Leanne and Graeme Podcast Transcript
Leanne and Graeme Carling joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today’s guests are Graeme and Leanne Carling. Graeme and Leanne Carling are a remarkable entrepreneurial duo, each with a unique journey contributing to their collective success. Welcome to Graeme’s path to entrepreneurship was marked by early setbacks, including three failed businesses, which only fueled his determination to work for himself.
His pivotal moment came when he committed to his financial education. After watching an Oprah Winfrey show featuring Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Graeme’s unwavering drive led him to quit his job alongside his girlfriend, Leanne, who would later become his wife. With modest savings to embark on their entrepreneurial journey, Leanne, with her unrivaled talent for sourcing acquisitions and creative deal making, has been instrumental in growing The Carling Group into Scotland’s largest privately owned landlord.
Her role as Mergers and Acquisitions Director at United Capital has seen her lead over 1,000 real estate portfolio acquisition transactions, totaling around 200 million pounds. Leanne’s ability to identify opportunities, construct deals, and deliver strategic goals has been paramount to their success.
Well, good afternoon, Leanne and Graeme. Welcome to the show!
Leanne: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having us. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Graeme: Yeah. Thank you, Brian, for your time. Thank you for having us. Glad to be here.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. And I appreciate you making the time originally out of Scotland, but now you’re in Dubai. So, the time zone difference is obviously Sometimes challenging, but I appreciate you both jumping on.
So, Leanne, I’m going to jump right into your first question here. You have a renowned track record for sourcing acquisitions and executing creative deals. Can you walk us through your process for identifying potential acquisitions and what makes a deal attractive to you?
Leanne: Okay. So, we work in many different sectors I always, so I, I’m always on the hunt for deals, but for every sector I have different criteria, but it’s very important that I stick to the criteria per sector, so it keeps me.
And my lane and looking for the right stuff. So, it’s got to fit my criteria. And one of the main things we have a one, two, three. So, it’s got to cash flow from day one. It’s got to have capital and equity. And that’s what makes a deal really, really chunky and impressive for us.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate you breaking that down for us.
I know you can’t give away all your trade secrets, but really does help our audience kind of understand what goes through your mind as you’re looking at some of these deals. So, I appreciate that. And we’re going to switch gears Graeme. Now over 15 years, you and Leanne have built a substantial business portfolio.
Can you share insights into the process of building your empire, particularly? How you identified opportunities and made decisions on which sectors to enter?
Graeme: Well, if we go back, you know, we, we started really in earnest at the height of the financial crash. And we, we started buying single family homes.
So, we started with one single family property. So, when everyone was getting out the real estate market, we were getting in for the first time in a long time, the numbers made sense. In terms of from a cash flow point of view as opposed to Capital gains we were really looking at cash So we bought the first property and it really started from there.
So, we bought one property, then another one, then another one. And just over the years, we’ve really just taken it. We’ve tried to eat the elephant, you know, one bite at a time. And so, but over the years that we’ve grown and our portfolio has grown. We’ve diversified into other sectors that kind of made sense.
One of the, one of the key strengths we have is identifying opportunities in the market and looking at the future and looking ahead and looking at trends. So real estate market was, was, was, was, was, you know, we identified that when everyone else was getting out. The natural extension to that was building services, looking after properties or real estate and maintaining them and upgrading them and compliance, all the compliance around them, then you have the green energy or cleaner energy upgrades that need to happen to a number of properties.
So just kind of a natural transition, but where we could see opportunity in the market, and we’ve really just taken it one bite at a time. But our bites get bigger, have grown over, over the years. You know, we now, we now stretch ourselves and really put ourselves out there and make sure that the next deal, for, for, in most cases is bigger than, than the last deal.
So that’s, that’s kind of how we’ve approached it over the years. I think when we first started out, there was no grand plan to be the size that we’re now thinking now, well, you know, which is a global company, you know, look at them billions. When we started out, we just wanted to earn enough money on passive income from cash flow that would allow us to not have to go back to our job.
You know, so over the years, you know, our ambitions and what we believe we can do has changed and grown from those initial days back in 2007 8.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I appreciate the backstory there, Ram. Again, it just started with, again, one property, right? And over time, things start to snowball. So, I really appreciate that.
And Leanne, we’re going to switch back to you for the third question. With your energy always focused on the next opportunity, can you share with us what’s next for you and Carling Group? Are there any upcoming projects or sectors you’re particularly enthusiastic about exploring?
Leanne: Yes. Well, we’ve just a partner. We’ve got some great partners down in Florida. Our company is called Elevate Holdings. We’re focusing in the market down there on civil, structural, architectural engineering, surveys, certification, planning, et cetera. So really, really excited about that and look forward to see what happens in the next couple of months.
Brian Thomas: Great, thank you. And I like how you’re doing this stuff internationally right now, obviously expanded to the U. S. and that’s always been a great. Investment here in U. S. properties, of course, so appreciate that share and Graeme last question of the day with your successful business portfolio already established, what’s next for you and Leanne and are there any new sectors or projects you’re particularly excited about?
Graeme: Well, thanks for us is really just to keep doing what we’re doing and substantially increased and grow our existing businesses and businesses, the countries that we’re doing business in working with partners throughout the world. We just take it again, like I said, one step at a time. We’re very much a partnership business.
We, we like working with local, you know, similar minded companies or entrepreneurs that you know, that bring a lot to the table from a local point of view. I’m particularly interested, as Leanne said, in the Elevate Holdings side with the structural and civil engineering for the government contracts throughout the U.S., that’s in terms of the compliance that goes around with that. We like that stuff. Also, we’re doing, we have some investments that we’re working on in AI in the security space. That, again, for me personally, is really exciting and interesting and I’m really enjoying learning and getting to know, you know the people that operate in that sector, that invest in that sector and, and, you know, just the crazy stuff and how quickly it’s moving.
So that’s from a personal point of view from, you know, from where we are, but ultimately for the Caroline group. We just want to continue doing what we’re doing and have been doing and expanding our businesses and their sectors. Geographically, you know, and across the board to, you know, less reliance in terms of buildings, more into the sort of future check technologies around health care and AI.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. And we can have lots of conversations around that stuff. This is what the podcast is about. Is generally focused on is emerging technology. So have a lot of background in that. I’m a technologist by trade. So, we’d love to have some further conversations down the road here, Graeme.
Yeah. And Leanne and Graeme, it was such a pleasure having you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Graeme: Thank you for having us, Brian. Appreciate that. Thank you.
Leanne: Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having us.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Leanne and Graeme Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
