Property millionaire joins Samuel Leeds academy to build on his success

Property millionaire joins Samuel Leeds academy to build on his success….

Zimbabwean Doug Juru started out in business before Samuel Leeds was even born and built up a portfolio of around a dozen buy-to-lets, becoming a property millionaire in the process. His income from rent amounts to £6,000 a month, making him financially independent. Despite this, Doug joined the Property Investors Academy to learn how to increase his profits. As a Christian, what motivates him, he says, is to use that additional money to return to his homeland and help lift his fellow countrymen out of poverty.

Eviction winner’s video leads Doug to Samuel Leeds

Doug came to the UK with nothing when he was a young man, leaving behind a war-torn country where there were no opportunities.

When he arrived in this country, he discovered most people had a job to make ends meet. As he readily acknowledges, there is nothing wrong with that, but for him it wasn’t enough.

“I realised the more I became an employee for somebody else all I had was a pay cheque. Sadly, I found I couldn’t even last a month with that pay cheque. That was when I decided to go into business.”

His first business was building a nursing home which was when, Doug says, he fell in love with property.

“It went very well because I bought a disused property with no roof, no walls, nothing. Everyone laughed at me. My friends said no, don’t do it, but I had found an opportunity. I built it to over £1m worth of property by the time I finished with it.”

On the back of this success, he began purchasing properties and rented them out as single lets. One of his first properties was bought off plan in 2007.

Fast forward 15 years, Doug, who also runs a network marketing business, happened to be scrolling through YouTube and saw a video featuring Evans Willie, a recent winner of The Eviction, Property Investors’ annual competition for budding entrepreneurs.

Evans was someone who Doug had been teaching as part of his network marketing activities. When he heard that Evans was practically a millionaire, it made him question his own property investment strategy.

It also inspired Doug to find Evans’ teacher, Samuel Leeds, which led to him joining the Property Investors Academy in January.

‘I feel I’m at the start of my property journey’

When Doug joined the academy and came on to the training programme, he had regrets about not investing more in education over the years.

“That to me was the biggest mistake I ever made, not having enough knowledge. My second one was I didn’t really have the focus. My eyes were on other things that I was doing. Because I love personal development, I was focusing more on developing other people not realising I could be developing that as well as the property.”

Samuel recalls telling his students an investor should be making a minimum profit of £500 per property. Doug was surprised because his properties were not achieving this figure.

Now that he is learning about how to maximise the yield from his estate, he feels that he is just at the start of his property investing. It doesn’t stop him wishing he had known at the outset about the creative strategies available to generate better returns.

“I feel I could have done more with what I had but it doesn’t matter.”

What matters to him these days is being able to excel so that he can reach his potential and help improve people’s lives.

“I came from a country in Africa which was very poor. I’ve never forgotten my roots. For example, people are drinking dirty water which is killing a lot of them and there are other diseases.

“I think I owe it to my family back home to do what I could here and then to go back home and help my people.”

It is that powerful motivation which keeps him hungry to succeed as he seeks to adapt his portfolio so that the focus is more on cashflow and not just capital appreciation.

“My plan for this year is to sit down with my mentors to look at what I’ve got so we can begin to restructure. There is a lot of potential with the properties I’ve got but I’m putting the wrong strategies into these properties. Having single lets is OK but it’s not where I want to be.”

Doug adds: “It’s important to have a reason in this business. To me it’s everything. The energy I get today is more than I’ve ever had before, especially now I’ve found an opportunity with the Samuel Leeds organisation. I can see what I could do with more to help other people.”

Having a good team around him to teach him new skills in property is vital to him. At the Property Investors Academy, he receives unlimited mentoring from coaches. Having his mentor-in-chief on hand also inspires him.

“I love Samuel’s energy and he’s always pictured in action. Samuel lights up the room as soon as he walks in because of his energy. I can never have enough of him as a mentor,” Doug enthuses.

Doug also constantly reads up on the subject, enabling him to trot out the wise words of business gurus at the drop of a hat.

‘You can go fast if you run on your own, but you can go further with a team,’ is one saying he quotes and: ‘TEAM – together everyone achieves more.”

In Samuel, he recognises a fellow reader of the same books which encourage and enlighten him.

“He is somebody I admire. He is a very well-read person. It comes out in lectures. I can see the book he’s talking about, not by name but by bringing out quotations and information. Leaders are readers. Without that I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

‘I can now scale my property business’

Doug gives three reasons for enjoying property investing. Number one is his passion to see how well he can do, followed by the desire to touch other people’s lives. Lastly, he feels he could so much more.

“I’m not using all the energy mentally and physically that God has given me to achieve. So, I’m just at the beginning.”

Doug agrees with Samuel that with property there is the chance to ‘scale it big’ which makes him an enthusiastic student, looking forward to what the future holds.

So far, his property journey has been virtually trouble-free, even though he has many tenants and can therefore expect to have problems occasionally.

“I’ve always relied on letting agents to manage the tenant side of the business because I didn’t have the time or know-how. I’m lucky that I’ve only had one tenant who’s given me any challenges.”

Nevertheless, having mental toughness is something he believes is a crucial part of being able to succeed in business – that and being ‘humble’ in seeking advice from others.

“I haven’t got to know everything, so bringing in experts has always been my channel of success.”

Doug previously spent £6,000 on some online training, but felt it failed to give him the support he needed. It put him off seeking more education for a while until meeting Samuel.

From his previous experience, he was sceptical about what he would get out of it, but says he is now convinced of its value.

“As I’m on the training I begin to see success upon success upon success. I’m thinking: ‘I’m not better than anybody else but nobody is better than me.’

“One of the coaches has helped me a lot. He said I was looking at too many things. All these strategies were just too many for me. I should find one and focus on that.”

Summing up his aim in property, Doug says:

“One thing I’m looking for is to be a person of meaning or significance in life. To have a car. a house and to go on holiday for me is not what it’s all about.

“My mission is to make this world a better place in a small measure than the world I find myself in.”

He adds: “I don’t look back any more. I’ve got to look ahead and find a way to get where I want to be.”

Doug’s tips

If you’re starting out in property, you’ve got have a reason for wanting to do it. That’s important. Fads don’t last two minutes.
There’s a lot of help around. Ask somebody. Once you can find information the road ahead is so plentiful.

Have a plan of action of where you’re going and follow that plan.

You need a mentor. Look for someone who is walking the walk, like Samuel.

To find a power team search for people who share the same values as you.

Samuel Leeds’ verdict

“I can be in a room with 100 people at a free seminar and most of the guys in the room have no properties and are not making any money from property. Doug is there on the front row. He is more motivated than nearly everybody else, but he’s already got a £1m portfolio – in fact much more than that – but he’s still hungry. I think that’s because he has got a powerful why.

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