Property Development with Bryn Little Transcript

Greg Wilkes (00:00):

The construction industry can be a tough business to crack from cashflow problems. Struggling to find skilled labor and not making enough money for your efforts leaves many business owners feeling frustrated and burnt out. But when you get the business strategy right, it’s an industry that can be highly satisfying and financially rewarding. I’m here to give you the resources to be able to create a construction business that gives you more time, more freedom and more money. This is the Develop Your Construction Business podcast and I’m your host, Greg Wilkes.

Greg Wilkes (00:37):

Welcome back to the podcast. Great to have you here. If you’re watching on YouTube, great to have you watching, and of course if you’re listening to this, then another action-packed episode with a lot of value that I want to provide for you. So, really pleased today to have Bryn Little with me. I’ve known Bryn for a few years actually. We’ve done some business development courses together over the years and crossed paths. So yes, I’ve been really familiar with what brings up to and have been highly impressed with what he and his family have been achieving in the property development sector. Now I know a lot of my listeners who are listening to this who are in construction often I speak to you and it’s a big goal for you to get into property at some point in your careers. So you’re going to find this really useful.

(01:21)
Find out how Bryn got started in this family and what they’re currently doing. You’ll learn about some of the potential pitfalls and the things that might go well for you in property. So we’ll dive into all of that. But just to give Bryn a little bit of a background, I know that Bryn, you’ve been in the land industry and the development industry, your family for three generations I think, which is highly impressive. You’ve worked with hundreds of landowners and looking on your website, I think it’s that you’ve built over 3,000 residential homes, which is highly impressive. So Brynn, it’s absolutely fantastic to have you here with us and appreciate your time.

Bryn Little (02:00):

Pleasure, thank you.

Greg Wilkes (02:02):

Good stuff. So Brynn, just a brief introduction from me, but let us know, how did you get started in construction and then eventually moving into development?

Bryn Little (02:13):

I guess some will probably say it is kind of in the blood really as you mentioned, to kind of a generational business. So my grandfather Tony Little, started in the construction industry in the late fifties in various different guises. He actually started on the tools as a qualified bricklayer and through the various decades obviously my father got subject to that industry pretty much throughout his entire life. And I think once you are subject to and witnessing family members in a particular industry, it’s kind of almost a natural thing for generations to also almost continue a bit of a legacy. So my father got into construction and building in the seventies and they formed a pretty formidable partnership down in Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire area of the country, which is where they’re from, and worked on the tools, run a load of gangs, worked with some small to medium sized developers, also had partnerships with some of the big boys, the volume builders back in the day, wimpy and people like that obviously changed somewhat over the years and yes, as you said, built a fair number of houses over many different decades and generations.

(03:43)
And I guess from my point of view, obviously seeing two generations involved in the industry, it was kind of written on the wall really. I did explore other sort of avenues prior to getting fully into construction, so I qualified them in the landscape construction and design industry first. Ended up doing some design work and building some show gardens for the BBC and for Gardeners’ World and organizations like that and eventually join the construction business because I think if you’re in the industry you want to try and have as many strings to your bow as possible and I guess a lot of your listeners might have construction or contracting businesses but might want to expand their horizons into maybe doing their own developments or what have you at some point. And we did that and sometimes we were, the focus was more on the contracting side, so working for clients and then sometimes the focus was more doing stuff for ourselves and that was very much dependent on the, I guess the economy and where things were and supply and demand and what’s available to you at any given point really.

(05:02)
So I guess from my point of view, it was quite a good time really because we were focusing on the contracting business when I was around 15, 16, just leaving school, getting into college, and stuff. So my first experiences really hands-on apart from getting on-site when I was a toddler and stuff like that with we had a granddad was actually on the tools, general construction, bringing a bit of a different kind of outlook to the business, a few different skills and I didn’t have any formal qualifications in terms of any trades, but I basically became a general contractor working on anything from smaller refurbishments to new build developments as well. And I also think really that’s such a good grounding for anyone that’s looking to ultimately move through the gears and do their own developments because you get a real good intimate knowledge of how things actually work, how things are built, how things go together, and the kind of intricacies of actually the construction phase, which I think is really important. So I’ve been in it for now, I don’t know what would it be now. I’ve been in it for 17 years or so.

Greg Wilkes (06:28):

Yes. Wow, that’s a long time Bry. So that’s fantastic. You’ve been some really interesting points there. So one of them that I picked up on was about how we often fall into this because of our fathers or grandfathers or whatever else were doing. I was exactly the same. My dad was a bricklayer, so you sort of just naturally seemed to go into that. But I also tried something else funny enough because it wasn’t actually, I didn’t really want to get into construction. I sort of fell into it because I didn’t do fantastic at school. I just thought, all right, let’s get on the tools. And I like earning the money at a young age, but I tried recruitment, funny enough, computer recruitment, one of my mates got into it and it just hit really good. He let company car and office and whatever else and I thought, oh yeah, I’m really fancy this. But I think I lasted three months in that office environment in London and I couldn’t wait to get back on the tools. I thought I just wanted to be on-site. So funny the things we try, but I guess your background with doing the landscape gardening, whatever else, I guess that’s all fed into some really valuable experience for you going forward in with potentially planning and designing sites and things like that.

Bryn Little (07:38):

Yes, definitely. I think I’ve always been interested in that kind of side of things, conceptual all the way through to seeing something created. I think there’s something very appealing and very satisfying actually about seeing something that’s not there, working through it in terms of what can be done, and then actually seeing it being done, whether that’s a small project or a big project and I guess that mirrors all the way through in different aspects of my life as well. Really it’s trying to ascertain a potential of something and then making that happen really. So it’s definitely an area that you’ve got to look at your transferable skills, what things that you enjoy doing because I think if you can be involved more consistently in things that you do enjoy doing, I think you end up achieving better results. That’s not to say that you’re exclusively only working on stuff that you enjoy because I think it’s important in any kind of business really that you’ve got to get stuck in really, and you’ve got to take your hand to many different aspects of it from numbers and accounting and the business side of things all the way through to perhaps more things that are suited to me, like you said about the design and getting out there, talking to people, landowners, connecting with people, getting on-site as well because obviously moved through the business and obviously no longer on the tools myself and as you said when you first started in recruitment, it doesn’t take long before you start missing it really.

(09:10)
So yes, it’s certainly some of that we miss, but you’ve got to keep your hand in all aspects

Greg Wilkes (09:17):

Without a doubt. Yes, a hundred percent. And as a business owner, we often find ourselves wearing multiple hats, don’t we? That we just

Bryn Little (09:23):

Absolutely.

Greg Wilkes (09:24):

You’ve got to be a part of absolutely everything and keep your finger on the pulse, but just talk us through that a little bit more than that transition. So obviously, you’re on the tools for a while doing the contract works, how did you then make that? Was it a gradual thing you coming off the tools or was it a deliberate decision to go right? I can’t do this anymore, I need to move into more office work?

Bryn Little (09:45):

Yes, I guess, I mean I didn’t particularly have a desire to move away from the tools from the point of view that I wasn’t particularly enjoying what I was doing and certainly didn’t see the appeal of moving into an office, but I guess it was a bit of a combination of a gradual thing. As you develop yourself and your mind and your skills and your experience, you start almost tapping into things. And I got to a point where I was on the tools and what it’s like some days are great and some days are a real slog and they’re real tough when you’re out on-site, certainly in the winter and stuff like that. And I remember a few years ago now it was winter, it was really cold and you just get moments in your life that you go, I think I’m probably, I say destined, but I think I’m probably can add value in other areas a bit more than what I’m doing here.

(10:39)
So, I just started looking into other ways of being involved in construction and development. At that point, we were just solely focused on contracting, so my dad and me, granddad, they didn’t have the fires burning as it were to go out and press the button and do our own developments again. But it was only until I started looking into that in a bit more detail and almost reignited that kind of fire within my father. And then we made the various necessary steps to going out there, meeting new people, getting involved in business programs like how we met and other property networks and stuff because that kind of side of things we never knew it really existed. When you’re on the tools and when you’re in the trenches, it’s that’s what you do. You don’t really do social media, you don’t really do any of that. You just get stuck in and we kind of discovered the kind of a new world really of people of investors and lots of different people that you can meet professionals and stuff. That kind of opened our eyes to actually, yes, we’ve got the experience, we’ve got the knowledge, let’s go and make it happen again for ourselves.

Greg Wilkes (11:55):

Fantastic. Yes. So, what was the sort of first site that you did once you made that decision? Was it a big site or did you start off small?

Greg Wilkes (12:02):

How did you start?

Bryn Little (12:03):

Pretty gradual. Yeah, pretty gradual really. I think at the time we were had a fair bit of work on and so it was sort of a gradual transition really working on maybe one or two units, pretty small developments and I think we took on a conversion. I mean we are mainly our kind of bread and butter if you like is new build residential development. But we’ve done a fair few conversions as well. So, we’ve done in its excess of 3000 new builds as a family, but we’ve probably done 300 or so conversions as well. So over a long period of time, I might add it’s over decades and I’m obviously myself not directly involved in a lot of those projects, but we took on a 10 or 12 unit conversion project and started there doing that and looking at assets and looking at ways that we could retain assets for the long term because as a developer or a construction business UI obviously work in job to job and then if you move into development, traditionally majority of developers if you like are traders. So you build something, you sell it on and that’s all we’ve ever done. So it’s only fairly recently that we started looking at things in terms of retaining assets and renting them out or a bit more longer-term legacy planning really. So working into it on a fairly low entry basis but then moving through the gears to some larger projects and we are involved in some projects now that we probably never really envisaged that we’d be involved in the kind of size and scale that we are now.

Greg Wilkes (13:41):

Yes, that’s fantastic. Yes, so you’ve touched on two really interesting points there. One just about it being a goal to potentially make intergenerational wealth or legacy wealth. It’s a great vehicle to use that isn’t it? Property development, especially if you are a builder or in the trades industry because I think for a lot they were probably, they haven’t got that job where they’re going to get a big pension, and they’re paying away into, it’s not like we’re working on a government worker or something like that where you’re going to get a nice payoff. So we do have to think about that. How are we going to create that pension for ourselves, and I think that’s potentially a fantastic way of doing it, isn’t it with property?

Bryn Little (14:20):

Absolutely.

(14:22)
Yes, definitely. And so I think that’s something, a new outlook that I kind of brought to the table really when it comes to the family business because as things change and stuff, you’ve got to look at things differently. I’ve got a son myself now and it does change the way that you approach a lot of things and ultimately we still approach our business very much with a traders hat on because I think it’s very dangerous to put yourself in a box. We are just traders, we trade property or we build houses of a certain value or we only do certain things. I think if you can look at it where you’ve got a bit more options available to you and keep your eyes open, it gives you more choices further down the line really, and certainly from a long-term perspective, holding onto a few assets that produce income, income-producing assets are great certainly when you’re in this industry because we are not in an industry where we’re getting paid every month, certainly as developers. So unless you have another asset, a business or you’ve got stocks or shares or you’ve got property or whatever that are giving you that monthly income, paying your bills, keeping that kind of side of financial side of things at bay, it then gives you that kind of freedom to go out there, find more projects and more the longer term projects because obviously the lead time in some of these projects development and stuff, construction planning can be months, well years really.

Greg Wilkes (15:58):

Yes, certainly a patient game sometimes, isn’t it when you’re waiting for things. I’ve just had a site now that’s went in for planning, it’s only two units on a bit of land, and it just got rejected and literally got rejected yesterday. So frustrating. You want to get cracking and get started.

Bryn Little (16:13):

Exactly, yeah.

Greg Wilkes (16:15):

Again, revised

Bryn Little (16:16):

The paperwork side’s a bit boring but it’s somewhat, anyways. Some of it’s exciting, but obviously coming from a trade background and stuff, you just want to see stuff being built.

Greg Wilkes (16:25):

Exactly, yeah, itching to get going. Yeah. So you talked about your project scaling up in size, what’s the biggest project you’ve done? How many units have you worked on?

Bryn Little (16:35):

As a family, we’ve done a hundred unit-plus builds before, but at the moment on the desk, we’ve got a number of sites that ultimately are in planning at the moment or in the process of going into planning, and they range from, I think the smallest one that we’ve got acquired at the minute is for 40 units and going up to, I think the biggest is 30 acres in total, but probably 20 acres of that developable. So, in theory, potentially up to 200 units or so on that site. Obviously, something like that would take a lot of years in terms of phasing and stuff to actually materialize. But initial sort of phases we’re generally working on sort of 40 to 50 units, which is quite a nice size at the moment, certainly from a planning angle, and obviously when it comes to the delivery side of things, that’s something of that kind of size is pretty interesting and pretty exciting really.

Greg Wilkes (17:38):

I bet it is, yeah. So, is there a sweet spot for you as a certain size? I imagine moving from doing one or two units to doing 40 units is a completely different planning involvement in that, isn’t it? So, what’s the sweet spot for you?

Bryn Little (17:56):

I guess it dependent on where we are in the country first of all as well because obviously our sort of home peach HQ if you like, but we are based in shore, so anything sort of fairly local to us, we’d probably entertain smaller developments because perhaps we’ve got a different angle on those certainly from a retaining, so we don’t want to retain the odd one two units scattered all over the country because that’s just going to be a bit of a problematic to manage long-term. So yeah, we certainly entertain smaller developments locally, but for larger sort of stuff, we are probably looking at a minimum 20 units upwards. But when you get to certain thresholds and certain sizes, obviously there are positives and there are negatives to it from a perspective of economies of scale as you move up in size. So you get economies of scaling cost and even from your professionals and stuff like that, which is good as you move through the gears. But then obviously you’ve got to make sure that you’ve got the right access to finances and stuff for larger projects.

(19:08)
But for us you start moving into things like affordable housing and you’ve got to get your head around those kinds of things once in many areas if the thresholds like 10 or a thousand square meters of build or something like that, and you’ve got to get your head around another aspect of the industry and for us, we see that as opportunity because a lot of people don’t understand that and where there’s a lot of confusion and people see it as problems, we see it as opportunities. So we typically like to operate in that area, but we tend to not to go too much too high in terms of number of units, in which case we might be dealing and competing with the big boys, the volume PLCs and stuff a bit different if we’re on the planning side first because then obviously depending on how we structured the deal we might be in our interest to sell onto PLC house builders or other builders for that matter. But from a delivery perspective, we certainly, I reckon the sweet spot’s probably about 40 or 50 units, to be fair.

Greg Wilkes (20:11):

Yes, okay, nice one. So, at the moment there’s a real problem with finding trades in the construction industry, isn’t there? The real shortage of that has been for quite a while I think, but it’s definitely seems to be worse since Brexit and the pandemic, a lot of people have gone back to their own countries and it’s left the UK in a real bit of a dilemma. Speaking to so many clients that are struggling with that, what do you find yourself, do you find it easier to get the big sites built out because you’re attracting a different type of contractor to that or is it easier to build the small units out? Do you find you struggle with labor?

Bryn Little (20:52):

It is an interesting area really, because I guess it depends on what type of contractor you’re dealing with at what level. Certainly, the larger jobs you’re getting a bit more interest certainly. It is funny really I think it runs all the way through trades even from small domestic trades to large scale, even residential commercial trades as well because if you think about it, if you’ve got a leaky tap at home or something trying to get hold of a plumber, unless even if you know a few plumbers and even if you’ve got some on your team and stuff, trying to get a hold of a trade to come and do a small domestic job for you is a lot more difficult to then trying to get a trade to come and do a first fix, second fix full job on a house and you can understand why.

Bryn Little (21:44):

But for us, it’s those smaller jobs that lead to the bigger jobs, and that’s almost the way that we kind of approach it when we are looking at working with either subcontractors and things like that, it’s the relationships that you build. Labor has been difficult to come by. Obviously, we’ve got other issues in terms of materials and cost types and all things like that, but I would say that you do start dealing with a different caliber of business and enterprise once you start dealing with bigger projects effectively. But that being said, the bigger companies you might find that their overheads and things like that are obviously a lot more, they might have a lot more employed staff and things like that so their pricing could come in and it just not be affordable for you and not be viable for you. So we would always approach it that the best way generally is becoming the main contractor yourself, whether you’ve got that skill already or whether you need to evolve into that, become the main contractor and put packages together, you almost become a management contractor then and you are basically putting the trade subcontracts together and doing it that way, and you can potentially get the best of both worlds then.

Greg Wilkes (23:15):

Yes, it makes complete sense then I guess you’re able to take some profit out of the project for being the main contractor because you’ve got that profit built in rather than giving it to another main contractor.

Bryn Little (23:25):

Well, that’s it really. I think when you’re looking at your projects and actually acquiring a deal for example, there’s, there’s very little chance of putting 20% profit on the development as the developer and maybe 15% margin as a contractor. If you are dealing with the main contractor, they’ve already got that margin in, you’re going to find that your deals don’t stack up. So by becoming the main contractor and the developer as well, if you like as one, obviously we’re not then looking for 35% or the equivalent of a profit margin where we are cutting that margin because it’s a combined margin so we can make a bit on the build, maybe a bit on the profit at the end of the job and it just makes things a lot, it just opens up many more opportunities. It enables you to compete basically.

Greg Wilkes (24:13):

Yes, sure. I’m sure it does. Yes. So, obviously people are listening to this now and they really want to get into property development. What do you think the most difficult thing about it is to get started? Obviously you’ve got a few phases and you’ve got to find the opportunity to start with then got to get planning, you’ve then got to secure the funding, you’ve got to build them and you’ve got to sell them and make a profit. What do you think? Do you think the hardest thing is to get going?

Bryn Little (24:43):

For me, we approach it as almost like you go through one gate, you close the gate, you move on to the next sort of thing. So we box it off. We’ve got a process where we divide it into the seven different areas of the, not the construction process, the development process. So as you mentioned there you’ve got the acquisition side. So we would divide that into sourcing opportunities, appraising them and working out whether they’re viable, securing them. So that’s the first three phases, and then you move into the planning, the funding, the construction, the exit. And ultimately, I personally think that the hardest thing is the thing that you’re facing next, if that makes sense. You’ve got to have that kind of foresight, that long-term vision of how these phases interact with each other and the effect of one than the other. But ultimately if you haven’t got the site, getting the site’s going to be the hardest thing. If you don’t have access to funding, getting the access to funding is going to be the hardest thing.

(25:49)
But I think that the main advantage of people are already in the construction industry, may not have done developments themselves, they may just be working for clients, but the delivery of a scheme is absolutely key. You’ve got to find it, but you’ve got to deliver it and I think if you can almost improve and give up your skills and add more tools to your toolbox in terms of actually identifying and being able to secure projects and opportunities that combined with the delivery side, the rest of it in terms of access to finance and the planning side, you’ll find that they’ll kind of fit into place really.

Greg Wilkes (26:26):

Yes, it is interesting you said that about finance because that seems to be in most people’s minds, just a complete showstopper for them. They think, I really want to get into this, but I haven’t got a million quids to go out and buy a site or whatever it is. Do you think that is big barrier though? Do you think finance is available if they found a site, they appraised it and they thought, look, there’s money in this. Do you think it’s then potentially quite easy to go and get funding if you haven’t got a big pot yourself or do you think no, you need to work on getting your own pot together first?

Bryn Little (26:58):

Always think it is helpful and necessary in many cases to have some skin in the game yourself. So, if you have got a pot, you don’t need to have a massive pot of money. You can leverage that depending on what types of deals that you’re working on. But it’s not easy, obviously. I think none of the aspects of business in this industry are easy, to be honest. They can be simple, but it doesn’t necessarily make them easy. I think it’s interesting because probably pre-pandemic and Preiss issues and stuff that we’ve had there, quite a lot of construction businesses are often sitting on quite a bit of capital, and when you’ve got access to a bit of capital, it can open some doors for you, just because if you find a site doesn’t mean that you have to go and buy it. If it’s 300,000 pounds or something, it doesn’t mean that you have to have 300,000 pounds of cash, you go and buy the site.

(27:58)
The very fact that you can demonstrate that you can deliver on sites of a similar scale and a similar nature will open doors in terms of institutional funding, debt funding from various, perhaps not high street straightaway, but it could be some challenger banks or it could be some peer-to-peer lending or others. And ultimately from an investor perspective, they don’t have the skill that a lot of construction businesses that is that delivery side. So they would be interested in almost partnering up really on a site with a builder or with a contracting firm. So there is options to grow your pot and to get going really, but that you can acquire, you can control sites with very little money, you do need some, but if you’re getting them on option agreements and then you’re looking at taking them through planning and things like that or optimizing planning, obviously you need a bit of money for that, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to go out there and buy the site at risk. And in some cases, the vendor that you’re talking to, the landowners that you’re talking to, you can structure deals in certain way that you might not have to park with too much cash on day one really.

Greg Wilkes (29:14):

Yes. So I guess we’re talking about joint ventures potentially then, aren’t we with that sort of thing?

Bryn Little (29:20):

Yeah, joint ventures deal structures, yeah.

Greg Wilkes (29:22):

Do you think, I mean what are the typical risks with joint ventures? Because obviously when the properties that I’ve always done, obviously you need funding, so you need a partner to help with funding, but I’ve always liked to keep control of the rest myself and not be involved in a joint venture. There’s too many parties to it, but what do you think the big risks are with joint ventures?

Bryn Little (29:43):

I think you’re hitting the nail on the head. They’re really great, to be honest. There’s too many moving parts, generally.

Bryn Little (29:49):

Too many opinions and at the start of it, it’s like a relationship. At the start people can say certain things, but as things progress and maybe things don’t go quite so right, cracks start to appear, and that happens in the majority of cases, generally does in the majority of cases, very seldom do JVs work out with no issues. So we try and structure deals where we potentially get the benefits or some of the benefits of joint ventures in terms of working with maybe funding partners and delivery partners and putting those kind of pieces of the puzzle together, but without necessarily the drawbacks in terms of a full joint venture, shared financial footprint and all the things that have to go with that. Really it’s about establishing whether it’s a joint venture full blown, whether it’s a collaboration or partnership in some kind with the relevant sort of contracts and agreements in place, it’s really important to have the clear roles, responsibilities, who’s responsible for what, who’s doing what. Basically, from an investor side, you can get people who are just purely armchair, they just want to sit back and you might get the old update here and there. Then you get other people that they want to be on-site every other day with a hard hat and taking pictures and sharing it on their social media and all that kind of stuff. It goes from one end to the other

Greg Wilkes (31:21):

I figure it could be worse.

Bryn Little (31:22):

Yes, exactly. And as I said before, when you’re on-site you just want to crack on, don’t you? But it is a necessary beast sometimes that, but yeah, it’s about understanding what people are looking to get out of it at the end of the day, whether that’s a landowner, whether it’s a delivery partner, whether it’s a funder, and trying to work out a way that will give people not necessarily what they want because what they want might not be achievable, but getting as close to something that’s added value as possible in such a way that you’re not tied up in knots.

Greg Wilkes (32:01):

Yeah, no, that makes complete sense. That’s sound advice. So obviously you’ve been doing this for a while now, so you’ve seen developers probably come and go over the years you’ve been there, been doing this. What do you think some of the big mistakes are that developers make that mean they’re not going to succeed long-term in this industry?

Bryn Little (32:20):

That is a really good question, and it is a question that there’s not many questions that I get asked where I go, what’s the answer to that? But this one is, I just know it, it’s scaling up too quickly.

(32:36)
We’ve seen that so many times over the years because obviously we’ve got our own business on the development acquisition side, that side of things. We also do consult with other SME developers. We used to run some training and stuff like that, and now we kind of work more on a one-to-one basis with certain companies helping them start helping scale. And we’ve seen that the people that almost fail and fall foul of the industry are those that they just scale up too fast. They’re either already property investors or they’re already involved in property in some kind and they might have a portfolio, they might be doing some refurbishments, they might be doing a smaller sort of scale development and then all of a sudden they want to go from that to doing a 20 unit scheme. And even those that are doing that, then they move even further forward, they go, I’m going to build my construction business up to from, I don’t know, million-pound turnover that typically your clients that you work with are targeting to going to 10 million.

(33:39)
And you can imagine the kind of problems and the other things that come with that. It’s not just a case of 10 times in your activity and everything, it’s almost a different business once you start scaling up to a certain level. And we’ve seen people scale up way too fast and ultimately they become overexposed to market movements and overexposed to lots of different things and cashflow problems and everything is magnified and one deal can change your life in this industry genuinely can change your life, but that can be positive or it could be negative and it’s important to understand the balance of that.

Greg Wilkes (34:18):

Yes, I think that’s a really valid point you raised there and especially at the moment. I mean, we touched on it about trying to get materials and whatever else. So if you’ve got sites that have started and you are on a quite tight profit margin and then all of a sudden your materials have gone up, I mean it could literally just wipe out all the years of work potentially could be gone.

Bryn Little (34:37):

Yes, absolutely,

Greg Wilkes (34:38):

In one fell swoop. So no, I think that’s really sound advice. So Bryn, you touched on it a little bit earlier, if someone was going to start out in this industry and they wanted to get a little bit of help on how to do that, I know you said you’re not running your training courses anymore, you have got a book though, haven’t you actually, which is quite useful to people. What’s the title of that?

Bryn Little (34:59):

Yes, we published a book a couple of years ago called The House Building Handbook.

Bryn Little (35:04):

So it just takes you through the seven stages of the development process. It just gives you a good base understanding of the industry and I think that’s really important to get that base knowledge, set your foundation first and then sort of build from there really. So yeah, it’s a short book so it won’t take you too long to read. We don’t tend to pack it out with too much fluff.

Greg Wilkes (35:29):

I’ve read it. Really, I thought it was good. Really useful, concise, and very useful.

Bryn Little (35:32):

Straight to the point, actually.

Greg Wilkes (35:33):

That’s it. Exactly. That’s what you want. And if they wanted a little bit more help than that, and they want to really get started in this industry, might have a little bit of a pot of money, or they’ve spotted some sites they want to do some deals on, could they get any additional help from yourselves as far as consultancy’s concerned?

Bryn Little (35:51):

Yes, I mean, it is a secondary business that we operate, and we do work with starting and scaling developers and they come from different backgrounds really, whether you’ve got construction background or whether you’re investment background or what have you. We basically, anyone that we feel that got the potential to exceed succeed in this industry, we try and want to try and help people as much as we can, really. And that’s generally done on a one-to-one basis, hourly consultancy or daily come down, spend the day with people and really map out the kind of business plans. And we’ve been on viewings with some of our clients, we’ve looked at some of their active projects and we looked at value engineering. So, depending on where you are in the process, really if you’re at the start, we can help people get going. And if you’re scaling it, you can help people maximize the value, really minimize the risk.

Greg Wilkes (36:46):

That’s fantastic. So how would they get hold of you, Bryn?

Bryn Little (36:50):

Best way to getting hold of me probably by email. So yeah, best email to get me on is Bryn, bryn@yourlandpartner.co.uk.

Greg Wilkes (37:00):

Fantastic, that’s great. And you’ve got a website as well, haven’t you? I think if anyone’s got a bit of land that they want to get developed out and talk to Bryn about what’s your website?

Bryn Little (37:09):

Yes, so yourlandpartner.co.uk is a bit of information on there. Some stuff about our current projects and one or two previous projects and I think I mentioned on there, but in terms of land or advice or you’re an investor, you’ve got some money and you want understand the pitfalls and who to work with or where to put your money and things like that. Yes, get in touch with us and we’ll try and help you where we can really.

Greg Wilkes (37:39):

Yes, that’s fantastic. That’s awesome. But before we go, Bryn, that’s been really helpful. So I just want to thank you for all the value bombs you dropped there for us and that’s going to be really useful for my listeners. But one thing I want to ask you, which I haven’t asked you before, you’re a fellow Fulham supporter like myself, not many of us.

Bryn Little (37:55):

For me since.

Greg Wilkes (37:57):

Where did that come from? Did you live for a bit or where did that start?

Bryn Little (38:00):

It actually came from my grandfather on my mum’s side of the family. So yeah, Keith, he grew up in Fulham and used to suspend his youth down at the cottage, bunking in over the wall and stuff and knew quite a lot of the legendary players back in the day. And yeah, it’s just something that over the years I got drawn to really, I think when you’re younger your eyes get drawn to the man Uniteds and the top teams and the top players. But gradually I think he ground me down and yeah, now we’re fully fledged supporter of the whites.

Greg Wilkes (38:50):

Great stuff. I hope you’ll be trying to instill that in the next generation.

Bryn Little (38:55):

So yes, my granddad’s just bought my son Leo, his first full fullham kit. So yeah, the indoctrination has started.

Greg Wilkes (39:04):

That’s it. Good stuff. Well hopefully we’ll get down to the cottage maybe one day and have a beer on the rivers.

Bryn Little (39:09):

Sounds good. Yeah.

Greg Wilkes (39:12):

While this podcast is on, I’m going to quickly say we’re top of the league at the moment I believe, aren’t we?

Bryn Little (39:16):

I know, yeah. It’s going to be hopefully a good season. But yeah, top of the league is always a good place

Greg Wilkes (39:22):

It’s not the league we want to be, but it’s still top of the league. We’ll take that one.

Bryn Little (39:26):

Absolutely.

Greg Wilkes (39:27):

Get it on record. Bryn, thank you so much for your time today. That’s been really helpful and wish you all the best with your project.

Greg Wilkes (39:40):

If you’d like to work with me to fast track your construction business growth, then reach out on developcoaching.com.au.