How James Nicholson Built a 6-Figure Real Estate Empire
Here’s an interesting interview with him.
James Nicholson is a Property Investor and owner of Property Accelerator. His businesses have previously been featured in BBC, The Sun, Stuff Magazine, Zoo Magazine, T3 and has also keynoted at The Business Show in London Excel.
What follows is an interview with James.
It’s an honor to speak with you today. I would love to know more about your story and your background. Give us some details about your journey as an entrepreneur.
I’m a property investor, entrepreneur, digital marketer, and dad of two! I purchased my first property when I was 18 years old. A humble studio flat in Dorking Surrey, it taught me a lot about investing. Buying that flat was the start of my business and property investing career.
I started my entrepreneurship journey by selling ipod accessories, it went well for a while with sales of £2 million per year but then it had complications. The business was over reliant on Amazon and we ended up getting banned for breaking a policy and sales plummeted overnight.
Selling £2 million a year of £5 rubber cases means you have to be good at digital marketing. I used the skills I learnt from that business and set up a digital marketing agency. In 2017 we decided to provide training to small business owners so they could do their own digital marketing. Since then we have trained over 10,000 business owners in the UK and around the world.
I also focus a lot of my time investing in property and helping others do the same, my portfolio now means I don’t need to work I can just work because I love my business.
What’s your niche and why should someone choose you over your competitors in your field?
Real estate.
I’m a doer of marketing rather than someone who just sells courses, I share my results — the good and the bad -with my students, giving them shortcuts. There are so many people selling courses who are just good sales people. I think that’s one reason I entered the market to get people real results.
My clients have worked with me for years, some as long as 6 years. Most of my competitors have to charge huge prices as they are always looking for new clients.
I love to document what I do on my Youtube channel. This holds me accountable while giving value to my audience.
What are the three things that mostly helped your business succeed?
- Giving value up front, too many business owners try to get married on a first date. They try to sell to someone who is not ready to buy and it just annoys the prospect. Lead with value, demonstrate you are an expert and clients will come to you.
- Persistence not giving up when things got tough.
- Being open to learning and most importantly learning marketing. Without leads you have no business.
What are your three biggest accomplishments?
- My two girls, I’m building them a property portfolio as well, last year I purchased their first two properties worth £400,000.
- Personally saved over 10 business owners who were on the verge of bankruptcy during Covid. It was a really tough time and I helped them take their offline business online in weeks. Market those businesses and push them forward so they are busier now than prior to the pandemic.
- Build my business so I don’t need to work, with a mixture of property and business income I can work when I want.
What were your three most important challenges?
- Not getting distracted by shiny objects, the new social network or new software. I see this all the time. It’s tough for Entrepreneurs to not get distracted.
- Building a quality team to help your business grow faster, you can’t do everything yourself.
- Getting leads into the business.
How did you overcome those challenges?
Having a mentor to stop me getting distracted and keep me focused on what I need to do to grow my business.
Hire slow fire fast, not everyone will work out in your team and you can often tell that in the first few days.
Learning as much about marketing as possible, then implementing it. So many people take courses and do nothing with it. You must implement what you learn and keep trying even if it does not work straight away.
What’s your piece of advice for readers who want to achieve wealth and success in life?
Take your business profits and invest them into property. You can’t run a business forever you will burn out, however property is proven to work over 100’s of years.
What do you think is the key to a truly successful business?
I have trained over 10,000 business owners, some with incredible ideas. Most give up too early, they expect to make 1 youtube video and their channel to thrive. However if they kept going they would get the result they wanted.
Mentors are a great way to keep you focused and give you shortcuts, while they might cost, they will save you much more than making lots of mistakes.
What’s your business model? How does your business make money?
I educate and mentor people on growing their business and property investments.
We have a 3 day programme teaching business owners how to run effective social media and get leads online. Not only that we help them convert those leads into paying clients.
We also have a 3 day programme on property investing, there are over 10 strategies you can use to acquire property. The students learn all the strategies and we help them decide which is their best strategy for them.
Here is a picture from our training:
Where do you see yourself and your business in five years?
My goal in 5 years is both my daughters Amelie and Georgia have their own property portfolios of at least 10 properties each.
I plan to continue as I am, as I love building my own property portfolio and training my students.
What’s your piece of advice for people who want to quit their 9–5 job and start a business?
I started my ipod accessory business when I worked as a recruitment consultant. I worked 9–5 in the office then 6 until 11pm listing items for sale and picking and packing them. Once I was earning the same money as my job I quit and went full time. I am not a big fan of people quitting a job and starting a business, I prefer to build it on the side so you know it at least partially works before you jump into it full time.
What’s your piece of advice for people who want to reach financial freedom?
Build a business that earns income, take that income and invest in assets that produce income for me that is Property. The income from the property is what I use for nice holidays, cars etc.
How can people find you?
Subscribe to our Youtube channel, it’s best place to start.
Do you have any app, digital course, or book you would like our readers to know about?
Yes, sure. We run a programme called the property accelerator.
What was your online business revenue last year (2022)?
£250,000 Business — £300,000 Property
It was a pleasure interviewing you James. Thank you for your time.
