British adman in China becomes UK property guru.

Welcome to the Silver Fox Entrepreneurs Podcast, a series of interviews to inform, inspire, and support men later in life who want to start their own enterprise for profit or for pleasure. Hi, my name is Jim James, and I started the Silver Fox Entrepreneurs Group in my 50s because my friends who were losing their jobs or were bored and felt insecure about keeping their jobs were asking me how to make money from their own initiatives. I've run my own businesses since the age of 27 in Asia and in Europe. I've also set up peer groups for younger entrepreneurs, and now I think there's a need to share information from subject matter experts, inspiring stories of men who've already started on the journey of making money from their passions, and to provide opportunities to collaborate and to increase the chances of success. I hope that you'll enjoy this interview and learn something that adds value to you. Do subscribe or leave a rating, and for more information, please visit silverfoxentrepreneurs.life. Today I'm interviewing Charlie Sampson, one-time CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi China, who's recreated his life as a property investment expert running the company Property IC. Property IC operates in Beijing and Shanghai, facilitating property purchases in the UK to expatriates. Charlie Sampson in Beijing, perhaps you could share with us why being over 50 is the best time of your life. And then tell us about the life journey that brought you to contemplate starting your own business later on in life.

Hi, Jim. Yeah, happy to share that. So I spent— just maybe start with a little bit of background on me and my sort of career. I spent 30-plus years working in the advertising industry. I worked for Saatchi& Saatchi for 20 years in London, and then spent the last 10-plus years of my advertising career in China. initially with Saatchi and then with WPP. So I was working, you know, in big corporate global ad agencies, had a fantastic career, was a CEO for 17 of those years, and, um, I loved it. But, you know, advertising is a young man's game at the end of the day, and I was over 50, and, you know, it just became a point in my life where I felt, okay, I've done advertising, now what next? And I certainly wasn't ready to retire. And I think the great thing about when you get into your 50s, you really— I mean, hopefully, you've learned quite a few things along the road and over the years, and you're able to step back and really ask yourself the question, what am I really interested in? What have I learned? What am I like as a person? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? And you're able to sort of bring all those together and hopefully do something that you really feel passionate about, that you really feel you can make a difference in and bring your strengths to bear. So what I'm doing now, I've started a business with another partner where we are in property investment. And although I'm based in China, I'm actually focused on UK property. I'm helping people who live primarily in Beijing and Shanghai to invest in UK property. That wasn't an idea that came to me immediately. I had about a year after I left WPP, I spent a year thinking about what I wanted to do, I went and did some passion projects, but I hadn't really decided what I was going to really do next. And I came to property because I'd been a property investor myself for many, many years. One of the reasons I was able to step back from full-time corporate work and still pay all the bills was because of property. And so when this opportunity came up to start a property investment business, it was something that I felt I could be convincing about because when I was going to talk to clients and say, look, property is a great way to give you financial freedom in the future at that point when you're ready to step away from corporate, I could be convincing because that was true in my case. So it wasn't, you know, it was something I felt in my heart that I could do. So yeah, that was sort of How I came to it myself.

And how important do you think it is that you have later on when you start a business that sort of domain expertise somehow? Because actually you decided not to go into advertising, which you'd been doing for so many years, but you went into the property because you already had expertise in that. How important do you feel that has been to the success that you've enjoyed? And perhaps you can share with us Kind of fast forward, where are you at now with this business?

Well, I think whether you've had direct experience, I mean, I've, you know, so I had been a buyer, right, of property. I'd never actually advised people to invest in property. So, you know, I had quite a bit to learn about the business, how it worked. So I had a, you know, I essentially had to go back and study, right? And, you know, my business partner, luckily for me, had been in this industry before, so he was able to help me get up to speed. I think it definitely helped, it has helped tremendously that I have been a property investor for many years and I'd seen the benefits of of property investing personally. I think that gives a tremendous authenticity when I'm talking to clients because I can talk about the journey I've been on. And my clients are all working in corporate, right? Or they might be teachers, they might be working in companies, but they're all expats working abroad. And so that was the path I went through, that was the journey I'd taken. So That really does help tremendously. I don't think that's a must for someone who's thinking of starting a new business, a new career, but clearly it's got to be something that you feel passionately about, you feel interested in, you feel you have some value to bring. Otherwise, why is anyone going to buy what you're selling? There's got to be a— That leads me— I'm jumping a little bit ahead. I think what I've learned, one of the main things that I've learned in this journey, which is still quite new, it's only 2 years old, in these very early stages of starting a business, people are buying you. They're not buying the business. They're not buying the name of the company. that you've created. They are buying you.

And Simon Sinek, not cynic as in C-Y-N-I-K, but S-I-N-E-K, has quite a big sort of story about people don't buy what you do, but people do why you do it. People buy why you do it, right? So, and was that something that you already knew, that people buy, you know, buy you, or is it something that you learned? Because coming from a big agency, You were always creating brands before. You were already creating personalities for products. Is that something you understood, Charlie, innately already, or is it something you came to realize over time?

No, that's a fantastic question. No, I didn't realize that at the beginning. I think that I came to this realization, we had quite a lot of— I think we set the business up in We did all the conventional things, which I think you need to do, like you need a website, you need— I think you need a brochure because that makes you look proper, business cards, all of these things I think you need to show that you are serious. But then I think we got a little bit down the rabbit hole. Thinking about, you know, what's our social media strategy going to be? What are the, um, you know, how can we get— how can we build our brand? How can we— and we spend a lot of time looking at the design and the VI and the slogan, and all that stuff is— it is important. I mean, definitely, you know, from my background, I would say it's very important. But I think in hindsight, we probably spent a bit too much time debating that and finessing it.

When you say too much time, why? What did it distract you from?

Well, I think the key thing, what we learned, what I learned is the most important thing you've got to do is get in front of people, physically in front of people. Because that's the way you build relationships. And, you know, I think it wasn't until the second year that that I fully realized this. And then what I did, my strategy now is I set up as many presentations as I can to people where I'm getting myself in front of groups, in front of individuals, and you know introducing myself, introducing my story, introducing how I can help them, and that. I've found, it sounds an obvious thing now to be talking about it as well. Of course, you need to get in front of people, you dummy. But, you know, what I, what I, what I, I think I, I didn't fully appreciate the power of that and the effectiveness of that, physically getting up, standing up, presenting. So that would probably be the biggest piece of advice I could give to anybody trying to start a business is get out of your office, get out of your home. Get out of your WeWork space, wherever you're basing yourself, and get in front of people either through networking events or just through, once you've identified your customer, just, you know, trying to meet with them.

So that's a great point that in this sort of day and age of online and social media, that actually people still buy people, right?

And then the authenticity of the person, it's fundamental. And when you're starting a business, that is all they're buying, right? Because I mean, you know, in my case, the property I see, No one really knows who The Property IC is. That's the name of our company, but it's not like a— it's not a brand. It's not Sarchie and Sarchie, right? So they are buying you. They're buying, you know, what you— they're buying, you know, your credibility, your personality, your story, the service you can offer. That's what they're buying. And the only— what I found is, yes, but you can do, you know, posting on LinkedIn and we do all that stuff and we have our own social media account, we put content into it. And that's all fine and good. But what really shifts the needle is meeting people, getting in front of people, presenting to people.

And you've obviously had a lifetime of presenting in front and doing pitches to big clients. But what about for kind of preparation for presentations? Because by and large, presentations are quite often stressful. The most stressful part for people in a new business is pitching.

Yeah.

Any sort of learnings that you had there about kind of reducing the stress and obviously increasing the conversion rate when you're in the room, either one-on-one or in a seminar with a group?

Yeah. Well, look, I mean, there's tons of great content and resources out there on how to make a good presentation. So I mean, I wouldn't— I think if you feel your presentation skills need improving, there's a whole bunch of stuff out there that you can, you know, books you can buy, podcasts you can listen to, and courses you can go on. So, you know, just keep honing that skill. And, you know, I still, even though I've been doing presenting for many, many years, I still am always looking for ways to be better, always looking for ways to improve. It's a never-ending quest to influence, right? To influence people is— that quest never stops. You never stop improving, and you should never try and stop improving. That would be my advice, is don't worry if you feel you're nervous. I still get nervous when I present, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's natural. You should be nervous when you— But it's a case of obviously managing those nerves and making it an asset rather than a problem. But anyway, the point being that, you know, just never stop improving, never stop, you know, sharpening the sword when it comes to presenting.

And I think the sharpening the sword is probably a nice analogy because it's all about preparation in presentations, isn't it? You know, the stress comes from actually being ill-prepared. And my experience is that the best presentations are the ones that look the easiest, but they're the ones that have had the most time in advance put into them.

Yeah, and I mean, what I've found is with the best presentations or the most successful presentations that I make are when I really capture what is the— what's the problem I'm solving for my client? And what are the emotional barriers or insights that are really going to drive them to take action? And of course, I need to have my process, I need to have what I do, I need to show my expertise. But if I can really tap into their problem, which is usually an emotional problem, right?

Mm-hmm.

Or their barriers, again, it's usually an emotional thing that's blocking them. If I can tap into that, then I'm much more successful.

Okay, fantastic. And you, and you mentioned before, we were talking about, about finding the audience for those sort of meetings. Would you like to share about how you've done the prospecting, how you've done the definition of, of who's going to be your target customer? Because one of the things we talk about, if you're a startup, you don't have the resources to do broad-based marketing or to service if you get broad-based leads. How did you go about identifying your customer?

We're very clear on who our customer is, which I think is vital for any business that's starting up. You've got to have a very clear picture of who your target is. One of the classic mistakes that people make is to say, oh, it's everybody. Anyone can can be my customer. Well, clearly that's not true. You've got to really drill down into who that person is, what is their age, what is their demographic, but also what kind of people they are, their psychographic profile and so on. So for us, we're very clear, we're aiming at expatriates, who are living in China. We know that there are certain nationalities. I mean, obviously Brits are the bullseye because we're focusing on UK property, but we know there are certain other nationalities that are more open to UK property investing than others. So we drill that down and then it's really a case of, okay, where can we find these people? And for us, schools have been a great a great area because there are a lot of teachers, particularly the British schools, of which there are several in Beijing, are excellent. So as an example, we will, you know, we'll, through a contact that we have in those schools, we will promote usually an evening event where, you know, we will lay on some, you know, some food and drink. We keep it quite short. We say the presentation will be only 30 minutes. And we make it clear that it's educational. We're not— it's not a hard sell. This is really, you know, to give them some valuable information. And if they're interested, then we can set up a separate meeting on another date. So we sort of take the pressure out of the situation. We try and make it social. We do it in a restaurant or a bar. And we found that that works well as an approach.

And what would you say have been the sort of main ways that you're able to take someone through the funnel, as it were? Because meeting people, and there's conversations in various groups where people are doing startups, and they're able to pitch But they're not able to close the deal. So what's been your experience on how you go from meeting people in a nice restaurant and talking to them about a learning about property and the impact on your life to them actually becoming customers? How do you take them through that process to actually closing the deal and charging them money for that?

Yeah, well, it comes back to presentations, doesn't it? I mean, in that first meeting, I'm not really hard selling my company. I'm focusing much more on their problems, you know, their desires, and then, you know, how property can help to solve those and meet those. I touch a little bit on what we do, but I'm really in that first meeting talking to them on a sort of higher level, both in terms of the sort of trends within UK property, for example, which cities are showing the most growth, you know, where are the kind of best opportunities, you know, what property you can bring to them, what are the typical barriers and, you know, why people might be interested but don't take action. I'm really talking at quite a high level in this first meeting. Then out of that, there'll be, you know, maybe half that go, okay, that was interesting, but not for now, or, you know, maybe contact you in the future, and that's fine. But, you know, you're going to get a group that will go, okay, great, I'm interested in learning more. And then you'll have a one-on-one meeting with them separately where you'll get much more into their personal situation, what they can afford, what you can specifically bring to them as an individual. So it's definitely a 2-step process, sometimes a 3 or 4-step process.

And from a practical point of view, can you share what— are you using any tools for that? Are you using an online CRM to keep everything? Are you doing an Excel? Just sort of practical level, often people are not sure What systems they need. So what are you using to keep a record and to make sure that everything's sort of centralized and under management?

Yeah, I mean, so we're still, like I said, we're a new company. So, you know, we're starting to systemize this as we go along. My business partner's quite big on systems. So, you know, we've actually just now— he's introducing a new CRM system. At the moment, I just keep everything on a spreadsheet personally. But now he has invested in a new proper CRM system. Don't ask me what it is because we haven't actually personally discussed it yet. I don't know what the name of it is. But yeah, I think As you obviously, as you grow, I mean, in the first stage, a simple Excel is fine because you're just starting out. But once you start to build up obviously a significant number of clients, you probably do need a proper CRM system which, which is going to manage it all for you or help you manage it.

Yeah, but I think you're raising a— but you're raising a good point about the simplicity in the early days. And you mentioned earlier on about getting in front of people, being the first first task, rather than trying to build a big system, which can be too complicated. So would you say that you've made, if you like, one mistake, or maybe more than one, that nearly killed the business? Have you made something that was nearly life-threatening? And if so, what was it? And how did you overcome it?

No, nothing life-threatening that would have killed the business. I think just the overall— in fact, I think you introduced me to this book, Jim, The E-Myth, which is a brilliant book.

Michael Gerber, The E-Myth.

If anyone listening to this hasn't read The E-Myth and is thinking of starting a business or is in the middle of starting a business, that's probably one of the best books that's ever been written about entrepreneurship. The the main takeaway is the importance of right from the beginning, if you can, is to build, is to systemize things so that you as the founder don't get dragged into doing everything. That you set up systems so that you can free yourself up to grow the business. I think we very much have taken that book and that approach on board. We're trying as we go along to really systemize everything so that, you know, as we, as we continue to grow, we can, you know, we can bring in people to, to do various functions and, you know, we, we're not always needing to be the ones doing it. So I think, and that's, that's not as easy thing to say and a harder thing to do. So I would say if I could pinpoint one sort of struggle It's probably the systemization of things.

Right.

Not my natural, you know, I'm not a big kind of systems person, but I do very much agree and understand the need for them. So, you know, if you're not a systems person, you need to learn to become more of a systems person, like I've had to do. It's vital.

Right. So there is some degree of finding partners or outsource, but also some degree of learning oneself. So on the final question then, Charlie, what would you say would be, if you like, the one, really the one takeaway that you've now would say you have from on reflection, having started your own business later on in life? Is there one thing that you could sort of share about the impact it's had on your life?

Well, I would say, I mean, there's been ups and downs, right? I mean, it's not all a bed of roses by any means. And I'm fortunate in that, you know, my, you know, putting food on the table hasn't, you know, hasn't relied on the success of this business. So, you know, the context of what I'm about to say should be seen in that light. I mean, if it was all down to me to put food on the table and so on and so forth, it would probably be a very different experience. But again, I come back to property being the key to that financial independence. And that's been a big part of the story. So, yeah, I would just say it's been fantastic. I love working on my own terms. You know, creating my own schedule, and just that that the freedom to run your life and not have your life run for you is amazing. And and I'm certainly a happier person as a result. And yeah, I think that's that's that's. That's really been my experience. It's been great so far.

Charlie, thank you so much for sharing that. And we look forward to your success and hearing how you and your partner get on with developing the business over the coming years. So thanks very much for sharing both the sort of the information and the inspiration of starting your own company as a silver fox.

Thanks, Jim. It's been a pleasure.

Do subscribe or leave a rating, and for more information, please visit silverfoxentrepreneurs.life and drop me an email. I'd love to hear from you, and maybe we can get you on the podcast and share what you know, or let me know what you'd like to know. Thank you once again. Have a great day.