Florence Bountsman | You Only Need 1 Person and 1 Deal to Change Your Life
Florence Bountsman is a real estate expert and investor and also a renowned business strategist. Originally from France, she met her husband at a very young age when they both played chess at an international level (European and World Chess Championship). Florence is passionate about chess and their common interest was a great foundation for their relationship. She moved to Germany without being able to speak the language and she dedicated herself to the challenge.
Tell us about some of your amazing achievements?
My husband and I have built six successful companies and own 19 real estate units in an exclusive part of Germany. We are constantly looking for opportunities to invest in so we can increase our capital. We are also investors in Cryptocurrency and one of our highly successful financial achievements is investing in a bank terminal in Dubai. We pride ourselves in a business network we started called Intelligent Millionaires Network Stuttgart, IMN Stuttgart. It is an exclusive network for entrepreneurs and individuals who want to be more successful in life. We are really passionate about creating new projects relative to real estate. One of our current projects is building cities and more information about this will be available in the near future. It is a huge project and we are really excited about it.
I would not have been able to achieve any of these successes without the support of my loving husband with whom I have 3 amazing kids.
What are your core business principles and values you adhere to?
I think that, in a world where most people don’t pay attention to values, to have strong values is extremely important. One of the values I share and reflect on my children is to be fair, honest and always ask what you want in life. Only by practicing these values, you can help other people to become more successful and this is exactly what my husband and I do when helping our clients. I feel that we should have fun in business and if you aren’t enjoying the process, don’t do it. Another value I really feel strong about is to put my clients first. If my client is happy, I am also happy. Everything that we do, we do with integrity and only in the lines of our values.
What is your weakness and how do you compensate for this in business?
It is really important to become aware of your weaknesses. I became aware of my weaknesses with the help of my three amazing coaches, JT Foxx, Silvija Popovic and Julia Bock. With the help of my coaches I realized I needed to pay more attention to branding and marketing and that is why I am extremely excited about being featured in Woman Entrepreneur Magazine.
What is more important to you, motivation or execution? Why?
Execution is really important. There are people who are motivated, but they will never take action. One of my life principles is “learning by doing”. We can all read books and be motived for years and still not take action. My husband and I started in real estate without any knowledge of the industry. After we became aware of how important investing in both personal and business development is, we moved on to the next level. I consider motivation and execution equally important in collaboration, but taking action is the important first step.
What inspires and motivates you? What makes you get up every morning, get the work done and do it all again the next day?
What motivates me is the feeling that I am helping my family, especially my children, to have a better quality of life. Above that, I am really excited to wake up every day knowing that there are families also searching for a better quality of life and also want to put their kids in best schools. I truly believe that they deserve that. I love meeting new people, new possibilities and creating new businesses. This provides me with daily challenges and opportunities. I am always looking for ways to improve myself and love learning new things. I am very excited about a major challenge coming up in November where I will be speaking on stage with celebrities in front of 2500 people!
What has been your biggest fail to date and how did you overcome that and what did you learn from that?
One of my biggest failures is not being aware of how important it is to delegate. In the past, I gave some tasks to companies that did not deliver up to the standard I expected. This caused me to not assign any further projects to other companies. But once I realized that I could have grown so much more in a shorter period only by delegating my less favorable tasks, I would have been even more successful than I am today. Now that I am aware of this, I accept assistance from other people, I have valuable employees and trusted business partners and things are really working out well for me. I consider my biggest failure the fact that I tried to do everything myself. We all need assistance from other people and this is a priceless lesson I learned in life.
From your experience, what is the best way on how you can market your business or yourself?
There are different aspects a person needs to become aware of in order to have a successful business. I found what helped me most is the power of branding, marketing and connecting with other highly successful people. One of the main things that really helped me in my business was connecting with people more successful than myself. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Mel Gibson, John Travolta, George Ross and Steve Wozniak, to name but a few, through my coach, JT Foxx. This helped me a lot to boost my business on an international level.
What is the secret to your success?
You need to push yourself, even when you want to give up, and not to resign or tell yourself I can’t. Everything is possible, even when things are not going easily. You need to fight in order to achieve what you want. If you give up you will not have the life you want. Don’t give up, always push and persevere!
What quote do you live by and why?
There are so many amazing motivational quotes that I love, but for this opportunity I took two: The first one is: “Don’t think too much, just take action.” Procrastination is one of the biggest enemies of success. The second one is: “If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.” If you are afraid to ask something from somebody, you will get nothing. If you go and ask, the chances to obtain what you want are higher.
What advice can you give fellow entrepreneurs on the same journey wanting to achieve the same success as you?
My advice to all the female entrepreneurs who are reading this: you have to believe in yourself and really become aware of not being afraid of making mistakes. There are no limits in life, you have to think big.
How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors, what makes you unique?
What I have found in the years of investing in the German market, especially in Stuttgart, is when everybody says it is impossible to find good deals. I can tell you that all the deals my husband and I found so far, are very profitable and people were amazed how we found them. To clarify this statement: they said it was impossible to find deals like we did in the German market.
What also makes me different is that every project I have started so far is profitable and we are constantly growing and expanding. A lot of people with successful companies are expanding by having balance in their family life. I can say with honesty that we are a happy family and that parenting three kids with my husband and finding “impossible” deals, are possible for us. That is why we are also attracting investors with whom we are now building cities around Stuttgart.
GET IN TOUCH WITH FLORENCE BOUNTSMAN:
EMAIL fbountsman@bountsman.com
FACEBOOK florence.bountsman | IMNStuttgart
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