Ep. 111 – Andres Pira- Homeless to Billionaire: “Make sure you have a source where you get your leads and customers because, from there, everything will be developed.”

Andres Pira Show Notes

16 years ago, Andres was homeless, sleeping on the beaches of Thailand, starving, frustrated an d angry at his situation. When he reached out to the last of his friends he hadn’t already begged for money from, his friend responded by giving him something that would prove to be much more valuable -a book called The Secret.

Though it did not happen overnight, today he runs over 19 companies, employs over 200 people, and is one of the largest real estate developer in Thailand. He has only just begun his journey and continues to apply the lessons he learned in The Secret, only to see more prominent and significant results.

Andres has narrowed down the 18 principles he uses to achieve success, which are now laid out in his book, Homeless to Billionaire.

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Most passionate about

My line of work is real estate. I’ve been in real estate for 16 years and that’s my passion. I love building things, I love selling things, and I love buying things within real estate.
I just recently launched my autobiography about my journey in real estate and the different countries I’ve lived in. So, my passion is to reach out to as many people as possible and hopefully they will be inspired to fulfill their desires and dreams.

Andres’s best advice about customer focus, marketing, and sales

The first thing is to always focus on your marketing, on getting the customers because if you don’t have the customers, you don’t have sales, if you don’t have sales, you don’t have income, if you don’t have income, you don’t have a company.
So, everything starts with marketing. Make sure you have a source where you get your leads and customers because, from there, all the other departments will be developed.

Biggest failure with a customer

What we didn’t do in the start was we didn’t follow up with them in the right way. Customers like to be taken care of; they want us to reach out. The follow up is very important and what we understood is that if you don’t follow up, they will go to other companies. So, we have to keep our clients that already bought from us very close to us.
When I started our customer service department, that’s when we started to see an increase in revenue because the clients were happy. We were reaching out to them, and they were happy we didn’t forget them when we started sending post cards every Christmas or on their birthdays. We learned through trial and error, we acted late, and lost a lot of income because many clients were going elsewhere.

Biggest success due to the right customer approach

Our greatest success is when we managed to make great returns for our clients, great investments, the clients what to buy certain products from us but when we managed to sell them for a better price than they bought, or they got a better return or they managed to upgrade their unit or their house to something better, because we managed to sell their initial investment. That’s great success and creates trust with the clients who will continue buying from you because they know it works and they’ll talk you up.

Andres’s most recommended tool

A big success for us is we started to use VR systems and walkthroughs with our clients. People can sit in China, Australia, or America and feel like they are actually in that room, unit, or house. They can walk around feel like they are already there and with this technology that we have now and we even have them in offices and shopping malls. Our clients can see what they are buying with a VR system and we’ve sold an extensive amount of units just with this technology.

Andres’s key success factor

Customer care and being honest and true to your word and delivering what you promise you will. Also, teamwork and employee motivation and getting people together to work as a team that create far more success than working individually. For me, these very important key factors.
I have golden rules in my company: no negativity or gossip is allowed in any departments, offices, or companies that I have because gossip spreads quickly and can destroy departments.

Andres’s mountain

Since we believe that the best way for entrepreneurs to get a fast and sustainable success is by leading your (new) market category, and the entire entrepreneurial journey reminds me of mountaineering, or conquering the mountain; I want to ask you if there is a mountain you dream of climbing or a mountain you have already climbed.

Mountains are one of my biggest passions! I’m a mountaineer, I climb mountains all over the world, I do treks and hikes through many different continents, I’ve been in active volcanoes;
I just came back from Kilimanjaro, which was one of the best treks I’ve ever done. I get my biggest inspirations and motivations when I’m away from civilizations, when I’m away from phones and faxes and emails, that’s when I have time for myself and think about my next vision and goal and strategy. All of this creativity comes to me when I’m up with nature all by myself.