HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN REAL ESTATE?
A lot of people ask me almost every time. But for me, I didn’t start out to run a real estate company. As much as I have done several other businesses, I started quite early. I’ve tried my hands on some other businesses, but for me, real estate was just something that I started out of research as to understanding the Nigerian market.
What I tell people is that business is first not an emotional thing- business is not emotional at all. When you are thinking of any business idea, it’s all about you looking within and understanding what you have passion for. You find what works and develop a passion for it. So for me, starting real estate was born out of research. I started as a real estate digital marketer and all I wanted was to help people to achieve their sales goals through the digital media. So when I entered the market, a lot of people in the real estate industry didn’t understand the power of digital media. They were used to billboard adverts, flyers print and a lot of people were not leveraging on data. For me, I saw a gap within that market and I started digital marketing and how people can leverage data. I started with pieces of training, but before I started with training, I had a lot of relationship with some of the developers that were existing in the market then. I usually send some of them proposals on how they can understand their business, understanding digital media.
I was looking at the building of the brand part where you can build a business that becomes a brand. This is because when you build a business that becomes a brand, you can trade on that name, you can put that name on anything and it sells. That is the power of a brand. If you remove the brand from any products, that product loses its asset. I started doing training on how to understand the digital market for real estate sales advantage.
I can remember back then I was talking with someone and I was offering different advice on how he can transform the business to the next level and the person said to me, do you think all these things you are saying is easy? That was a challenge to me because I have done several other businesses and then I started thinking about how I can experiment everything I was sharing with him. Unfortunately, I started telling people about my real estate business idea but nobody was ready to invest in it. At a point, I was offering 40% of Landwey when I was going to start for 5 million naira and funny enough even the person that dropped me a check for that amount actually told me that it won’t work and so he collected the cheque back and I was devastated.
When I was devastated one thing I said to myself was that from my understanding of the word, most times it is not what you don’t have that limits you, it is what you have that you don’t know how to use. So I started looking inward as to what do I have that I can leverage this service on. The only thing I had was my understanding of how the market works because I have done a lot of research as to how the market works. I’ve done a lot of research, watched every video I can find. At that time the only thing I had was my sales skills because the digital market was just a model. It is like a model that you can apply to anything. I didn’t have a product, so I walked up to someone who had the products. I signed an MOU with the person and that was how I started in the game.
If you’re going into any market this is my own personal belief. You’re either going into the market advancing the market, obstructing the market, coming up with something new entirely. That is how businesses are being prominent and that is how brands are being built. So for me, it was more of how can we advance the market? What can we bring into the table that is different from what is existing in the market?
HOW DO YOU GENERATE IDEAS?
The process of idea generation in itself is very tedious and not a lot of people can reach out to that part. I have been doing it right from my 200 level. So this is how I bring out my thought process.
Number one, you must have eyes for problems. You must think about the kind of problem that may likely come up within your market because if you don’t identify the problem, you might not be able to come up with a solution. It is not only the problem that you can see, but you can also research on Google to see problems you can find and you can also ask questions as to what are the problems that are existing from associate, friends or clients. And most importantly, your clients may be the ones to tell you most of these problems and that is through understanding data. And being able to form that relationship with them to be able to give you feedback even positive and negative without you getting angry at all because people that are giving you negative feedback, a lot of them have your interest at heart. People who don’t give you negative feedback they are the ones that don’t care as a matter of fact. You must see problems and when you see the problems you can then begin to ask yourself how these problems can be solved. I do this a lot when I see a problem, I put a question mark in my notepad. I put a question mark and then I begin to critically think about how I can get the problem solved.
WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR MAJOR PERSONAL STRENGTH AS AN INDIVIDUAL?
I don’t try to do too many things. I just focus on that area which I am the best at. In the office, am blessed with a team who understand my pattern because the way I think is quite different and not really normal. I’m good at strategy, I’m good at business development so that is my strength. I’m a fan of problems and challenges. Challenges excite me. I’m the kind of guy that even when there is no problem, I want to create a problem and I want to solve it. If the office is too quiet, I’m bored. I want to create a fire.
Problems really help people to think and that’s why your best idea usually comes when you’re hungry. During the is of your life, that’s when you come up with the best ideas because there’s a part of your brain that when you are comfortable, cannot be unlocked no matter how. I believe that there’s a part of your brain comfort can unlock. Until then, you’re never moved by situations. I focus mainly on the problem.
My biggest work as the CEO of Landwey is just a yes or no. I sit down, understand these problems critically and say this is what you need to do and I have never failed them on that because I believe that we all have superpowers and if we can find people who can complement our weaknesses, everything will be balanced. So, I just find a way to put all that together. My business strength is strategy and business development.
WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOUR PROJECT AND THE IMPACT OF YOUR PROJECT ON INVESTORS, IS IT WHAT YOU HAD ENVISIONED FOR EACH PROJECT?
The thing is that, you can’t see the end of the tunnel from the beginning, don’t even try it at all. If you try to see the end of the tunnel from the beginning that is what is called analysis Lusis. A lot of people analyze- they want to see the end from the beginning and so they over-analyze and before you know it, they will be discouraged. We just set a goal stating exactly what we want to achieve and our goals are not rigid. We can’t have a rigid goal because even life is not rigid. Life is designed to be flexible. You can’t see the end from the beginning, but you must allow your goals to be flexible where along the way, while you are trying to achieve that goal whatever comes up you can bend, you can duck and then you can now begin to mould it and at the end of the day you see that the goal is the most important thing.
Be that as it may, it doesn’t matter as long as you can achieve the goal. When we come up with a project, we understand the goal, we don’t try to focus on too many details. But the most important thing is that I don’t focus on too many details. Just give me 123, don’t tell me 456. When I get there, I will focus on it and conquer it. And this is because of the way entrepreneurs are designed. For the fact that there is a problem, it means that there’s a solution to every problem. So precept upon precept and at the end of the day, you see that it’s over.
WHAT IS THE CRITICAL ROLE OF CREATING A SYSTEM? WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF SYSTEM IN EVERY BUSINESS?
If you don’t pay too much attention to your system, it will eventually crumble. A system is like a structure, it’s like the framework of the building. If you don’t pay attention to the small little cracks, before you know it small cracks will become big cracks and big cracks will become mighty problems. I usually tell people that if you wait because the system you have is not giving you problem, it’s either somebody will come and understand your structure and come up with an advanced structure that will likely put that person out of doing.
We are self-disruptive. So we are thinking of how to disrupt our own system and how else the system can be better. You are not waiting for people to say there is something new, you are something new. You are the one coming up with what’s new. If you don’t pay too much attention to that system because that system is still giving you money and you are thinking nothing is wrong and that’s what a lot of people think until something goes wrong. You must be the one advancing your system. So, look at the system critically and ask yourself the right questions based on user experience and critical questions because every system will give you a problem. Once there’s negative feedback you don’t need to pay attention to the positive feedback. The good feedback has come, meaning you have satisfied that person. The most important thing is to concentrate on those that are not satisfied and get them to satisfaction and in thinking of how to satisfy them that is how solution comes.
WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON THE NIGERIAN REAL ESTATE MARKET ESPECIALLY FOR LAGOS? HOW IMPACTFUL WILL COVID 19 HAVE ON THE NIGERIAN REAL ESTATE MARKET?
I’ve not really focused on the impact but one thing is critical. We don’t have market intelligence because the industry has played down too much on Data. We don’t have extra Data that we can interpret within the industry.
Apart from Market intelligence, we don’t have organized real estate education within the market. So, even clients don’t know what they should be doing. Now that everyone is at home if we have data we will know the number of people who don’t even have homes, we will know the number of people who are squatting, we will know the number of people who are living in areas that are extremely risky to the current situation that we have now. But we don’t have all these Data.
So, Covid or no Covid the real estate market in Nigeria, especially in Lagos, has not even solved 20% of the problem. The problem still exists right now and even during Covid and after Covid.
In the real estate market, we don’t have a problem with development. The only problem we have in development is not only a lack of finance but mortgage system. We have the most horrible mortgage system in the entire world.
So during this Covid and after Covid, I am not afraid about the real estate market. From my own personal experience, our data still tells me that we are not losing money but rather saving money. I’m saving on diesel, I’m saving on water consumption, and I’m even saving money. But the mortgage system is a big mess. The whole deficit is still there whether we believe it or not, we will continue to have this deficit. In as much as we have refused to fix our mortgage system, the deficit will always be there. The only thing that can fix the deficit that we have is to have mortgage.
Put the whole developers in Lagos together, we are not doing 500 units a year. Lagos alone has its own economy. Nigeria can be broke but Lagos is not broke. Lagos is a metropolitan city that people come into to find their dreams and it’s growing on a daily basis. Even Covid would allow people think of investing in real estate more. If they are thinking intelligently, this is the time for investors to invest much. But this is the time that people need to do research as to where they can be putting their money. The most important thing that is legacy in itself is real estate investment.
https://medium.com/@middlechaseblog