LNPG Hits 5,000 Members!
A few days before LNPG launched, I sat down and gave myself a serious kick up the backside.
The reason for the kick was that after years of negotiations, re-negotiations, and re-re-negotiations, LNPG was finally coming together as a proper business – and I’d still managed to avoid the most important thing on my to-do list. I needed to set a goal for the business.
Back then I somehow managed to be too cautious about LNPG’s potential reach (I though no-one outside of the East Midlands would be interested) and too optimistic about its growth (assuming thousands of landlords would want to join immediately).
Today, just a few months after LNPG celebrated its tenth birthday, I continue to believe thousands of landlords should join LNPG immediately – but I’ve also been on a ten-year journey where I’ve seen first-hand the grit and dedication it takes to get the business to where I knew it could be – not just from me, because with all the grit and dedication in the world I couldn’t do it on my own – but from dozens of staff members, directors, suppliers, promoters, and early-adopters over the years.
The goal I’d kicked out of myself all those years ago was to reach 5,000 members.
There were days when it seemed absolutely impossible: imagine driving from Hinckley (that’s in Leicestershire) to Edinburgh (you know where that is) to speak at a property meeting. I was there to pitch to local landlords and spread the word about LNPG but when I turned up everybody already knew my name.
On the one hand it was a real boost to think I could drive all that way and LNPG was already on people’s radars.
But from a growth perspective it was a wasted trip. That nagging voice in my head that was always asking is this going to get you to 5,000 members went unanswered and I felt like I’d already plumbed the depths of the landlord market after only a year or two – supposedly there’s 2.5 million of us in this country – so where are the rest of them hiding?
And there were days when we’d stay late into the evening at the office – sometimes just to keep working, trying to stretch the few resources we had at the time, but other times to celebrate the small successes of the week – maybe we’d broken our weekly sign-up record that week or secured a new partnership that we knew would be great for our members.
The roadmap I’d set out for LNPG back in 2010 remains one of the most important hours I’ve ever spent, even if we have strayed from it entirely at parts, as everything we have done since then has come from that goal of eventually hitting 5,000.
Yesterday, we achieved that goal.
I wish I could say that for the next few days or weeks my only plans are to sit back and enjoy this moment the way I thought I would all those years ago, but the reality is I’ve already started the journey towards the next goal for LNPG because we’ve got no plans of slowing down.
– Nick Watchorn, LNPG Founder