The Property Doctor

Paull Newsome started out selling Christmas trees at 14, trained as a marine engineer, then walked out of the door at 19 with an empty briefcase to sell double glazing door to door. Today he is co-founder of Proactive Flat Roofing (Vanguard Waterproofing Systems Ltd), a flat roofing business that has held around the £2m mark and is pushing for more.

In this episode of The Business Doctor Broadcast, part of The Property Doctor podcast, Andrew asks Paull where it all began and what each chapter taught him. They cover learning KPIs one door at a time, going from zero to millions in nine months and then going bust with orders still sitting in the warehouse, the BBC report that had him heading for the Channel Tunnel with a million pounds in his boot, taking a business from man and van to £2.6m without negotiating any shares, the Green Homes Grant rollercoaster, and how he is now using AI agents to try to make himself redundant (and designing a flat roof robot on a walk).

Find Paull: vanguardwaterproofing.co.uk and LinkedIn (Paull Newsome).

00:00 Welcome, Paull Newsome
00:24 Unread books and a marketer's dream
02:09 Christmas trees, paper rounds and marine engineering
03:34 Selling double glazing door to door at 19
07:53 Every door is worth money: learning KPIs
09:58 Zero to millions in nine months
10:36 Why they went bust: cash flow
14:24 The BBC, a million pounds and the cleaner
16:35 Black Wednesday and the mortgage
18:17 Choice, consequence
20:36 Plan for the worst, hope for the best
22:14 Elon Musk, plan A and playing to win
23:56 Paull 2.0: insurance, America and kitchens
26:22 Mexico 86 and the Hand of God
27:09 From fascias to flat roofs
28:53 Man and van to £2.6m
30:48 The mistake: no shares
32:40 Bolting on a sales system: Zoho and Google Ads
35:07 Going it alone with Stephen
37:16 "Do contractors turn up on time, Andrew?"
38:37 CEO for Christian Simpson
41:31 Covid and the Green Homes Grant
43:47 The VIP campaign and lobbying a minister
45:57 From two teams to eleven
47:08 "On the Saturday, they pulled the scheme"
48:52 Working with government: read the small print
52:09 Replacing a care home roof unasked
53:47 Finding EC
55:51 Top heavy: act faster
57:15 The exit plan: a holding company
59:15 AI: making himself redundant
1:01:22 A five-minute Zoho fix
1:03:31 Designing a flat roof robot
1:06:15 Finding Paull, and a 25th-floor roof

Thank you for listening, I'm Dr Andrew Threadgold and the host of The Property Doctor Podcast.

You can find me on instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

All other enquiries: [email protected]

Greg Simpson is a former business journalist who came into PR "by the side door" and now runs Press for Attention PR, helping entrepreneurs and business owners get known for what they know. He also happens to be Andrew's own PR man, so consider this a declaration of interest.

In this episode of The Business Doctor Broadcast, part of The Property Doctor podcast, Andrew asks Greg what PR actually is and why it matters to a small business. They cover how Greg ended up running a Richard Branson press conference on the same day he was asked, why he asks new clients whether they are running away from something or towards it, how press coverage is helping businesses get cited by AI, the 100 tins of Spam that upset an aspiring MP, the golden sole at Halo Physio, a listener question from a sole-trader electrician, and what Greg would do if he were advising Michael Carrick.

Find Greg: pressforattention.com (try "Chat with Dr Spin", an AI version of Greg trained on his work), LinkedIn (Greg Simpson) and Instagram (Press for Attention).

Thank you for listening, I'm Dr Andrew Threadgold and the host of The Property Doctor Podcast.

You can find me on instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

All other enquiries: [email protected]

How does a former GP running a security company, a physio clinic, a hotel and a property portfolio actually use AI day to day?

In this episode I walk up the ladder, from the most basic way people use AI to the most complex thing I've done with it, with real examples from my own businesses.

In this episode:
- Ground zero: using AI as glorified Google
- Level 1: "do this" tasks, like writing a full CCTV engineer job pack in minutes
- Level 2: research, including pulling apart six months of bank statements from a business we're looking at buying
- A tip you can use today: getting AI to research your competitors and work out who is growing and why
- Level 3: basic builds, like an interactive 3D anatomy model for my daughter's Pilates course
- Level 4: letting AI drive your computer, from checking job applicants on Indeed to building a live KPI dashboard
- Level 5: rebuilding our systems, replacing several paid subscriptions at Hawthorne with our own platform, complete with AI how-to videos
- Why your customers don't care whether you use AI, and why the human still matters

Want to see the screens? The full video version is on YouTube.

This episode is sponsored by Hawthorne.

The Business Doctor Broadcast is a new series from The Property Doctor podcast. Business, entrepreneurship, interesting people and the business side of topical stories, from a retired GP who now runs businesses across several sectors.

Thank you for listening, I'm Dr Andrew Threadgold and the host of The Property Doctor Podcast.

You can find me on instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

All other enquiries: [email protected]

Will Polston is a business strategist, performance coach and author of North Star Thinking. He grew up believing money equals happiness, was earning more in a month than most people earn in a year by his late teens, and then lost everything twice, at one point carrying over £300,000 of personal debt.

In this episode of The Business Doctor Broadcast, part of The Property Doctor podcast, Andrew Threadgold talks to Will about spotting misalignment between the life you want and the one you are living, whether a coach who has never run a business can help you, why he thinks people really burn out, the five ways he helps people find their North Star, and the lowest point that changed the direction of his life.

Find Will: willpolston.com and on Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Will's book: North Star Thinking: Master Your Mindset and Live a Life You Love.

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NFy6qHos8Is

If anything in this episode affects you, Samaritans are available free, day or night, on 116 123 or at samaritans.org.

Chapters
00:00 Lost everything twice
00:17 Welcome, Will Polston
01:36 Spotting misalignment
02:59 Why he grew up thinking money equals happiness
05:24 From schoolboy trader to City broker
07:56 Tony Robbins and the moment it clicked
09:21 What broking taught him about behaviour
11:50 City culture and what killed the nightclubs
14:07 Can a coach who has never run a business help you?
17:00 Renewables, mushrooms and an AI agency: his businesses
19:50 Trying to build a business on two hours a week
21:54 Why "do it like me" mentoring lets people down
24:34 Clarity, action, accountability
26:32 What a North Star actually is
29:43 How do you wake people up to it?
31:37 Five ways to find your North Star
35:25 Why people really burn out
39:07 Being successful vs looking successful
41:42 Turning a North Star into goals
46:00 £300k in debt and his lowest point
53:14 North Star Thinking, the book
55:33 The one habit he would wave away

Thank you for listening, I'm Dr Andrew Threadgold and the host of The Property Doctor Podcast.

You can find me on instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

All other enquiries: [email protected]

Manchester United have just posted record revenue of £677.6m. They also lost £43m.

So is the club healthy? Can it still buy players? And what does the Glazer debt actually cost?

I'm a season ticket holder, and I get frustrated watching people with no business background explain football club accounts. I own multiple businesses and I know my way around a balance sheet, so I've gone through United's FY26 results properly.

In this episode:
- How the Glazers bought the club, and why the mechanics are the same as an interest-only buy-to-let mortgage
- Where record revenue came from in a season without European football
- EBITDA and player amortisation in plain English
- Why academy players are pure profit on the books
- Where the cash went: players, land for the new stadium and refinancing
- Why selling future transfer instalments early is a warning sign
- Whether the debt really stops United buying players, and what UEFA's squad cost rules mean
- Who pays for a new stadium

The Business Doctor Broadcast is a new series from The Property Doctor podcast. Business, entrepreneurship, interesting people and the business side of topical stories, from a retired GP who now runs businesses across several sectors.

Thank you for listening, I'm Dr Andrew Threadgold and the host of The Property Doctor Podcast.

You can find me on instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

All other enquiries: [email protected]

Former GP and surgeon Andrew Threadgold sits down to tell the full story of how he built a property and business portfolio that let him leave medicine on his own terms.

From a council estate start and medical school in London, to a GMC investigation around 2011 that became the turning point, to years as a touring doctor looking after the crowds (and the odd rock star) at Donington, Madonna's Confessions tour and more, Andrew traces the path that took him out of the NHS and into business.

In this conversation he covers:

- The GMC investigation that made him rethink everything, and why it set him on a different road
- His first property: a flat on Hercules Street, Darlington, bought for £42,000 with a loan from his father-in-law, refurbished himself to learn what a bag of plaster actually costs
- The Redcar deal nobody else would touch, and how he bought it creatively
- Why serviced accommodation is a hospitality business, not a property strategy, and how aiming to be 10% better than the next best built full occupancy
- Buying Halo physiotherapy, and the hard lesson about changing the people in a business you acquire
- The skill-will matrix he uses on every member of staff
- Acquiring a security firm in Norwich and what really matters when you buy a business: EBITDA, contracted revenue and volume
- The rescue deal that brought in around £1.5 million of property for roughly £16,000 in total acquisition costs
- How social media changed his trajectory, and why putting yourself out there for free is a no-brainer
- Building a portfolio now in triple digits, almost entirely through creative strategies rather than buying on the open market

A candid, no-spin look at leaving a secure profession to build something of your own.

Ready when you are 🫡

Thank you for listening, I'm Dr Andrew Threadgold and the host of The Property Doctor Podcast.

You can find me on instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

All other enquiries: [email protected]

In this episode of The Property Doctor Podcast, I sit down with Dr Jo Watkins for a candid conversation about medicine, leadership, risk, and life beyond the consulting room.

Dr Jo shares her journey through the medical profession — the pressures, the pivots, and the personal evolution that comes with building a career in a system that demands resilience. We explore identity, responsibility, entrepreneurship, and what happens when high achievers decide to redefine success on their own terms.

This isn’t a surface-level conversation. We talk about:

• The realities of working as a doctor in today’s NHS
• Burnout, boundaries, and professional responsibility
• Transitioning skills from medicine into business and leadership
• Risk tolerance and decision-making under pressure
• The psychology of high performers
• Building a life that aligns with your values

If you’re a clinician, entrepreneur, property investor, or someone navigating change at a high level, this episode will resonate.

Medicine shapes the way you think. Business tests the way you act. This conversation sits at the intersection of both.

About The Property Doctor Podcast

Hosted by Dr Andrew Threadgold, former NHS GP turned multi-business owner, The Property Doctor Podcast explores property, business, leadership, and the mindset required to build and scale in the real world.

Expect honest conversations, practical insights, and lessons from people who have actually done the work.

Connect with Dr Jo Watkins:
www.jowatkins.com

Connect with Andrew Threadgold:
instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

If you found this episode valuable, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone building something meaningful.

Thank you for listening, I'm Dr Andrew Threadgold and the host of The Property Doctor Podcast.

You can find me on instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

All other enquiries: [email protected]

Where to begin!?
As one of the most legitimate people in the property industry, Mark Shaw has helped hundreds of people do more with their resources than almost anyone else.
Unlike most dream-sellers in the property industry, Mark actually transacts in volume and frequently. His approach to investing is refreshing too, as he is more interested in time than money, and protects his time at all costs.
Using counterintuitive ways of working alongside a sound ethical background, Mark stands out amongst the crowd as someone to listen to and learn from.
Do enjoy!

Thank you for listening, I'm Dr Andrew Threadgold and the host of The Property Doctor Podcast.

You can find me on instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

All other enquiries: [email protected]

How do you build a global brand in an industry that is resistant to change? In this episode, we sit down with Katharine Graves, the founder of KG Hypnobirthing, to discuss the intersection of mindset, movement-building, and business.

Katharine didn't just start a company; she pioneered a method that has empowered thousands of parents and created a "train-the-trainer" model that has spawned hundreds of independent businesses.

In this episode we delve into the difficulties of growing a business through the covid pandemic, pivoting the business model for the post-covid customer.

We also discuss how Katharine has gone viral many times over with her refreshingly simple social media approach.

Not to be missed!

Thank you for listening, I'm Dr Andrew Threadgold and the host of The Property Doctor Podcast.

You can find me on instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

All other enquiries: [email protected]

A recap of what happened in property and business for me in 2025.

What lessons were learned?

What habits will be taken forward in to '26

What are the plans for the podcast (spoiler - its BACK!)

And what are the plans for Andrew?

Like, share and subscribe!

Thank you for listening, I'm Dr Andrew Threadgold and the host of The Property Doctor Podcast.

You can find me on instagram: www.instagram.com/andrew_threadgold

All other enquiries: [email protected]