4 Things To Prioritise In Your HMO Business To Achieve Better Results Much More Quickly

If you were to prioritise the top things that you need to do to build a successful HMO business, what would they be? When it comes to building a business in this industry, there’s a lot of stuff we’re told we should be doing, and that can be really overwhelming and even distracting!

We’re in an industry that has a lot of moving parts with a range of systems, processes, and legislation, so naturally, there’s a lot to think about. But we need to take the time to look at our business from a bird’s eye view and also see ourselves as not just HMO investors but as business owners. So, what should we be spending more of our time and efforts on?

I’ve reflected on my own business, the conversations I’ve had with fellow HMO investors, and the best examples I’ve come across of sustainable and successful businesses within the sector.

Read below or listen to the full episode on The HMO Podcast to learn about the four most important things to focus on if you want to effectively scale your HMO business and achieve better results much more quickly. We’ll also cover how to actually go about prioritising these key areas!

1. Building & Nurturing Relationships

Building and nurturing professional relationships with potential investors, business partners, agents, tenants, tradespeople, and contractors is crucial to unlocking the potential of any HMO business. If you can effectively do this over the long term, you’ll build a fantastic black book of people you can turn to for advice, support, guidance, and investment opportunities.

Keep in mind that relationships are about far more than what you can take – it’s also about what you can give and learn. And relationships aren’t always going to be easy. Sometimes you’re going to have to smile and be polite when you get disappointed or someone lets you down.

Tips: Relationships tend to happen organically when the environment and circumstances are right, so for starters, proactively check that you’re in the right environment to allow that. You also need to be honest and transparent about who you are, what you do, and why you’re doing it.

And as you never know when you might meet someone, you need to be prepared with information about who you are and what your business is. You’ll likely need a website and investor deck as a bare minimum. Additionally, always respect other people’s time and show your appreciation for them. The smallest gestures can mean a huge amount!

2. Being Consistent

It’s difficult to build a property portfolio and business if you’re not consistent and patient. When it comes to running and operating a HMO business specifically, you can’t ever take your finger off the pulse! If you do, you’ll end up with empty rooms and certificates expiring, you’ll lose track of legislation and staff members will leave.

While you might find that if you put 110% into something, such as finding deals or raising private finance, for a small amount of time, you will get some results, but it’ll be very limited. The results that really help you are ones that come after a longer period of time because you’ve been consistent with your actions and attitude.

Tips: You need to be able to sit down, turn your phone and notifications off, set expectations with people (even your loved ones), and have a rigid structure. This means you won’t be continuously interrupted by certain tasks or distractions that’ll divert your attention from what you need to be focused on.

Set yourself a framework for each day, week, and month and stick to it. You also need to identify your top areas of productivity and strengths. Focus on those, and give other activities to other people.

3. Having a Long-Term View

When you’re investing in property and building a business, you always need to be thinking, prioritising, and building a framework around your long-term view. Every property you buy and every decision you make needs to be conducive to the type of lifestyle that you ultimately want to build.

If I had been short-sighted with my property businesses and the decisions I had to make along the way, none of it would have worked. So, go away and focus on having a long-term view of every single decision that you make in your business.

Tips: Take the time to understand why you’re doing this and be really clear on your long-term goals. Ask yourself what you want to achieve over a 10-year period. Where do you want to be and what do you want your business and lifestyle to look like?

Create a vision board and sit it in front of you every single day as a constant reminder to disregard all of the other opportunities that come your way and pull you off your immediate priority. And when you’re facing difficult decisions or when you’re feeling unsure, ask yourself if this will serve you in 10 years’ time.

4. Enjoying the Process

This is sadly one of the things that almost everyone forgets about. But if you don’t enjoy the process of actually building a HMO business, solving problems, getting knocked down, getting back up, trialing different things, and learning from your mistakes, then you’ll get tired, burnt out, lose motivation, and you won’t get results!

You have to stay motivated and enthusiastic and to do that, you need to be able to enjoy the process. Sometimes this is as simple as understanding or accepting whether or not you’re in the right industry. And other times you have to ensure you’re finding the time to do some of the things that are important to you and that your work-life balance is sensible.

Tips: Block out certain times on specific days of the week when you close your laptop and go do the things that you enjoy. Put boundaries in place, engineer this time, and plan it in advance.

Make sure there’s nothing else in your diary at these times. As a business owner, I can guarantee that your diary has a way of filling itself up, which means you don’t end up doing the things that you really enjoy!

If you focus on these four things as the founding principles of your business and how you approach its growth of it, you’ll achieve much better results. You might not see results on a day-to-day basis, but 12 months down the line, the results will be substantial and you’ll be miles further ahead!

For more advice on how to build a successful and sustainable HMO business, sign up for The HMO Roadmap today! And if you want to chat about this further or work on growing your connections and relationships in the industry, join The HMO Community Facebook Group.

About the Author:

Andy Graham is the founder and the lead trainer at The HMO Roadmap! He is also the co-founder of The HMO Mastermind and Smart Property, a specialist HMO property investment and management company. He writes as a regular columnist in different magazines about a variety of HMO topics and is the host of The HMO Podcast! Follow Andy on Instagram!