How Billy did 45 property deals in a little over a year, all while working a demanding corporate job 6000km away in Dubai (and yes, he flew to the UK for all of the Mastermind workshops).

It is customary that at the final workshop of each Mastermind Programme, some of the departing Masterminders get up on stage and talk about their experiences and results. Here is Billy's contribution...

Good morning, everyone. I'm very privileged to have been asked to come on stage and share with you some of my highlights from the 12 months on Mastermind. For me, a key date in my journey was on the 2nd of January, 2015, last year. I found myself, I was in the lounge of Manchester Airport, and I was reflecting on where my life was at that time. 2014 hadn't been the best year for me. I'd had a marriage had broken down, I'd come out of a divorce, but on January the 1st, I had to drop Archie off at his mom's house and I wasn't sure when I would be back from Dubai to see him next, whether it would be in January, whether it would be in February. Also, my Dad had been down, and he'd been back up to Aberdeen, so it was a case of just where was my life going.

To cut a long story short, in January I looked at a lot of different courses and a lot of different programs out there, and Mastermind appealed to me mainly because I saw it as a master's in business or a PhD in business, but I was still concerned. I had a senior job with a good consulting company. I had the portfolio on the side. I was trying to be a Dad, and I was 6000km away. The question was, could I really do this, or would it just be more stress that I was putting on myself?

We'll go into some of the individual details now and touch base on them. This is one of the student houses. I love student houses because of the cash flow they give you. If you look at this deal, the profit's just over £10k. If you do that every year, you only need probably three or four of them to get close to that target. How they give you such good cash flow is really through momentum investing.

When you're doing momentum investing with these deals, we're doing two things. We're doing big refurbs to them. We're adding additional rooms, so we're going up to the attic. We're going out the back, as well, and doing large extensions, so we're going from two bedrooms to six-bedroom houses.

The other opportunity you have for momentum investing is at the price that you buy. The reality was, before Mastermind, I'd spent all my time going against other investors, so being in auction rooms, being on Rightmove against other people. It wasn't until I realized I should be looking for the seller, rather than the property, that we managed to be able to scale up a lot quicker. A lot of my deals this year has been off market, stuff that has been sourced through landlord letters, through Facebook, through LinkedIn, through Gumtree, and what's really good when you get the stuff off market, particularly if they're a motivated seller or a tired landlord, you find a lot of the time they've actually got multiple properties. Again, you're getting no competition when you're in there, but you've also then got the opportunity to scale up a lot quicker.

Ultimately, we've got 20 investors now who are going to own each of these apartments, and that'll give them a return for as long as they hold them. It can be kept for their kids, etc. we're going to have 20 tenants who are going to be in brand-new apartments in a Grade I listed building. We've got investors from CrowdProperty, who can invest from as little as £500, getting a return on that. Our refurb costs for that were £600k, so we've put work in terms of £600k into construction companies in the northwest of England, and that's something I'm hugely proud of, and I really never thought I would do during Mastermind.

The figures, yep, it's certainly been a good deal. Totally surpassed anything that I thought that we'd do. Managed to put on about £4 million of assets during the Mastermind course. In terms of the actual profit before joint ventures are paid out, we're at £470,000. My share of that, post-joint venture funding, will be about £265,000. That's a hell of a lot of money. You don't need that money to live off a year. You need half of that. You need a quarter of it, but I'm now in the position, thankfully to Mastermind, and thankfully to the investment I've made this year, that I now have a choice what I want to do. A lot of that, the good stuff about that as well, is your annuity business stays with you. Your student houses, your lease options, stay with you year on year.

Then, what Simon said this morning, "Keep it simple". Too many times I think we complicate stuff. To do any of these deals, you have to source the property, and then you have to fund it, and you have to do it in that order. Again, before Mastermind, I actually thought money had the highest power, but I've realized without a doubt it's actually sourcing.

What's actually harder is getting some of the deals together. All the other stuff then, your refurbishments, your technical stuff, you pay people for it, outsource it, but the stuff that will give you the strategic advantage is sourcing stuff and funding it. It's a really simple business once you just follow it.

Then finally, where are we? We're now 12, 13 months on from that time when I was sitting in that lounge in Manchester Airport worrying about trading my time for money. I'm glad to say, I am going back to Dubai next week, but I'm going back to Dubai for a two-week holiday, and I'm going back to Dubai to pack up my stuff and move back to the UK lock, stock, and barrel.

Billy's story is a stunning example of what can be achieved in 12 months. The fact that he did this from 6000km away in Dubai is especially noteworthy.