Rob Moore Hardest Property Challenges, Favourite Property Strategies & Mindset — The Progressive Property Podcast

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Welcome to the Progressive Property Podcast, helping you invest in property for freedom, choice, and profit. You'll learn new and innovative, and multiple streams of property income, whether you want to start, scale, or systemize, and even if you don't have deposits.

Hi everyone, Kevin McDonnell here, and welcome to PPTV. Um, obviously he doesn't need any introductions, but today on PPTV I've got the man himself, Mr. Rob Moore, co-founder of Aggressive. Um, so this is also going to be a podcast, but so I'm going to talk to Rob a little bit about stuff that hopefully other people don't always talk to him about. Like, lots of people talk to you, Rob, about branding and social media and podcasting and stuff. And Mark's the property guy. But property to you, so what's your favourite property investment strategy?

Okay, so first off, property is the thing that kind of changed my life. And whilst, yeah, as the years go by, people think me more for other things, property was the one thing that built everything for me. I met my wife because she was reading my property book in the gym. I met my business partner Mark at a property networking event. So property's in my blood. And you know, Mark and I obviously we joint venture on all of our properties. So people see him doing it, but they don't see what I do behind the scenes and vice versa. My favourite property strategy, oh man, I don't like being painted into that corner because in reality all the property strategies that we teach work, otherwise we wouldn't teach them. But I don't want to evade your question. So my personal favourite property investing strategy is commercial conversion because that's what we do and that works for us because it works well in Peterborough. There's good deals that need planning and we've worked out how to get the planning and we're doing one that's 85,000 square foot, could be up to 160 units. Another one that's sort of, I think, 35,000, 40,000 square foot. It was pound land. We bought the Marks Spencer's building I loved single lets for many years, but when you've done loads of them, you kind of hunger to scale up, and your time isn't worth just doing a single let when you can do— I mean, bigger stuff. Exactly, bigger stuff. But you have to move up there. It's—

when you started, you did single lets?

Yeah, hundreds of them. I don't want someone to look at me and go, 'Oh, Rob's doing big commercial conversions, that's what I'm going to do,' if they haven't done a single let yet. Um, but of course, you know, buying no money down, that's not— we teach it as a strategy, but it's not really a strategy, it's a way of buying. Rent to rent is a way of buying. So a lot of people confuse strategy strategies, they think, well, I'm going to do rent to rent, or I'm going to do no money down, or I'm going to do lease options. But actually, no, what you're doing is a way of buying a property. Yeah. Whether that, you know, rent to rent is just circumventing needing a deposit. Obviously lease options is circumventing needing a deposit. So we use all of those strategies within the strategy of commercial conversion.

So I think I've said that to people a lot, is that they want to do single let, but they don't have the money to do it. So you do it as a lease option.

Yeah.

So absolutely.

Or JV.

Or JV. You've been doing property now for 11, 12 years?

More.

More.

December 15th, 2005 was the day my life changed. The last week of that year I met Mark at my very first property networking event. And in February 2006 I started my property investing career properly and working in a property company and buying with Mark. And what is that? That's 13 years nearly.

Wow. And then you were doing property for a couple of years, 2, 3 years. And you, I know a lot of people were talking to you about trainings and that's how Progressive grew. But you started way back then with, A super conference.

Yeah.

When was the first one?

2010. So I think sometimes people look at our journey, 'cause there's a lot of property trainers out there that have copied Progressive. There's a lot of people that start property training when they haven't really got much property. Yeah. And that's how Progressive is different. And the critics say that there's too many people out there who teach but haven't done. And maybe there are some, but how we are different is every strategy that we teach, we've done. And people don't realise how long ago we did it and how long we did it for. Mark and I were buying properties for a long time before we taught anyone. Yeah. Because I never teach anything unless I've done it. So we must have had 50 single lets before we did HMOs. We must have had a dozen before we went into bigger deals. We must have had, I don't know, I mean, we probably had nearly 50 before we started packaging deals. We must have had nearly 100 before we started teaching people. Yeah. Yeah. And then in 2010 was our first really big event. So we started courses, I think in 2000, and let's say '08, and towards the end of '08. So Mark had been doing '03, his start. My start was '06. So between us, we'd been doing a few years before we did our sort of first events. But we got pretty big pretty quick because Mark and I are, you know, pretty keen and energetic and, and we did a lot of work and, and we embraced leverage. 'cause he's got his property buying and I'm sort of like the, I do the sort of the marketing and the brand. And we had that good partnership.

I used to see you as up there as like, oh, well it's easy for them guys maybe, but obviously it wasn't. But I didn't know your story. But lots of people I've met in the community that came through that journey with me, sat in the room with me, have got financial freedom since. And now I meet people and say, oh, it's easy for me. But actually I know I sat in the room. So you and Mark were massively inspirational to me as well as the people that were just a little bit ahead of me on the journey, the VIPs that day. Um, who's inspirational to you though?

Who's—

what are the people that have inspired you? Obviously not including myself, of course.

Well, I was gonna say you, um, so should I do second, third, second and third? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so, um, I'm actually inspired by everyone in some way. Um, now I've idolized people— Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Caan, John DeMartini, Andreas Paniotu, um, and 3 out of 4 of those people have mentored me in some capacity or another. Um, but actually I try not to idolize people anymore because when you idolize people, um, what you're really saying is I want to be more like them, whereas I want to be now the truest, most connected person of who I am. Every day is like self-discovery on who I am. So I've had a lot of great mentors, um, many of them worth £100 million plus. Billionaires, and I, and I try and learn something from everyone. But actually, I'm inspired by everyday people. So, um, and I feel like inspired by people who are inspired by me. And I, I've just got goosebumps about what I'm just about to tell you. But I mentor someone on a marketing mastermind, and he phoned me up and he said, look, Rob, I've got a bit of an issue, could I have you some help? And I was like, cool. And I always make time for people, and I've got a lot of demands on my time, but I always make time for people if they're really struggling. And if you're ever really struggling Don't like say, hey Rob, I'm really struggling, have a 15-minute call with me and then pitch me something. But if you're really struggling, I'll cancel whatever I'm doing, I'll make time. And someone phoned me up and he said, we've just found out that our two kids have been abused. And I was like, fuck. And he wanted my help and we had a chat and I just, whilst it's really hurtful, you know, I felt inspired by him. He didn't lose it on the, on the, he didn't break down on the phone. He was quite circumspect. He was trying to find a reason for it. He didn't blame himself too much. And he said like, look, Rob, this has meant a lot to have this call. And, um, you know, thanks for the advice. And I felt like, whoa, that's not advice. But like, he got something out of it, but I got something out of it. And he's just a normal guy. And I spoke to someone today on the phone. Um, he's been really struggling. He's a friend of mine. Um, and he's not really got anyone else to talk to. And he just sent me a message saying, hey, look, Rob, you know, at 6 I was abused. I was tied up and put in the back of a car. At 6 years old. You know, I got into drugs, I got into alcohol, I've been arrested on 18 counts, tried to commit suicide. My first wife died, my second wife is like really, really ill at the moment. And just shit after shit after shit has happened. And we had a chat and I shared with him some of the challenges I've had, which are not as hard as his, as mine. Sorry, his are worse than mine, mine aren't as hard as his. And I got inspired by him. I'm inspired by everybody watching who has to take rejections from viewings and finance gets pulled at the last minute and you feel like You look a bit like of an idiot in front of your agent who you promised the deal would be done. I know I could have just said I'm inspired by everyone, but I have. So I am inspired by everyone. You can learn something from everyone if you stay humble enough to look at someone and go, I can learn something from you. And I— people do say I learn quick, and people do say I'm pretty prolific. And actually, there's no secret other than learn from everyone. You can borrow something from everyone, even if you taught them Even if you perceive that they're not yet at your level. And so I'm inspired by everyone.

Awesome answer. You obviously, the Superconference is the biggest event you've ever held. You started like 13-odd years ago. We've got all these big offices, but you started in your house, wasn't it?

Yeah. I was £50,000 in consumer debt, credit cards and car loans. And Mark and I started Progressive Property in a tiny little room in my tiny little 2-bed house.

So that journey—

we bought IKEA furniture, we put £200 in each. Mark put £200 because he had it. I had to put it on my credit card because I didn't have it. And that's where Progressive was started.

One of your few— you— I was getting marketing emails and stuff, a lot of people do, from Progressive from about 2008. And I actually did nothing until 2013. 5 years.

That's why we send so many emails. But oh, you send so many emails. Well, open them and respond to them then.

5 years before I went there. But I remember one, I still have a picture of in your house where you had this huge computer screen with other computers and you were sitting behind a little desk. But it was in your house. And I have that somewhere for whatever reason, I don't know. I think it was inspiring because it was in the house. But you've, for people maybe like me that spent the last 5 years watching you, reading emails, not going, why do you think it's important for them to actually maybe attend the Superconference and not just continue to take the emails and not read them and not take action?

Well, when all is said and done, more is said than done. And to know and not to do is not to know. The easiest person to lie to is yourself. Um, so look, if you want to get ahead, you've got to put yourself out there. And I've got many things I'm not good at and, and I, I, I make quite a lot of common mistakes. Thankfully, most of my mistakes have been small and recoverable, and I've certainly learned in business it's okay to fail and it's best to fail small and fast. And I think a lot of people are scared to fail, so they don't fail small and fast. And I fail small and fast and regular. But I don't fail by going bust or screwing people over on massive JV deals or whatever. So let's put failure into context. So the way Mark and I got ahead quickly, because we rose from no training company to being the biggest property training company in the whole country, probably within 5 or 6 years, which is probably unheard of. Um, but I put myself out there a lot, went to a load of networking events before social media was big, put myself out there on Facebook, even though I don't like how my chin and my beard and my head looks on social media and all the you know, bad veins on my face. I've got, I've got my own fears and insecurities like everybody else, but I'll put myself out there. Um, and so that's what I've been doing over the years. And I've been to hundreds of events, I've had dozens of mentors, I've done hundreds of courses, spent hundreds of thousands of pounds, or rather invested it. And the thing is, you don't know where you're going to meet your JV partner, or you're going to learn your new strategy, or you're just going to— that blockage, you don't know when you're going to overcome it. But you ain't going to do it if you don't get yourself out there. 'Cause you know, no one becomes a millionaire in property just reading at home. You don't meet your JV partners. They don't knock on your door going, oh, Robert, saw you on Facebook. I'd just like to say I've got a million quid. You've got to get yourself out there.

I think we're coming towards the end. That's been phenomenal. Thank you so much for taking the time out. I know you're really busy and you've been listening to PP Podcast. I've been interviewing the man himself, Rob Moore, and whatever you're doing, speak soon.

This episode was brought to you by Disruptive Media, helping bold entrepreneurs stand out through podcasting, video, and social content. Visit disruptivemedia.co.uk to learn more. This episode was brought to you by Disruptive Media, helping bold entrepreneurs stand out through podcasting, video, and social content. Visit disruptivemedia.co.uk to learn more.