Disruptors Caffeine Cast: The Journey of my Growth Since 2005 (Radio Edit) [Business, mindset, entrepreneur, disruptors]
How do you grow from zero to the biggest property training company in the UK? How do you get started in your property business? What can you learn from the Progressive Property journey? Rob responds to a question from the Disruptive Entrepreneur community on how they grew Progressive properties. Rob talks through how social media can be your biggest asset, something that wasn’t around a few years ago, and how always been adaptive has helped to overcome challenges. If you’re looking to grow or start your property business this is the podcast for you.
Key Takeaways
How do you grow in the early years? How long did it take to feel like it clicked with your business? In the early years, there wasn’t really VA’s and social media so we went to a lot of networking events. We bought 20 properties in the first year and grew from there. We weren’t very elegant because we saw hundreds of properties and only bought 20 but it worked. We went to business and property networking events, locally and around the country which helped us build our brands. We were young and were different from the usual type of person at the event which made us memorable.
A few months a switch flicked.I figured that the speaker has the most leverage at a networking event, not the people attending it. So, I went to a speaker course, because I was really nervous at first. But now I’ve done thousands of speaking events and feel much more confident. People would give you feedback that you should do some courses, and write a book.
Once enough people said it, I thought I’d write a book. I wrote a book called Property Secrets. Mark had a lot more knowledge about property, so I interviewed him. In that year we created our first property meet up at a nice hotel in London and had 70 people attend. We didn’t have social media, so we had to work hard to get people to that first event.
The book sold pretty well. A couple of partners promoted the book for us, which helped a lot. When we launched the book we gave a free ticket to the event as well. At the end of that first event, I sold a two-day property masterclass. People paid £2,000 there and then to get onto the course after I pitched it.
Google Adwords became really big. We went from 800 contacts to thousands of contacts. We didn’t think we could afford staff so we were hacking it ourselves. YouTube started, and I started doing a lot of videos, and we were getting a lot of hits through that medium, thousands in fact.
Would you buy deals for other people? When enough people asked us to buy deals for them we thought this was a good use of leverage. Initially, we would put a deposit down and then flip the property. You couldn’t go to the high street and do this but because of the contacts that we had made, it was easier. We wound down the business eventually to move onto other bigger projects but it was a good business for us for a good few years.
The modern way to grow is to definitely make the most of social media. Look to LinkedIn as a way of developing your online presence. After email marketing, social media became really prevalent, and then content marketing has become a really big thing. It’s a decentralised media landscape now. There are more platforms which can feel overwhelming but they are all free.. I launched my podcast most recently and that has grown my reach globally. We are now creating events globally and created a networking event Franchise across the country. I’ve written a lot more books as well along the process.
When did it start to kick in and feel more secure? 6-9 months in there was a bit more traction, and after the first year, we knew there was something happening. We are not good at looking back at our achievements, we are always looking forward. Two years in we had a big foothold, and the recession helped us. Then by default, we became a big player in property because a lot of the big players folded.
We became the biggest Property Training Company in terms of turnover around 5 or 6 years in. Then we branched out into a personal development, and business training. We have a lot of companies now all under the Progressive umbrella, including a letting agency, media agency and public speaking course. You have to be adaptive in business, and we’ve done lots of different things along our journey, not just our initial Buy-To-let property business.
Best Moments
‘When we first started, VA’s and social events weren’t really a thing.’
‘We would always follow up with people.’
‘I figured that the speaker at any event is the person with the most leverage at an event.’
‘We had to work hard to get the 70 people to come to our first event.’
‘We sold 25 places on our first course at £2,000 each at out first event.’
‘Many very successful properties business owners went to our first courses.’
‘We agreed to not draw too much from the company and reinvest a lot into the property.’
‘Google Ads, went from 800 to thousands of contacts.’
‘Setting up a training business allowed us to grow.’
‘Content marketing used to be one blog post a week, now it's on all sorts of platforms.’
‘It’s a decentralised media landscape now.’
‘We are always thinking about going forward.’
‘The recession helped us in some respects.’
‘We were prepared to be a bit disruptive, and noisy in our marketing.’
‘Everyone looked the same at our networks events.’
‘It takes time to build a brand but it doesn’t take a lifetime.’
‘You do get back what you put in.’
‘You need to be adaptive in business.’
‘We have a passion for business.’
‘You can turn your passion into a business.’
[Business, mindset, entrepreneur, disruptors]
VALUABLE RESOURCES
ABOUT THE HOST
Rob Moore is an author of 9 business books, 5 UK bestsellers, holds 3 world records for public speaking, entrepreneur, property investor, and property educator. Author of the global bestseller “Life Leverage” Host of UK’s No.1 business podcast “Disruptors”
“If you don't risk anything, you risk everything”
CONTACT METHOD
Rob’s official website: https://robmoore.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robmooreprogressive/?ref=br_rs
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/robmoore1979