Introduction and Background

Michelle Cairns (0:10)

Hello and welcome to The Key Club Podcast. My name is Michelle Cairns, and this week's guest is Nick James, founder of Expert Empires and a leading business strategist for coaches, consultants, and entrepreneurs who want to scale smart. In this episode, we revisit Nick's standout keynotes from the Property and Entrepreneurs Summit, where he shared the three keys to building structure in your business. We dive deeper into these and how these principles apply, whether you're just getting started in property or you're already managing a growing portfolio.

In this episode, Nick shares why chaos and overwhelm come from a lack of business structure and how you can fix it. He looks at the four phases of business growth and which strategies to use at each stage. He shares a personal story of how he attended a Tony Robbins event from age 12 and how that has shaped his obsession with events and business mastery. Also, he shares one unexpected but powerful action that you can take today to get closer to your goals, so stay on until the end to find out what that is.

Nick has built multiple seven-figure businesses. He's run events with over 500 attendees and has had household names and icons like Gary Vaynerchuk, Lord Sugar, and Marie Forleo on his stages. His mission is to help entrepreneurs move from information to implementation without skipping the steps that actually build a sustainable business. He's also very kindly shared one of his implementation tools that you can download today by going to expertempires.com/keyclub.

Enjoy today's episode and look out for the keys to success.

Hi Nick, great to have you on with us today. How's your day going?

Nick James (1:54)

I'm in the home office, quite relaxed, quite chilled. So, good so far. Thanks for having me on.

Michelle Cairns (2:01)

Yeah, it's great. Well, it's good to have you in a relaxed state for the podcast, we'll have a nice chat today. First of all, the first time we met in person was the Property and Entrepreneurs Summit earlier this year, where of course you were our keynote speaker on stage. The event was for property investors and entrepreneurs, and it was a real fresh mix of people that you were speaking to, who are investing in property or want to get into property, but they have that entrepreneurial mindset and they're wanting to connect with people. You did a fantastic piece on stage to everyone, and it was around your keys to success, and I'd like to dive into that today. It'd be great to call out some of your background as well. But do you want to start there with the keys to success? Because people who are wanting to get started, or they're stuck, there must be something missing, right? So, what's that missing ingredient for you?

Nick James (2:58)

Yeah, great question. First of all, so we met when I spoke at the Property and Entrepreneur Summit. I don't know, maybe some of the listeners here are property investors, so maybe some of them have got businesses in different sectors, maybe both. Maybe you're a bit like me, I've got my core business, which is predominantly training and events and coaching, and then I've also got a property investment business as well. The way I see property investing, or a property business, is it's just like any other business. You still need to do marketing in some way, shape, or form. You still need to make sales, close deals, you still need to look after your customers, tenants, investors, whoever it might be. You still need to manage the finances. If you're going to grow and scale, you still need to recruit and hire and train and lead a team. So the principles that are relevant for a property business are the same as the principles that are in my training business, or an e-commerce business, or a retailer, or any of those businesses. Ultimately, the fundamentals are the same.

What I always talk about, and what I shared at the Property Entrepreneur Summit, is that most business owners, most entrepreneurs, irrespective of sector, struggle because they've got a lack of structure in their business. What that means is the absence of structure means they're probably struggling with overwhelm. They've got a hundred and one ideas at any given time on what they could do. Maybe they listen to a lot of podcasts too, so I'm not saying it's a bad thing, you get loads of great ideas, the problem is you then get overwhelmed trying to do them all at once. Like for me, when I go out for a run I'll normally listen to an audiobook or a podcast, or maybe you take courses, or you're part of masterminds, or you have mentors or coaches. I do all of those things, but what enables me to effectively implement what I learn in all of those different arenas is having a structure in my business.

Understanding Business Growth Phases

Nick James (4:56)

So what I spoke about at the summit where we met, Michelle, was the three keys to creating structure in your business. The first one is vision: have a clear vision of where you want to go, what success looks like long term. The second one is strategy: how are you going to get there? It's all well and good having a dream, a goal, a vision, but how are you going to get there? That's the strategy piece. And then thirdly, tactics: what are the specific actions or tasks that need to be completed, by you or by your team, day in, day out, week in, week out, in order to deliver the results, the outcomes that you want. So that's a thirty, sixty second overview of the structure that I teach people to have in their business.

But what most people have is the opposite: they have chaos, they have confusion, they have overwhelm, they're winging it. They'll sit down on a Monday morning at their desk or their place of work and make a list of all the to-dos for that week, get really busy throughout the week, tick everything off the list, and at the end of the week feel like they've succeeded because they ticked everything off. Then they repeat the process week after week, month after month, year after year, only to find, sometimes years later, that they've been really busy but they've not made any progress. And that's because there wasn't the structure in place to set the vision first, then work out the strategy, how do I get there, and then thirdly, what are the tasks, what are the actions I need to complete. So that structure just enables us to reduce the chaos, the confusion, the overwhelm, and create a sense of clarity, certainty, confidence, and stability in the business.

Michelle Cairns (6:36)

Love it. So, what you do day to day is you help experts and business owners achieve six or seven figure revenues, and you must have, over the years, seen so many people come through at varying levels, having such a wide range of resources. So how do you help so many people who are in such different positions?

Nick James (7:01)

Yeah, I think first and foremost, as I already said, the principles of business are the same irrespective of sector or industry. I think the second thing, and I haven't shared this with you, Michelle, previously or at the summit, is that there are different approaches that are relevant depending on what stage of business you're in. I talk about four stages of business. Phase one is you're a startup, you're just trying to prove concepts, get attention, get clients, get some customers, get some money coming in. Phase two is you've already got the foundations in place, and now you're looking to build upon those foundations, get the message out to more people. Phase three is you really want to grow the thing, and you might need to start utilising paid advertising, start hiring a full-time team. And phase four is you're looking to scale.

I talk about different annual revenue milestones as a guide as to which phase you're in. Phase one, your revenue's anything up to £100,000 a year. Phase two, you're a six-figure business, generating hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. Phase three, you're a seven-figure business, generating millions of pounds a year. Phase four, you're an eight-figure business, making £10 million plus. There are different approaches, different priorities, depending on what phase of growth you're in.

So, in answer to your question, how do we help people with such a wide range of businesses? We actually customise and tailor the training. If you're a startup, here's what you should focus on as a startup, and if you're already a million-pound-plus business, don't listen to what I'm about to say. Where possible, we put people in different training environments depending on what phase of growth they're in, so that you're not in a position where, if you're a seven-figure business, you're learning start-up strategies, or if you're a startup, you're learning seven-figure business strategies. Does that make sense?

Michelle Cairns (9:12)

Yeah, that does. And I'm thinking, obviously, the people who will be listening today have got a property business of sorts, but I think a mistake a lot of people make at the beginning stages is they get into property with the idea of getting out of the day job, they want the time freedom, they want the money to be financially free, but they don't treat it as a business from day one, partly because they just don't know what they need to do. They don't know what systems, what structure they need to put in place, they don't have a team, so they're the one wearing all of these hats and doing everything themselves.

Learning from Experience: Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs

So, for people who are starting out, are the things they can learn from people who've got the big businesses with the big revenues the same, or do you think people starting out need a unique set of support and resources and skills?

Nick James (10:07)

Yeah, fair question. If we apply what I've just shared to property business specifically, I would not advise somebody who's just left their job to start on their property investment journey to go and do a big development project, because for me that's high risk and complex. You probably want some experience in the belt before that. Again, I'm not a property educator, even though I do have a property business, I'm not in that space. But if you're starting out and trying to get your first deal under your belt, maybe you're still employed and doing this as a bit of a side hustle, I'm looking at like a vanilla buy-to-let. Can you just get a single buy-to-let to start with and cut your teeth on that? Work out how do we find a vendor, how do we structure the deal? And of course there are places you can learn how to do this, and I recommend and endorse many of them, I'm friends with many people in the property education sector. So start off with simple, basic strategies, and then maybe in time you go into HMOs, maybe in time you go into holiday lets, maybe in time you go into commercial or big developments.

In the same way there are four phases of growing a business in any sector, for me there are phases of becoming a property investor. My philosophy in business in general is don't try and jump and skip steps. Don't start a business and try to be a £10 million a year business on day one. There are always going to be exceptions to the rule, but for everyone that went from zero to ten million super fast, there's probably a hundred thousand that failed. My philosophy is, if you follow a proven path and start off, what I always say is think big, start small. It's all well and good having a huge vision, wanting to build a huge portfolio, be financially free, retire, I'm with you, I'm massively supportive of it. But trying to go from having no properties whatsoever to being financially free and retired within six months is crazy. Can it be done? Maybe, but you'd need a lot of money and take a lot of risks to get there that quickly. Whereas my view is, whether you're investing in property or running any other type of business, think big, start small, and then follow a system, a process. As an example, start off with buy-to-let, then maybe do a few of those, then maybe HMOs, then holiday lets, and maybe you get to do a commercial project, and maybe a big development, over time, rather than trying to run before you can walk.

Michelle Cairns (13:03)

Completely agree. And I like the idea of the phases and the different levels of businesses. You've been in the unique position of both teaching and helping people coming up through the ranks, and also interviewing and working with and partnering with people who are more experienced than you, like Gary Vee, Lord Sugar, all these people, through your podcast, interviewing people at different levels of success. So, what I'm curious about is any key habits you've been able to extract from people you've worked with, or through your years of experience, that you can share with people who are earlier on in the journey.

Nick James (13:53)

Yeah, for sure. I'm mindful that when I host an event and have a Lord Sugar, or a Gary Vaynerchuk, or a Grant Cardone, or a Marie Forleo, or a Lisa Nichols, whoever it is, we've run seventeen Expert Empires events now with headline speakers from all over the world. I'm always mindful that when I have a speaker like that, I'm hoping they serve as an inspiration and an example of what's possible, but at the same time, if you say to Lord Sugar, "tell me what you're doing now in your business because I want to copy it," it's

The Importance of Structure in Implementation

Nick James (14:33)

probably not going to be good advice, because he's a billionaire with loads of companies and loads of employees, and it's probably not relevant to a small business doing a couple of hundred grand a year, or a property investor with maybe five or ten units. What Lord Sugar does and what you do are very different right now. So hopefully it's inspiring, hopefully it serves as an example of what's possible. But the reason why, on my podcast, I'll interview a vast array of people, some that have gone from a brand new startup business to six-figure income within twelve months, is that for somebody who's a startup, I think that information is more valuable, dare I say, than what Lord Sugar's going to share with you. Even though you might be more inclined to listen to someone like Lord Sugar who's a billionaire, it's probably more important, more valuable at that stage of the journey, to listen to somebody who's been there recently and achieved what you want to achieve.

It's the same at my events. I'll have headline speakers, I'm literally in the process of signing headline speakers for my next event, really excited about the two speakers we've got, and I think they've got a lot of value to add to the audience, and hopefully they're inspiring, but probably not "here's exactly what you need to do next." I've got other speakers who will teach that, who'll say, "in the last twelve months I've managed to raise half a million quid in investor finance," which is relevant if you're starting on your property journey and trying to raise investment. Hearing from somebody who's built a thousand-unit portfolio is inspiring, but probably not relevant. So I like to mix it up a bit, so there's something for everyone on my podcast and at my events.

Michelle Cairns (16:27)

Yeah, I completely agree. You've got to have someone who's relatable as well as someone who's inspiring you.

Nick James (16:33)

You want both, don't you? I don't really read, but I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts, still learning from people with much bigger business empires than me. But I'm also having coaching, I have a coach, I literally today have my monthly coaching call with him, and that person is much closer to where I am and where I want to go. I'm in masterminds and communities where there are people with businesses similar in size to mine, some slightly bigger, I learn from them, we collaborate, we partner, we JV together. And then I learn from people at a distance who've built huge companies. So I think it's about having that mixture, which is healthy, I think.

Michelle Cairns (17:32)

Yeah, and taking what you can, what's implementable, from each person, each community, each speaker, each book, something you can implement today, right? Because there's no point just storing all this information for the future, that's where it gets too crazy, actually having these key ideas that you can then go out and implement.

Nick James (17:51)

That's where the structure comes in, Michelle. You've got all the ideas, you're collecting all this information, how do we bridge the gap from information to implementation? How do we make sure the hundred and one ideas or thoughts or strategies you learned in the last month, you pick the ones most relevant for your business and actually get them executed? That's the structure piece I spoke about earlier: having the vision, the strategic planning, and then also looking at the tactics and formulating a detailed plan of action, and that structure

Influence of Early Experiences on Business Mindset

Nick James (18:28)

that we teach is what will help you move from information to implementation.

Michelle Cairns (18:33)

Brilliant. I was going to ask you about your early days with Tony Robbins, because I heard you managed to go to an event when you were twelve years old. I wasn't quite that young, I was twenty-three, so twenty years ago now, and I got into the crewing side of things and went to many of his events in America and in London, and that has completely shaped who I am, my outlook on life, my sense of what's possible, and also the structure of how to organise life, I guess. So how do you think those early days are still influencing you today?

Nick James (19:15)

Yeah, by the way, how did you hear about Tony Robbins in your early twenties? How did that come about?

Michelle Cairns (19:20)

Someone gave me a book at the time. I was kind of searching for something, I didn't even know what I was looking for, but something different, something to make sense of the world. I read it and thought, that was it. I went to the first seminar and that was it, I went to many after that. In fact, I took my stepson just two years ago, he was fourteen when he went. It was great to be able to give that gift to him, it's life-changing, right?

Nick James (19:51)

Yeah, for sure. My experience wasn't dissimilar. My mum, back in the nineties, was working in a corporate role, she was an HR director and then became operations director of a PLC. Somebody gave her a book, and she put it on the shelf and didn't read it, and then for some reason something was going on in her life, and she decided to pick it up and read it, and the timing was good. She ended up going to Unleash the Power Within in the early nineties, and then went all in on her personal development journey. Signed up for what was then called Mastery University, I don't know if it's still called that.

Michelle Cairns (20:33)

Yeah, I did that one, yeah.

Nick James (20:35)

Which is like, you know, many courses all over the world. What was cool was, back then, they had a kids' camp that ran alongside the Mastery University programme. So the first exposure I had to any of this was my mum going to Hawaii for two weeks for these mastery programmes, and she invited me to go along. She said, "look, I'm going to Hawaii for two weeks, do you want to come?" And the alternative was to stay at home and go to school, because it wasn't term time. So off we went to Hawaii, and I had a great time. It was great because what they did with the kids' camp, and I was only twelve at the time, was they combined separate sessions for the kids with some limited access to the main seminar room. So I got a taste for it, but not full immersion at that age, which was perfect, actually.

Throughout my teens, I travelled all over the world, Australia, the Far East, all over Europe, all over the States. First in my early teens, going through the kids' camps, and then as I got older, going to the Unleash the Power Within events and Mastery University trainings, and I ended up, as you said, Michelle, working as one of the volunteers, one of the crew at the events. Actually got to the point where they even paid to fly me all over the world and put me in hotels, which was really cool, when I was like eighteen, nineteen, which is pretty amazing, and it was kind of like the best training I could have possibly got for what I do now. So I still say, if you want to learn how to run seminars and events, Tony Robbins is the best in the world, and I learned very close-quarters and intensely what it takes to run world-class events. So, extremely valuable.

Funnily enough, now it's come full circle. My son Zach, who's sixteen, just this summer went to an event they have once a year called the Global Youth Leaders Summit, in San Diego, I think for fourteen to sixteen year olds. Zach applied and got accepted, and he went and spent five days in San Diego. It wasn't what I went to, because I was younger, and it's not like going to an Unleash the Power Within event, but it's like a five-day personal development experience for fourteen to sixteen year olds. I mean, it must be complete chaos, because they're all on a university campus for five days, but he had an amazing experience. I have no incentive to plug this, but if you've got a fourteen, fifteen, sixteen year old and you want to give them an amazing kind

Handling Challenges and Roadblocks

of experience of personal development and self-improvement, I recommend you check out the Global Youth Leaders Summit, because Zach loved it. And my youngest, who's twelve, when he's fourteen he'll definitely be applying to go, he's really excited about it.

Michelle Cairns

Amazing. And of course it's going to be a very different world they're growing up in, having that skill set, the confidence to go out there.

Nick James

The fact is, we're all going to get, in business, in property investing, in life, we're all going to get knockbacks, we're going to get bumps in the road, we're going to have problems, challenges, issues that show up for us. The question is, how do you handle it? I do believe the greatest skill you can master in business and in life is the ability to manage your mental and emotional state, everything else is secondary. That, in a nutshell, is what I learned from twelve years of age, all through my teens and early twenties, when I was part of that Tony Robbins environment and community. It set me up so that, on my journey in business and in life, I've had loads of setbacks, loads of problems, loads of failure, some success, but I've always had the ability to manage and regulate my emotions, my feelings, my thoughts, which has enabled me to be resourceful and find solutions. So I think that's why that piece is so important.

Michelle Cairns

Can you give us an example of a roadblock, something that's come up, and how you would deal with it today based on everything you know?

Nick James

Yeah, I've had so many. The one that comes top of mind: March 2020, Boris Johnson appeared on our TV screens and said we're going into lockdown, you can't leave your house. Bear in mind my core businesses are live events businesses, so no one being able to leave their house is a big problem when you run a live events business model. Three days later I had an event with over 500 people booked to attend who'd paid for tickets. So this is a big problem, I've got people asking for refunds, my team are under massive pressure, getting phone calls and emails, people being really unhelpful and unpleasant, it was absolute chaos.

In that moment, for me, those experiences, there was nothing I could do about it, nothing any of us could do about it, it was just unfortunate. I had to first regulate my emotions and my thoughts and my feelings, because I was getting attacked left, right, and centre, publicly, on social media. Some people saying "this is absolutely," some going "you should be running the event," and I'm going, "well, I'm not allowed to." Some going "well in that case you should refund all our money," and I'm going, "I've paid for the venue, I've paid for the speakers, I've paid for the AV, all of this outgoing, I'm not in a position to refund hundreds of thousands of pounds back out." So I had to get creative, find solutions, and I think I did a fairly good job of it, and I think that all came from the ability to regulate the emotion and the feeling. It's really easy when things are going well to be positive and resourceful and happy, and when you're getting absolute pelters left, right, and centre, it's really hard. So for me it's not about how you operate when it's going well, it's about how you operate under pressure.

I defaulted to all of my experience and training and background. What I did, and I've talked about this a lot since, was for twenty-four hours I did nothing. My team were saying "we've got to respond, we've got to do something," I'm getting people on social media, messages, loads of hate, and for twenty-four hours I did nothing, because I went, anything I do now as a knee-jerk reaction is going to come from negative emotion or stress. I just had to regulate myself

Connecting with People in Business

right now. So I came home and spent a day at home, and went, right, let's just get into the zone of how do we resolve this, how do we create a win-win, how do we serve our clients, how do I look after my team, how do I do all of that. But I could only do that because I stepped away to reflect, and I came up with a solution I thought was a good one, that protected my business, that looked after our clients. With three days' notice, we managed to run the event online, and we didn't have any equipment to run a virtual event, none. Me and my team cobbled together a load of laptops in the office and made it work using certain platforms. So we still delivered the event with the speakers we'd promoted, but it wasn't live, even though that's what people had paid for. I said, "look, we're still going to run the event, we're going to do it online, so you've still got it. I'm also going to let you carry your ticket over to the next one, so you still get the event you paid for as well, for no extra charge, and as a thank you for your understanding and your patience, I know this has been a tough time, I'll also upgrade your ticket for free." So if you bought a VIP ticket, you'd get an Elite ticket, if you bought an Elite ticket, you'd get an Access All Areas ticket, as a thank you for your patience and understanding. Out of 500-plus people, on the day it all went crazy, I had over a hundred phone calls, emails into the office, comments on social media. It was over a hundred people out of 500 who were livid, and in the end we had five that we refunded, and I'm like, you know what, I'll take that, I could stomach and afford that, but I couldn't afford to deal with 500. So I guess the lesson for me was, sometimes doing nothing and taking time to reflect and getting yourself into the right mental and emotional state is actually better than rushing and doubling down on making another mistake. That was my lesson, and that's how I dealt with it.

Michelle Cairns (30:34)

Loved it, loved it. Cool. Okay, is there anything you're seeing, like a pattern you're spotting right now, with what's going on with the change in AI and the world? What are people missing?

Nick James (30:45)

Very broad question, I could be here for hours on this alone. A couple of things. You asked something earlier I don't think I answered, which was what do I see the people at the absolute top of the game doing. This is the case in any area, it could be business, property, podcasting, sports, anywhere: people at the top of the game are obsessed. We're here on your podcast, who would you have down as the number one podcaster in the world?

Michelle Cairns

Tim Ferriss is my favourite.

Nick James

You think about people like Steven Bartlett, who we've had speak at our event, people like Joe Rogan, we haven't had speak at our event, they're obsessed with their podcast. Think about some of the top sports people on the planet, obsessed with being the best. People who've built the biggest property portfolios, or the most successful businesses that make the biggest difference, they're obsessed. I think you've got to be absolutely obsessed if you're going to get true mastery of anything. That'd be my first thing.

Second thing, you mentioned AI, and of course we could talk about that all day, and loads of other little specific things we could do to improve our business, but I think the biggest mistake I see a lot of people make in their business is they get obsessed over what I call tactics. They get obsessed with using certain technology or software, they get obsessed with using social media, or TikTok, or Instagram, or LinkedIn, or whatever, or they get obsessed with starting a podcast, without first working out what's the vision for the business, what's the strategy, how are you going to get there, and then what tactics are going to best serve you. Because for some people listening to this podcast, the best thing you could possibly do is get obsessed about starting a podcast. For some of you that'd be a complete waste of time. For some of you, the thing you need to get obsessed about is raising finance, because that's the one thing that will help you succeed in your property business. Or it might be that you've got plenty of finance and the thing you need to get obsessed with is finding deals, or you've got plenty of deals and the thing you need to get obsessed with is finding tenants.

So it's about working out first what the vision is. I talk a lot, Michelle, about the structure I've created for success in any business, and I think it has to start with the vision, what's the clear definition of success long term in your business, then what's the strategy to get you there, in other words what do you need to prioritise right now and in the next year, and then tactics, what are the granular details, what are the things you need to do to get there, to fulfil the strategic priorities. So for me it's about having that structure in place. The lack of structure creates chaos, having the structure gives you a much easier life, it means you can have the time and the money you want from your business.

Michelle Cairns (34:04)

Great, okay, that leads us to the last question. People who are listening will all be at different stages, but if there's one key action they can take today to move closer to their goal, what would it be?

Nick James (34:15)

If there was one key action, it's hard to answer when you've got people in different industries, different businesses, different stages of growth, so this is not what you're going to expect: the one key action anyone can do is think of a person who will add most value to your business and reach out to them. That might be a potential client you follow up with, where there's a sale to be closed, it might be an investor who's gone a bit quiet, it might be somebody you can reach out to for advice, connect with people. I always say the more you connect, the more you connect, and I think a lot of people now are hiding behind AI, hiding behind email, hiding behind software and automation, and actually, what was true a hundred years ago, was true fifteen years ago, and is still true today, and will be true in twenty years, is that connecting with people, human-to-human contact, is still where all the money's made. Can you use AI and software and technology and automation to be more efficient and more effective? Of course you can. But bottom line, I don't think anything's ever going to replace human-to-human interaction, which people still crave, and that's why people come to events like the one we met at, Michelle, and they come to my events, because people still crave that human-to-human interaction.

Michelle Cairns (35:53)

Brilliant. Well, Nick, you did say we could talk about all these subjects all day long, but let's wrap it up there.

Nick James (36:02)

So for people who do want to implement what they know and take the next steps, can you talk to us about the template for our Key Club listeners, and how we can help them?

Michelle Cairns

Yeah, for sure.

Nick James

So, when we met at the summit, I gave away, for the people in the audience, access to a fill-in-the-blanks template that I've created. So if what I've shared in this brief episode resonates, if you feel like you do want more structure in your business, you feel like you want to get clear on your vision, your strategic plan for the next three months and the next twelve months, and you feel like you need that in your business, or on your property journey, to move forward, then I've created a fill-in-the-blanks template for you to work through our strategic planning process. You can get it for free, all you need to do is go to my website, expertempires.com/keyclub, and you'll be able to get access to the fill-in-the-blanks template. There's also a bit of video training in there from me, and it will help you go through the process of creating a strategy, a strategic plan for your business, so that ultimately you can have the business and the life that you want.

Michelle Cairns (37:19)

I'll add the links to the show notes. Nick, thank you so much for your time and for sharing all your expertise and your stories, it's been really good today. Thank you so much, and we look forward to seeing what's next for you, and how you evolve with all the changes happening at the moment. We'll be watching what you're up to. Thank you again.

Nick James (37:41)

Thanks Michelle, thanks for having me on.