesses is actually reaping me bigger results and bigger rewards financially than it is investing in anybody else's companies or stocks or bonds or anything like that. So I, I always say have a, have, have, you know, have a bucket and have lots of little taps going into the bucket and everything of resources and things. But by controlling it yourself, you open up the opportunities for yourself to be able to grow. So I mean on the property portfolio side of things for yourself, are you still growing that? Is there a certain point that you've said I'll cut it off at this point or will you always continue to invest in properties?

Yeah, so we buy a refurb refinance HMOs in Birmingham. So we've got a few. And we've got two projects on the go. One seven bed that is going through the refurb now and we are just a few weeks from finishing and another one which is with planning with, for a nine bed and all of these have been found with proper filter. But I think I'm at the stage where the HMOs are quite noisy and the development is quite. Yeah, it's quite. Yeah it's quite a lot of work. You need to be quite hands on or to scale it to a point where you've got a team and I think I'm at a sweet spot with the size. Once we've built this two other projects where it will be nice and I'll move into more profit place and it's just, I think it's just also a recognition that the good days of HMOs are probably behind for me to make it work now I've had to go through planning for this seven and this nine bed and the six bed PD we used to do. They are not out there anymore. So it's a lot harder. And is it really worth the pain? It probably is but it's the opportunity cost. You know can I, can I double this, can I double this capital, you know in, in 12, 18 months by doing some profit play? Yeah, I probably can. So we know with leverage of property and mortgages and stuff. So, so yeah it's what I'm going to move into.

Okay. Okay. And what, what can you explain a little bit more about that sort of thing like the, the profit play that you're doing?

Yeah, so I'm just exploring at the moment. So it's. So we're going to use props filter to find this as well. The idea is that profit meanings like your non guaranteed chunk of capital that come in because you have these big capital events if you do a flip an assisted sale so you might do sourcing so it's not something like a subscription or rent that comes day and night any month. So it's based on you work once you get this bigger capital once and the idea with this is once you. So you probably have talked about this on your channel before but it's what we've learned we've done is your. You sort your cash flow and then the way to create wealth is your time is much more worth spent on profit place or this big capital event. And what I'm going to try because in the August updates of property filter will know every lease length of every leasehold property in the UK And I'm going to go into this basically do assisted sales on sorting out short list problems and basically having a team of surveyors, solicitors, agents and we just negotiate the heads of terms then we pass it to the solicitors to negotiate things with the surveyors and then we just put it on an option and then give it to an agent to flip to sell once We've solved this shortlist sort of problem and I'm going to try this and then see if I can scale that and do quite a few months. Basically that's the idea because it's like what mountain of value are, you know, what is special? What is my superpower? What, you know, people need to think like this, you know, what's special about me or what sort of superpower can I access with me? I've got, I've got props filter, you know, so it's like in there, what, what, what niche can I found that nobody else is doing? Where it can be, it can be lucrative in a way. And for me I'm at the stage where the, the portfolio, the cash flow side of the portfolio is going to be built and done. So I'm moving, moving to the next stage and yeah will be this, this profit place. So probably something I'll start the end of the year or next year. So yeah, we'll see.

Brilliant, Brilliant. I'm always excited to hear about things like that because, you know, we understand that cash is everything. So get your cash flow sorted and that can be noisy businesses. As you were saying There, you know, HMOs holiday lets, you know, flipping properties and stuff like that is great, but that's normally your bonuses. So, you know, if you're struggling for cash flow now, don't think, well, you can do it. It depends on what you want to do. But if you're struggling for cash flow, it's not very good or it's not recommended to go out there and start trying to flip properties. If you need to live off the income, build up a business to live off the income and then go and flip properties and have that cash flow coming through just in case it doesn't quite go to plan. So I think the way that you.

Just picking up on what you said about cash flow, you said it's exactly right to build a business, build a business to, to sort your cash flow. And I think they, you know, with some of the rent to rent strategies and things like that, there's a, there's a bit of a misconception that because of some course there where you are so like, oh, you're only two deals away from me sitting at the beach and you, you don't think of creating, scaling a business. You think, you think I just need so many deals and it will be done. But really you are lying to yourself and you are dealing, delaying the, you know, like the, the truth which is that you are creating a noisy business. So start by recognizing that you are creating this business. So you're already in this business mindset and basically in rent to rent, you are a specialist letting agent. So are you ready to build and scale this specialist letting agency in a way that you might sell it and exit at some point? Because this is what you are building and it only works, you know, at scale unless you are creating yourself a new job. So I really liked and picked up on the fact create this business because I think a lot of people in rent to rent, they speak in terms of how many deals away they are from their goals and every deal has more noise. And then, and then once they've got four or five, it's like, oh my God, this is worse than work, you know. So it's just starting with this business mindset in mind, I think is good.

Yeah. Well, that's why obviously I have the rent to rent business builder, which, you know, we picked up on there, so to speak. But I appreciate, but that's what I, I set out to have a rent to rent business, but I wanted to have processes in it. I want to have system. I don't have people in it, so that I am the director of the company, so to speak. Now Gabe, don't get me wrong, you know, in property, and we all know in property there are days where you have to get involved, you have to go on site, you have to go and visit the properties and things like that. And that's not a problem because it's at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. But you know, going out there, is that the best use of my time? Doing viewings, doing onboardings, doing checkouts, you know, making sure that the properties are kept together, doing inspections and stuff like that? It's not, it's things that can be outsourced to other people with the technology that we have in this day and age now, set the whole thing up to say, yeah, I can show you how to get deals. Anybody out there really can show people how to get rent to rent deals. But can they show them how to build a systemized business? And that's what I do. I show you how to build the systems in place. If you want to go and sit on the beach, you can, but you're never going to sit there forever. You know what I mean? You're still going to have to answer a few phone calls, you're still going to have to be on your laptop and stuff like that. But if you can put the right people in the right places, you don't necessarily have to be there, you know, And I like the fact that realistically I could probably start a rent to rent business in a different area than where I live now because I know how to build those systems and put them into place. Yes, it would take time and stuff, but you could do that. And like you say, you can franchise it, you can sell it later on, you can do all sorts of things but get the cash flow nailed. So I'm glad we're on the same wavelength with that and this.

It's really hard because I can see myself when I sort of started and I, you know, I couldn't. You. It's really the hardest thing is to think big, you know, when you are, when you are busy in a job and so on. And it's. The faster you can have a, a conversation with your future self in a way or you can have someone that help you to say, okay, look, if you get into this, you need to go big, you know, because you need to scale it in a way that, you know people are going to do the work for you. So. And it's hard because you at the beginning say, oh, the first deal, the second deal. And actually you, you know, it's fine, you know, you'll have 15 at the end. So, you know, you're not, you know, you know, it's just starting with this and thinking bigger from the, from the outset and thinking, setting up a business.

Yeah, yeah. And also, how big, how big do you need to be? Because, you know, as, as we've been taught and showed, at the end of the day, there's a certain level that I've always tried to get myself to, to say that this is enough's enough here. At the end of the day, this is manageable. This is making me good money. This is meaning I've got opportunities to go out there and do different things. And if you want to scale and have 100 HMOs or 100 service accommodations, that is fine, but. But you need to systemize it. And I mean, I got to about five HMOs and I was never shown this when I started out. I was just getting deal after deal after deal, thinking, hey, hey, hey, I'm building massive profit here, only to then think, crikey, this is a massive headache. Do you know what I mean? I'm not enjoying this. And then I went and started a letting agency as well and built that to a big scale as well. And it was like, hold on a minute now I've just created another job for Myself, yes. In the beginning it's great because we can all say, well, yeah, but it's my business and it is your business, but you will fall out of love with it if you're doing every last thing and you're being run ragged. So. No, that's great, that's great. So obviously from, you know, leaving the corporate world, getting involved in property, building that up, building that up. And then I, I'm intrigued to know how Property Filter came about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I was working full time and I was wasting my time on viewings basically, or I was wasting my time altogether. So, you know, picture this, you know, yeah, you are starting out, you're all excited, you pay a couple of grand for the course and, and then you spend all your mornings, your evenings, your weekends, you know, scrolling through, right, move and stuff. Then on, you know, the time you have, you go on viewings and in the meantime you've got the missy saying, what is this all about? You know, like, you know, you know, you spend all this money, you, I don't see you anymore. But, you know, where are the results? And it took me a really a long time to, to get traction and results because I would book viewings based on the pictures, the layouts and say, this would be good, only to find out that there's no way you go on the viewing and there's no way there is going to be a deal there. So it's like, okay, so I'm just going around in circles and updating my spreadsheets and stuff. So it's just not working. And I only had time for like five or six viewings like in a week because it would be the Saturday sometimes in some evenings or if I was working on site, I could go a bit earlier in some places, but it was just going nowhere like this. So we just set out and I'm really grateful for my property business partners at the time. So it stays sort of in the same family. We set up a very small and ugly system that would just tell us, all right, so if we're going to do a viewing, it's going to have to be worth our time. So let's look at any properties that come first, fell through and come back on the market, any properties that are reduced, any property that are back on the market and reduced. And then we added things like been on the market since a long time, been sole subject contract since a long time. And we started to add more things, you know, like be listed with multiple agents and then we could speak with an agent that lost the instruction and they will tell us everything about the, you know, the, the landlord or the owner and then we could, we could go and speak with the new one. So then from this I got, I got my time back and all of the sudden I didn't do, I was only doing half the number of viewings I used to do before. I didn't spend the mornings, the evenings anymore so I could be with my wife again. And we started to get the results there and the HMOs, we bought the results. I mean the story is always the same. The properties was listed with multiple agents, fell out of bed before one or multiple times. And then you've got a lot more interesting conversation. So it's not because it fell through before that the landlord is going to be like, you know, like screaming for you to take it off his hand or selling it to you. But you've got more interesting conversations than if you, oh, there's a right move alert new on the market. And then you go and there's 20 people at the property. You know, it's like, what are you doing? It's just wasting your time. So it was just okay, 90% of the people are not motivated. So how do we get to the top five, the top 10%? And this is the simple system we built. And then on top of that then we added more stuff to this. So it's a lot, you know, it's 10 times more elaborate than this now. But it's how it started and it's how it got us, got us the results. And the sort of deals we were looking at was we needed to create 100k, 100,000 pound equity after we refinance 40% plus ROI and sort of 1200, 1500 cash flow per month from after refinance. And, and then we've, we've done a bit of a cookie, cookie cutter system with these. They are all fine through the, through the system like that.

So that's brilliant. That's absolutely brilliant. And it is normally when you're trying to solve a solution is where if you can come up with the answer and actually, you know, you have the tools and the people around you to help you put it together, then you, you've created something. I mean, I've gone through it with you. It is a fantastic system and well worth checking out. And we'll put links in the show notes to it as however you're watching or listening to this, to this episode. But I mean really just, just sort of explain to just explain to people a bit more about what you can do. So if you're looking at certain strategies, let's just say you're looking for purchase, lease options, sort of deals, how the system would really help people to be able to, to pinpoint those sort of potential opportunities. Let's get it right there. Using. Using property filter.

Yeah. So I start by saying that it's very unique in the way it works compared to anything out there. Anybody claiming to have a technology business, etc. In the way that it's a step by step blueprint, it's a methodology and it's powered by data, insights and automation and it gets you deals basically. So the aim and the purpose of it is to find deals. And in terms of our culture, so we are all engineers involved in this and it's all about the results. So the big value that drives everything we do and the way we build it, it's all about what can we add to this or remove from it that will help people get the results. And it's like what action do I need to take today? The 3, 5 actions. It doesn't have to be overwhelming for me to progress in property and then the next day and the next day. So it's all about the results here and it's built on an extremely solid database. Basically on the backend there's nothing quite like this and there's a lot of IP that got into this to make it super efficient and reliable. And the way it works. So the sort of the blueprint works, it's really different to. So today you'll go on to writemove and you do a search and then you'll have 5 pages, 10, 15 pages with a few criteria and then tomorrow you'll go again, you'll search again for the same things and you have all these properties that you've seen before, not quite sure and it's just a lot of noise. You're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling all the time and it's very just not giving you the results and you're missing out on stuff all the time. So today if you find yourself on right move, I'm telling you you are wasting your time. There's a hundred times more efficient way of doing it. And so the way it works is in the methodology. The first step is you set and forget your area and strategy. So your gold mine area and your strategy. So it's not like I'm doing a search today, I'm doing another search tomorrow. Say okay, what is. So I kind of like, I don't know, dozens of different areas and strategies. So we set up what we call the lead generator and it's area. So we pick our area and in the strategy we've got some enhanced sort of filters in there so you can, you know, above and beyond the usual number of bedrooms and the price range. You can say, okay, show me the stuff that are for sale as well as to rent. To answer your question about the plos. So this match extremely reliably. So there's nothing basically that does it as good as this. There's a lot that got into it. Any properties that are for sale on to rent. So these are really good purchase lease options. Leads another way we find plos is looking at show me anything that today is for sale for less than what it sold previously. So you can find some properties. So we call it negative equity. It's a bit of a, it's not quite negative equity, but it's just the name we gave it. But basically it will find properties, typically new builds from 2007, 2008 that let's say they were sold at the time of 100k and today it's been on the market since 2 years. They are struggling to sell it to make a loss, basically they're struggling to make a loss, they are struggling to get 90k for it. And what you can do is you can go and speak with them if they have a mortgage. Basically it's very simple, you can understand they are going through all this trouble basically to access this equity. So you can speak. Okay, once you've paid your tax, once you've paid your, your solicitor, once you've paid your agent, what are you left with? And you have you, you reframe the discussion around, oh, I've got this 100k, I paid 100k for this property and today I just want to access my free 5k of equity, net equity. So you can reframe the discussion basically where I say, well, I could give you this equity in two weeks, you know, let's do. And you position it, and position it basically as a PLO and etc. And what's the worst thing that can happen? You know, I pay you a deposit now and in three years time, in five years time, you can sell it again if I don't perform, you know, so it works well, we've got a few, a few members in this who are doing really well. And the thing is that once you find one through this, chances are the rest of the block, they're all in the same situation. So then you can you use it as a Case study and say, oh look, I've done this for John down number xyz. Speak with him if you want out. Here's my number. People are doing quite well out of this. And there's all sorts of stuff basically that are enhanced in the search. You can search property by a square meter edge. So if you do hmo, so you filter out all the small stuff, you can search by epc, which is huge because of the EPC change. So you can fill up your pipeline now with you know like investment properties that are going to struggle to let you know in sort of 18 months. And you just build a bit of, a bit of a database if you like. Like this. This is going to be the big thing I think next year. So it's why we had this feature and many, many more, more stuff basically. And once we've set up this criteria, this is set and then we go into the leads inbox and the system just deliver leads that match this criteria to you on a daily basis. So, so it delivers you leads that match this enhanced criteria while you sleep, basically. And then what happens is that all your results are organized under your motivated seller banner. I'm a bit frustrated, I'll have to show it to people actually. But basically you go, okay, I've got like 100 results in there. But amongst those 100 there's five that are back on the market and reduced. So boom, you know, like let's focus on these and then the next port of call is going to be the ones that are back on the market. Next port of call, the ones that are reduced. So it's all this methodology and then the system, remember, so the stuff, the hell yes, you will save to your pipeline, the hell no, you will hide. And basically the system will remember what you saved and disregarded and tomorrow when it updates it will only show you the new stuff. So you don't have to scroll through page five of rightmove wondering if you should have a look on Zoopla as well. Everything is there, so it's really efficient and it empowers people really to dominate everything there is in their gold mine area in a few minutes of their time. Because then you just need to check the few new leads because you know, you've exhaustively checked everything. And then there's the CRM system where you push all these leads into great deals and you never miss follow up at the end. So it's all a methodology basically.

And I mean what you just covered there is only a little snippet of what you can do at the end of the day, you know what I mean? It's far too complex to go into everything but it's just a case of what, wow, what a system to put together. You know, I always think the property and the property market and the property world is always, you know, behind. It seems so far behind with the way solicitors work and you know, the way it is to try and get planning and even working with architects and things like that. It can take long, long time. But you've put a system together now that really does bring, you know, it into, you know, the now, the here and now and even the future at the end of the day. I mean the things that it can do for people, you know, developers, property investors, people just, I mean people just even want to find, you know, a good family home and stuff like that or in some investment properties to just have you know, a couple of buy to lets and things. It just gives you that pinpoint accuracy to be able to go out there, to be able to talk, negotiate and know a bit more about the properties before you get there. So absolute brilliant stuff. I mean I, I can't praise it enough. It's well worth checking out and obviously you know, I know you do demos and things like that, but I also know that you've started your own YouTube channel or started up again or whatever you're doing at the moment, getting videos out there just to sort of show people what this system can do.

Yeah, because as a, as a typical engineer I've been, we've been doing this you know, you know, in the garage and you know like not willing to show it to anybody. So it's not quite ready yet. It's not going to. But yeah, well I've been, look, I've been looking around so some of our, so we've got a bit More than 100 people Sign up on the pre launch, like the pre sale sort of pre launch offer and some of them are said look you need to push it. And I said oh, I'm not quite sure. And I say look, these are the other stuff on the market and you know, you've got nothing to worry about, your system is superior. So you just, just put it out there. So yeah, we just, we're just there.

Where.

And again it's, it's always a journey. You know we were talking about mindset and, and limiting beliefs and stuff. So I'm on the same train as everybody else. You know, you just, you just go up the, the step as and when.

It'S, it's Absolutely crazy how our minds play tricks on us. You know what I mean? You show that product to people, you show the system, you show it works. Everybody's like, wow. But in our minds, or even in your mind, you just, you know, saying that you still doubt it. It's not, it's not quite ready. It's not quite ready. You know, that font's not quite the right color. That's, that's not just gonna do that yet. Or it'll upset people.

Yeah. Like it.

Because it's not, it's not exactly finished or that coding's not done. But you know, from, from a consumer's perspective, you look at it and you just go, wow, fantastic. That's absolutely. I know you're adding to it all the time and you want it to be this because you know what it's going to be. Or, you know, let me put it like that because we've got so much.

In the roadmap, so much other stuff we've got planned for it. And you want, you. I want everything already, you know, so, yeah, you just need to be evolutive like this. But yeah, it's already great. So it's working well. Well. And it's working the most important. And I'm really grateful to see the results people are getting from it. And that's the best sort of reward I can get, you know, because I've been there, I've had the pain and it solved my problem. This is all nice and good, but then when you see that people are thanking you because, you know, they've, you know, I've got some deals for sales. They've closed four deals in the first months of, you know, with this alone, I've got another developer, they just closed two deals just on using one of the 10 features I talked about just before. Just calling all the sole subject contract properties. I see. This is sole subject contract in a while. What's happening with the sale? As a matter of fact, it's not going very well. You want to view it, of course. And in one week you got two deals like this. You just have to play the game on the system. The blueprint is there. And then it just, it's made so easy for people to get the results, basically.

I mean, it's a deal. Source is heaven at the end of the day. It takes all the legwork out of, of their jobs at the end of the day, you know, they, I always say that people are looking to source leads, source deals for investors, find out what the investors want, find out what their Criterias are and then you could basically input that into your system and it'll just spew out basically all of the things that are in their category. And you can do bespoken services for people. You can put yourself a cut above the rest of the crowd by using a system like this where basically you can say, you know, you could speak to an investor at a networking event who's somebody who's serious and the next day you can say, listen, taking your criteria, I've got 10 results here or, or 100 results, you know, at the end of the day. So do you want to be a little bit more niche or if you want specific areas? Because this is what I've found so far. And you'll really blow people's minds that'll think, crikey, this person gets me. They're out there doing a job for me as well. And you've got something like property photo working for you in the background. And I have to say it is going to revolutionize how people find properties. You know, it's been stagnant for a long time and I think there are other systems out there, but this one here is the whole kick caboodle. So I like to say I can't praise it enough. It's good to have you on and talking about it. But the other thing that I like about it, and this is like entrepreneur to entrepreneur, is the passion. You know, when you talk about it, you smile, you, you're energetic, you all of a sudden, even if your mood's a little bit flat and we, we see each other quite a bit and stuff like that, even if things aren't going quite well, you start talking about this project, you know, your property filter business and all of a sudden, yeah, you're like, well we're thinking of doing this now and we're looking at that but it's taking a bit longer and you can see a little frustration because things aren't happening as quickly as you want. And that's what it's all about. And it's, that's living, that's what it, you know, having a passion. It doesn't feel like work, does it?

Yeah, absolutely. I think I look, I look back at these years or like pre launch building it with a lot of nostalgia because it's, you know, it's me, my best man, you know, it's like, it's a, it's the band of brother as well. So we just, it's just quite enjoyable the old project and the, you know, like the high performance and the standards we impose to ourselves to deliver for our members and to make it a lot, you know, as good as it can be for our future members as well. It's just really a lot. It's just fun, you know, like, it's quite fun.

That's it. And that's it. Business. Why does business have to be a slog? It doesn't. It should be fun, you know, it should be gamified. At the end of the day, I love that term, gamify everything, make a game out of it. And I, I'm quite a competitive person, but normally just competitive in myself. So, you know, if I go and go and get on the peloton, I'm trying to beat somebody that's, you know, going quicker than me, not for any other reason, just because that's how my brain works. So I like to compete against myself more than anything else. And I think gamifying, you know, your business, but having your friends there as well. And as long as everything, you know, I, I think the, the beauty from what I see from the outside is that, you know, you've very much got your roles in play, so they're very good at what they do, and you don't really tend to tinker with that. They leave you to get on with what you do. And that is so, so important when you go in a business, particularly with people that you know and are friends with, that you've got to have those roles nailed, that you've got to know, you know, this is what I do. I'm responsible for anything here and be able to ask those questions, to say, you know, Gillian, I fe response, I am responsible for that because that's sort of my job description. I'll be on that. Leave that to me. I'll get sorted with it rather than falling out and things. So I think if you've got all of that nailed in business, and quite clearly you have, and the way you're moving forward, it's absolutely great. So, I mean, that pretty much brings us up to where you are now with, with Property Filter. I think that's. That's your main sort of baby at the moment, which is spreading the love, getting out there. And, you know, if you do go to any of the PIN meetings, you've probably seen Gillian or you will do, because he's here, there and everywhere. He's very much like me, likes to get out there, likes to network, likes to mingle with people. But that brings me to the sort of the point of the podcast, if you like, where I like to do a little quick fire round, ask you a few questions and just see what your results are. And I always say the only reason I do is because I'm always interested to see what people come up with because you can hear some different things. So what's the best advice?

The best advice? So I would say.

So, yeah, I.

Would say like, yeah, read, like, read. All the problems have been solved, have happened and have been solved before and it's all in books. So yeah, it's there, basically. So. And the compound effect of reading little and often, there's so many matters and subjects you can explore and learn from it. And yeah, I admire a lot the people that are committed to put their knowledge into, into books. I think it's quite. Because it's quite a big, big project. So I've got a lot of respect for, for that and, and yeah, so I, I wish I'd started to read stuff earlier because I, as a scientist engineer, you know, like, books are for girls kind of thing, you know, I just miss out on lots of stuff, you know, like half of my life. So I wish I'd. I wish I'd pick up books earlier. Yeah, that's probably one. And then everybody's a bit tight, you know. You know, like when you say, oh, you go on trainings and get, you know, like, invest in yourself and stuff like that. I think the first, the first thing you, you buy, the first sort of service you buy to invest in yourself is like the, the biggest shift you, you, you have. And yeah, I should have got a mentor earlier, basically, or mentors for different aspects of my life earlier. And yeah, that's, that's probably. If I were to do it again, I would read books and get people to show me the way. Yeah.

Do you know that's all you need? That is all you need. That's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Because I'm exactly the same. I probably spent at least 15 years not reading a thing, you know, thinking everything head down, corporate world and all of that. It's when I started reading books again. It's when I started investing in myself, getting training, getting mentors, getting coaches, that your whole world opens up and why not find following the footsteps of people that are above you, you know, people are at a different level to help force you where you are and until you do that and you actually get massive value from it and you've got to do your due diligence because there can be a lot of crap out there. But you, you get yourself out there, you do the right training with the right people that push you in the right direction, you'll never look back. And that is the beauty of it. I'll never look back and I'll never stop having mentors, coaches, and helping me try and drive myself further forward to be the best person I can be, to be the best husband, the best dad and, and the best entrepreneurial business person or businessman I can be. And so I think that's brilliant. I love that. I'm going to, I'm going to use that. That's great. That's great. So if you could have a dinner party with three people, alive or dead, who would you like to sit down with and have a. Have a dinner with?

All right. That's quite a tough one because I think a lot of people will have like heroes, you know, like they'll answer to this like really quick. And I don't really have heroes, you know, like famous people I look up to. I'd say I think the wisest person on the planet is Anonymous and has probably not written books and is probably not really active on social media. And so it's like, I don't know this wisest person, but I'd like to meet her, meet him and probably that'd be really interesting. But the problem is that he's keeping things for himself. He's not shouting out. And I'm sure, you know, there is this person here which is not public and that probably the most interesting person to meet. I probably want to have multiple dinner parties like every year, every couple of years or something like that. And at every of them dinner parties that you described, it'd be really nice to see my future self. So it's sort of like me in five years, every couple of years because it's been quite a growth and quite a change. But on the day to day it seems impossible and it's just incremental change and it's a little. And often every day and sometimes it's just big mindset shift because there's some events, but I'm really confident into this guy I'm building. And you say investing in yourself, it takes so many ways. But it'd be nice for him to say, look, this is all worth it and then it will just accelerate things because all of a sudden say, wow, know and this is true for anybody basically everybody changes and everybody grows and it's what we are made of. So yeah, that'd be quite interesting. The third person. So I'm. I'm not much of a sports person, but I would say it'd Be really nice to be around some really high achievers, athletes, you know, like, I don't like you Senbolt. Or I'm not, I'm not into football at all, but like a Cristiano Ronaldo, these guys who, who have just this crazy discipline and the, the results drive their whole life. But I think if you surround yourself by people with high standard, it just raises your, your standard. It'd be quite interesting to. Yeah. To, to meet these people. Yeah.

That's good. I like that. That's completely. I wasn't expecting that. I like that. And I think whether it's a metaphor that's right to use or not to use, I always look at it as you sort of the old you dies and there's a new you.

Yeah.

And if it's not, then you just die in at the end of the day because if you're not growing. And I did this for a long time, which is why I can talk about it, I just set in my ways. I didn't grow, I didn't expand. And I think as, as humans, when we're born, we start to expand. We grow, our knowledge grows, we learn how to walk. You know, everybody knows all of this, but then we normally get to the fact that we leave school, university, and, and that growth stops. The only growth you get is maybe in the role or the job that you're doing, but there's so much more out there. And while you keep growing your knowledge, you keep expanding, you keep getting. It gets you up in the morning with a spring in your step, doesn't it? To think, what am I going to learn today? What am I going to do today? And we don't always give ourselves a pat on the back. And I think as long as you're expanding and you can look back and say, right, each year, I can look back and say, I know more now. I'm a better person. I'm looking after myself better. And I mean, that's one thing that both of us has done as well. We've both lost weight over the last couple of years, that's for sure. And I know you're, you're quite an advocate runner. You were a smoker as well, weren't you? So you changed your ways there and just, just share a little bit about that for us because we, you know, there's no point in doing all of this if we fall apart ourselves, is there?

Yeah. Yeah. But I guess, I guess it's when you live a life by default and most people are in the job and it's just the, the sum of the random events and the, the opportunities that come lead you to where you are. And it's very. It's more easy than, you know, it's. More often than not, you are losing purpose. And I lost purpose completely at some point and just not being connected to what I wanted to do. Yeah, just going a bit nowhere. Going nowhere. And then, you know, the way you do one thing is the way you do everything or, you know, like everything that happens. So because you don't have a purpose in your work, then you're just a bit sluggish. You, you're just eating more, drinking more, and it's just you. Then you get distractions in terms of. I'm just going out because it's what I used to do when I was in my twenties. It was fun. Maybe that will continue to be fun. You just follow some patterns, actually, and there's nothing purposeful about it. And. Yeah. So I think when you realize that, okay, there's much more to this. I can grow. Yeah, I can grow. So then, then you take, you take, you take things into your, your own hands. And I think what helps is peer groups. So it's the people around you and the standards of the people around you. That's really. That for me, that was quite a big, big, big shift because if you are just hanging out with your uni or high school friends, which are just going on, you know, going on, you know, like, I used to, I don't know, I probably used to drink more than any, you know, like, I was probably in the top one percentile of the, you know, last at the party. And the guys who've been intoxicated the most, you know, like, like all times, you know, in the uni and this time. And then you keep on the habits and patterns. It's okay, how is this. Oh, is this serving me? And then the people around you don't change and you stay the same. And then you grow. Even if you don't. If you, if you don't want to, you. You start to have this discomfort where you don't fit anymore. And then it gets really uncomfortable because it's like all of a sudden you look at yourself in the mirror, it's like, oh, what happened here not too long ago? It wasn't like that. And then, because the people around you, because you engineer your peer group and the people around you have got a higher standard. You are the average of the five people around you, aren't you? And it just naturally helps like this, and you set Yourself little goals and, and then all of a sudden you do a. In nine months a coach to marathon like I did. So it's, it's just anybody can do it if I can, if I could do it, you know.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. That's brilliant because you had a purpose. You. You set your goals and you stuck to it and got stuck in. And that's what it's all about. And, and you know, I think you, you know, you've done a great job, absolute great job doing so. So do you listen to podcasts? And if you do, what's your top three or what you're listening to at the moment?

And I don't listen too much to podcasts, to be fair. I don't have the time. So I do read and listen to audiobooks, but. So yeah, I would go on walks, but I tend to do them disconnected and mostly because the walks are like some husband and wife time as well. We just go around for morning, evening walks with the dog. And I know a lot of people use this work to multitask and listen to podcasts and stuff. So not too much on podcasts, but books. So I just finished a couple last week. I can't remember the title. One was from the founders of HubSpot. So I'm reading lots of books from startup founders at the moment. That's quite interesting. Okay, the founders of HubSpot. That was quite interesting one. And then this one just finished.

Okay.

Yeah, just rework. So it's around tech startups and why you don't necessarily need to raise a lot of money and you can build your business. Staying frugal, basically. And it was quite reassuring that the culture and property future is quite close to these guys. So that was nice. Yeah, rework, I think. Yeah, I can't remember whoever. This guy, Jason Fried. Yeah, that's really good for business books like this. If I had all the time I wanted, I'd probably read more books, basically. That's probably.

Well, you've just hit my next question on it then. What's your top three books? I need one more from you. All right.

Okay. So it's interesting, the books because it's really hard to say the top three because there's so many categories and jars and stuff. So there's lots of top three books, basically. There's lots of top three books. I don't want. I'm really into this tech funders kind of thing, but there's lots of autobiographies are great. So some are business related. Or not. And for example there's one I remember was really, really good. It's from this Canadian astronaut, I can't remember Chris Hudson or something like that. Chris at field or something like that. A guy with a mustache, you know he's. I think you might have seen him on YouTube a few years ago and, and it's amazing because he talks about the all very competitive career to get into being an astronaut and then, and then what it means to see the earth from. And you know like you sort of grow because you say oh well we're just, we're just nothing, you know in this big universe. So this, it start by this high achiever sort of journey and it tends to this very humble, you know, like we are just dust, you know, in the universe. So. And I quite. It was. I quite like it.

That's good, that's good then. So yeah, that's interesting. It's interesting. Well if we can get the names for any of the books we've already spoken about, we'll stick it in the show notes for you guys. So if, if people want to reach out, you find out a bit more about Property Filter how the best way to do so my friend.

Yeah the best way is to look us up on our website so Property Filter Cola UK and then from there you can watch a bit what we do and you can book a demo and you'll most likely speak with me. And then as you said we've got The Property Filter UK which is a YouTube channel. We are sharing more of the features of the tool so I think very soon there'll be a library of pretty much most of the features. So that'd be quite interesting for you to have a look and then decide if you, if you want to chat with me.

Brilliant, brilliant, that's excellent. Well I'd like to thank you for coming on the show today. It's been awesome to have you here. I'd also like to say that I'd love to have you back maybe in 12 months time and stuff and see how you filter and how your good self have grown and changed and, and the new join me again, you know as, as a step forward and stuff and have you got any final thoughts that you'd like to just say before we, we wrap up?

Yeah, thanks a lot Mark. I like the Mark digital experience so I had a very good time as well. Thanks a lot for having me. Yeah. So I think, yeah, I don't know final thought I would say to anybody listening to this, everything is your responsibility, everything is in your power. So if you want to do something, everything is possible and it's just making a plan and executing so you can do anything you want.

Absolutely right. Absolutely right. Well, that's brilliant. Thank you very much. And again, fantastic to have you here, my friend, and thank you for joining us. So I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. I certainly have, and it will be one I will listen to a few times just to get all the top tips in. If needed, any help with anything, then please feel free to reach out to us. And if not, keep focusing on your vision, keep focusing on your goals and I shall see you or join you on the next episode. You take care and bye for now.