Liam talks to Michelle, a successful female entrepreneur and property investor. Michelle shares her journey from a young age, driven by a strong desire for success and financial independence. She discusses the challenges she faced, the sacrifices she made, and the importance of self-improvement and honesty in her personal growth.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

“I think people don’t necessarily succeed if they don’t want it enough… Unless you are literally one million percent in it, it’s just not going to succeed.” –

“I’m a salesperson at the end of the day. So it is all about, you know, for me is about the deals. You know, that’s the thing that still drives me.”

“I think it’s important to be in tune with your, say, your negative parts or the bits that don’t quite work… I’m really not the best version of myself always.”

“It’s about reflection… I’m striving to be as perfect as I can be, you know.”

“Surround yourself with an amazing group of people that have really got your back and that will support you. And yeah, you’ll do it.”

FULL TRANSCRIPT

If you’re listening to the dealmaker podcast, hosted by multimillionaire property investor, entrepreneur, and Guinness World Record holder, Liam Ryan, discover how to start, scale and grow your business, become a better negotiator, create more opportunity and make massive profit so you can live the life of your dreams.


Welcome to another edition of the dealmaker podcast, and I have an incredible guest today, Michelle nizzle, who is a female entrepreneur, property investor award winner has featured in major publications across the UK, and is someone that is super, super successful. And actually, this is a special moment because this is the first female guest on the dealmaker podcast, that is not one of my graduates. So let’s get straight into it. Michelle, wonderful to have you on the show.

Welcome.


Thank you for having me. Get my name, right.


I know. We were practicing our fire in the background. So you are here today we’re going to talk about your journey. We’re going to inspire and motivate males and females tuning in. Could you just take us back to where this all started for you as an entrepreneur, business owner?

Hi, okay, you know, sort of five or six I remember, you know, I was always gonna run my own business, but I just did not know what that business was gonna be. You know, I just had massive aspirations myself, you know what to get married? What I’d have two children, what a boy and what are the girl? Watch, I own a million pound house. But I couldn’t tell you where that came from. My parents are silver servants. So I don’t have any entrepreneurial blood in the family. They were always really supportive. And then what happened? I was sort of 17 years old. Parents had gone through quite a messy divorce. The car got repossessed, literally the house was on the brink of repossession. And I just remember thinking this is just never going to happen to me, not going to happen to my family. I went out got three jobs, I had to quit a levels, because I had to put a roof over myself and my little sisters had my sort of boyfriend at the time, which is now my husband. So we went on, you know, absolutely, you know, what, work myself, you know, to the, to the bone, so to speak, when I bought my first house when I was 18 with my husband, and then from there just got the real bug about, you know, actually investing in property and what it can do for you then became a mortgage broker. And then that’s when myself and my husband built our property portfolio. So by the time I was 2324, we had a multi million pound property portfolio. And I gotta say, you know, that wasn’t from, you know, doing anything smarter than anybody else that was just literally bought our first investment property. Couple years later, obviously, the market picked up of it, refinanced, went and bought a couple more properties.


It sounds like from you say this age five or six, there was just something inside of you that was just so determined to succeed. Yeah, almost like an obsession, an obsession for money, an obsession for success. Yeah. And then seeing your mom or dad go through that divorce? Did that really embed some beliefs in you around that time? Yeah, it was just, you know, watching that whole, you know, because my mum, my mum and dad couldn’t survive without each other. You know, because they both earn decent money being, you know, quite high up in the civil service. But they’d created this family life where, you know, they had to have each other in order to continue that life. So if one of those salaries dropped out, the whole thing fell apart. And I was always, like, that’s never going to happen to me. I’m going to be self sufficient, you know, with my husband is super successful anyway. But I’m with him because I love him. I’m not with him, because, you know, I need his money or, and I think that was really important to me.

If we go back to your early 20s, when you got your first ever property, yeah. What were some of the lessons that you learn from that first deal, because there’s a lot of people tuning in that want to get on the property ladder? They’re not quite sure if it’s right for them. Yeah, sometimes I say let’s just get the first one. The magic will start to happen. Absolutely. What were some of the lessons for you on that first ever deal?


So okay, so this is quite embarrassing considering this is what I do now. But so the first house that we ever bought, it was basically a two bed house that had had a two bed extension. So not very pretty looking from the outside at all but really quite big on the inside and the day we got the gays and We parked our car on what we thought was our drive. And because the estate agent had said, This is all your land, and then the neighbors came and knocked on the door and said, Oh, you do realize that that is a shared drive? And I was like, no. So lesson number one, make sure you read all the legal stuff. Yeah, make sure you read all the all the deed information and get your solicitor to go through it with a fine tooth comb. But yeah, that was that was quite a big learning. That was my first house. And that was quite a big learning.


Right? But you followed the process, like you say, Buy refurbish refinance. Yeah. Can you remember? Did you pull all the money out of that deal on the refinance? Did you leave some money in the deal, pulled
out as much money as we could. So pulled out as much money as we could and then invested in another property, and then two years later pulled out as much money. It was slightly easier back then than it is now. pulled out all the money.


Then you’ve gone on to build your property business, you now own a letting agency? Yeah, you serve high net worth investors. And we’ll talk about that in a few moments. What is it about business that you enjoy? Yeah, it is the it’s the people, it’s the people, it’s the the interesting people, and the way that you can change lives. So I have helped I have got over 20,000 clients on in just in my mortgage business. So that’s 20,000 clients that I’ve helped on the journey to buying a property. And I think when I bought my bought my first house, it was such a stressful hassle. You know, everyone seemed to make it quite difficult. Whereas I was like, I know that I can make this transaction easier. So so my little strapline, when I’m dealing with a client is all you need to worry about is buying your sofa, okay? Because I love a bit of interior design, so you leave everything else. So I’ve got six businesses and property and finance. And that is so that we can look after every single need of a client. So that all they have to worry about is you know, picking the interiors. So they literally come to you have a consultation. Yeah, then you can literally do the entire service. Yeah. Introduce him to legal team, do the mortgage. Yeah. Do any refinancing everything, you’ve got the whole thing and so that you know, because it what do they say getting married, having a baby buying house three most stressful things that you can do, I can’t help the baby thing. I can’t have a marriage thing you know, but what I can do is make sure that that, you know, end to end services there so that it’s completely hassle and stress for you when you’re buying a home. And then once you bought your first home, I’m a big advocate for you know, let’s build your property portfolio. Where are you going with this with retirement? You know? Sure. I mean, only because I’ve done it myself, I would never do something that I’ve never done myself. And without trying to be too you know, oh, look at me and vulgar about money. I’ve made so much money in property and investing in poverty and churning it
you’re not you know how valuable an asset it is. Yeah, absolutely. So you say you have people that come to you as they just want to get their first ever family home? Yeah. And now they’ve turned into a professional. Yes.


Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve always admired so many clients. So I remember one client coming in see me, and they were sort of early 50s. And they basically came in there one by two let and another property that was unencumbered. So it didn’t have a mortgage. And they just thought they were coming in for vital every mortgage. They walked out of there retired, they literally quit their jobs because I built them a property portfolio of nine houses within the next few weeks. So I was just able to refinance the buy to let and refinance there quite a large property that had been left. And they literally resigned. They resigned on the Monday they still are retired to this day, even with all the finances, one conversation, one asset one deal. Yeah, come in, you don’t know what you don’t know. So what do you so that’s something that you enjoy about business? Yeah. What would you say has been one of your biggest challenges over your years as a female entrepreneur trying to make it in this big world? Yeah. What’s been one of your biggest challenges? And how have you overcome that? Genuinely, I think building a team has been, you know, really difficult for me in the sense that, you know, I’ve always thought, oh, you know, I’m so super driven. You think you’re normal? And that’s not disrespecting. We’re a bit weird. Yeah, he’s not disrespecting anybody else who doesn’t run a business. But you can only think how you think and actually, I’ve worked with a lot of professionals now to make me realize that actually, my standards on myself are so exceptionally high, that actually it’s impossible for your team to live up to those expectations. So actually, it’s not about them not succeeding. It’s about actually He lowering your expectations and, and also like good is good enough? Yeah, you know, so it’s taken me a long, long time and almost, I get really frustrated with some of my staff and it’s like, you have to allow them to make some of those mistakes, they’re not going to treat the business like I treat my business. And if everyone was like us, then we’d have no staff. Because they’d all be doing it themselves.


But it takes it takes a while. So what are some of the stuff that you do to treat your staff? Well, the culture what, what would you say is the culture within your company, so my culture is I am such a big pusher on them personally developing, you know, to the point where, you know, previous staff have gone off and set up their own businesses and, you know, all gone off to do mega successful jobs elsewhere. But I bring in, especially now I spend an awful lot of money bringing in external professional people, because I don’t know it all. You know, I don’t know it all. And they work with the team to, you know, personally, professionally develop them. Plus, we do an awful lot of charity stuff, which the team love. So you know, we get massively involved in local community stuff. And I just absolutely love I’m a bit of a socialite, so we socialize a lot together. That normally comes from them, actually. So they’ll go, Oh, Michelle, won’t been out for like three months. Can we, you know, go on a girls night out. So yeah, I think it’s just treating them with respect. And it might be business because you’re working for an entrepreneur, you have your own business unit. So it does not matter whether you’re an admin, or whether you’re a letting agent, or you’re on the compliance department, that business unit is yours, I give you full autonomy.

So I’m such a hands off. I’m not a micromanager. They need to be able to run a business within a business. Yeah, don’t they? Yeah. And treat it like it’s their own and have their own set of KPIs and targets. Yeah, drive themselves. Yeah, I think that’s a really good thing to do. Because a lot of business owners are, and we can all become control freaks. But when you start to micromanage Yeah, that’s when things can you just end up becoming a manager and not? Not not a business owner? And it seems to me, Michelle, that you’re really big on relationships, yeah. And driving the business forward, like, you know, the vision of your company, and you want those people to come to come along with? Absolutely, because if you’re not
working on their perfect, you know, professional development, you know, their confidence, you know, then they’re not going to be, you know, I’m very rarely in the businesses anymore. You know, I like coming out and doing this, this for me is is you know, my new job. Yeah, it’s fun. It’s. So you know, you can’t be pushing those people down, and then expect your businesses to run when you’re not there. You know, so, yeah, I’m a huge advocate for pushing them.


So if we look at some of the sacrifices that you’ve made over the years, because this is important, right, we get a lot of people that want to become business owners, property investors, but they’re just not willing to make the sacrifices. Yeah. Why do you feel people don’t succeed? So that’s one question. And then the second question is, what are some of the personal sacrifices that you’ve had to make? Yeah, to get you to where you are today?


I think people people don’t necessarily succeed, if they don’t want it enough. Yeah. You know, if you’re not passionate about what you do, so you might come up with an idea and go, Oh, right, I’m gonna go and set up this business, a fashion line or something. But unless you are literally 1,000,000% in it makes just not going to succeed. And when I was mentoring, some people in business, I would find that, you know, is that I think, you know, you’ve got an idea, but actually, do you really want it in here? Unless you really want something because you’re gonna have to sacrifice a lot. You know, I, myself and my husband, we didn’t go on. Now we get to go on fabulous holidays. But whereas our friends, we had a mortgage, when we 18 our friends were traveling the world, you know, our friends, were going on backpacking around the world. And I was like, no, no, I’ll want to invest in my business, you know. So we would go on that one of those holidays, you know, then turn to quit, you don’t know where you’re going,
you know, the sun type thing.


Like what holiday? Yeah. And I think that people go, Oh, you know, they look at you now and go, Oh, it’s all right for you. And it’s like, no, no, for 20 years, we pretty much did you know, and now we’re reaping the rewards and the benefits.


And you said you said earlier before the podcast that you delayed having children Yes, as well, because you didn’t want them to go through what you went through with your mom and dad. Yeah, you wanted them to be secure. And you made a decision years ago that you wanted your children to have the best of everything and the private schooling Yes. And I think that is something which people just don’t do, you know, people having kids left, right and center and people that are really poor, or having children and it’s like, is that really fair on those two? Drum, you decided, yeah, I think he’s down to you know, your individual, you know, I’ve always been dead set on, I was wanting to go to a private school. And I don’t know why I don’t I don’t know where I heard it on telly or whatever. But I just knew that, you know, I was quite bright, but I think I always had it in my head at a private school that you’re potentially pushed maybe a little bit further. And I do think I’ll perhaps I could have been more successful also, it’s the confidence. So I think confidence wise, I think that is what is instilled in you from quite an early age in a private school. And it’s something you can’t teach. And it’s something that you know, will carry you a long way. So for me, I didn’t have my first child till I was 32. You know, which was what I wanted, because I wanted the big house, I wanted to be able to afford for the children to be in private school before I had them, you know, and then, so the first one at 32, and then the second one at 37. And the husband wants more.


Got you to get to go on nice holidays now. I do. Okay, drink champagne. Lovely things that’s really, really, really good. What would you say is one of your biggest drivers today?
So you know what, it is just still success and what that success means to me. So I think, you know, I’m hitting 43 this year. So I want this great energy, by the way. Oh, thank you. So really good energy. I say there’s a lot of focus and clarity. Like, you are definitely a woman that just knows what she wants. That’s the feeling I get. Yeah, totally. I think the mission for me now is I’ve got a good seven years now, where I want this to be my legacy. You know, so as far as I’m concerned, I’ve spent 20 plus years running my businesses honing my craft, I am you don’t know everything. But as pretty much as I feel like an expert in my field. You know, I’m probably one of the only females in the country to be, you know, qualified in, in everything that I do. And now it’s like, now it feels like my time, you know, to go right, the next seven years, I want to be known as the leading female expert in the UK, and I want to make my kids proud. You know, I really want I get to wake up every morning, and other people are not that lucky. So it’s like about making the most out of every single day and doing stuff that you enjoy. Yeah. So, you know, I do enjoy this, you know, filming the filming and meeting new people and creation. Yeah, but the meeting of really interesting people. And for me, that is meeting other entrepreneurs, and you’re not going to meet them sitting in your office. Great.


To get out there build the right yeah, I say 70% of your time should be built on relationships, absolutely existing relationships, new relationships. So what what would you say to anyone now tuning in, they want to become an entrepreneur, let’s try and talk to the females of the audience. They want to become an entrepreneur, or maybe they’re just starting out, but maybe they’ve got some struggles. Maybe they don’t believe in themselves. Maybe they’ve got some negativity in their family. Maybe they’re struggling with time finances, what would you say to those women wanting to break through that don’t quite believing themselves, or they’re not quite getting the result they want to get?


Yeah, and I know this, because not one person wanted me set up my own business. Right? You know, so it was just, I knew in here that that’s what I was gonna do, you know, and I think, sadly, for women, we do suffer a lot with impostor syndrome, we do have those can we actually do this and be a mum, you know, still be a good wife still be a good friend. And basically, you’ve got to really get the right support network around you. So join a entrepreneur circle, or, you know, if it’s particularly females that you want to have that network with, you know, join a network where these women are going to really hold you up and support you. Because, you know, through the years, I’ve shed friends, I’ve shed, you know, think people that didn’t want me to be successful, you know, all they feel like they’re being left behind because you’re successful. And the thing is about moving forward, so my biggest thing would be get yourself in a network where you feel that you’re supported. And also you want to be that person in the room where, you know, I’m always trying to get in a room now where I feel they’re above me, because you know, it’s that growth right? To get around supportive people totally believe in yourself. Yeah. Which is that’s not always easy just mustn’t give up because one decision one mentor, one deal, one client, you know, for me certainly can change absolutely everything. Yeah. So I think they’re really really really great words of wisdom. What would you say when you look at yourself super successful? You hang out with other super successful people, what would you say are some of the key ingredients that has made you the person you are.

Today, I think it is just the drive for self improvement, if I’m being totally honest. So I have worked with therapists, I’ve worked with psychologists, they’ve all said, I don’t think I’ve ever worked with anyone who is so self aware and honest, because I’ll go into a session and be like, Oh, I’ve done this this week, you know, I don’t think that’s great. All you can do is like, don’t beat yourself up, you can just sort of go right take on board, like, I know what I’ve done is wrong. This is how I’m going to rectify it. I’m not proud of certain situations that have happened over the years, however, all I can do is learn and grow from it, and try and always be a better person every single day. You know, I think it’s important to be in tune with your with your, say, say your negative parts, or the bits that don’t quite work. Yeah, good. We all have them. And so many people try and be something that they’re not I love that honesty about you just say, You know what I fuck up?

Yeah, time? Absolutely. I’m really not the best version of myself. Always. Yeah, this is how I want to improve myself. Yeah, thank you. So I’ve gone and got therapy and talk to people, you know, psychologists and, you know, it’s about basically like, all I want to be as the best version of myself all the time. And if you want to go to the top and you want to be number one, and you want to be a thought leader, you have to start with yourself, it comes from any, you know, what am I weak spots? What am I not good at? Oh, as a bit snappy this morning. Why was I snappy? Why did I, you know, speak to that employee like that? Why did I you know, why was I bit snappy with that journalist or whatever, you know, whatever it may be, and you go, it’s about reflection. And going, you know, I’m not, I’m not ever going to be perfect, you know, but I’m striving to be as perfect as I can be, you know, and that must be something great that your clients really love about you, and that your colleagues really love about you. Because you just say honest, open raw, what you see is what you get. Yeah, take me as you will. Yeah. You’ve seen the sort of person that’s really striving for excellence? Yes. And you’re not willing to accept anything but getting to that next level. Next Level? Look, you mentioned earlier about helping clients build million pound property portfolios. Do you want to just share some of that service with the audience? We’ve got a lot of people that want to get into property. We’ve got a lot of high net worths that will listen to this. What is that service that you offer them, Michelle?


So basically, it’s a bespoke end to end service. So I need I need a minimum investment, because I’ll only do it in base two in Oxfordshire where I live six months. Yeah. So I need like 100 grand to start with. So that’s you deposit covers all your fees, you know, obviously, we’re financing the rest of it. So I will structure a business plan. So we’ll go Okay, so where is it that you want to be in 10 years time, 15 years time when you retire? So let’s just say a client will come to me with a million pounds, so minimum investment is 100,000. But typically, a client will come to me with about a million pounds, and then I’ll go off and buy 10 houses with that. So they haven’t got a clue, you know, you know, to be invest in property, you know, you need quite a lot of knowledge. So, I structure a business plan, I’ll then go off and source the properties, because obviously, I know which properties will rent better than, you know, most of the properties. It might be a bit rundown, so then we’ll need to go in and refurbish it. And then I can look at because obviously, over history, 20 years of doing this, I can look at the ones that give us the most capital growth. At the moment, clients are not getting a massive return on a monthly basis as we were as you know, five, six years ago, raking it in Yeah, but But it’s about long term growth. So then we’ll source the property, refurbish it, see all the way through to completion. Lots of my clients don’t see the property, you know, that are literally just take a video and they’ll buy it like that. And then once we’ve lined tenants up for exchange of contracts, and then we’ll let out through my letting agency when it’s finished. So right there, it really works for someone who doesn’t want to be the next era beanie. Yeah, you know, dressed in, you know, doing, literally turnkey from start to finish. Yeah. And, and then you take a sourcing fee. Yes, you do a project management fee like a refurb. To do to manage the reef, obviously, mortgage broker fee, then we will handle the legal side of it through someone in our network. And then obviously, we have a full management fee when so, you know, from obviously, I know lots of, you know, of your followers, that’s what they want to get into. I mean, you’re talking it’s an exclusive, you know, some very decent package because, you know, you could be earning hundreds of 1000s out of a client by doing this. Yeah. And then I’ve built hundreds of property portfolios for clients. And so for me, that was the quickest way for me to build my letting agency Because getting the odd landlord here in there is very time consuming, cost you a lot of money in advertising all the rest of it. If you can offer that service where you go, Look, mister landlord, I’m gonna do everything for you, I’m gonna build you this portfolio, and then I’m going to look after it. Yeah, they go, Where do I start?


So how do you typically find those clients? Now? Is it a lot of word of mouth, as you say, Come to advertising? No.


I think if I was probably better at LinkedIn, you know, I could probably really go for it. But it’s just one of those services that, you know, those clients will mix in certain circles. It’s not one of those sites. I think it’s not one of those businesses that personally I think you can massively sell to, because people who makes in those circles don’t like to be sold to Yeah, it’s very much they know of me, then they go and do a little bit of homework, check out Companies House, make sure. You know, before they hand over all this money to you. But yeah, it’s very much sort of word of mouth. But I think someone starting out, it’s the networking, you know, you want to go to these property investment networking clubs, because again, it’s just built on relationship.

Great. So what is the future hold for you? Then you said talks about the next seven years? Yeah. You know what, what’s going to be like the perfect day for you? Where do you see yourself in the next few years?
The perfect day?

Is this is this great, you know, meeting people like yourselves. Lots more TV shows. So I absolutely love the production of a TV show.


Was the apprentice the first TV show that you did all those years ago? Yes.
I think it was. Yeah, he’s got the bug for it. Yeah, I just love the you know, like the contestants were really lovely. I’m still in touch with them now. But it was actually like, there’s like two, like 200 people that you meet on that show. So from the runners to the executive producers, I just loved everything about it. Great. Yeah, it’s the learning, isn’t it? You know, I think we have a passion for learning new stuff. And you know, I’d see myself on Dragon’s Den, Dragons Den dragon. Everyone’s dragon good. You got the style for it. I can see you being quite fierce in that. Exactly. So do you see yourself now really wanting to invest into businesses as you as you? Yeah, I think for me, you know, we’ve got quite a large property portfolio, myself, my husband, we’ve invested in a lot of property, commercial, residential. And I just love people now, you know, and invest in their businesses. So build up my portfolio of businesses. That’s the dream, the dream. So I’ve got seven years later, unless you’re gonna do great, Michelle. So we’re sort of nearing the end of the podcast, which has been incredible. By the way, it is called the deal maker podcast, what is a deal maker mean to you? So deal maker, it could be anything from, you know, taking on that employees to you know, for me, it’s about making money. So invested in a property. And then so for instance, I bought my office, which actually is a pub. And I’ve literally made, I gotta say, close to a million quid on it. Were awesome in a couple years. So for me, that’s the deal maker.


Yeah. Making the making the machine the transition through. Yeah. When you get a great result like that, and you make a big win. How does that make you feel?


Oh. Yeah, so it is all about, you know, for me, it is about the deals, you know, that’s the thing that still drives me. Great.


Okay, last few words of wisdom or inspiration, please, Michelle, to the great audience, we have, um,
I think just following your dream, and don’t let anybody else pull you down. I’ve had so many of that over the years. And you know, especially like the female audience that you’ve got is put your head above the parapet. That’s the only way that you’re ever going to get noticed. Surround yourself with an amazing group of people that have really got your back and that will support you. And yeah, you’ll do it. Well. Fantastic.


Well, thanks for coming in. And it’d be great to have you in at some point again in the future from you, and where can people find you?

So, my Instagram handle for black entrepreneurial ism is at the at the empowering entrepreneur?
Great, fantastic, brilliant. Well, look, there we have, Michelle, what a fantastic, fantastic guests we’ve had on the podcast, shed loads of Golden Nuggets with you. Obviously the key word here is implementation. Believe in yourself. Take massive action. If Michelle can do it, you can do it too. So make sure you go and check Michelle out. Thanks for tuning in to the dealmaker podcast, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.


You’re listening to the deal maker podcast hosted by multimillionaire property investor, entrepreneur and Guinness World Record holder Liam Ryan discover How to Start scale and grow your business become a better negotiator create more opportunity and to make massive profit so you can live the life of your dreams.

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