From Terraces to Palaces: How Guy Phoenix Built a Brand Around a Luxury Empire

0:00Guy started out flipping£30 ,000 terrace properties. We worked up to building some of the most expensive and extravagant homes in the country, if not the world now. And he's now building hundreds of millions of pounds worth of property. I bought houses that I couldn't afford, that I had no way of financing, that I made no money. But it was a stepping stone to get into the big stuff. And that has taken 25 years. Don't come to me if you want to stick to budget. My clients are all highly successful people. I'm changing people's lives. That sounds really arrogant, doesn't it? Maybe cut that bit out.

0:31The homes I'm building are hundreds of millions, not millions. It's no longer a house. You buy a dream.

0:38James Burtt: Is that ever scary? No, it's exciting, mate. The most interesting thing is, he doesn't even think of himself as building a brand. He's building in London, the East Midlands, Monaco. Coming up next, he wants to build a billion pound property on its own island. What's the one thing that you're world class at? Lighting. No, not in terms of the house. I mean, you as a person. What kind of a f***ing question is that?

1:05James Burtt: So as you can see, we have got an amazing show lined up. But before we get into the main content, please, please, please do me a favour. I know I'm begging here, but all of the podcasters and YouTubers have to do it. Please subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, click the follow button at the top right hand corner of your app. And it will mean that you'll never miss an episode of Boo and the Brand. And you'll be massively helping us out as well. Let's get into it. So when did you realise that you were building a brand and you weren't just your average builder?

1:31James Burtt: Because you ain't just your average builder. I've never really realised, nothing, you know, there was never one day where I woke up and thought I built a brand. It's evolved over time. You know, I started off building, you know, standard houses, terraced houses, and it's just over 20 years. We've worked up to building some of the most expensive and extravagant homes in the country, if not the world now. uh and people tell me all the time you've got a brand that you know it's my name uh but it it just worked out that the guy phoenix name is now synonymous with with luxury and extravagance and it evolved i mean it's great for me because of course you know i get people come to me and saying you know is are you actually guy phoenix that really your name because they they associate the name Guy Phoenix with a brand now rather than with an individual so it's been good for us um but there was never a particular day I suppose in the last two or three years um and the more luxury and the bigger and we build for celebrities and high net worth individuals and the homes I build for now are household names.

2:42And that is why, you know, my name has become my brand. But I wouldn't say it was like that in the beginning. No, of course. You know, of course not in the beginning. You don't terrace the house and change in the kitchen, you've got a brand. So it's took 20, 25 years to actually get to a position where we can say the name is now a brand.

3:01James Burtt: But you've obviously, there's steps you've taken in the preceding 20 years that's decided that it's could have become a brand or it's accidentally become a brand because a lot of builders it was an accident because i've got a lot of pals who i used to work with in the building trade 20 years ago and they're still doing the same jobs now for the same sort of clients and the same sort of prices they are doing the the tosh over three bedroom mid terrace yeah but that's probably what makes the bloody money you know i've done crazy things where i've had a pot of land where i could have built six houses on it and made a ton of money but i wanted to build one super home yeah yeah i made next to nobody i make next to no money um but it was about the you know evolving it's what excites me i don't want to go to work every day and build 120 houses all the same as cheaply as i can and flog them all for a profit i i get i'm you know excited about what i do for a living and that is why because there's very few people doing it so shark tanks and lagoons and offering to put crocodiles in and water slides and helipads and football pitches and you know all this sort of stuff has sort of set me apart from the rest it has but also like you say you've probably made life not more difficult for yourself but i say you could get interesting for myself yeah that is interesting interesting or difficult i guess it depends which side of the coin you want to look at could make a lot more money if i built standard houses um you know David Wilson, who I know, actually, he's a mate of mine.

4:26James Burtt: He built standard houses. He built standard houses. And a lot of them. And a lot of them, yeah. And made a lot of money. Yeah, too right. And I would say, you know, he doesn't even go to, you know, I'm very involved in all my houses. Yeah. And I go all the time. And I'm very involved with the design and involved in choosing materials and, you know, organising. But you look at David, for instance, he probably hasn't been to the last half a dozen sites. Yeah, yeah. Let alone houses. The last 2 ,000 units. He's never been to a single one. It's numbers. He looks at a spreadsheet in his office and said, right, this site here, where are we?

4:56Is it over budget? Is it over budget? What's the return? Happy. Done.

5:01James Burtt: That's quite interesting because actually when you think about it, his own name is the brand. Yes. And so is mine. And so is yours. Not bigger than me. I wouldn't say that people will see a David Wilson, unless you've been in that trade, you go, you know who they are and what they've done. You wouldn't look at that and go, oh, that's it. You wouldn't buy a house because it's a David Wilson with the greatest respect. I agree. Because he's got a 10-year guarantee on it, blah, blah, blah, for being a new build. But you don't buy a house from you. You buy a Guy Phoenix. I've heard you say this. I think you're right.

5:29You buy a dream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what it is now, it's no longer a house. You give me the wish list. And what we do is, you know, I want the experience from start to finish to be a pleasant one. A lot of people, a lot of couples, a lot of individuals organize and become the foreman on their own projects. and i i've seen you know dozens of couples split up i'm not surprised from actually building the house it's so stressful you don't know where to get anything from you've got to organize the men it's early starts late finishes and and they just go so what i say to them let me do it come to me give me a wishlist how many bedrooms you want do you want a golf course do you want to you know i'm no longer talking about whether you want on suites in bathrooms because i will not build a house now where every single bedroom's gone en suite i won't do it i refuse to do it so you know really they're all suites no longer do we build bedrooms sweet sweet so you've got a walking wardrobe you've got a beautiful en suite with often double sinks and a you know rain shower and beautiful freestanding bath and stunning taps that we handpicked from italy and all that sort of stuff

6:39James Burtt: so if you don't want that don't come to me go to david go to david who david is sat on his yacht now watching this laughing at me yeah exactly you know he's kicking back he's kicking back but he's i mean i never met him when he first came he i didn't know who he was so i just said he was an old guy that walked around i'm looking at one of my houses and i said what's your name he said david and i said david what's david wilson it's not that he did wilson and he said yeah i was like fuck fuck and he was like you know really it was in an old toyota 13 yeah old money but i wasn't impressed with him but that that was 10 or 15 years ago and of course my name has uh accelerated i'm not saying i'm at his level yet but um it's it just happened it happened i'm glad it happened but it happened so there must have been some moments where it just happened but you made it happen because you're the sort of person i've watched a load of youtube stuff i've listened to a load of interviews my son over there who's behind the camera he's the magic of the social media stuff he's the magic of the social media stuff but not only that has streamlined the business in the fact that you know i would do something that on notes on my ipad that were taken out and then what he does he does it in two seconds using ai and i was like how'd he do that but what's happened is we with the social media with the youtube stuff even with the tv stuff we've got lots of people approaching us now because we're accelerating um i was never into that all i like doing is getting up early going to the house walking around a building site you know talking to the lads and and telling them what to do and what should go where and choosing fancy towels and materials and then go home at the end of the day go and have a pint after work and go home but jack has really uh you know take it to another level what sort of level of pride you get as a dad when it's not only you you're seeing like a talented youngster coming through ranks but that talented youngsters your flesh-blooded your boy of course it's huge i mean there are people out there that you know i'm i'm very very uh proud of what what jack's done and and we have grown as a company more i would say 90 of the growth has been in the last three years since he left university wow so you had to do the the groundwork so i've had to do what i've done for two decades i've done it for two decades or more 25 years almost uh i'm putting extravagant shark tanks and you've seen all the you know all those sort of crazy things that gave me a bit of recognition and the bbc knocking on my door saying can we film that and then people start to notice but it wasn't until the social media because i used to look at social media fuck that i don't want to yeah you know i'm allowed to swear am i i'm not gonna get yeah yeah um we're in your house at your own branded card you can do what you like can't wait i'll give him a card something and you know I'm very proud of what Jack's done and it's sort of where's it going and now we've got lots of channels interested in, we're sort of moving across it's more TV now than, not more TV Jack is more TV than Bill what he's doing is all the social media brand building yeah exactly so you know when you say that i don't i don't think about it you'll i know you're the brand brand guy we've got we've got companies coming to us now saying would you be prepared to advertise this would you be prepared to advertise that and i'm like and jack's saying do it all you've got to do is this you go you know try this and you never know dad you might better buy the steel from these guys cheaper so is that how he sells it to you yeah you just do this advert read for screw fix and they might give you 15 off exactly they give you a percentage off and now what we've got is a um you know an actual brand manager uh called dan from driven and what he's doing is taking to another level again where people used to ring me up and say can we give you a free watch if you wear this watch he's like no no no we want the free fucking watch and the money and the money before you having a free watch but that's where i'm at of course i was happy to get tiles at a discount and pass it on to my customer where i wasn't really gaining but what he's saying now we're at a stage where we can seriously talk to these people because you are a recognized brand you don't even like saying it do you it just sounds it sounds a bit billy big bollocks doesn't it do you know what i mean it's a bit like oh yeah but that's the reality of the world i'm just down to with me you're you're a proper old school builder yes get in roll your sleeves up do the work so i think well my lads will all be fucking laughing yeah they'll be saying I've rolled these sleeves up for years.

11:22James Burtt: Just with the cameras there, just with YouTube's there. No, no, I don't mind sweeping up. So I enjoy sweeping up, I find it very therapeutic. But, you know, I don't actually do the work because I'm not qualified. I'm not skilled enough to do the work. But what you do is I, you know, sort the problems out. And, of course, when I've got multiple sites on, it used to be just one house. And all the lads would build that one house. And we'd all go there. And we'd start early and we'd work through it. And he'd call me and he'd call me. You know, a site office is easy to manage. That's all over the shop.

11:49We've got multiple countries, different sites. You know, we're building in four different countries at the minute. Wow. And we're building some of the most expensive, extravagant homes. One's coming up, which I believe will be one of the most extravagant homes in the world ever built.

12:06James Burtt: Well, I've got it down here. Yeah, you can consult your paperwork in the fucking world. You have got one of your audacious goals. You want to do a billion dollar build. Blame that. I never said million dollar. I said I want to do the most expensive house in the world. And there are only certain places that will take it. You know, you can perhaps build it in Beverly Hills or Bel Air, South of France, Monaco, which you know I do a lot now. Miami, maybe Hong Kong, Seven Row. You know, there are only certain locations. We visit a lot of these locations. and I would like, my ambition as a little boy was always to build, not the most expensive because you can put any price on it, the most extravagant sort of glass castle looking over the sea with your own mooring and, you know, formal gardens and bat cave.

13:05You know what I mean?

13:07James Burtt: Like Necker Island meets Batman. Yeah, Necker Island meets Batman. Never met him, actually. Friend of mine knows him well, Richard, but he did well with that. He bought that for super cheap. He did, didn't he? What, 2.4 million when it was going for... I don't know. I thought he bought it for pennies years and years ago. I think that is pennies, isn't it, for an island? I think it was less than that. You've lost touch now. You're chasing the billions. I think you've added a nought on that. I think he bought it for something like 200 or 300 million. Really? I'll have to fact check that. I don't know.

13:32Yeah, fact check that.

13:33James Burtt: So someone like a Richard, he's been sort of at his game for a long time, much like you have. But there would have been a stage that you were doing the standard little terrace places in the East Midlands. Yeah. Why did you step up to the next level? Because that's not for everybody. Say, I've got loads of powers in the building. Nothing to do with this. It was purely because I got bored. Really? Yeah. So I built a terrace house, did it up, put a new kitchen in, put some deck in outside, changed the carpets, painted it out with a couple of blind monkeys, not specialist guys, and then rented it out for a bit, sold it, made a little bit of profit, it bought the house next door did it again and then i thought you know what i'm born of this let's just put my nuts on the block and go and buy a little bit more expensive in a slightly better area went and did that did that up and thought oh enjoyed this now i can put some soft feet and some tape you know some lighting and you know just the basic stuff and people like oh that's nice and i saw that one and i thought okay i like this stepping stone let's go and buy that one and I bought houses that I couldn't afford and I bought houses that I had no way of financing and I've had to use different firms and charge far too much interest and I made no money, but it was a stepping stone to get in to the big stuff and that has taken 25 years.

14:55James Burtt: So if I say what's your trade, you said you're not a skilled tradesperson, is it project management? Is it that you're, yeah, so you're a PM on these sites? I'm just unemployable, mate. I'm just literally unemployable so I had to find something to do. yeah keep yourself busy i design the house so i have an architect does the externals i then give my input and want to make some changes um and then there's a layout inside which i never stick to so i've seen this on your youtube videos you must be a nightmare to work for for the interior guys yeah so the last youtube video the woman wanted a pool of a certain length you went oh but i found an extra bit of land at the back so i've chopped it off a bit extra and now you can have a cinema bit at the end of it only you can stick your cars next to it as well and the guys just did they go how much is this going to cost me?

15:38James Burtt: Don't worry about that. You don't tell them about that. You don't tell them about that. So what they do, don't come to me if you want to stick to budget. I know that sounds crazy, but my clients are all highly successful people. Yeah, yeah. They're often very wealthy in their own right. They're no fools. Yeah. So nobody says, there you go, there's a blank check. No, no, of course. No fucking does that. They're successful for a reason. They're successful for a reason. But they know that when I go and say, shall we put in, let's have this wall with water running down it. or let's have a chandelier that runs five stories through the house.

16:10And let's put in a car lift or a bowling alley. Or do you know what I mean? Let's have a hair salon in the house. Let's do a sauna and steam room. Let's do, you know, multiple jacuzzis and several pools and all this sort of stuff. And people are just like, fucking do it. So, you know, I get given free reign as to my ideas. and if you come to Guy Phoenix, you know you're going to get, you know, a super house, a super home.

16:42James Burtt: Right, let's pause there for a second because I want to make sure that you have picked up on the very basic thing that Guy has done, but it's the thing that has made all of the difference. He's just been really, really different. In a world where branding and brand positioning and brand differentiation, is that even a word? Brand differentiation? I think it's a word. in a world where that stuff's very complicated. And yes, you need to think about these things in general. This guy's just decided to be the biggest and therefore the best. It's really, really simple. He's escalated, which we're going to talk about later on in the podcast.

17:15James Burtt: He's escalated from doing very standard houses to the next level up, to the next level up, to the next level up. He didn't start by doing these super homes, as he calls them. He didn't start by being the go-to person. If you look on his YouTube channel recently, he was with the rapper H refurbing part of this guy's huff house that he's bought down in Surrey. And it's a brilliant, brilliant video, but he wasn't the person who was getting the calls from the rappers to go and tweak their already quite nice gaff down in the home counties to start with. He was doing bogstone standard houses, and then he just escalated.

17:46James Burtt: He went up to the next level and the next level and the next level. So I guess the lesson here is, yes, branding and brand positioning and making yourself have a massive point of difference can be quite complex, and it can be within your messaging or how you deliver your service. But sometimes you can just keep it really flipping simple. Just be the biggest and the best that there is out there and then shout it from the rooftops. That's what this guy has done. And it's done him very, very well. Anyway, let's get back to it. Do you think that the Guy Fenix branding, because again, I know you're just the guy who does the stuff.

18:15James Burtt: You don't really think about brand, but do you think that now you've been developing a brand, whether consciously or unconsciously, or Jack's been doing it for you a lot of the time. Has that opened more doors? Because people would not only come to you, with the right sort of budget and the right sort of clients they know we're going to say right spend up to 10 million quid and if you run over to 12 we're good because they know in advance because they're brand they're never say that nobody ever comes to you and say i want to spend 10 million quid when you run over to 12 no of course but they actually tell me all the way through don't go over budget don't go over budget don't go over budget i'm like yeah yeah yeah have you seen it in the youtube videos but you know i've i've sort of um the the word super home isn't actually a word believe it or not it's not in the english dictionary super but if you google word super now it comes up with you yeah because you've used it so much yeah and that's what we're doing we're we're just going the extra level i mean there are homes out there um i mean i met a guy at the um it's quite interesting that's quite funny i met a guy at the stagecoach last year my wife's birthday went out stagecoach i sat down with this guy i said what are you doing I sponsored Formula One.

19:19I don't know. And he was the youngest billionaire in the world. And he said, what do you do? And he showed me a, sorry, that's not true. He showed me a, we got talking and he showed me a picture of his house.

19:31James Burtt: And he said, what do you do? I was like, I'm trying to think of something I did. Because it was literally, I mean, he spent, I think it was 181 million quid building his house in a very sought after place in LA. And it was a different level. but that is what I am you know he's actually been in touch with me but that is what I'm trying to strive for still on the climb still on the climb yeah in the UK uh and and and in Monaco now um we have a recognizable name but no you're always learning and you always want to get better and as I said it's not purely for the money I just get excited I can walk into a place and think what i can do to it and it takes me it takes me two minutes so i can walk into any building anybody's house and i just see it so i'm very fortunate i haven't got to sit down and work through architects interior designers i can just see what it should look like straight away so a place that we're in today which is your don't know this house was built fucking this house was in 2023 so 20 2003 23 years ago and people come in and it's amazing this is the first house i've fucking built and it's very very dated it still works though it works but i built houses that make this look like a caravan i built houses that you literally walk into and most of them are out to showcase now this is what i was going to ask you about this is very frustrating we're going to come to that in a minute but there's certain elements like a place like this which is a huge expanse of space again in your world is probably not as huge but you know to the normal person yeah it's quite a big dumpy bit of is there sort of elements that build the brand of guy phoenix in this so i see like the the circular central pillar of the houses and a lot of the cut through so you can see all the way up all the way down i love circles i think they're far more interesting the latest house i'm working on now the architecture a square entrance hall i laid it out as it was drawn and it just didn't work so i played around with it got the lats out to spray on the floor a bit of string line and buggered about of there and i came literally You're actually doing it in person.

21:40James Burtt: I do it on the floor. I don't do it on a, you know, I can't fucking read plans and go through all that shit. The guy is a cad drawing, fuck that, give me a bit of spray paint and some string. Correct. So when the pad's poured, because obviously we're governed, you know, the house has got to look like it does for planning. For planning, yeah, of course. So the windows, but what I do inside, nobody really cares about. So I go in and I stick a pin in the middle and I get a bit of string and I draw it on the floor like that. And I say, right, spray that off. And I stand there and say, okay, make it slightly smaller.

22:09and then i put a wall in there and i put i do it with bits of wood and and a spray can and then i stand back and i'd say that's it and then i go back to the architect and say this is what i want to do i wish i could do it on a bit of paper because it would save a bloody fortune because we you know what we have to do then is once we change the design you have to go back and all everything ebc and all that sort of thing changes um and we have to but it's just even if an architect came to me with a perfect design i think i'm that bloody awkward i'd actually say i want to do this one so i would change it because that is all i know and you know i said i don't change things to to become awkward it's just um i watched my mother at an early age she she was she's an artist and she um did up homes and she's very gifted in i just watched her do it and she did it on the back of a fact packet.

23:05James Burtt: So you literally just copied what you saw? Copied what I earned, took it to, you know, I'm sure she won't mind me saying to a different level. So where did she take it to? Because I'm guessing that... So she's an artist. She lives in California now. She moved out there. But she did her own homes and did a couple of, bought a few properties and did them up. But, you know, she's never done super. Didn't go super. But it's still the same process. Whether you walk into a terrace house, you open the front door and, you know, you've generally got a thin corridor some stairs and two rooms on the left hand side yeah and you got stairs to another couple of poker rooms and shared bathroom you know i sort of walked in and said take that fucking wall out so the kitchen and the lounge and the diner can all be in a great big open space then we got the stairs and let's knock the old through that bedroom into that bathroom and let's squeeze the bathroom in there so now they're both on suite you've still got only got two bedrooms you've got an open plan living a little bit of a garden outside it doesn't matter what level you're doing or you do it on a you know i do it 35 000 square foot houses where you know i've built million pound aquariums and bars bigger than the savoy and full-on um 8k surround sound you know pro logic suck your dick dolby fucking cinemas uh you know and literally you don't need to go to the cinema you can sit back in your own cinema yeah with your electric chair and you've got your fridge there and you haven't got to wait for the girl to come around like in the 80s with a tray it's all available and we're just bedrooms we build the beds now we build the headboards we use the same fabric and the carpets a mixture of wool and silk and the lighting and air conditioning under for heating a pump smells in these houses baked bread ground coffee fresh linen even an aphrodisiac you sell to a young sort of whiz kid he can press a button on his ipad and it releases this sort of smell so you get a couple of birds back they're all naked in the pool you know it's just taken to it to a different level and i'm i'm looking at you know multiple shower heads and actually building um sort of jungles so so a great big bathroom that would normally be a master bedroom in a standard house where you've got rocks and you've got um you know palm trees and waterfalls.

25:23So when you're in the shower in the morning, it's just taking the experience. So when you're in a lot of money, and I've got guys that I've built houses for that are worth a lot, a lot of money, and I've gotten so well with them, they want in not to the brand, just to the fun. Yeah, yeah. I can't show this guy how to make fucking money.

25:45James Burtt: Yeah. Because he's got 100 times more money than I've got. But what he likes is, he watches his own house, and he likes the process. Yeah. And, in fairness, they have good ideas. And do you know what I mean? It's not all about making money. No. It's about delivering something different. So when I drop dead, hopefully not too soon, these homes will be... They'll live on. They'll live on. They'll live on. I am not a builder. I am an artist. So a lot of people say... I'm an artist, whereas... i i want a a blank canvas but when how do i explain when a painter paints a painting they have an idea of what they're going to paint but that exact idea is not replicated often on the canvas it evolves and with the house i have an idea of what i've got to build i've got to deliver five bedrooms five en suites they want two offices because him and her work they want a pool they want a sauna and a steam room and a changing room they want a golf simulator you know and all these extra bits they want but then how i incorporate those you know into the house the architect might draw it like that and it's useful these cars on the table isn't it um you know the architect might draw it like that and then i bug it like no no no no we've got a i want to put a plan in to make it bigger i want it to look you know i want it to look like that and then i want to do a space there with a glass corridor and and basically i incorporate it into the design go back to the architect he buggers about going back to planners arguing the fact put in a notice gets it passed and then everything you wanted is uh is delivered back there you can see the cogs there even as you start moving i was thinking i don't know i should have pressed this before i could do a better path than that but that would look quite a good house look especially if you've got the sea here and the mountains here courtyard look waterfalls running down underground parking yeah is it is no it don't stop does it don't stop with you do you are you um the planning department are you their best friend of their worst enemy i go on really well with the planning department i've been difficult over the years um you just want to make something that's exceptional and what they want is i have a lot of planners come to me now especially in the east midlands and they have ideas and you know what we're trying to do is promote our great city yeah yeah sure and they you know there are people out there looking for uh you know first-time buyers and there are people looking for medium homes and there are people looking it's a knock-on effect yeah of course um so when i go in extravagant design uh in the olden days 20 years ago it was it was much harder but nowadays they promote uh excellence they often have their own ideas they're very supportive of me and i think something like eight out of the top most expect top 10 most expensive homes built in the east midlands are mine and these guys you know support it so if they were funny about it yes you've got to go through the correct procedure yes you want to extend it and you you know if you're in the green belt or countryside there are protocols but you know for the last 10 years it's been very difficult for builders especially with with multiple home builders yeah the the hoops you've got to jump through are too difficult and i think now um with andy in that they're they're sort of realizing people just go elsewhere you know 100 we'll go elsewhere because it's too fucking hard yeah we've been on this now for nine fucking years yeah you know i spent 300 000 pound on consultants and architect fees and applications and they just keep coming back and keep coming back and get to committee and you get six old women sat at the table.

29:32No, I don't like it. And that's it. Stumped. Failed. That is changing. And it's changing for the better.

29:38James Burtt: If you're loving this conversation, please do us a favour by clicking the subscribe button if you haven't yet done so. Click the follow button if you're listening on Apple or Spotify at the top right-hand corner of your podcast. Plus, if you're loving the learnings and lessons from this episode, every single week as well as doing the video and the audio sort of things, we also do a handwritten blog and we do a breakdown of the key learnings and lessons as a blueprint that you can implement into your business as well. If you'd like to get all of that, click the link that's in the show notes or the description, and you can join our Building the Brand exclusive newsletter.

30:08James Burtt: Do you think that, because one of the things I wanted to ask you about, because obviously you have a certain level of wealth, you deal with people who've got ultra levels of wealth. What do you think is the knock-on effect of the wealth exodus from the UK? Because like I say, people will just fuck off and they'll go to Portugal, they will go to monaco they'll go to dubai yes they'll go to isle of man yeah so so there are lots of tax havens in the world and and i'm totally with you what we need to do is i mean give you an example the stamp gtsdlt what some bright spot for i'll tell you what we'll do we'll increase that you know you've got a sliding scale all the way up to 15 and 12 and 5 whatever it is you know we'll give the first time buyers for small houses a bit of a you know we want to get them on the ladder understand that but then we'll penalize the more expensive houses so people were literally saying i am not spending so you you're buying a you know 40 million quid house in in london five million a quid of that is non-mortgageable tax yeah people just say fuck that yeah why do i really want to live anyway do you know i mean london so what you're doing is and and now they're about taxing um you know high net worth individuals even more and more more what will happen will all the billionaires will leave so and they and it's a knock-on effect they employ thousands of people they employ thousands of people with you know they use multiple suppliers all over the country and what we're doing is literally pushing people away you know there has to be a fair way of doing it where you just don't drive people say do you know what now's the time i'll go and live in monaco or i will go and live in dubai and then they take their businesses and then of course what our economy is shrinking all the time so unless somebody comes up with something to you know to counter that i understand and there are lots of people who say i'm prepared to pay more tax but you know i watched something on youtube the other day where a guy was uh on instagram saying after two million quid you're going to be taxed 70 and he said you know i'll do two million quid i'll start fucking working yeah exactly because i am taking three cents on the dollar 30 cents on the dollar do you know what i mean it's mad it's mad so stop pushing people away um you know i myself are looking at relocating uh not for tax purposes um but i've got a super house to build down there i need to spend more time down there um and if we don't do it now we probably never will do it so you know you've been south front i have been beautiful beautiful yeah why would you not go and live out your days there.

32:42You can be in the sun, you can ski in the morning and you can sunbathe in the afternoon at the right times of the year. You've got Monaco, you've got the other side, Saint-Tropez, Cannes. Sort of a pace of life,

32:53James Burtt: a little bit more lifestyle. In the beautiful villages, we live in a place called Valbon, cobbled streets and everyone lives longer because they're all fucking relaxed. Is that a bit of you? What? Being sat back and relaxed? No, I'm not relaxed. But what I can do is is I can go out there and just, my family love it. My children love it. Jack went to Monaco University. Oh, really? Yeah, he misses it. I sent him out there. He's still in here. He's gone. He's gone. He's gone. He's gone. Talking too much about it. He's like, fuck, yeah. Fuck that dad. Dad's banging on again. But he loves it out there.

33:27He misses it. And I love it. We have a home down there. And I go out there. And, you know, I march up and down the beach on the phone. So we go on the beach for two days. I'm literally, she's like, why the fuck did you bother coming? Yeah. Because I'm literally just walking up and down the phone all the day long. But I'm still walking in the sand and I'm still in the sun. 100%. And I'm still surrounded by the beautiful people and the yachts. Yeah, yeah. And then I come back here and it's fucking freezing cold and I'm digging ditches. You know, but I like both.

34:00James Burtt: Yeah. It's nice to have the choice of both, isn't it? Yeah. One of the things I wanted to ask you about, with the sort of the building of your own brand and you've become, you know, a influencer slash famous celebrity in your space. I wouldn't say that. Famous to a few. In Nottingham. In Nottingham. I get stopped every day in Nottingham. Well, yeah, that makes complete sense. But also I imagine anyone who's looking at them sorts of houses, like I say, your name is going to come up, even if they Google the word super. If you're looking for a house in the East Midlands and not just East Midlands, we've got, I mean, I can't tell you what we've got going on, but I've got like superstars in touch with me now.

34:38saying would you build my house the the last guy i built a house for and he denies this but it's fucking true the last guy i bought a house for he rang me up and said his wife rang me up and said uh i want you to come and um look and build a house for me and i said i can't do i'm too busy i know mate that one what i wanted to hear was like well i'm sorry would you just come and meet us what for just come and meet us met him and he said to me uh you know i said listen i'd want 50 grand sort of just to just to talk to you and he says what's your account number and talk code and i was like what and he said what's your fucking account number so i gave it him and then two minutes later he said that's done have i got your attention

35:18James Burtt: honestly and i was like yeah yeah you have yeah yeah yeah you have so um obviously it was a deposit that got knocked on but but what he did is clever geezer fucking you know reel me in yeah But most people are like, they say, watch the account and be like, fuck. But he got that. And I did it and they were great. And I built the house for them, which will be showcased on Building Britain's Super Home Series 3 coming out in spring next year. Ah, OK. Good house. All right, let's take a little pause there because Guy has touched on something that I want to make sure that we all don't miss. And by the way, whenever I'm doing these pause points, yes, I'm doing it for the sake of the content and for the watching and the listening audience.

35:57James Burtt: But I'm also doing it as a reminder to myself. Don't get so busy building a business that you forget to build a life. I know that sounds like a Google quote, and I guess it is a Google quote, but it's so important here. If you just listen to what he said, he could work from anywhere, be anywhere and do anything. He's probably quite frankly got enough money. If he wanted to, he could stop right now and still have a really nice life. Okay, he's not going to be able to afford, ironically, one of his own homes if he stops right now because of the amount of money that these things cost. But he just loves it.

36:29James Burtt: I don't know if you're getting that at home when you're watching this or listening to this on the podcast, but he just loves it. He is addicted to the thing that he does. And what a lovely position to be in, to love what you do so intensely, to work for great people, to make a big difference. He's brought his family into the business as well. He's doing all this cool stuff. I think that's amazing. What you also can't be misunderstanding, I would say at this point, is the fact that his life isn't necessarily what you want. So would you, for example, want to be in a position where you're in the south of France on a beautiful holiday with your family, but you're working, you're constantly in contact with your clients, you're on the beach.

37:06James Burtt: Yes, you're in this beautiful place and the sun is shining and the sea is lapping at your feet and the sand is underneath you and it's warm and it's beautiful and it's great people and great food, but you're on the phone. You're working. You're not really disconnected. Some people are wired up that way. Some people live to work and some people work to live. And I think it's really important when you listen to content like this and you listen to podcasts like this. Yeah, it can be super inspiring, super motivating to have achieved the level of things that people have achieved and to have the stuff that they've got as a result of it.

37:35James Burtt: But ultimately, do you want to do the work that is going to take to get there? And there's no right or wrong with this. I was listening to a podcast the other day with Dana White and he said exactly the same thing. He doesn't want all killers in his organisation. You need some people who just want to be there nine to five. You need some people who just work for the weekends. You need some people who want to do nine to five and then take their two weeks holiday every year. And that's what they do it for. They work to live. They don't live to work. And that's absolutely fine. So please, when you're listening to this kind of content, don't get it misconstrued that you have to be obsessed at the level that, guys, that you have to never take a break, that you have to always be thinking about work, that it has to be keeping you awake at night.

38:13James Burtt: It has to be the first thing you think about in the morning. Some people are wired up like it. In a recent episode, a previous podcast, if you watched it, Jimbo Sinclair. If you haven't watched it, you can click up there and you can go to that episode now. He talks about it. He is absolutely obsessed. I would say he's addicted to work, but that's just the way that he's wired up. So I guess the lesson here is be mindful of the information that you take and take what you need from it. Take the inspiration, the motivation, if that's what you want, but also be mindful that the way that people have generated the results they've got in their life might not be the way that you want to operate as well.

38:45James Burtt: And success, much like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If walking down the beach in the south of France, but still being connected to your flipping phone and having to deal with clients doesn't sound like your dream scenario, that's fine. But build a brand and a business that enables you to live the life that you ultimately want. Right. That was deep and meaningful, wasn't it? Let's get back to it. One of the challenges that I imagine you have is obviously like I've got some mates who work in ultra high net worth environments. Security and secrecy is normally of a premium. So the fact you've been able to build a brand building these mega houses for people that usually wouldn't let you show it how difficult has that been though because i heard you on another podcast saying you'll never see my best house because i'm not allowed to talk about it some of them i'm not so i've got um celebrities just not interested no that's fair enough i i'm too famous already sort of thing in the nicest possible way um there's no benefits there no benefit to me risk isn't it yeah and i look at it differently so what you do is when i when i do the houses we explain what levels of security we put in you put in armor glass you put in sonar sonar you put in master blaster alarms you put in 60 cameras you put in all this security if i'm about to rob you i think you know what i just rob yeah it's fucking easy to run yeah um so you know what people know is the guy phoenix houses now are impenetrable you know we've got high compression gates uh and literally a protected house so unless it was a deliberate target you know what i mean that that is the houses are super and my clients come to me they literally want all the elegance and all the extravagance and they want the waterfalls and the underpull heating and the smells pumping through the air and the rock faces and the light and all that sort of stuff but what they really really want is you know you need to build me a fortress too peace of mind peace of mind yeah yeah is there it costs a lot of money to do that yeah yeah i've got a friend of mine lives in a very wealthy estate in the security i think it's like 10 grand a house just to have a security guard driving the driving the local area i spend 10 grand on toilet seats

40:59we spend millions and millions and millions you know and we go all over the world going to uh you know there are taps now uh you know physical vapor disposition coated metals and they take the air out so there's no bubbles in them and you touch this stuff and i mean steam showers and ultra you know i just put one in my house actually i put a um you know in the morning i have a sun bed four minutes in the sun bed then i go and sit in the steam shower and you know what i didn't realize because i'm a smoker but i sit in there for 10 minutes and it just you just feel properly clean why have i not had a steam shower for 50 years of my fucking life but i breathe it all in the air in and the lighting's subdued and you can't see your hand in front of your face and you just relax just set you up for the day but this is what i'm saying i'm changing fucking people's lives and that sounds really arrogant doesn't it maybe cut that down no what i'm saying when you wake up in a beautiful nine foot wide bed with cotton you know and linen sheets yeah and your blinds automatically open and the temperature's controlled it's all um you know it's climate control and you're walking on plush carpet and you walk into this bone towel beautiful rock face bathroom and you have a shower and you where you you know i used to my towel used to be on the floor in a wet puddle yeah you've got that now it's all folding and it makes you focus more yeah of course so your environment you are who you surround yourself with and that you know translates to your home as well so you come down to a stunning kitchen and you've got your quoker boiling tap and your oozes of granite and you know everything it just makes you it sort of changes

42:47James Burtt: the way you live it changes the person you are as well doesn't it because you're an environment predicates your outcomes. Living a squalor, you know, with three other people who don't wash their fucking pots, you mess your brain up. Yeah. As you've become more famous in your space, has that helped or hindered, or is it sort of an equal thing? I imagine that, yes, it's great for profiling, people are like, oh, that's Guy, but the people who actually pay for you, like I say, are you too famous for them now? Do you reckon it's lost you one? I'm not sure I'm too famous, mate. I get noticed a lot now, certainly in the Midlands, if you like.

43:29Occasionally we go to America or we go to France, and that is watered down vastly because, of course, they're not watching Channel 4, they're not watching our YouTube, and it's growing very quickly. But I said to myself, I've always liked the idea of the fame thing, in fairness, and I get people come up to me and ask for a photo, and I will never say no to anybody ever because I did it with a guy once in the airport and super famous. Fuck it, I'll tell you who it is. I forgot his name. What was his name, Jack? Hugh Grant. Oh, okay. You saw Hugh Grant in the airport, went up to him and said, can I have a picture?

44:08No. He shouted at me and I just thought, why? And Clarkson once, actually. I was a big fan of Clarkson. I was on the beach once with a friend of mine who's dead now with his kids. And his kids wanted a photo. And I went up to him and literally argued with him for three minutes about whether I could have a photo on the beach. And I said to him, you know, the argument three minutes, the fucking photo would have took 20 seconds. Do you understand what I'm saying? So I promised myself, and of course, I'm not at those guys' level, but it is growing through social media and the TV and lots of other things that we've got planned, that anybody comes up to me and wants a photo, So even if I'm eating dinner with my family, I just do it and say hello and have a quick chat.

44:51Because like me, for these guys, it made my day when, you know, a lot of people say yes as well. And do the same for them.

44:58James Burtt: What comes next for you in the building of this brand? Or is it just bigger and bigger and bigger homes for you? Is it like a line of products? Is that what comes next? Is it a way to monetize where you don't have to be on site? Because I know you love it. You need Jack over there. Get him in the fucking pocket. What are we doing, Jack? Come on, Jack. He's not going to tell us. No, he's on his laptop. He's weak. You just want to work in bigger and bigger houses and there's a team that are going to grow the brand bigger and bigger. I've got a family of guys who are dependent on me. You know, I've had some guys work for me since I began, day one.

45:30James Burtt: Really? Still. They've done the three-bed terrace gaffs and now they're doing the super homes. Yeah. Yeah. Great guys. They've come on the journey. And then, you know, I've got rid of a lot of fucking dead wood as well. And, you know, we're a big setup now. So we have new people starting every couple of weeks. And then, you know, I've got lots of projects on. So I take locals on. You know, we're doing a project in Wales. We're doing one in Pattiham. So you can't have everybody travel from Nottingham every day. So you get local and then you meet them. And then some of them even come back to me when I've got a project elsewhere because they're good.

46:09And I just want to carry on doing what I'm doing. I love what I'm doing. I've said it many, many times before that Monday morning is not a chore to me. uh i get excited i go to sleep at night virtually every night thinking about a room or a structure or something in the house um and often i wake up so i come up with such good ideas sometimes fucking that is the most amazing idea you know you can't possibly forget it so go back to sleep

46:35James Burtt: wake up in the morning forgot yeah pen and paper by the bed apparently correct that's what i do now yeah yeah yeah so i used to do that and then i lose a pen or paper but you know my phone's charge your next to your bed put the note in your phone because when you come up with an idea that's literally so good it's unforgettable you'll be surprised in the morning you literally everything's gone so yeah pen and paper by the bed in the phone ideas designs dreaming different designs and it all sort of flows and I know it all sounds very fairytale-ish but it's true and with the the people that have gone on the journey with you yeah what do you think that they would say about you as a person have you changed as a person sometimes on the rear alright we'll go and ask them you know what you should um sorry do you think you've changed over the years now i'm the same mate i'll still pick a brush up uh i don't so often in fairness now because i'm too busy so my time is very valuable even well to get me here actually but i did organize that jack's done that um but yeah i mean i'm exactly the same as i was 25 years ago if it's building a terrace house or building a you know 60 million quid house exactly the same and i think that's part of the attraction to people that um you know i do it it's so unconventional the way we um build and i say to the client you know this is what i'm gonna do and then and then when i walk through a bit like the string on the floor and a bit of pain i sort of say to them this is what i propose to do and some of them say well actually we're really lazy fuckers can we have four dishwashers all right well I've only put space for two but then I change it I didn't realize how lazy you were so we'll stick those extra two dishwashers in for you yeah you know but you you know especially the kitchens women are funny and women like to know the last one we've done we've got like a a huge battleship granite worktop and the middle raises up oh does it oh it's stunning and she's got all her spices and knives and magnets and then the other side has got like brandy and uh well gin for him he sits outside and she sits outside cooking and yeah the bar is 30 feet away i can't bother to walk there press the button up comes a bar right in front of you but they're just little gimmicks that came up with the idea i thought the island's too big you'd split it up do i split the level up uh do i do i have it flat or do i you know put a level in and and then it just evolved so all these ideas evolve a lot of ideas people say can i fuck off i don't want to water slide from my third floor into the basement why not why would you not what's a wasted opportunity why would you not but you know and then a lot of the ideas people just just love it and and it's the whole experience from concepts completion building your house and being involved in it and then of course you should ask some of my clients when they're living in it you know has the brand delivered what guys said it would do in the first place do you live you know has your mind improved are you in a decluttered state and i'll guarantee you all of them would say yes do you go back and visit them of course they're on fringe with most of them yeah dear yeah what's it like when you go two or three years later and you go for dinner or whatever and you walk in and they've i don't give it that long you've got a full five or fifty which is five minutes or 50 yards down the road guarantee five and fifty no no i'm friends with uh the last one i finished uh i'll probably be going over this afternoon actually um but i still see these still see these guys and they want to make um an amendment and of course there's always a bit of snagging no matter how much money you pump into a house yeah of course things crack and a door squeaks or a tap you know what i mean and we just keep in touch and um deliver the sort of the dream the model i'm really interested in then we'll start working towards wrapping up the model that you've got so did you start out because it sounds like to sort of like escalate your way through the sort of the journey it was little three bedroom gaff for 30 or grand then there's one for about 50 60 grand and then there was one for 130 i listened to a different podcast you kind of like you know more than me almost like doubled up for me to mark here yeah yeah i've got some questions about this apparently this was an expense this table um but do you uh sounds like waving at me but when you're doing that are you so you buying the house and like flipping it like a developer and you still have that model now or do you have a hybrid where you'll buy some stuff and develop it out and some stuff is like project stuff depends in the old days uh i would buy a house and want to flip it immediately right if you didn't flip it immediately you could rent it out it depends where you borrowed the money from yeah remember i borrowed massive amounts of money well do you normally like bridge stuff no bridge is very very expensive it is expensive I've used Together Finance Golden Tree so they're Fred Doe and Henry Moe so those sort of guys very expensive money so like private banking private banking yeah yeah gotcha my credit was shit as a kid I fucked it all up you know and I'll be the first to admit that that if I hadn't done that and knackered my credit up so you get a credit card 1200 quid limit I'd go out and fucking do 1200 quid what a night though great night great night new shoes great top and then and then pay it back but that cost me millions and millions in later years yeah of course but now i've repaired that so now i go to big conventional banks um because i'm known they want to be on board with me they'll lend me at even preferential rates um and what i make sure is you know i haven't missed a payment for for 20 years um with anybody and that is that you build a you build a history with them I've got companies now that I can ring up and say, I want to do this.

52:20And rather than going through all the fucking red tape, they just say to me, yeah, we do it. We've done six other projects with you and we know you deliver. What was your original question? Because I've sort of diversified a bit.

52:32James Burtt: No, no. So it's about the models. So whether you'd bought them. Sorry, that's it. So I built houses where I wanted to sell very quickly. So if you sell them quickly, then you make good money. if you hold on to that house for six months a year even longer then very quickly the interest tops up it's cumulative and then you make no money yeah but you know as long as i can eat i was fine with that i built houses where i've lost money and literally worked 18 hours a day um the the first one i did in monaco i did it with a friend of mine um you know we we worked like Trojans and it lost a ton of money at the end of it he took the hit I took the hit but I learnt a lot and then you go so not all of them you make money it's all about the climate where we are in the economy at the time but yes fill the house and finish it I did one once I turned you know literally asking price within hours I put it on the market right and now I was like yes chat park but there's only up in one yeah yeah and but now i'm building for clients i still build my own homes but what i don't do is get myself deep in where that you know if you're paying and i'm talking about uh six figures a month in interest you don't need long to uh to negate the profit bad weather snap over the winter too hot in the summer you can get it no i mean i'm bad when it's finished so when you finish the house you've got a load of money borrowed um and you don't sell it i mean the one in monaco literally a month after we finished it um the the russians invaded uk and of course monaco is reliant upon high net was it brussian russian money and that all they all got basically not kicked out but you know bad taste yeah and just the same as london these guys were spending you you know, huge sums of money on, you know, high-end property in your Mayfairs, Belgravia's, Knightsbridge, all that sort of stuff.

54:41And that just all stopped overnight.

54:43James Burtt: It was overnight as well, yeah. Over fucking night. So I got to manage it. And that's where Jack sort of gets involved a bit, where I'm a bit reckless. Fuck it, let's do it. Oh, yeah. He'll come in and say, okay, yeah, I understand you want to do that. Yes, I am. How about thinking this? But anyway, these kids around me are all very educated, you know it was only yesterday we took uh my middle son to um uh university cambridge so he's smart as well and then jack went to monaco university and then fletched university and and hopefully these guys all come on board and sort of you know refine my business so i've been the the you know the creator and you know started the brand and now what they're going to do is take it to a proper global house building brand.

55:33James Burtt: Wow, there we go. What's the... Did I talk too much by the way? No, no, no. Tell me to shut up if I talked too long. This is literally what we're here for. This is what people are tuning in for. Final couple of questions. What's the one thing that you're world class at? What separates you from every other sort of... Lighting. No, not in terms of the house. I mean, you as a person. Don't try and swerve it. Come on. How do you mean that? what kind of a fucking question is that was a deep question i wasn't expecting the light is exceptional by the way i just went to the toilet don't just point it out that's the switch is broken no that's white light that should be warm white light do not fucking show this house say about light then i thought you were talking about houses so my lighting is a different level uh the way where we light them up um you know i put in you know the last house there's 585 different circuits where in one house where in a normal house you would get maybe 23 24 so you know we put in multiple times more so what am i better of as a person in world class what are you world class what separates you as a person i'm not then how have you got such great results by hard work resilience um and enjoying what i do do you think it's your personality as Well, because I don't mean there's many people that are, that last YouTube video where you could, we're walking these people around.

56:55James Burtt: They're effectively the customer. Yeah. The guy, he brings you a coffee. Yeah, yeah. Love him. Great. Christian. Love Christian. Always brings you a little gift. He always brings, she bought Charmany. She bought fucking chocolates. They have like a box of chocolates for everyone on site. How clever of that is it? So bring people chocolates. It costs nothing. Give them chocolates. And you instantly make friends with the builders. People you like tend to work harder, more polite, and everything else. So they're not daft. so do you think that's part of your superpower is the superpower i'm like a superhero maybe i get a cape with a with a gp on the phone i would imagine that you've already got a cape somewhere in this house i reckon there must be a cape is there not a case only friday night when the lighting goes super low the lighting goes super low the lighting see back to the lighting um i i run my business very differently uh i get on with most people i class myself as being very fair i i get um frustrated and upset very quickly i've got a super short temper but i've got guys here that worked for me for 25 years i've never had a single round with and i've got guys that i've spent fucking 10 minutes with and had two rounds with so yeah so so i i am good with people if you're fair with me i'll be fair with you like i said they all you know their families depend on me and i understand that if you take the fucking piss then you're gone um and you know i don't possess any superpowers apart from lighting um but i'm just straight with people and i enjoy what i do and i enjoy working with with my men and delivering homes and just seeing people's faces when it's finished what's the uh what's the final question what's the final question here we go What's the Nexus coming up for you that you're most excited about, whether it be for the brand or for you personally, or for a project that you're working on?

58:42A super house that we are dealing with. We're at the planning stage, and it will be the most expensive, most extravagant house in possibly... I've been looking for this destination, this location for years, and I actually put a deposit down on another house, very close, with a fantastic view. I got a phone call on the way to the airport. And the guy said to me, never spoke to him before, got a project for sale. I'm like, no, no, no, not interested. You need to come and have a look at this. It's not even on the market. Oh, fuck's sake.

59:17James Burtt: What time is it? Go on then. I had to lose the deposit on the first house because this one was too that good. Really? I'm even whispering because it's that fucking good. It's literally, I just stood there and went, oh my God, what I can see. and the way the trees were and the view through. I won't tell too much of it, but, you know, I don't want to give too much away. And then we've had the plans out and we've looked what we can build and subterranean and it's going to be, when I'm in world class, possibly one of the finest homes in the world. Is this one for you to live in? No. No! I haven't got that sort of fucking money.

59:58James Burtt: I'll live in the caravan next door. No, no, no. this will be for uh you know a billionaire it will have to be a billionaire uh or you'll be well you certainly have to be very rich whatever you do so you'll be the best at whatever you do whether that be an actor or racing driver or business owner you know whatever but no we're at the stage now where the homes i'm building are hundreds of millions um not millions does that ever scare you no it's exciting me just thinking that goes wrong i will be back in that caravan with a single life switch you wouldn't really care though would you know if i'd start again fuck it if i'd start again it would be fun uh i learned a lot and i'm sure i could get back up there quicker but you know there's a saying if you talk you know for monaco for instance there's a lot of wealth people live in monaco if you were to get all those people living monaco into the street and strip them fucking naked and take all their money off them you know in a few years they'd be back yeah of course because it's all about because then they've done it yeah yeah it's a mindset you can give other people money they'd piss it all up the fucking wall go partying and buying flashcards and you know and yeah i know people who won the lottery multiple people i've had six seven people on the lottery come to me and they've spent all their money and five years later they're back to where they were and then other people who haven't been so lucky have worked and built it up and they're the people that generally knock on my door i've loved this conversation i suspected i would but i've enjoyed it even more than i hope so thank you for your time cheers i hope i hope we turn the mic on otherwise we've got to do it all again i know round two cheers mate thank you so much for watching this episode of building the brand i genuinely hope that you absolutely love this episode if you want to click here there's another great video that you can watch or this one here or i've picked it just for you it's an Absolute banger.

1:01:49James Burtt: Click that one right now. Go on, and I'll see you on the next one.