How Mark Stokes Doubled His Pension in 2 Years Using SSAS

Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:01   The purpose of wealth talk is to educate, inform, and hopefully entertain you on the subject of building your wealth. Wealth builders recommends you should always take independent financial tax or legal advice before making any decisions around your finances.

Unknown Speaker  0:19  
Welcome to Episode 99 of wealth talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the membership director for wealth builders. And I'm joined today by our founder, Mr. Kevin Whelan. Hi, Kevin. Hello, Chris, good to be with you again. And you know what, it's almost exactly one year. Since the lockdown, we finally got ourselves a little roadmap, out of the mire we've been in the tragedy of how things have been for so many people during the course of the year. But But you know, one thing's for sure. Even though we have been locked down, some people have been making tremendous strides in their wealth. And one of those is our guest today, Mr. Mark Stokes. Yeah, Mark is a good friend of wealth builders. And I really enjoyed the conversation with Mark, which we'll be sharing in a few moments. And we're talking specifically today about quite remarkable feats, which was how Mark managed to double his pension in the space of just 24 months and and he'd been working in a long corporate career. And like so many people, Kevin, they get to a point where they just decide that Enough is enough. And it's time to embark on the next phase. And that was certainly a phase that mark embraced. And we'll hear all about the tremendous things that have been happening since he made that decision. No, absolutely. And it's a good story. And everybody, wherever they are on their wealth building journey, there's a catalyst somewhere in something, which is the another ROI Chris, you know, I'm a big fan of ROI is a reason to overcome inertia. That was big for me with the tragic death of my father very young and prompted me to, you know, try and get wealthy as early as possible. So the catalyst, obviously, for Mark was very different from mine, a whole different thing, but still revolving around family. And, you know, I know he was also touched by somebody early death is a friend of his friend of his he often talks about called Pete, who was on the verge of joining mark, on the new chapter, a new chapter in his life. But unfortunately, he collapsed and died didn't make it. And the tragic consequence of that was the pension for a spouse was halved. And no legacy for the children. So, you know, he's very deeply passionate now, about pensions doing the right thing, as you'll hear. And you'll hear that he very rare that you see somebody get so passionate about something, they even start to write about it. And they want to create a whole movement around almost educating people to discover the secret that was so well hidden, that he discovered when he was ready to find it. So be great to hear from Mark and debrief. You know, some thoughts from him at the end. Okay, let's head on over to our conversation today with Mr. Mark Stokes. Mark, a very warm welcome to our talk today. Thank you, Christine. How are you sir? I'm excellent. And it's fantastic to have you back. Mark. I was just looking back through the archives. It was actually wealth talk number 18, when you appeared and talked about the SAS pension, and we're now nearly at 100 episodes, so how time flies 100 already? Is it well done. We did some great work out there so much, Mark. Now I know many of our listeners will be familiar with your name. And, you know, you've got a great story to tell today we're talking about quite some achievement, which is how you managed to double your pension within two years. So we'll, we'll come into the details of that in a moment. But for anyone listening perhaps who hasn't had the pleasure of you know, your company online or offline, would you mind just giving our listeners a brief introduction?

Unknown Speaker  3:59  
Yeah, Mark Stokes live in Surrey, just outside of Guilford been in business for 25 odd years, retired in my mid 40s in 2015. And since then, I've taken that construction and real estate and investment knowledge over those 25 years, and set up multiple businesses involved in property, education. And of course, suspensions as well.

Unknown Speaker  4:26  
Like many people listening probably mark, you were in a corporate job for for many years. And you decided it was time for change. So what was the catalyst? Exactly?

Unknown Speaker  4:39  
Yeah, so look, 25 years is a long time in corporate life. I only had two employers during that that 25 year period. I probably had 50 or 60 roles. And that took me across four continents 33 countries and that takes its toll after a while.

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was a lot of responsibility. And I was on the board of seven different companies. At the time back in late 2014. I also have four children, I've now married to my wife at 22 years.

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And the reality was, there would have been an eighth company and a ninth and a 10th, that I would have been a board director of.

Unknown Speaker  5:25  
And the more successful I was in corporate life, the less time I was spending with my, with my children, and you know, with the family and the people that I love, and I had to draw a line under that I had to make a skim, say, a tough call. But I had to make a call, I had to decide whether I wanted to continue down that path, or whether I wanted to focus on my relationship with the ones that I love. And so I, I sat down with my chief exec in late 2014. And, and just level two, I said, like, this is way my life's going. And this is where I'd like to do.

Unknown Speaker  6:03  
I always wanted to be a good lever, leaving the corporate environment. And indeed, it did take, you know, best part of seven or eight months to leave corporate life. And they're quite a quite a heady time. That was as well. But yeah, so it was spending more time with my family looking at long range horizons.

Unknown Speaker  6:23  
And yeah, surrounding myself with the people I care about. I'd love to know actually kind of what happened after you made that decision. So for that eight month period, you know, as you were almost exiting a career that you'd been in for so long, I imagined some people listening. Now, that's a bit of a kind of scary thought. So what was sort of some of the steps that you needed to put in place to be able to sort of move on to the next phase?

Unknown Speaker  6:50  
Well, so as a really great question, and the freedom for me, was not when I left corporate life, it wasn't eight months before I left corporate life, when I sat down with my chief exec. It was a month before that. When I decided I sat down with my my wife, we we had a we had a chat. And we decided that the time was right for me to exit corporate life, the moment I made that decision, that was freedom, the likes of which I really hadn't experienced in all that corporate life. From that point on the company.

Unknown Speaker  7:30  
Well, the company was working for me, the company was in,

Unknown Speaker  7:35  
I suppose, employing me and managing my exit strategy, although they didn't realize it at the time.

Unknown Speaker  7:41  
So I knew that I was on another path. For the 25 years before, it had always been, you know, my entire life pretty much, you know, I'd written to some pretty heavy ranks around the world. So yeah, the whole thing turned it was a mindset shift, it turned on its axis. And now the company was working for me, I have to say over those eight or nine months until I did leave, I probably put just as many if not more hours into the role is very demanding I had to merge acquire and and also shared a lot of businesses and a lot of companies. I was a corporate troubleshooter as well, so But yeah, that was that was key. So that was the the trigger.

Unknown Speaker  8:27  
Because I was so absorbed in in doing the right thing for my employer and leaving that was, I was pretty, pretty clear for me that I needed to build, I needed to design a parachute, I needed to put the parachute on before jumped out the corporate jet.

Unknown Speaker  8:47  
That's how I would use the analogy. And that took a while to design and I think all of us when when you're leaving whatever form of employment, there's always that that pause that hesitation? Well, it could be confidence. But how are you going to repurpose the skills you've got? And where I do see a lot of people struggle is they they don't recognize the skills that they've worked a lifetime to curate, curator nurture.

Unknown Speaker  9:19  
You know, if you've been in business, five or 10 years, if you've run a business, if you've been an employee, if you're an accountant, whatever your background is, you've got some core skills there. Don't cast those dashed O's on the rocks and think that aren't going into another world of entrepreneurship and they're now not relevant. They absolutely are relevant. Take those with you build on them, recognize them, repurpose them, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  9:47  
But build a very clear coherence strategy, and very quickly, so there's some there's some key steps and mindset shifts that I went through. Yeah, such an important lesson that really is so what exactly do

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
Did you step into that? And so on that first day of freedom mark, you know, we just sitting at home watching TV, or were you straight into, you know, projects?

Unknown Speaker  10:10  
Yeah, well, I don't rest on my laurels, anybody who knows me well will understand that. So I, my background way back, when I did my degree was in construction management, I've been involved in real estate and property for, for all of those 25 years power stations, data centers, highly resilient as structures. So, you know, with with over 3 million square feet of property under my belt that I deployed, it probably wouldn't surprise anybody that I went into into property.

Unknown Speaker  10:43  
I'd been very well looked after in corporate life.

Unknown Speaker  10:48  
But like many people, my cost base in my home life had also increased as well. So I took some pretty clear measures to reduce my cost base

Unknown Speaker  11:01  
to increase my interest in in property portfolio to increase cash flow. So that was my first priority, how can I increase cash flow, so I have a very resilient asset base to offset my, my previous

Unknown Speaker  11:17  
employment pa ye and bonuses and all the fringe benefits, I knew it had to be in a highly tax efficient environment. So my mandate to myself was to take control of my personal economy, take control of everything. And I started with my tax position. And I had a very basic self assessment tax position, you know, I had a singular income stream, it was very high, but it was a singular income stream. So I set to work on looking at the structure for my assets, where my my personal return would come from, would that be in dividends? Would that be in salary, mortgage stability, just putting the right framework and tapestry around my, my personal economy. And that happened relatively quickly. And most of my interests at that time in those first few years were about about property, and they would be in beta let's HMOs. We did a we did a lot, you know, 15, or 20, vital acts of HMOs in the first six months. But I'm, you know, I've been involved in hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollar US dollars of transactions over the years. So I was naturally drawn to maybe some of the larger more complex transactions, commercial to residential conversions land developments.

Unknown Speaker  12:43  
So that got me working very closely with high net worth private investors, with the banks and with larger deals. And I've another catalyst for me as well was, I don't I've always been involved in joint ventures.

Unknown Speaker  13:00  
You know, Mike, my good friend and

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partner, Nigel green, you know, Nigel, and I have been involved in joint ventures for 22 years. And in fact, my first joint venture was back in 1992, I worked for a large us contractor called Peter kiewit, and sons. And the contract I was responsible for was on lock and dam 16, on the Mississippi, in Muscatine, Iowa, about 30 million US dollar refurbishment on in the winter of 9293. And that was a joint venture between Peter kiewit. And sons and the US Army Corps of Engineers, which was rather an interesting clash of, of cultures, I can assure you.

Unknown Speaker  13:46  
So joint ventures not going it alone. But you know, understanding the real.

Unknown Speaker  13:52  
The real power behind working with your in collaborative manner was was really important. Now, one of the big bonuses, of course, serve a long corporate career is pillar number two, which is pensions. So let's come on to this topic, because I know it's an area that you managed to leverage, you know, to quite some effect. So what was your relationship like with your pension for many years? Mark, I'm very, very clear on my relationship with my pension. It was, it was about a three minute experience, once a year of picking a letter off a doormat, looking at my pension statement and thinking, well, that's not very good. Hopefully, it'll be better next year. That was my pension management strategy. Not particularly proud of it. But that was my pension strategy for a quarter of a century.

Unknown Speaker  14:42  
But I come back to that mandate I gave to myself and to my wife that we would take control of our personal economy at the end of 2014 2015. And that included all aspects. And, you know, my pension I knew was one of the largest

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
bank accounts that I had, but I didn't have access to I had absolutely no idea of sips and sasses at that time and alternative structures.

Unknown Speaker  15:12  
But you know, I was I was like a dog with a bone marrow, I needed to find a solution, I work very quickly.

Unknown Speaker  15:20  
But, you know, I like I like pressure. And I did a lot of due diligence. And in doing that due diligence, which took you know, six, seven months to work out what a, what a SAS was, what a sip was looking at all the options talking to people, it was very clear that there wasn't really one place to, to go at that time. You know, wealth builders didn't exist, then SAS Alliance didn't exist then. And there was only fragments of information out there. So I drew that together, and through my experiences, decided on on SAS, that was the that was the thing to do way back then.

Unknown Speaker  16:03  
It was only after I'd set my SAS up in 2016, that I first met Kevin.

Unknown Speaker  16:09  
So you know, Kevin and I have had a long running, relationship and friendship over all things SAS and wealth creation ever since then. But setting up a SAS for the first time was, was a big, big step for me, Christian,

Unknown Speaker  16:26  
in taking control of that personal economy. I wanted to challenge tradition, I was ready to challenge tradition, and taking control as being a trustee. And we have four trustees in our in our SAS, myself, Nigel and our respective wives. That was a very big catalyst for us. And having taken control you and I wanted, I wanted a very clear mandate, I wanted to play by all the rules play by all the options that HMRC allowed me to do so. So yeah, it was it was invigorating, to say the least. So let's talk about what happened over the next two years. How did you manage to double that pension?

Unknown Speaker  17:12  
Yeah, so So we, we flew out the blocks to be honest, we put in put in a number of offers for commercial property, who won't surprise you. We our first property that we acquired was a five was three five story offices side beside, in in the Midlands.

Unknown Speaker  17:35  
And we acquired that property on a conditional basis and subject to getting planning. And we Julie got planning, and we we converted that to 18 apartments. So we acquired the commercial property in the SAS, we got planning for residential. Before the development happened, we decided to sell that from our SAS. So that created a nice return for the SAS. And in fact, we still hold those 18 apartments in another limited company. So that was the first thing that we did.

Unknown Speaker  18:09  
Then we, we were backing cash in our SAS. So we went shopping again, and we found a property a small property Actually, it was to let in Colchester in Essex. It's called portal precinct. Now, we weren't really looking for a property to let but there is a bit of a top tip for anybody who is involved in commercial property or wants to find more. You know, not everybody knows that they want to sell a property. You know, if there is distress, if somebody's got a vacant property, then could they you know and it's out for let might they want to sell it. And that's exactly what we did went and had a look. We liked it. We said look, we're not going to let this but we might be interested to buyers, if you've got any more assets like this. It turns out that the the gentleman was in his mid 70s. He did indeed own the other the other four properties around this property to let he wanted a million pounds for for all five properties.

Unknown Speaker  19:13  
Clearly, we didn't want to pay a million pounds for those five properties. So we got we got a great deal there. We paid about 610,000 for for those five properties.

Unknown Speaker  19:26  
We acquired it on a conditional basis subject to planning. So we kept the five commercial properties as commercial, but we wanted to

Unknown Speaker  19:36  
get full planning permission for three apartments in the uppers in the the attic if you're like in the stockroom and storerooms. And we also did what most people now would know as airspace rights. Well, this was a forerunner to airspace rights who went into planning to put in a bridge if you like to put in an extension across the utility

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
The entrance. So we built that.

Unknown Speaker  20:05  
We then refreshed all the leases on the property, brought new parties in extended lease terms, got a commercial valuation on it. Clearly at this stage we'd developed to the residential properties outside of the SAS.

Unknown Speaker  20:21  
And we held that and still do hold the five commercial properties inside the SAS. And so that was absolutely phenomenal for us. We got a great valuation on the three residential that sit outside of the SAS. So yeah, it took me 25 years to

Unknown Speaker  20:40  
contribute into my corporate pension or pensions, and all the returns that compounded over 25 years. And yeah, we doubled my my pension in 24 months by doing primarily, there's the second transaction. absolutely staggering. But you know, the most important thing, to me Christian was the freedom of operating under my own license.

Unknown Speaker  21:10  
There were I could control the fees. We were buying in cash. That freedom meant more to Nigel and myself and our families than the money itself in many respects. Because what it gave us It gave us a hunting license, it gave us that license to operate. And that that empowerment

Unknown Speaker  21:34  
to run a significant part of our personal economy that it probably through my own naivety over 25 years has been out of reach. And that was a game changer. Yeah. Well, I mean, congratulations on on achieving that. I know you've you've done so much more since then Berto, it's interesting, because Kevin and I ran him a webinar last night. And we were talking about the seven freedoms, which drive people and we know financial freedom is the initial driver for many people, but it's really time is just having that time to do the things that you want. And I mean, in what other ways has your SAS transformed your life? Would you say, you know, what else is it now allow you to do that you couldn't do before?

Unknown Speaker  22:24  
I mean, where do where do I start, and so many different areas.

Unknown Speaker  22:29  
We're just about to use the loan back to acquire a commercial base, commercial property. So and we will be doing a three tranche loan back. So we'll be buying the land with tranche one, and then doing the build with tranche two, and then the fitout tranche three, so using a quite an innovative way of using loan backs. And that will sit as an asset in our limited company for many years to come. So a loan back is one. The, I mentioned that it was my four children, I wanted to spend more time my four children and I now work predominantly from home.

Unknown Speaker  23:08  
I wanted to instill in them that there were there was a different way to operate. I found them, you know, the, the wonderful joy of being, being a father and bringing up children, you know, it's not easy. And if somebody ever did write a book, I haven't read it. So I've had to learn by your mistakes and things. And and one of the one of the great things that assassins done for me is it's helped illustrate to my children to look ahead in life, it's very difficult for a 10 or 15 year old, young person to think when they're 30. When they're 40, when they're 50. In that's three or four times their current lifespan ahead of them. So making that connection and looking ahead, and the

Unknown Speaker  23:59  
I think many entrepreneurs they focus on the legacy, but they forget the custodianship of the legacy. And that's one of the most satisfying things that I think Nigel and I do with our SAS and with our company, you know, all of our age, children between us doctors got foreign I've got for all of our children, they're all shareholders in our company. They're all destined, should they wish to be trustees of the SAS.

Unknown Speaker  24:28  
And, you know, I can I can take my children and go and have a have a latte in a cafe and we own the building. You know, our SAS owns the property, and they start to see pensions in a very different context. And that that's incredibly powerful because it resonates with them. They're not going to understand the spreadsheet, but they start to understand those you know that the thought process the cogs start turning for them.

Unknown Speaker  24:56  
So that there's many permutations here in terms of legacy

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See the custodianship the connection,

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the financial return, the cost of each transaction has fallen through the floor for us, which is great, you know, we've got access to liquidity at the lowest possible rates, we're doing a very large loan back at the moment,

Unknown Speaker  25:21  
the largest one we've done, and that will be at about 1.2%, cost of funds per annum. And we see many development transactions are more like, you know, 1% per month. So, you know, it's an absolute game changer in in so many ways. Well, you mentioned there, obviously, the importance of passing on those lessons to your family. And you've written five books, Mark. So one of those books was titled advice to your younger self. So tell us a bit more about that. And of course, the other books and what led you to write?

Unknown Speaker  25:58  
Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. And, and I think I'm going to take you back to when I was about nine or 10 years old, there was a series of books called The Hardy Boys, for any for anybody who's in their 40s or 50s, and may remember the Hardy Boys. And I was always an avid reader, my mum and dad always, you know, encouraged me to read, I've always absorbed books with a with a passion.

Unknown Speaker  26:23  
So, over 35 years, it's been the kind of itch that I wanted to scratch really, to always imagine myself, you know, the smell of a book and the crispness of the pages, I just, I just always wanted to be an author, but over 25 years of business life, I guess it kind of battered me down a bit and suppressed, you know, I didn't know what to write on didn't have the time or the the energy and didn't know how. But when I left corporate life, it was right. Okay, let's focus on things I really want to do. So I am going to write a book now need to find a subject. And the first book was commercial to residential conversions. felt very comfortable given my 3 million square feet of of experience in doing those types of developments.

Unknown Speaker  27:11  
And then SAS pensions was a natural second book, because I've done the research my own due diligence. Well, if I was finding it so difficult to find this information, then surely there are other people who might benefit from your reading a book on that basis. And then advice to your younger self was, it was I was looking for looking for a gift back, I'd had a lot of I've been approached, I set up something called young entrepreneur, about three and a half, four years ago.

Unknown Speaker  27:45  
And a lot of people had said, Oh, you should you should do a course on that mark, you should, you should, you know, mentor children and things like that. And that wasn't really what I wanted to do, you know, imagine a child coming on a course Well, I don't want to take money off children. And when does the child want to come on a course, you know, Saturday afternoon when they could be at ballet or football or, you know, a half term now, it just didn't feel right. So I came up with this concept of this ended up being advice to your younger self of, you know, no matter where you are in life, whether you're 2030 4050 6070 years old, if you were to take yourself back, given what you know, now to when you were, say 13 1415 what, two or three pieces of advice do you wish somebody had put their arm around your shoulder and just whispered a couple of things in your ear? What advice do you wish you'd been given, and I felt I wasn't qualified to write a book of that magnitude. So I reached out to 48 other people who I who I know like and trust and ask them each to write a chapter of that book. So from their 49 different perspectives from people from all walks of life.

Unknown Speaker  29:04  
So I hope it's a force for good I hope the lessons that are enshrined in those pages will compound not just for the 49 people that wrote a chapter but for all the you know, 1000s of have got the book and hopefully they will pass those wisdom and the wisdom contained in the book to to the next generation and all the proceeds go to go to good causes as well. So it's a gift back to society in hopefully so many different ways. Yeah, yeah. And I know giving back is important to you and you know, there's other obviously other ways that you're giving back as well. And also have to mention one of your other books that you co wrote with one of our members Louie's writing the SAS superstars and I think that that came out last was that 2020 Yes, September 2020. Are Louise is absolutely fantastic and and she did some amazing work of you

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
Not just interviewing

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10, SAS trustees, many of which are members of the wealth builders community, not just interviewing them, but the way she drew out the lessons learnt, you know, the takeaways in each at the end of each chapter.

Unknown Speaker  30:20  
It was just an absolute privilege to, to work with Louise, she's a great personal friend.

Unknown Speaker  30:27  
And it just shows that your cooperation takes you in many different ways. And absolutely love it. Now, of course, wealth builders sits on, you know, three, three core values of good education, good support, and good connections. And community we know is really important when it comes to wealth building. And you've created along with Nigel, the SAS Alliance. So tell us how did that come about?

Unknown Speaker  30:56  
Well, it came about in I think it was the summer of 2017. So you know, nearly three and a half, four years ago now. And

Unknown Speaker  31:06  
SATs wasn't very well known at that time, and we'd created we'd create a lot of knowledge, we're starting to do some some great things and our areco community was growing as well. But I saw those a place in the world where, like minded people focused on SAS and growing their wealth, this has nothing to do with property at that time, you know, it's just purely people interested in SAS, could come together

Unknown Speaker  31:35  
with the objective of sharing information, knowledge, nobody's competing with each other, just competing with what you're capable of. And everybody rises together.

Unknown Speaker  31:48  
And we're now over 4000 members in the in the community.

Unknown Speaker  31:55  
And these are people who are entrepreneurial, they've taken control of their personal economy, they collaborate.

Unknown Speaker  32:06  
And they have all challenged tradition, they have all decided that that three minute a year pension management strategy of picking a statement of the doormat each Christmas and thinking, that's not very good. Hopefully, it'll be better next year, is not the life they want to lead. So it's been wonderful, and the the the volume of interest, the type of people, and that the law of reciprocity, I think lives looks very bright every day in that community. Yeah, and, you know, of course, before locked down we had some great events and, you know, attended many of those London events where you had fantastic turnouts and, and also up in Leeds, I mean, all across the country, satellite's events were taking place. And it's almost like a secret club, isn't it? It's like, you know, the the unknown secret weapon of wealth building and the stories and sharings were just incredible. So well done for bringing everyone together there. And, of course, now that's moved online and a thriving Facebook group, which, you know, where should someone go if they want to, obviously connect with the SAS Alliance Mark? Here? So if they go to the satellites Facebook group, and so yeah, just a couple of simple questions, and we'll let you in. And, and that's a real, it's a real safe environment for for people to understand what SAS is, we, Kevin, and I do a monthly explorer session for those exploring SAS for the first first time who want to understand, you know, the right type of questions to ask assassin for everybody. But once you get your head around it, and if you if you ensure that you you've prepared to take on the accountability and responsibility, we just see people flourish. You know, it's, it's just absolutely wonderful. So, Saturn Alliance, Facebook group, and we've got our satellites conference on 25th of March.

Unknown Speaker  34:07  
So it's just a wonderful growing community. Yeah. Now, obviously now reaching financial independence mark and being able to give back what are the next goals for you? Where do you see things in the next five to 10 years?

Unknown Speaker  34:23  
Well, I see our SAS being

Unknown Speaker  34:26  
very key to be honest.

Unknown Speaker  34:29  
Taking the theme of being in control of our economy.

Unknown Speaker  34:33  
Were acquiring as an example a piece of land at the moment and we're going to be doing a new build and commercial property. Now we're doing that with a with a loan back. So as our SAS grows, our capacity to do loan backs grows, which means our capacity to acquire more property in the SAS or outside of the SAS grows, it means we create a greater level of independence on how we fund deals, how we can

Unknown Speaker  35:00  
collaborate with others. So gradually, you know that that that acquisition of a diverse array of assets just grows.

Unknown Speaker  35:12  
I guess many people will know me for our commercial to residential conversions, we do a lot of big developments between 5 million and 20 million GDP.

Unknown Speaker  35:23  
Which is great. But I think what strategically about pre COVID, actually, about 18 months ago, we, we looked at our asset portfolio and decided that we'd like to start a diversification program and, and bring in not just apartments but new houses, new build houses, because we felt, you know, growing families, back gardens, you know, car parking space to park the car on the front driveway. And I'm pleased we did really so. So new build houses are an additional part.

Unknown Speaker  35:56  
We also have a an incubator fund as well. So we put a Nigerian, I put a proportion of our time and our capital to one side, and we invest that capital in management teams. And that's what we've always done over 30 years of mentoring people. I've mentored people, since about 1996, and mentor businesses. So we're increasingly investing sometimes our capital quite often our time and becoming shareholders and board members of certain businesses where we back management teams, and I, I absolutely love that get a real kick out of that seeing, seeing talent rise to the surface. And, and seeing wonderful people achieve absolutely magnificent things, it actually doesn't get any better than that. It's been very inspiring, listening to you, Mark, and I guess and for people listening now, just the power of leveraging multiple different assets, building wealth across multiple pillars, you've talked about property, leveraging your pension joint ventures, but, you know, gives you that peace of mind that security, that foundation to build upon any any final lessons you'd like to share.

Unknown Speaker  37:13  
I mean, there is so many, I think everything we do,

Unknown Speaker  37:17  
is, is structured for a short outcomes, you know, starting with the end in mind. So I used, you know, three S's structure, structure structure, you know, properties, wonderful. But actually, nobody came out the womb wanting property is what property gives you property as a vehicle, to creating wealth and creating security and resilience. It's how you structure the acquisition of those assets. So we invest in businesses, obviously, I've got IP with the books,

Unknown Speaker  37:50  
how we structure property, how tax efficient, we are capital allowances, all these things, it revolves around how we structure the deal, how we structure the business, how we structure our investments.

Unknown Speaker  38:04  
And I that's probably one of the core, the core

Unknown Speaker  38:10  
areas of experience that I've gathered over over all those years. And we put that to good effect. So So if people really do want to accelerate their journey and solidify and

Unknown Speaker  38:24  
really concentrate their their wealth and growth, focus on the structure, make sure that structure is highly tax efficient, resilient and protected. I think that would be my closing bit of advice. Mark, thank you very much. Apart from the mastermind Facebook group, if anyone wants to connect with you online, where's the best place for them to head? Yep, so I run an equity Academy. He qu a Academy ecore Academy, if they go to actor Academy, Facebook group, direct message me on Facebook, they're probably the the two areas there. So that's the best way to get hold of me. Thanks so much for sharing with us today. Mark. It's absolute pleasure. Thanks again, Christian.

Unknown Speaker  39:05  
Okay, lots of good points for us to discuss there. Kevin. I hope you enjoyed listening to that. Well, I really did enjoy and I learned a lot more about mark that sometimes your friendship doesn't dive into, you know, particularly his feelings around his family, which I'm sure we'll touch on. But look, listen to the lesson in their crumbs. 25 years, pensions, wilderness 25 years to build double in as many months. That's just incredible, isn't it? That's almost an acceleration. You just don't expect no wonder he's excited about the subject of SAS and why such a keen share? Yeah, well talking of sharing, we have had another review on on iTunes actually, which I would love to read out and this review says I've been listening to this podcast for just over 12 months. I'm really enjoying how they translate and edge

Unknown Speaker  40:00  
complex issues into something much easier to understand. The podcast has also been brilliant for supporting my mindset and growth. Plus, they have a great balance of interesting and relevant guests. Thank you for the great podcast. So thank you for the great review. Well, they can you know what's interesting, although we don't get reviews here, I did have a phone call today.

Unknown Speaker  40:24  
from somebody said, I'm just loving being in your clubhouse room. It's like, Oh, right. Okay, that's good. Because obviously clubhouse, the kind of new social media phenomenon where people can talk to us. So rather than the podcast, or just listen, they can jump on and somebody is very nice and complimentary, saying, I just love how you translate complicated things. Hey, very passionate about your subject matter and how you're so inclusive. And all the things we hear in wealth builders, don't we really so good to hear that what we're doing is consistent across all media channels, Chris? Yeah, I popped in for the first time as well as tweets have listened to you, because I'm not an iPhone user. So I've been one of those people on the sidelines better. I see. We've nearly got 1000 followers in clubhouse. So that's good to see. Yeah, I'm very pleased about that. Yeah. And so we'll keep going with that. In fact, Mark and I do a clubhouse room every Friday.

Unknown Speaker  41:19  
If you're interested, we call it SAS, Alliance.

Unknown Speaker  41:24  
SAS weekly. So essentially, it's anything to do with SAS, you can jump in and ask me or more questions. And we've collaborated an awful lot really,

Unknown Speaker  41:34  
on not just SAS, you know, we discovered each other some while ago. And I think he had a bit of a misstep as he talks about in his pension where he chose the wrong trustee originally, you know, you've got to have a professional. And I think he laughingly says, at least to me, I'm not sure if he said on the podcast, that they were moving at sort of seismic speed, very slow, in other words, and he wanted to move much more quickly. And then you discovered in my skills, and I've been delighted to be working with him and with his partner, Nigel. And what's interesting from their perspective of courses, here was it's really a family thing, which is the essence of the story, isn't it? Yeah, so let's pull out some of the lessons then and always begins with the why. And for Mark, that was very clear. He wanted more time with his family, he really wanted to take control. And Mark talks about, you know, being in control of his personal economy. And that's a mandate, as he says, In his own words, that is, he stood by very, very firmly. It's a language he uses a lot and and i think it makes perfect sense. And certainly as he has now gone on to not just do SAS, but and to make his pension work with his business, which is called the equity group, which is a great property development company, but he's gone on to write about it and teach it and that enthusiasm just shines over, doesn't it so, you know, good, good to hear what he's been up to. And, and good to hear that he's been successful throughout throughout the lockdown as well. So, but I love the family nature of what they're doing and, and the original catalyst, but also, that he's got the freedom to spend time with the family. Now, when working on his own terms, definitely, as far as SAS is concerned, you know, he says, If I kind of buy a piece of property, I get the rent, the rent comes back to the family, you know, and then the growth in the SAS comes back to the family. And you can involve the family members in that. And I think in due course, as the kids get older, there'll be involved too. So a true family wealth business as we advocate in the wealth builder group, Chris. Yeah, yeah, so the freedom which we know knows different types of freedom, but always, or almost always, I should say, is linked to time freedom. And of course, once you have the time to really focus on things that you want, and building that legacy, and, yeah, just also, as that SAS grows, then mark is no longer as reliant on the banks and those sources of funding, which, you know, perhaps he used to had to rely on a bit more and more important than ever, in property of courses. You know, we had that in the lockdown, banks not lending as much we had it in the credit crunch in 2008. So, you know, it's never good to be completely reliant on any one source of anything. So banks can call money in and there's no worse place to be as a developer than the bank and calling the money in because, you know, they call the money in, the value of your property is unfinished is almost worthless. So while certainly worth a lot less, so consequently, having a wide range of funding options, including using their SAS to either buy property or facilitate to buying a property

Unknown Speaker  44:54  
planning applications, you know, conversions that just become super smarter being able to be

Unknown Speaker  45:00  
Creative. And you know, when when did pensions ever get creative? I mean, whose Nevada pension statement is saying are feeling more creative today? They never are. They're never smarter when they just get statements, but you know, Mark and Nigel, you know, so strong now and their knowledge

Unknown Speaker  45:16  
is, you know, moe probably knows more than than most professional trustees and certainly most advisors so you know, hats off to him. And I'm so proud that on our journey, as he was looking to share the movement with SAS Alliance him a Nigel founded that they invited me after a year or so, to join the board to try and help take it to another level which we, in fairness, we've done, you know, we've got a thriving community, many members who are participating in bi weekly masterminds and there will be events coming up soon. site visits, and conferences, you know, in talking about the conference, Chris need to do a quick plug for that. Because free, as always, we try and get great value in wealth builders, and we got a conference on the 25th of March, which is all day, but you don't have to listen all day you can tune in and it will be recorded for members, which is all the creativity that you can bring. And other people bring in case studies and expert knowledge from other speakers, including myself, I'll be speaking on one or two things in that conference assessor Alliance conference, Thursday, the 25th of march from nine o'clock to five o'clock. So tune in if you're interested. And our very own Paul Brooks, wealth builders SAS director will be on the panel as well. He'll be speaking as well, one of our members, Louise riton, who Mark obviously talks about co offering the Sasuke stars book with and one of our wealth coaches, Carol Robinson. So yeah, that's a good day to look forward to. Yeah, and you want to know, I tell you what made me laugh more than anything else. Louise is hosting a panel of female SAS members, okay. And there's, you know, it's a really interesting thing, because interesting enough, those taking control of their pension, only 25% of our SAS clients are female. So 75% men, 25%, female, she's doing something about that big style. And her group that she's set up for this panel session is called Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

Unknown Speaker  47:26  
What do you think of that? I like it. I like it. We got to have a little bit of fun having you on the way on the journey. Yeah, I noticed you're sitting on the sidelines. So you're the sidelines of clubhouse, you're in the sidelines of the conference? It's probably best you did some workers, do you think I'm too busy producing these podcasts each week.

Unknown Speaker  47:47  
The final point I want to touch on I think it's a really important one is that mark hasn't done this by himself. And nobody builds wealth by themselves. And he talks about Nigel, Nigel green, who is obviously his business partner, but understanding your strengths and weaknesses. And they are such a great partnership. And for those that know Nigel, he's definitely the more detailed guy. And when we talk about wealth dynamics, he would be on the steely side on the left and Mark perhaps a bit more on the creative side. But it's it's really important. And Mark talked about as well when he was leaving his employment to repurpose your skills. And we talked about this a lot. But it's a point that really shouldn't be overlooked. Absolutely. Right. I mean, so the critical thing there, he stresses and I think it's I agree with it. 100% is when you have built all of those previous skills, then you must bring them with you on your wealth journey. You don't leave them behind and become an inverter come as a newbie, as many people do from a corporate life, they get involved in any kind of assets, like property, for example. And they start life as a newbie, and they forget the incredible insights, the value the relationships, the skills that they had in their previous world of building value, but maybe not earning the value in terms of asset but but certainly creating value for others. And that value creation skill is definitely worth bringing with you to stick it in your rucksack, pack it on your back, and make sure you don't overlook that mountain of value that you're standing on. But because you're standing right on top of it, it just isn't within your field of vision. Okay, so we hope you enjoyed listening to our conversation today. And we return next week, Kevin for the big 100. So bring your party poppers along to that one.

Unknown Speaker  49:42  
I'm looking forward to christen it, you know, it feels like everything's gone very smoothly. And we really enjoyed the journey together. So I think we should have a bit of a celebration, who knows what we have in store for you. But until next time, my friend See ya.

Unknown Speaker  49:59  
We hope you enjoy

Unknown Speaker  50:00  
In today's episode, don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside the wealth builders membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealth builders.co.uk slash membership right now for free access. That's wealth builders.co.uk slash membership