About Me

Hey. For those of you who don’t know much about me I thought I’d provide a (fairly!) brief run-down of my life and career to date.

I grew up in Bolton, a large industrial town a stone’s throw from Manchester, England. I still live in Bolton, close to my fantastic parents who’s unwavering support has guided me through thick and thin.

I enjoyed what I guess would be considered quite a privileged middle class up bringing. My dad ran a successful demolition company Forshaw Demolition and my mum was a schoolteacher. Needless to say, neither I, nor my four brothers, wanted for much as kids.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

From an early age I knew I wanted to make lots of money but I had no idea how I’d go about it. I couldn’t see myself working for somebody else, enduring a typical “9 to 5″ and being told what to do. I initially thought of becoming an airline pilot and embarked on flying lessons. I gained my pilots licence at 17 but although I loved flying, I couldn’t see myself adopting it as a career.

Education

I wasn’t particularly academic, leaving school with just five GCSEs. I went straight into sixth form college to study A Levels in Economics, Environmental Science and Communication Studies. I dropped the latter following a severe dose of meningitis, contracted whilst holidaying in Magaluf. I therefore left sixth form with just two A levels.

Acid House Phenomenon!

At around the time of my A levels, in common with most of my friends, I got into house music in a big way. Clubbing became the focus of our lives and rightly so… we we’re 17 and living in the middle of the legendary ‘Madchester’ clubbing scene. Many a Saturday night was spent in huge convoys heading to some ’secret’ Illegal warehouse party which inevitably resulted in the odd run in with the riot police!

Armed with my two A levels, I set out into the big wide world but had no idea what to do and so decided to take a job with my father in his demolition business. I became an excavator driver working on demolition sites right across the North West of England. Not the most taxing of occupations but I had some good times and worked with some real characters.

In the meantime, a group of my closest friends had headed off to university in Manchester and rented a flat together in Salford. It didn’t take me long to realise that they were having a much the better life… or so it seemed at the time. Partying until the early hours, lazing in bed most of the day and rarely having to study. In contrast, I had to be up at the crack of dawn and spent my days covered in dust and dirt. I decided I would join them and enrol at Manchester University as soon as possible.

I eventually opted for a Town and Country Planning degree, not quite sure why… the property industry just seemed to appeal to me somehow. That said, I wasn’t too interested in studying at the time, I was far more concerned with my social life and having a good time, far away from parental interference!

The Music Business

By now I’m sure you’ll have realised that my attendance at University wasn’t exactly outstanding. However I somehow managed to scrape through the course and I obtained my degree in the end. But what next?

During one typically drunken evening, my housemates and I decided we wanted to become more involved in the house music scene we loved so much. We wanted to hear our own music played in the clubs. We wanted to be famous! Our solution was to “borrow” £300 each from our respective parents and invest in some recording equipment. Not long afterwards, our new band The Cotton Club was born and the releases flowed.

The next step was to start our own record label, Fantastic Records Ltd, which we used as a vehicle to release not just our own music, but also that of other like-minded musicians. Before long we found ourselves in demand as re-mixers and producers of other artist’s music. Even Boy George hired us to produce some tracks! Touring soon beckoned, culminating in a trip to the US for a series of gigs in Orlando and Miami. I was in my early twenties at the time and life couldn’t be better.

We borrowed a further £1500 each, bought a van and set up Unique Records and Distribution, an independent distribution company which quickly developed into a worldwide dance music wholesale operation. From those humble (and drunken!) beginnings, Unique grew into a company employing more than 50 people with offices in London and Manchester, boasting an annual turnover of £10m.

Family

In 1996 I was asked, alongside the other directors of Unique, to promote a club night at the newly opened Temple Nightclub in Bolton. It is here that I met Lisa, the beautiful woman who would eventually become my wife. Although I’ve got to admit, I dragged my feet a bit… it took me eight years to propose by which time we already had two wonderful children, Isabella and Harry. Our second son Archie soon followed to complete the family.

The Property Business

In the late nineties I began to tire of the music industry and gradually moved from managing the record labels to full time property investment. My first venture into the property industry was an end terrace house in Bolton costing £28,000 which was funded using profits we’d made from Unique. Over a seven year period, that original investment was leveraged to amass an £8 million residential and £2million commercial portfolio, ownership of which was shared amongst all the directors of Unique.

My methods were completely self taught. In the main, I refurbished run down properties, increased their value and then re-mortgaged. It’s a fantastic way to make money and build a real estate portfolio which I’ll describe in more detail in my blog.

In 2003 I moved into new build developments, completing several projects ranging from housing developments and apartment complexes to luxury barn conversions. I personally oversaw the construction of my dream home in 2006, which Lisa and I moved into just in time to hold what has become a legendary World Cup party.

At around that time I finally began to put into practice some of the knowledge I’d acquired as a result of my Planning degree. I realised I could make considerable sums of money by trading in land, something I continue to do to this day. You can find out about the exact methods I use in my FREE report: “Land Finder Fortunes – How you can make life-changing profits from land without purchase or ownership”.

Things couldn’t be better. I had a wonderful family, a £1m dream home, ‘his and hers’ Range Rovers…. you name it! What could possibly go wrong?

It Was All Going So Well Until…

Our music distribution business, Unique, was doing well. The company’s directors took the decision to buy out our biggest competitor, funded primarily from the profits we had made from my property deals.

Unfortunately, soon after the takeover, the company lost a couple of key accounts and two of our best customers went into administration. It soon became clear that we didn’t have enough capital in place to get us through this difficult period. Although my mini property ‘empire’ was going from strength-to-strength it was clear that the music side of the business was starting to struggle.

I won’t go into the full sorry saga here, suffice to say that the capital and assets of the property division were used to try and save the music distribution side of the company. Even that didn’t prove to be enough so in order to secure more funding, we offered the banks and factoring companies personal guarantees.

We tried everything to keep afloat – we simply weren’t willing to accept failure – but in the end there was nothing more we could do. The banks refused to back us any further and Unique went into administration. As a result of the personal guarantees we had put in place, the directors were personally responsible for a large proportion of the debts and we were forced to file for bankruptcy.

Despite building a property portfolio worth over £10m, a portfolio which was earning me a five figure monthly income, I lost it all due to my continued involvement with my original venture, a music distribution company.

I intend to talk a lot about my bankruptcy in this blog. All I will say here is that it’s been tough, very tough. An experience I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

However, by utilising the skills and knowledge I’ve gained throughout my varied business career – and from what I’ve learned from experiencing it all go so horribly wrong – I’m convinced that I can win back the life I had before this major setback. I’m determined I will achieve the same quality of life – no, a better quality of life – than that which my family and I were enjoying only a few short months ago. And I’m determined that it won’t take me so long this time round!

I will be using this blog as a record of that journey. Hopefully we will both learn a lot from this process of documenting my successes and failures as I get myself firmly back on my feet.

So, wish me luck. Here we go…

AN UPDATE

As you can see, I’ve been at the very top and I’ve fallen to the very bottom…

However I did have two things left:

1. I had a new start.
2. I still had my knowledge.

The years I’d spent learning all I could about the property industry – and the experience I gained as a result – meant that, second time around, I was in a fantastic position to get myself back on my feet and restart my career. Quickly.

But it wasn’t just me that was affected by the collapse of my businesses, this was a family affair! My older brother Jonathan was employed by Unique as Head of Accounts, whilst my younger brother Glenn acted as Portfolio Manager, overseeing the day-to-day running of my tenanted property portfolio. They too faced an uncertain future.

As a bankrupt, it will be a while before I’m allowed to own another business so I now act as a consultant to the various companies Jonathan and Glenn have established since they were made redundant.

But what provided the financial backing to establish their new ventures? The simple system which I reveal within the Land Finder Fortunes free report!

As well as earning money from land trading, Jonathan, Glenn and my wife Lisa have gone on to establish several business ventures. These include Forshaw Land and Planning Ltd, a company specialising in the buying/selling of development land and which undertakes small scale residential and commercial development projects. Even in these difficult times, the company has managed to find profitable niches within the property industry and continues to go from strength-to-strength.

They have also diversified their interests by launching an online venture: LandLounge.com. The site has quickly become a major resource for those wishing to buy or sell development land and we have big plans to expand it further over the coming months.

More recently Jonathan, Glenn and Lisa have teamed up with family friend Javed Saddique and formed Hamilton Black Developments Ltd.

In my capacity as a business development manager and consultant to these various ventures, I intend to use my blog to tell you more about what we do and how we do it. I’ll keep you updated about our latest projects and investment opportunities and let you know how you can get involved.

Stay tuned!…

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