Transcript: Asking for money, dealing how you feel about asking for money, and whether you should be asking more, or in fact less, because sometimes, you can push people away, if you ask for money too early. That’s the subject of this Money Podcast. I’m going to focus on raising money for joint-ventures, increasing your fees, maybe asking for salary raises, or generally, if you’ve ever had any problems with asking for money.
Now, there’s many people I mentor in the Progressive Community, who they just don’t want to put themselves out there. They have this problem with asking for money. Maybe, it’s deep rooted back to their childhood. Or maybe, they feel they’re not credible enough yet, and why would anyone give them money, if they haven’t done dozens of property deals. By the same token I know so many people who are starting businesses, and their fees are too low. I’ve spoken to 2 business owners this week. One who runs a gym, and one who runs like a beautician. Both of them are charging way too little. They know it’s too little. But for some reason they can’t charge what they’re worth. I think that this next 15 minutes or so, I’ve got an agenda about 12 points I think, could really help you.
So, first of all, I would ask you a question. Because I could give you all the reasons why people are uncomfortable asking for money. But actually, we’re all a bit different with a different upbringing. So, why are you uncomfortable with asking for money, if you’re uncomfortable asking for money? You don’t have to go and publicise that on Facebook. But I’d like you to think about why you’re uncomfortable asking for money.
The next thing, is, if you’re the opposite, where you’re not uncomfortable asking for money at all. I’ve also mentored a couple of people this week. One lady in particular, says she has no problem. She just goes and asks for it. Sometimes, she asks too soon. She’ll be like, oops. She said that it’s a bit too soon in a relationship. So, conversely, if you’re quite happy to ask some money, and you’re going out there asking for money. You may be, could be doing that a bit early, and pushing people away. So, I’ll address both sides of that equation.
So, if you’re not asking for money enough, pay rises, increase in fees, JV finance, I’m not going to beat around the bush, the best way for you to overcome that fear, is, to ask more for money. But I do have a more elegant way of doing that. So, I would challenge you to go out there. When you’ve got a deal there, or a venture worth investing in, picking up the phone and just saying, hey look, I’ve got a deal. I don’t know, if you’re interested. You don’t have to be really pushy about it. I would certainly challenge you to do that. Those of you that are really quite pushy, and salesy and you’re out there a lot, you have no problem with that. You’re like, yeah, let’s just hustle. You know, it’s a numbers game. You probably need to be a bit more patient, and you probably need to wait.
Now, I’ve got a few people who are very well-known. They’re big celebrities. They worth a lot of money, who I’m doing various ventures with. I know I could probably call in a few million quid in finance, if I wanted to. But I figured, if I wait a year or 2 or 3 years, and it depends on who they are, and how long I’ve known them, I might not have to ask, because it might just come my way. Or, if I’m a little bit more patient, because people don’t care what you know till they know that you care. Maybe, if I take a slightly longer-term view, then the business is going to be more based on trust and relationship, and it’s going to come easier.
Okay. So, here are some reasons why you may have a problem asking for more money, increasing your fees, JVs, et cetera. Perhaps you may perceive that they perceive that you’re greedy. You’re just out for the money. You’re not really about the people and the relationships. Perhaps, you may fear rejection. Perhaps, you may fear ridicule. Perhaps, you may have this impostor syndrome, or not feel that you’re credible enough yet to do that, and you need to get more proof first. But how do you actually get going, because no one starts with proof. Every master was once a disaster. Every winner was once a beginner. You may fear, for example, that people don’t like you. You may feel that you will lose business or opportunity, and push people away. Or, if you can relate to any of those, great, you should be honest, and find out what is the one that is for you.
So, now, I can go and give you some strategies to basically, raising more money and increasing your fees. So, I think the first thing you’ll have to remember, is that, people will hate about you, the very thing that is great about you. So, if you don’t ever ask for any money, there’s only one guarantee, and that’s you won’t get any. But whatever you think they may perceive about you: lack of credibility, that you’re greedy, that you’re pushy, that you’re money hungry, and that they may reject you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, they’re probably not thinking it.
Most of the time, people are solely bothered about what’s going on in their own world, in their own problems and difficulties, and therefore, all the things that you make up in your head, that they may react to, or do towards you, and your pitch, and your offering, they probably won’t. The only way you’ll know how they react, is, if you test anyway. So, that’s the first thing. You know what they’re thinking, they’re not thinking.
So, the second thing, is, well, I don’t want to guess what everyone’s thinking. I want to know what anyone’s thinking. Because, when I know what they’re thinking, and I have asked enough people for money, and they’ve given me all the critique, and feedback, and rejection, and acceptance., I’d build a really good knowledge base of generally how people are, and generally, when they’re comfortable, or when it’s too early, or maybe, I’ve been taking too much time to ask for the money. So, I get a better sense of knowledge and experience. Then I’d feed that forward into my future pitches.
So, I always have this testing mentality, I think a lot of people put a lot of pressure on themselves. I’ve got to get this right. I need to get this deal done. If I don’t raise this money, I’m going to lose it. I’m going to lose credibility with the estate agents. I’m never going to get a deal from these estate agents again. I’m never going to be able to walk down the street ever again. I’m never goIng to be able to like face anyone. I’m going to have to put a bag over my head, and no one would know, uh huh. You know, we make it a lot bigger than it is.
But I think you’ll agree, if you’ve watched or listened to me over the years. I’ve said and done plenty of silly things. You know, I stick my face out there. I’ve got plenty of critics and trolls and haters. I think one thing I’ve learned to do over the years, which has certainly helped me. I not saying I’m a master, I’m a student, and that is, I’ve learned not to take myself too seriously. I’ve learned that everything is a test rather than making it, you know, make or break. You know, when people say, oh, this moment is my make or break. Who knows? It’s not, because you’ve got another go tomorrow, and another go tomorrow, and another go tomorrow. You can always ask. If they say no, you could say, ah, no problem. Okay, maybe we’ll talk about this later. You can backtrack a bit. You think, ooh, okay, I’ve got to my boundary there, and just track back a bit. Then asking it again in a different way in the future. So, I see everything as a test rather than absolute.
Don’t put so much pressure on yourself. Every time, you get a bit of knock back, or a no, or some rejection, that’s great. You want that. You want the feedback. Would you rather they dance around, and let you down a garden path for months, and months, and months, and then actually didn’t have any money when they said they did. Or, would you rather early get feedback in the form of mild rejection, and then therefore, when they say no, at least you could say no problem. How could I make the deal looked better for you? Or, what kind of deal would look good to you? What would you invest in? Then you get feedback. Every rejection is an opportunity to learn. Whereas, a lot of people are sort of standing back from rejection. Therefore, they don’t learn. Therefore, they don’t take any action, because they don’t improve.
Okay, the next thing, is, more and more I’ve been helping people try and make binary choices, i.e., A or B. I think a lot of the times, we’re overwhelmed. We’re confused. We’re going through things in our heads. We go and complicate things. I know when I get like that. There are too many things going on in my brain. I’ll like to go, okay, can I get myself to an A or B choice, a black or white choice?
Here’s how you do it. This will really help you with big decisions, or all decisions, all decisions around money, any or all, and that is, what is the bigger pain? Because ultimately, you’ll probably avoid the bigger pain, and therefore, do the other one. So, at the moment, if you’ve got problems asking for money, you perceive asking for money as a bigger pain than the result you’ll get asking for the money. Otherwise, you’d ask for the money. So, try and spin that on its head, and think what’s the bigger pain for me, not getting any money, or asking for money?
Because I’ve certainly been forced to grow and learn things about raising money and being in business, that I didn’t necessarily think I was able to learn, or it just happened through being forced into a position, where it was, do this scary thing, or lose, or don’t make loads of money. The bigger pain for me than most things in life, is losing, or not making a load of money, and therefore, it’s easier. I didn’t get to public speaking, because I liked it, or I enjoyed it. I was good at that. I got into it, because it was more painful for me to leave all the millions of pounds on the table from not being a public speaker. I didn’t sort of do JVs with Mark, and raised millions of pounds through Mark, and then his mom, and then his stepdad, then my mom, and my uncle, and then the private investors that we have. I didn’t do all that intentionally with skill and volition. I did it, because it was more painful for me to be skint, more painful for me not to buy properties.
So, when you make it a binary choice like that, and you compare. Let’s be honest, a lot of people don’t like asking for money. It’s a very British culture. We’ve perceived that people are going to think that we’re greedy, or pushy, or we only want them for one thing. That’s quite a British culture. If you’re an American, and you’re watching, or listening, or from that more sort of outgoing culture, you may not have the same problem. But bear with me, because I’ve got something for you as well, because sometimes, you sell too much.
So, just break it down to what the bigger pain is, and you’ll find you start doing those things that you initially found scary, because it’s more scary. Imagine 5 or 10 years down the line, when you don’t push yourself out of your comfort zone, and you don’t start asking for money for JVs, and for deals, and you don’t start increasing your fees, and negotiating with your boss for a higher salary, how you’re going to feel in 5 or 10 years, when your career is going nowhere, and you’re not making as much money. How you’re going to feel? That’s going to be more painful.
Okay, the next thing then, is, I actually don’t really ask for money. This in some regard is going to contradict everything I’ve said, but I think you can make it later rather than it be a separate thing. But I would say, 90 percent of the time when I have raised finance, and I’ve raised tens of millions of pounds. I say that with humility, but also, with confidence I have, that’s a fact. I don’t think I’ve ever sat someone down and go on, right, mate, where’s the money? Can I borrow money? Will you lend me money? I don’t think I’ve ever used those words.
I think I’ve built a relationship, got to know someone on a personal and business level, got to know a lot about them, started moving towards doing business together. I think, it’s just kind of been a decision that’s come together and dovetailed, because there’s a relationship. There is trust. There’s proof. There’s a bit of time together. There’s some time bridging. We’ve got memories of things. We’ve experienced together.
Like Mark and I use to go out in town, just down the road here in Peterborough, socially 2 or 3 evenings a week in the early days. Mark put a good few deposits into deals with his money. I don’t think it was ever said that, that’s what it was going to be. I think it was just like, all right, let’s get into property together. How we’re going to finance it? Well, I haven’t got any money, but I’m prepared to work, and do whatever it takes. He said, no problem. I’ll put the deposit in, and I’ll take first charge so I’ve got security. No problem, Mark. You know, we just kind of agreed it together. I think that’s a nice way of coming to a deal.
For those of you that have no problem asking for money, and you push for the money, sometimes, you’ll push people away. Like with Mark, my business partner, if you ask him for money, you’d probably push him away. You’ve got to go through a bit of a dance. You’ve got to build a relationship. You know, if you want to think of this in terms of being more strategic, and maybe more sale strategy, think of it as reverse selling. So, selling is just asking for the money. Reverse selling is building up the relationship, you know, being smart with your question, and guiding the conversation such that in the end they say to you, okay, well, I’m interested in that deal. Give me the numbers. Let’s talk business. When they start saying those phrases, give me the numbers, let’s talk business, et cetera, you know that they’re now inviting you to propose or pitch to them. Now, don’t go into pitch mode. If you can keep it all conversational, it’ll be a lot better. But, if you’ve got an invitation to basically show a deal, or make a proposal, or a venture, then you haven’t really deposition yourself as ah, I’m asking for the money. I need the money. You’re up there, and I’m down here. I’m not worthy. I call that reverse selling.
Okay, next thing then, is, I wanted to give you a hypothetical situation, which you can’t reverse, but you can start now. So, like, let’s say you had a property deal, or a business deal, and you’re desperate for the money for it. You know, good advice would be to get out on the phones, get out to networking events, business networking events, hustle. You know, just try and find anyone who might buy it, or anyone who knows anyone. Push, push, push, push.
Now, you probably will end up, if you do that, getting a deal. But you’ll also push a lot of people away, and that will be the cost of desperation. People can often sense desperation. People never want to give you money, lend you money, JV with you, or invest in your, because of your desperation to solve your pain. They want to do it, to meet their needs. So, just a little tangent, because I’ve sort of started talking about hypothetical, which I’m now going to interrupt myself on.
But, if you focus on asking money to meet their needs, you know like, would you like a better return on investment rather than will you give me money for? Would you like something secure and long term for your future rather than lend me money for this property deal? Don’t ever use words like, I need. But at least you need to present your proposition conversationally, or even in sort of material, or pitching terms in a way that it’s a benefit to them, and not a solution for you. That’s why people don’t like desperation, because they feel like, they’re doing it for you to solve your problems rather than meet their own needs.
Okay, back to this hypothetical then. So, imagine that you needed money for a business, or a property venture, or whatever, or a double salary in 2 years’ time. Imagine you needed it in 2 years’ time, what would you do? Okay, in fact, you’re not allowed to even ask for the money now. You have to wait for 2 years. Well, if you’re smart, you go to business networking events. You go and meet property investors. You go and meet Angels, VCs. You go to Charity Balls. You try and meet successful, wealthy individuals and business people. You’d ask them, if they know anyone who, et cetera. Because you couldn’t ask for the money, and you wouldn’t need the money then, all you’d focussed on doing, is, building the relationship, following up, getting to know them as a person. Just generally, getting seen and trusted.
Now, 2 years’ time, let’s say, you’ve done that with 10 or 20 people, money is there. You don’t even have to ask. You just say, hey look, I’ve got a deal. Here it is. Are you interested? The money will flow. You’ll have a choice of people, which means you can negotiate better term, which means you don’t lose a deal, because you lose money, because you only had one person. But people are often looking to raise money, when they’re desperate, when they really need it rather than thinking, well, I might need it in 6 months, or 12 months, or 24 months. So, if you act like that now, even if you need the money in a month, because if you need the money in a month, and you act desperate, you’re going to push people away. But, if you need the money in a month, and you think, okay, well, Rob said, imagine that I build a really good relationship over 2 years, how can I do that same thing, but in a month, if that just means, you might need 10 or 15 touchpoints with them. When you’re doing it slowly and naturally, that might take 6 months or more. But, if you’ve got to make it happen in a month, you can make it happen in a month.
I raised a good few deposits for deals probably, a dozen in the first year of working with Mark. Probably, the first property we bought was may be in March, and I’ve met him in December, at the end. So, really, it was the third month of me know Mark, that we raised money together. Now, (1) it was de-risked, because I didn’t ask for it. (2) Like, he was able to put it in with his solicitors, and get a charge on it. So, that’s something else you can do with people, with doing joint ventures and raising finances. Make sure they’re de-risked. You know like, if there’s anything was a loss, Mark’s interest and cash was protected. So, that made it easier.
But the thing with Mark and myself, is, we spent a lot of time together in the what, 2 months. Like, as much as some people spent together in a year. So, therefore, I time-bridged and reduced the amount of actual time we needed to build the trust, because we were seeing each other maybe, every 2 or 3 days. So, if you need the money quickly, you want to follow that same concept of building that relationship, but you just need to time-bridge it shorter, and be in touch with them a lot more consistently, to build maybe those 7 or 10 touchpoints, or those magic 7 hours of knowing someone, before there is that trust. Because you wouldn’t give someone money, you just went up and did a little promotion. Hey, I need a deal. Oh yeah, go and give them the money you didn’t know them.
Okay, right. What have we got left here? Yeah, one more final thing then, and that is, that sometimes, people are asking, or attracting small amounts of money that are getting in the way of bigger amounts of money. So, I see a lot of people in property, when they’re looking to raise finance, they ask for the deposit. But, if you ask for the deposit, that’s all you’re going to get. But it’s far easier to finance a property deal when you ask for the full amount. It’s far easier to ask for 100 grand, and set it at 70 grand, then ask for 25 grand, and get 75 grand. You’ll never get 75 grand, if you ask for 25 grand. You assume that you can’t ask for the full purchase price of a property, because you assume that’s a lot of money, because you measure what’s a lot of money based on your measurement, and your fears, and your experience when in reality, a millionaire has no problem with putting 75 or 100 grand into a property deal.
So, don’t talk yourself out of bigger amounts of money by asking for smaller amounts of money. Certainly, with property deals for those of you that are watching me live it the Progressive Community, it’s far easier. I’m not saying that you can’t get finance through with JVs and a lender, another lender, but if you’ve got more than one lender involved private or institutional, just getting that deal through is a lot more tricky. Whereas buying the property for cash is a lot easier, a lot quicker. Also, you’ll get the best deals.
So, if I was putting this into a reverse sales pitch, which is, this is a pitch, but it’s not a pitch. You know, I might say something like, well, if we can buy the property for cash, we can get a much better deal. You can get a better return on your investment, and a better yield. So, if we can buy the property for cash, you can get a better deal. You can get a better return. You can get a better yield. It is just very conversational, but a lot more persuasive, and a benefit to them therefore, of investing all the money in.
So, let me summarise, because people tell me that they like the summaries that I do.
If you’re uncomfortable about asking for money, go to the root cause and ask yourself honestly, why am I uncomfortable about asking for money?
Understand that, that your upbringing, or just your outlook, or your perception is not a fact, or a reality.
If you’re not asking for money, you should probably challenge yourself a little bit more to ask for money.
But, if you’re the sort of person that pushes people away, because you ask for money a lot, you’ll probably need to take a little bit more time.
Maybe, you worry about what people think about you. Maybe, that you perceive that they’ll perceive you greedy. Maybe, you can’t take rejection, or that you feel that you get ridiculed. You feel that the people will talk about you, or that you’re not credible, or that you’re not ready, or that you haven’t done enough deals yet, you’re not got enough proof, they might not like you. You might lose business, if you go and ask for the money.
You don’t value yourself as Nicky has just said on the live. If you don’t value yourself, why should anyone else? No one will invest in you, if you don’t feel like you’re investible. So, yeah, if we’re at that level, then I might need to do a little bit more deep work with you. But my next book will be about that so stay tune for that one.
Okay, So, what you think they’re thinking about how they might reject you, they probably don’t. They’re probably not. They’re probably worried about their own life.
Also, I like to test rather than push. Is this deal something that’s of interest to you? It’s a test. It’s like, I’m not asking you for the money, but I’m asking for the money. So, you can always make the test sale, the pre-sale, if you like.
Then continually, take feedback, and then work that into your conversations, or pitches in your reverse selling. All of a sudden, you’ll get a lot better. There’ll be a lot less friction.
Remember to always ask yourself, what’s the bigger pain? Is the bigger pain not asking for the money, and that feels a bit uncomfortable in the short term? Or, is the bigger pain not making a load of money in the long term? Because I know for me, when I’ve got a lot of things going on, the short-term pain, or the long-term pain, and not being successful at making money, once I get to that A or B choices, it’s really easy to make the right choice.
Try to reverse sale, which is build the relationship and have a conversation, and at the right time, introduced the business or the commercial aspect without really pushing too hard, and asking for the money. If you build enough relationship so start saying things that will tell me more, or show me the numbers, or let’s have a look at the deal, or this property thing you’ve been talking about for a while I’m really interested in it. If you just converse a lot and tell a lot of people what you’re doing, they’ll start asking what you’re doing in a little bit more detailed. Or, they’ll put themselves in the position of allow/get to inviting you to tell them more. In that case, you’ve got permission to pitch, and then you’ve probably not got the rejection.
Imagine starting 2 years ago, and knowing that today was the day, where you needed the money, and you are going to ask for the money, and you couldn’t ask for the 2 years before, how might you behave differently? Well, you take your time. You build relationships. You wouldn’t go in there too hard, or be too persistent. You know, there’s all this hustle, grind, 10X, be persistent, be resilient. Well, sometimes, persistence is annoying. Sometimes, persistence is pushing people away. So, there’s got to be this balance between persistence and patience.
Then remember, if you’re going to go and ask for some money, ask for a higher amount first, because you can always come down. Don’t ask for a lower amount, just because you believe it’s a lot, because they may not. It might be pocket money to them. You’ll never know how much money people have got. So, never try and guess, or never try and judge, or assume. Some people that you think have got loads of money, might not have it, and some people you’ve never imagined have got lots of money, have got millions and millions and millions.
Always treat someone like, they’re going to be a business partner, or a lender, or a JV partner to you for a long time. Treat them as an individual, and not as a transaction. I think you will raise a lot more money. You’ll get a lot more comfortable with raising money. There’ll be less friction. There will be more enjoyable process.
Okay. I’m doing a new series. I’m going to do a journey through getting out of debt. So, going from debt to zero, then zero to 100 grand. 100 grand to 500 grand. 500 grand to a million. A million to 5 million. 5 million to 10 million, and 10 million plus. I’m going to give you some specific on the ground, the granular techniques and tips. There’s probably going to be 30 to 60 minutes per episode of going through those various stages. Yeah, something I’ve never done before. Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. it’s going to be exclusively on The Money Podcast. I’ll probably do one episode, maybe every couple of weeks so there will be episodes in between. But yeah, I’ll hope you enjoy this new series. You can really use that as your model and your benchmark to go through those various stages to go from debt to hopefully, 20 million or more. Who knows?
