This Mum Flips £60k Into Millions In Property With No Bank Loan

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. Today I'm delighted because we're going to stay in the UK. Now we're going to talk to a lady who's been an entrepreneur for a long time, but if you are maybe a single parent and you're wanting to build a business, my guest today is going to give you an inspirational story about how she built a business from the kitchen table from £60,000 to a multi-million pound property empire. But also how she's now taking that knowledge and expertise and building it into an online training company, helping many, many other people that would love to learn what she's learned. So Susanna Cole is going to join us. She is the founder of a company called The Good Property Company. Susanna, welcome to the show.

Lovely to be here. And I think it's really, if anybody is skint and they'd like to become a property investor, Not just single parents.

Well, then I hold up my hand. I'm a measure of the skint community that's been an entrepreneur for so long. And for all of us entrepreneurs, actually one of the challenges, of course, with financing property is that the banks don't recognize our income in the same way, right? So it's not just single parents, anybody that has challenges there. But we're going to talk about how you've built that business. We're also going to talk about how you're transitioning into a new business. And you're also going to share with us about a PR incident and how you recovered from that. And you're going to amaze us with how long in advance you schedule your social media posts. So, Susanna, tell us about yourself and The Good Property Company. First of all, why is it called The Good Property Company? Is there such a thing as a bad property company?

Oh, I'm sure there are, but I just want to do a good job. You know, I like doing good work. I don't want to say the perfect property company because, of course, things go wrong. So, the good property company is kind of part of my values, isn't it, without being too kind of values-driven. I want to do a good job, I want to try hard, I want to do my best by people. And that value, I think, came out and really helped me when I worked with investors as well because you notice I'm not overpromising. I'm saying, I'm trying to make it a good thing. Let's get on with it.

And what kind of property is it? Let's just sort of create some context there for us then, Susanna.

So I've got a multimillion pound portfolio here in Bristol, and I live half in Bristol and half in Barcelona. So I will escape to the sun half the year. And all of my properties bar one are based in Bristol within a 1.9 mile radius of the city centre. So I have single lets, I used to have a lot of serviced accommodations, Airbnbs, I don't anymore, they're all single lets since pandemic. And I also have HMOs, which are students, and those are rented 6 to 9 months in advance of the following year. So good quality, kind of top, top quartile, you know, if something's like a washing machine went yesterday, it's fixed today, you know, that kind of stuff.

So it sounds like you've got a very focused portfolio, both by location and by property type. Which is, you know, there are other podcasts that cover property, although there are a million questions that we could go down there. But if we can, let's focus on how you managed to build a portfolio, not from a financial point of view necessarily, but from a marketing point of view, because you had to get funds. Did you just go to the bank and ask for the money? Because you've got an honest face, you know, Susanna, for those people that—

I have. I'm a pretty straightforward person, but one of the many things, as you said, when we're entrepreneurs, we often pay ourselves very little, certainly at the beginning. And so, that's then very difficult to go and get mortgages. So, I had been able to do the classic, you know, late 30s, 2 small children. I was head of household, so I had a real driver to protect my family. So, I was able to pull out £60,000 for my own mortgage, which was a nice deposit. But very quickly, you run out of money. And I could see that. And I've always been a bit suspicious, shall we say, of establishment authority, not massively, because I'm very grateful for them where they exist. But I certainly don't think they're where we should always place ourselves, because their job is to look after their shareholders. My job is to look after my shareholders, my family. And so by working with private investors, I was able to produce much more flexible funding. For example, I had different ways of working with people. Say you and I, Jim, okay, let's say you're, you're one of my big investors. Jim, let's go and buy and sell that house. Great. You buy it, you fund the renovation, I put in the sweat equity, you do no work at all, you just enjoy yourself like billy goats, and then we split the profit 50/50. Or another structure might be, Jim, could you lend me the money? I'll buy the property, I'll pay you interest, and then I'll repay you back. So I did a combination of those 2 types, plus Plus a third business, which is, Jim, do you want a discounted property? Great, I'll be a reverse estate agent. I'll sell you the property, having not bought it myself, but having found it, and you'll pay me a fee because it's supposed to be £300,000, but I found it for £200,000 to £220,000, and you'll pay me a £15,000 fee. Everybody's happy in all those 3 scenarios.

Susanna, so entrepreneurial and innovative, right? And you've got a history of being innovative across both raising large groups of young people for charities, for example, as well. been involved with. But tell us, if you go to the investment community, where, you know, angels, as we might call them, or private investors, how do you overcome the credibility issue? And from a marketing and communications point of view, you need a reputation, people have got to trust you.

Yes.

How do you do that side of the communications?

So I did recognize that. But I also recognized that I was not necessarily going to the large London venture capital firms. I was going to wealthy individuals. And I was going to semi-wealthy individuals. So the fundraising triangle, you know, the super wealthy individuals at the top, you get a small number, they'll have hundreds of thousands of pounds to, or millions actually, to invest. The middle people, and then the lower tier. So there's loads of people with like 50 grand, quite a few people with 100 to 200, 300, and then a smaller number with like 5 million and above. So I recognized, number one, I'm talking to individuals, not companies, even if they're lending in a company. And so it's a— one-to-one approach, but in the ether, in the background, they need to check me out. So quite quickly I started a YouTube channel. Now I am an extrovert, but I'm an introverted extrovert, so it wasn't always comfortable, but I thought from the beginning, point and shoot iPhone, as I'm, you know, noodling along the pavement doing these deals, because I was very busy, let's just document the deals I'm doing, let's just document property tips, let's put out a trail of breadcrumbs to show that I'm hungry, I'm effective, and I'm learning or know my stuff. Because I started this YouTube channel, you know, quite a few years ago, and it's had just about 2 million views as we're recording.

That's amazing. So you were just doing iPhone?

Yep.

And creating tips and I guess evidence that you were where you said you were going to be?

Yep.

How did you get people to follow the channel? Because it's not easy. We can create content, but that doesn't mean people will come and watch it.

Yes, I did write things up quite carefully. You know, I don't mean carefully in a kind of manipulative way, just straightforward. You know, I didn't just yam out a video. I would do the title, write up what was happening, and then link it back to my website. Or, you know, so it was always come back to my website, come back to my website. And then I would share every single video on all the social medias. And so that was one way of doing it. And a second one was old school marketing. Which was being a speaker for property events. So travelling, getting a bit nervous, standing in front of people, telling them your story, telling them the skills and tips on what you do. And there'll always be a few investors in the room that you follow up with afterwards, and you simply follow up with every single person. But basically, how did I get people to trust me? I hope that— well, I aim to do good work and I aim to be an honest person. So I think that just comes through. you know, couple that with actually doing the work, you will find enough people that want to work with you as long as you follow them up.

Susanna, you mentioned about your shareholders being your children.

Yes.

When you went out and pitched, you know, sometimes, you know, advisors talk about use your origin story, you know, and, uh, you know, did you leverage your, your family situation as part of the story, or did you think investors would not be interested in that, they'd be interested in the outcome rather than, if you like, your, your motivation?

I felt that my family story was largely not anybody's business. And also, I felt it was a little bit my family privacy. But where I— so I would— when I went to these events, other people stood up and pitched. No one else had a beautifully designed brochure. Nobody. Other people would stand up and pitch, and no one else had the legal documentation prepared in advance. I did. So I'm 5 foot 2. I was terrified. You know, I'd be super nervous. But the minute I stood up, you know, I don't know if you've seen the Amy Cuddy talk about body language, the Superman or Superwoman pose. So I would stand up with this brochure, you know, waving in the air above me with my feet planted on the ground. It was one way to stop me being nervous, but it was another way— it was basically I was becoming a human flag. If you think with the brochure being the flag. And I would say, my name is Susanna Cole. I do deals with my funds and other investors' funds. Typical example, give a typical example and then say, call to action, come and see me, I'll be in that corner.

And as you say—

Oh, sorry.

It was scary. Yeah, but as you say, well, 2 things. One is that having a prop can really help to overcome anxiety in public speaking, having something that people focus on rather than you. And the other, as you're referencing, is how body language, including smiling, affects actually how we feel about ourselves. Not only how people view us, but how we project. Our voices could be determined by our stature and our standing, as well as our clothing and so on. So really interesting that you took that advice on.

And you are right. I also always dress professionally. And I always had pockets because ladies, we don't always have pockets in our clothes for business cards. And I also pulled my voice down into my stomach to make it deeper because— but where I did leverage, if you like, my family story was when I met investors, they always came to my home because, A, it meant I reduced down travel time, reduced down cost because I didn't want to spend money on coffees. I wanted to buy houses. And, you know, I was skint, to be honest. But also they could just see my home environment. And if you're letting someone into your home, The likelihood is you're not doing a runner, you're fairly trustworthy.

And presumably that's also a benefit of focusing your portfolio on, on a proximity within Bristol, as opposed to if you were dotting around the country, investors would, you know, not necessarily travel that distance. So that's a benefit or a byproduct of your location-based strategy as well, isn't it?

Yes and no. Interestingly, people that lent me money directly were anywhere, including Bristol. People that wanted to buy deals from me as a deal packager generally were not Bristol. And I think it's because they just felt, well, hang on, I could get it myself. And the reality, and I mean, this was complete kindness, was they usually didn't. You know, a year later, I will have done 50 deals and they wouldn't have done any, but you couldn't really point that out. that was almost rude and you felt like shaking, not shaking them, but you felt like saying, come on, just do a deal and you'll get a house. This will be great for you. But you know, you just got to let people be people.

Yeah. And when they're ready to buy, they will. Now, Susanna, you bought and sold and retained your own significant portfolio.

Yes.

Half Bristol and half Barcelona sounds like a fantastic setup you've got there. But you've also been transitioning. Um, to help people understand how to build what you've built in terms of a business. Can we just talk about what you're doing now in terms of knowledge sharing? Because part of what I've, I've been seeing is how people in, in our age group, people in our 50s and 60s— sorry, I've included myself in that. I know you're much younger than me.

No, I'm 53. Oh no, sorry, right, 2 weeks' time I'm 53. Yes.

Okay, sorry, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm older than you. I'm sort of— but our generation Starting to learn to share what we know and be paid for what we know rather than being paid for what we do. There's, I think, a whole opportunity as an entrepreneur to share that, and you're doing that now. So I'd love to hear from you, what information are you sharing, how, and what's the difference in marketing strategy from, if you like, a product service business to a knowledge online business?

So, some of the changes were for personal reasons and some of the changes were for technical, you know, tech reasons as well as lifestyle reasons. I've always taught people because a lady 15 years ago called Wendy said, can you teach me? And I thought, what? What do you mean? And because I've always been a massive geek about systems, so it was really easy to transfer my systems to other people. So, I didn't turn around a couple of years ago and think, oh, I'm going to transfer this to other people. I'd always had those— programs and transferable processes and systems for other people and always wanted other people to get involved in property because I see it as life-changing because it changed my life. And then, not to pull us down, but during the pandemic, have you ever met anybody get diagnosed with 1, 2, 3, 4 cancers in less than 3 years? You should see his face, everybody, if you're not watching.

No, I haven't. I'm just—

no, no. It was interesting, shall we just say. So, I had 3-year sabbatical. I'm perfectly fine now. Um, the life expectancy of people that get diagnosed with multiple cancers is actually more than a single cancer, and typically it's because you catch all the other ones early. Um, wow.

So, Susanna, yeah, thanks for sharing that. Now, I, I had a tumor, uh, in my jaw, which, um, amoblastoma, which is not pleasant either. Um, it also has a— 5% of people perish actually from this. It's quite unknown as an illness. So 4 cancers at once, I don't know. You just took me back for a moment to finding out in Beijing that I might need to lose part of my jaw. But this is about you. So let's hear how— so you had this moment.

Yeah, they change us, don't they? So I've always loved making things happen. But suddenly, and maybe you had the same thinking, suddenly I stopped overnight, didn't work for 3 years, had a 6-figure income coming in, Cosmo Properties. Which is why I'm so keen on other people getting into therapy because it's life-saving. But I had to really focus on the parasympathetic state. I had to be a partner for my doctors, my multiple doctors. My doctors, they do all the great medical stuff. My job is to raise my immune system. So I moved. I loved doing in-person teaching, but I decided to move everything digitally. I'd always run a digital business just on the side, not really paying much attention, producing good work and letting it run organically. So, I pulled it front and center. And so now, instead of having— we used to have a 16-person team in-house. I actually work with a digitally placed team who are in Nigeria, in Bulgaria, in the Philippines. Everything is done on tech. And I plan things a year in advance because I like things calm and measured. And I always personally just want to make sure that My parasympathetic state, my immune system is chuckling along quite nicely just to make sure I remain super healthy, which is where I'm at now.

Susanna, that's wonderful. So we've gone into a bit of the backstory there, which is part of the motivation for going online. But in there, you've also mentioned about the processes and that you've got processes and that's essential for transference to other people, isn't it? That it's a system that you've got. From a marketing point of view, how have you got people to come to the online course? Because presumably, you know, they can't come to— they can't come to your home anymore. Uh, they find you in Barcelona anyway, wouldn't they, when they drop around to Bristol? So, so how are you— how are you doing the marketing to get people to your online course? And what's the URL for that?

Is it—

just share the URL for that.

It's thegoodpropertycompany.co.uk. And my 2 main courses are my Flipping Academy and my Deal Sourcing Academy. So how do you flip and make, you know, a good cracking £100 grand, or how do you deal source and bring cash in very quickly? Both are great points to get into property. So some of the stuff is classic, which I'm sure you recognise. I've got 8 free checklists. I've got an amazing 102-page pack for free for people. I have YouTube videos shot a year in advance. I have Reels shot a year in advance and scheduled a year in advance. I take abstracts from all of my, you know, my 101 lessons pack. It's got 102 pages, so I've got 101 lessons. So every 3 days a new lesson goes out with an invite. So the classic of they join the database, I send out helpful emails typically featuring YouTube videos and tips and hints twice a week, which are very much about give, give, give, give, give. And then I have evergreen webinars and occasionally live webinars and also a sales team who communicate directly with people, and then I have a customer support team who really support my students, do the onboarding, make sure that they're really looked after once they're in. I want to go above and beyond what they expect.

Well, Susanna Cole, it sounds as though you're absolutely doing it, taking yet another business and excelling in it as well. Um, you sound like the model entrepreneur.

In a calm way, you know.

In a calm, in a calm.

So shoot videos a year in advance. Right now we're chatting in January. My customer service, my admin team are scheduling, lucky them, a year's worth of posts that I've written in advance. So everything is calm. And one of your thoughts was, how do we then measure what I'm going to post about? Well, I think the way I do it is I add it, I divide it into themes. So we've got value. So are we adding value to the people that follow me on social media? That could be with my posts about the 101 lessons. That could be with my reels about tips about different deals or tips about how to raise finance or how to flip. That could be the value or sometimes motivation, you know, motivating posts, you know, you can do this. And then the second triangle is credibility. And there we talk about the deals. We did 217 deals. So we can talk about all of that, all of those situations. With photographs before and after, and then the third one is of course sales. So I measure the proportion of credibility, value, and sales social media that goes out. And the beauty by doing it a year in advance is you can see the pattern, and then if anything happens, which of course stuff does, you can then respond to emerging trends straight away. Because you've got your beautiful skeleton laid out on your social media scheduler.

Yeah, well, Susanna, it sounds like you'll be running a course about how to do social media too. You know, um, we could chat all day, but I— we won't have too much longer. So I just want to ask you though, if you can share a, a mistake. And this may be where we get on to that, that one moment where Susanna Cole may have lost her cool a little bit.

Uh, I lost my cool. I was so annoyed. So I'm generally quite measured, okay? And I generally like to see the best in people. But there is a particular website that they're now currently being sued for defamation. And I think that's quite correct. And I thoroughly approve of it because I've seen them destroy people's lives. And they put a post up which simply wasn't true about me. And instead of perhaps taking legal advice or perhaps taking PR advice, I looked at this post and thought, that is— I can't swear— that is beep beep beep, not true. And so, hothead here put back a right little hothead response and it blew up. It was the— it is still the most viewed thread they've ever had.

Wow.

And I was furious, furious. So that wasn't sensible because I just thought, that's not true. I don't mind. I even, on some of my credibility posts, I post about mistakes. So I am super cool by exploring mistakes I've made or investors made or, you know, mistakes that we can all learn from. Okay. But if you lie about me, I'm not having it. So the head went hot and it was a big PR mistake.

Well, Susanna, with my background in PR, I know that we always counsel clients to take time, right? And especially these days when anything on the media disappears within minutes, not even hours, you know, anything can be forgotten unless it gets repeated. And the danger of jumping in is that you kind of create a repetition for that, right? And that just is grist to the mill. So—

Oh, it was because this website, I mean, I'm appalled by them. This website, they like taking people down. There's that whole schadenfreude. And occasionally they've done good work, but I don't believe anything they say now. And I actually met with one of the people that owned it, produced a beautiful folder annotated and said, look, you guys have just made a mistake on this one. And he said, I refuse to read that. And it was only then I naively realized you don't care about the truth. So if I had appreciated that from the beginning, I'd have done a very different PR approach as opposed to hothead Susie, don't you dare tell lies about me.

Whoops.

Well, and of course, it stopped my business overnight. It literally— if a smaller person without the backup property would have gone bust. It took 6 months for any investor to work with me. My main deal sourcer had a breakdown. You know, it was tough. It wasn't just a laugh.

Yeah, no, no. And we laugh about it now, but I worked with a client in China that had an issue on social media and the strategy there was to create more positive content and literally to drown out the negative. So create multitude of credibility pieces.

Yes.

Um, to overwhelm, um, and, and rebuild your, your reputation that way. But Susie, let's— Susanna Cole, let me just also then ask you, if I can, because you've got so many great triumphs. Amazing you've only got one, really one PR moment in all of that. So I'm gonna—

I'm, you know, there's only one, there's only one PR moment, and that one was untrue, but there's loads of property mistakes. Yes.

Yeah, we've, um, well, I think as we know as entrepreneurs, because we take risks and we're always learning, we're gonna still make those. But if you've got, um, a tip, yes, for, you know, me and, and my fellow unnoticed entrepreneur, um, around getting noticed. Yeah, because you've had a long career across multiple industries and multiple business types. What, what would you say to us?

It's, it's consistency. It's a slightly unsexy tip, so I do apologize for anybody that wants an overnight transformation, but it's consistency. So, so at the moment, for example, I'm really interested in a chap that's a really interesting author called Daniel Priestley. Now, I have followed him back on every single podcast he's been on. I'm back in 2017 now. And so I've been able to see that he's consistently gone on podcasts once a week, once every 2 weeks for, you know, 7 years now. And as a result, with multiple other pieces of marketing strategy, he's been incredibly successful and good on him. So it's that consistency, I think, you know, don't just put one piece out. Somebody that wants to work with me, if they're a late adopter, they're going to be looking, you know, 11 hours of content before they'll even engage with me, maybe.

Yeah, I think, and that consistency for all of us is the hardest. What I love about your framework is that you've created some dimensions For the content, because otherwise people really struggle with what do I write about now. But by having that, if you like, really content strategy, yeah, that you've laid out, consistency is about implementation rather than about creativity, because we're not always feeling creative, but we can actually outsource implementation.

Yes.

To, to third parties to help us if we can come up with the ideation, but other people can do the implementation and the distribution. which can really help.

Yeah, I don't do any of my own implementation or distribution at all. And also, I revisit content because those deals aren't going to change. So they go out once a year. Why would they not?

Yeah, yeah, wonderful. Yeah, and people forget as well that they've even seen it. It's a new audience. So yeah, I'm going to ask you, because, you know, you've got time by the beach, by the pool in Barcelona, or looking at some lovely Dali exhibits, no doubt, plus sunny Bristol. I won't ask you which you prefer, but can you give us a podcast or a book, Susanna Cole, that you'd recommend?

So let me refer back to Daniel Priestley again. He's written 6 books. One of them is super useful, Key Person of Influence. And again, it allows you to understand the kind of framework of if you're looking to do business, then it might be sensible to have a personal brand. Even though I'm actually an introverted extrovert, I'd much rather my brand was my business. But no one's going to click on that. So, so I find him very interesting in his thinking, and I tend to find him ahead of the curve. So Daniel Priestley, Key Person of Influence, or any of his other books, really good.

Wonderful. If people want to find out more about you, Susanna Cole, whilst you're still in the UK, where can they find you?

Oh, they can chat to me in Barcelona. This year I am 3 months in Barcelona, 3 months in Brooklyn, 3 months in Barcelona, and 3 months in Bristol. So, that'll be me this year, but I'll still be doing my stuff. I would love them to get in touch. They can go into the website, obviously, thegoodpropertycompany.co.uk. But if you want to get in touch, please drop me a message at Instagram, Susannah Cole UK.

Great. And that's Susannah, S-U-S-A-N-N-A-H. Yes, that's right. Cole, C-O-L-E.

Yeah.

For those people that are looking to get in touch. Yeah, that would be Susanna Cole. I think we could have chatted much longer. I didn't hear the invitation to Barcelona or Brooklyn in that last, so I'm assuming that you've got better plans. Yeah, I think they're on strike. Susanna, thanks for joining me on The Unknown Entrepreneur today.

Thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure, and good luck, everybody.

Yeah, well, thank you to Susanna for sharing, and she has an amazing, an amazing history. Do recommend that you. get in touch with her. And I think what I really will take away from Susanna is one of the things is about the need for process, whether it's in the property company or the learning company or in the social media outreach. It's the consistency in the processes and entrepreneurs. I've been guilty of often thinking of new things and not fully implementing what I've already built. So a really salient message for all of us. And if you've enjoyed this, do please share it with a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur. And rate it and review it on your player. And until we meet again, you've been listening to me, Jim James, and Susanna Cole in Bristol. Thank you for joining us on This Unnoticed Entrepreneur. And until we meet again, I encourage you to keep on communicating.