Episode 16 · 13 December 2022 · 1:03:12
Who is Al Elliott?: Award-Winning Business Owner To Bankruptcy And Back - Our Co-Host’s Story
Who is Al Elliott?: Award-Winning Business Owner To Bankruptcy And Back - Our Co-Host’s Story
0:000:00
Tip: click any timestamp below to jump there and keep playing.
Enjoying the show? Subscribe for free
Chapters & timestamps
Click any timestamp to jump the player to that moment.
The DNA of an entrepreneur: young Al and the need to be popular
What intelligence really means
The first business: from pub manager to Gimme Some Beer
The licensing scandal that changed everything
Borrowing, the bank, and the spiral to bankruptcy
The darkest moments — including the repossession call
Where the drive to go again came from
Building business #2 during a recession
Show notes
Who Is Al Elliott? Award-Winning Business Owner to Bankruptcy and Back — Our Co-Host's Story
In 2005, Al Elliott was named in the Top 42 Entrepreneurs Under 42 in the UK. By 2007, he was bankrupt for £103,000. By 2008, he'd built an ethically-driven multimillion-pound property business — a portfolio he still holds today.
This is the untold story of your co-host. After a few episodes of Truth, Lies & Work, Al and Leanne realised they'd never properly introduced themselves. In the first of a two-part series, Leanne turns the microphone on Al to dive deep into the life and career of the Co-Founder of Oblong, Gladstone Property Group, and this very podcast.
From getting sacked from a pub management job over money he never took, to building Gimme Some Beer into a 30-staff, £20,000-a-week operation, to a front-page licensing scandal, bankruptcy, and a remarkable comeback during the 2008 financial crisis — this is a raw, honest conversation about what it actually takes to build, lose, and rebuild a business.
The Story in Three Acts
Act One: The Rise. Al didn't fit the mould at school — not the "clever" one next to his professor brother, and never particularly popular. But he was practical, driven, and competitive with time itself. After getting sacked from pub management (for money going missing that he had nothing to do with), he spotted a gap: a drinks delivery service born from a night in with friends. Gimme Some Beer scaled fast — 30 staff, £20,000 a week in turnover, and a spot on the UK's Top 42 Entrepreneurs Under 42 list. It felt like the world was his.
Act Two: The Fall. Then the licensing laws changed, the police got involved, and the model collapsed. The bank kept lending — because it was an exciting business — until suddenly it wasn't. Everything was personally guaranteed. In 2007, Al went bankrupt for £103,000. The darkest moment? A neighbour ringing from Bradford to say the house had been repossessed. The shame, he says, was the worst part.
Act Three: The Comeback. Rather than retreat, Al built again — this time in property, during the worst financial crisis in living memory. The idea was simple and ethical: help people facing repossession by buying their homes and renting them back on fair terms. The growth was phenomenal — until it stopped as quickly as it started. But the portfolio still stands today. And out of the rubble came the marketing and copywriting skills that eventually led to Oblong, and to this podcast.
Top 3 Takeaways
"Be rich, not right." Al's mantra — and the lesson of his bankruptcy. He was so determined to prove he was right about the walk-in fridge idea that he ignored the licensing law that made it impossible. Being right cost him everything. Letting go of being right is often the fastest path to actually winning.
Rebuild on values, not ego. When Al built business #2, he built it on doing right by people — homeowners facing repossession got fair treatment, not exploitation. That ethical foundation wasn't just nice; it was the competitive advantage that made the business work.
Success is not a destination — and it's not about the money. Al measures success against nothing external. It's about doing what you say you'll do, helping people, and building a network that outlasts any single venture. And if he could talk to 15-year-old Al? He'd leave him alone. Every mistake was necessary.
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Bit of a weird interview because obviously you know so much about me. There's stuff I've told you, said here, that I don't think I've ever told you.
Leanne ElliottHello, and welcome back to the Truth, Lies and Workplace Culture podcast, where we help business leaders, business owners, and everybody else who's interested untangle the somewhat complex world of people and culture. My name is Leanne, I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottAnd my name is Al, and I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd welcome back.
Al ElliottHello.
Leanne ElliottSo, today is a little bit different. We, um, we've been around for a little bit, a little bit of a few episodes now, We've been on the HubSpot Podcast Network for about 6 weeks, and we've realized that we haven't really taken the time to introduce ourselves. So, we thought we would do that this week in a 2-part episode series that will both come out this week. And today, we are learning all about my wonderful co-host, Al Elliott, and his—
Al ElliottHi.
Leanne ElliottVery interesting and rollercoaster experience as a business owner and entrepreneur. Al, welcome to the podcast.
Al ElliottWell, thank you so much for having me. It's a delight to be here. I've been dreaming of this moment for a long time, Leanne. It's just you've never asked me.
Leanne ElliottWell, we're very busy. So I think we should just dive straight in.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottAnd get to know, get to know Al Elliott. So to steal a question, and if you're a regular podcast listener, you'll know exactly where this question is from. What do I need to understand about young Al to better understand the man that sits in front of us today?
Al ElliottOh, that's a good question. Well, I'm stealing that for the next time I do the interviews. Um, I think I noticed that a lot of the decisions I made tend to be around, um, sort of trying to be popular or trying to be cool. Because as a kid, I was never popular. I was never cool. Um, I was the biggest nerd ever up until about the age of sort of like 19, 20. Still, I'm a huge nerd, but I was like an uber nerd. Um, and so, but so I was never particularly like in, in the comprehensive school, which is, um, I, I think for Americans that's public school. I think for the UK, it's public is different. So for just like your general bog standard school.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottUm, and I say it because I went to one. Um, so with that, I was never particularly popular because I was never good at sports. Um, I wasn't like— I looked weird in my teens. I still look weird now. Um, I wish I could have grown a beard in my teens. Um, and also, um, so I was never really popular there. And then when I went to a grammar school for my A-levels, what my parents wanted me to do because my little brother went to grammar school all the way through, then I came from the comprehensive and I wasn't particularly intelligent. And so I only scraped by to get in there. So I wasn't particularly popular there either.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottUm, so when I left university, I think I went into pub management. So I had a few pub, um, pub jobs, uh, that's bars. So I had a few, few jobs in bars and then, and then went into like a bar management and then went into the actual— got a job as a pub manager. And I think probably that's a lot of that is to do with the fact that I wanted to be the person who sort of everyone— to put the party together, I suppose. So my first pub job was in Manchester in a busy student bar. We used to get sort of 2,000 or 3,000 people a night in there. And my job was to make sure that everything was running right. And everything. And so I suppose that was the beginning of it. And I really enjoyed the fact that people, you know, thought I was important, uh, that people thought that, you know, that essentially I looked down and go, if, if I hadn't done all the bits and pieces today to make this night happen, then they wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't be happening. So that's, I suppose, with my, my working career. When I left that and I started building businesses, I think it's a similar kind of thing. My very first business was a, a beer delivery company, um, And I had maybe sort of 20 or 30 staff in there, and it was a similar sort of thing. I felt like, you know, I was paying— or I was paying people to be around me, but I felt that it was— I was creating an environment where people wanted to be and probably wanted to be where I could be part of. Does that make sense?
Leanne ElliottIt does. And, and before we kind of dive into that period of your life, you, you said there that you were, you were not good looking, you're not particularly intelligent, you weren't popular. Where does this kind of self-deprecation come from?
Al ElliottI honestly don't think it is. I think it's just practical. Um, I— my brother is a professor, very, very clever. And so obviously, naturally, with being 2 boys in the family, you kind of— you are pitted against one another to a certain extent, or compared, I suppose, is more likely. And then I remember some of my earliest memories where, where, um, there was a, a girl called Eleanor who was in my class, um, and my mum kept going, right, what's— what did Eleanor get in this test? And what did you get in this test? It's like, well, why didn't you get what Eleanor got? And, um, so there was a lot of this sort of, um, competition to be intelligent, um, which I wasn't able to— to— well, I wasn't able to— to win as much as my brother did. Um, now I think I've got intelligence in other— certainly other things. Academically, no. But in terms of other stuff, definitely. I feel like I'm very good at picking up, seeing patterns, or seeing ideas, which is, again, takes me on to entrepreneurship. So I, I don't think it's self-deprecating. I honestly think now in my 40s, I look back and I'm like, yeah, this is just practical. That's just how it was. Perhaps at the time I felt terrible, but now I don't. I'm just like, okay, that was just the fact.
Leanne ElliottWhat does intelligence mean to you?
Al ElliottI'm not sure necessarily that you can define intelligence using just one sort of criteria, because intelligence in warfare, for example, is very different to intelligence in a university, which is very different to intelligence in if you're leading a massive team, which is very different to intelligence if you're starting a new business, you know. So I don't think you can say someone isn't— you can say I've got a universal, universal measure of intelligence, even though I'm sure psychologists do, and I'm pretty sure that's IQ. But, but I would say, I would, I would argue that intelligence is probably within your domain. Do you have intelligence? Do you know things that other people don't? Um, so if we, if we talk about intelligence in terms of like Secret Service and spy stuff and all that. The intel they talk about in James Bond, well, that's the intelligence about a particular domain, isn't it? About a particular— about particular people. So I think maybe intelligence is often very domain-specific, and someone who would appear very intelligent as a university professor, for example— I'm trying to take the most extreme example— would, would appear really stupid to someone who managed a team of 10,000 people, or who started a business, or Elon Musk, for example, 2 very different intelligences, I think.
Leanne ElliottYou mentioned that you were often compared to your brother, and it wasn't kind of a game you could win. Do you think that played a role in, in you going into business, being an entrepreneur?
Al ElliottYeah, maybe. I honestly hadn't really thought about it like that before. Yeah, in my family, that wasn't a game I could, I could win. Whereas in my family, there was no one really who was an entrepreneur. So even if I was a shit one, I'd still be the best entrepreneur in the family. So yeah, I never really thought about it like that. But yes, potentially. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottAre you competitive?
Al ElliottI don't think I am particularly competitive. We have a monthly quiz with, with my family and with your family, and I am always last in it. Like, they get an average of like 8 points and I get 3. So, and that doesn't bother me at all. What does get me excited is when I see an opportunity in something, and I think not many people have, have seen this opportunity, and even fewer people are actually acting on it. So that's where I would become competitive, but not because I have to win like Type A personality, just more because the excitement of being able to bring something to life that hasn't existed before.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al Elliottis incredible. So I suppose I'm competing against time rather than people, in that I like to be— I like to create things that either haven't existed before or have existed but aren't great. And so that's why I got into coding as well, because it's maybe about sort of— I started programming when I was a kid in BASIC. But if I started in PHP about 15 years ago, and I was rubbish for about 8 years of it, and then I started getting better and better and better. And what really excites me about that is that you can sit down And within a day, you can have produced something that other people can access and use that's never existed before. Or you can see something that exists and you go, that's not very good, I can improve that. And I don't have to go and find a huge tech team to do it because I can create a proof of concept in a couple of days. And that's what I like. So I suppose I see coding very much like Lego or like woodwork where If you want, if you can imagine something existing, like I remember when I was, when I was living with my brother in Bradford, we built a cabin bed, a bunk bed. And so we just sat there and we're like, okay, let's design it, let's, let's go and cut the wood. And, and so within 3 or 4 days, a space that was unusable in a tiny bedroom suddenly became this place with a desk underneath it. And then it sounds like children here, and then a bed above it. And we created that and we created from nothing.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSo I suppose I'm not competitive with other people, but I am competitive with myself in that I want to produce something that I'm proud of before, I suppose, before I get bored of it and move on to something else. So that's probably my time constraint. Probably what I'm competing against is if you were to graph my interest over time, then I'm working so hard to stay in the first third of that quadrant of that graph before it starts to plateau and then dip.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd then it just never gets built.
Leanne ElliottIs that a pattern that, that is quite familiar to you then?
Al Elliott100%.
Leanne ElliottThe—
Al ElliottI think— I'm not sure there's many things that I've finished. I've started lots of things. And what, what is funny is that, is that I, I meet a lot of people who, who say they've got great ideas and they never do anything about them. And I always think it's ridiculous. You could have a website up by this afternoon. You go into, like, a landing page website this afternoon. You can be running ads by tomorrow. You could have started this. Yet people who look at me when I started something and then haven't finished it probably think exactly the same thing. Like, you're a flipping idiot. Why have you— why have you got this far and got this much momentum and then just given up? So it's definitely something that I'm really bad at. I get excited about opportunities, excited about proof of concept, and then my interest almost falls off a cliff because I'm like, oh, let's go and build something new.
Leanne ElliottSo let's take it back to your, your first business, that first opportunity that, that you saw. What was the buildup to that? What did kind of the 12 months before you started your first business look like?
Al ElliottI think the buildup to starting the first business was probably around excitement and frustration that I'd never really, like, I'd never really fallen into a job that I enjoyed. They all just seemed to be just work for work's sake. Um, and so I just wanted to do something different. And so I, I looked at all kinds of different things, and then this idea of doing beer delivery after hours was what was, was like the most appealing and the most exciting to me. And also because I'd been in the licensed trade already, I knew a little bit about, about licensees and licenses and all that kind of stuff, the licensing law.
Leanne ElliottSo was it just a case that you were kind of bored managing a a bar and wanting to, to do something different in the same industry?
Al ElliottYeah, well, I mean, I got sacked from managing the bar because money was going missing and I couldn't tell them where it had gone. So I, so I ended up getting sacked from that, which obviously was the end of my career in, um, in pub management, because who else is gonna, who else is gonna, gonna, um, uh, gonna employ a bar manager who at 21, well, at 21 had been, had taken bar from the 27th worst in the, in the area to the first in terms of sales. But then 6 months later got sacked for, for, for money going missing, for gross misconduct.
Leanne ElliottSo how did it feel to go from— because that's a huge amount of, of success. And just so we kind of have a timeline, this was in the— what, what year was this?
Al ElliottThis was 1999 to 2000 and what, late 2000s.
Leanne ElliottAnd you took it from number 27 to number 1?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd then you got sacked.
Al ElliottBecause the money was going missing.
Leanne ElliottWhich you had nothing to do with.
Al ElliottNo. And I still to this day don't, don't know where it was going. Whether they— I mean, I know there was a weird thing around the post office in the UK around about the same time where it was over. Postmasters were getting, were getting sacked because the, the tills were saying it should have this much, and it was a computer error. So whether it was something like that or it was just as simple as someone was just taking money, I don't know. But I don't know the answer to that. So I went to do a sales job, a door-to-door sales job, and then I did a phone sales job. Both of which taught me loads, but I hated. And so my main thing was just, I just hate just basically getting up, going to work, coming home, watching TV, going to bed, getting up, going to work, coming home, watching TV, going to bed. It was just this thing, this horrible cycle of just, is this it?
Leanne ElliottSo Gimme Some Beer was your first business. Um, so tell us, tell us about the idea behind Gimme Some Beer.
Al ElliottSo it was born from a, a night where there was a load of us sitting around having a few drinks. We'd been to the offlight— no, been to the pub, come back, and there was, there was some like some— went to someone's house, maybe like some sherry and some Advocaat or something in the, in the, uh, in the cupboard. Ran out of that. It was about 11 o'clock, um, and everyone was like, let's have another beer. Like, we've got no more beer, we've got no nothing else to drink. So we all sort of like disappeared off home, and I was like, wouldn't it be great if I was the man who was able to phone a friend and go, bring us some beers. And so that's where it sort of came from, was that surely this— we can do something. So I looked more into this, and of course licensing law meant that I couldn't sell alcohol, um, or no one could sell alcohol after 10 PM until 10 AM the next morning. However, um, I started looking more into it and realized that, that actually a sale According to British law, is only consummated when the money is taken. And this, this all started when— and this is going to make sense in a second— when I went to a hotel, they took my card, they swiped it, and I said, what have you done that for? So, right, okay, well, what's happened is it's reserved £30 for us. So if you use anything from the minibar, for example, then the money's reserved for us but not taken yet. So at the end of it, we'll just say, okay, yeah, you took 2 Cokes and a Jack Daniel's, therefore that'll be 8 quid, and then they'll take the money and then it's The rest of it was released. And that's what gave me the idea for Gimme Some Beer. I was like, well, we can deliver the alcohol at 3 o'clock in the morning because delivering it is fine. Deliver it at 3 o'clock in the morning, take a swipe of their card, and then put the sale through at 10 AM the next morning, which meant that the sale was consummated during permitted times or permitted hours, which got us round the licensing law. Well, to start off with. So that's how it kind of got born, how it started.
Leanne ElliottAnd it was successful quite quickly, was it? Within a few months you were named in the 42 Under 42, is that right?
Al ElliottIt was actually, yeah. It was— we were kind of— because I was only like, was it 2002? So I would have been 29, I think. Um, and, uh, no, sorry, 25. Um, and it all sort of started quickly. I got a, I got a loan from HSBC Bank for what seemed like a huge amount of money at the time, but it wasn't. I've got a loan from HSBC I rented a little sort of shed. I built a big walk-in fridge in there. And then when I, when I started a business, they're like, great, we'll start the business. And then no, the phone didn't ring at all. And then the second night it rang once and someone wanted a packet of cigarettes, which we were then selling for about the same as they were in the garage. So I made, I made about a pound delivery fee on that. And I realized that something had to happen. So I came along this idea of finding students to go up and down the queues.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al Elliottthe lines on outside nightclubs between the hours of like 9 and 11 and basically sign people up for the after-hours service saying, look, if you give me your name and email address, then when you ring up, we can deliver you beer when you come out the nightclub or the pub or whatever. And that worked phenomenally well. We went from literally, I think, I think my first week I took £5. 6 weeks later we were doing about £6,000 a week. And it just, it just blew up just because of that. And that's where I think I started to get the get the attention of the paper. I was on local radio, um, and then nominated for this rather embarrassing 42 Entrepreneurs Under 42, um, which we're gonna find out in a minute wasn't, wasn't a great nomination.
Leanne ElliottBut how did it feel to get— I mean, you talked before about in your, your younger years not, not being popular, not kind of being the person that's getting the accolades. How did it feel to suddenly be the center of that type of attention?
Al ElliottWell, I mean, obviously it was quite cool. It was cool. And being like, not being British about it, yes, it was amazing. It was amazing to feel I was building something. It was amazing when people, drivers and staff, used to come to my— the, the little shed that I'd rented was like a 3-bedroom sort of converted garage, and one of them was the cold room, one of them was my bedroom, and one of them was the office because I slept there. Um, and it was quite cool to like 10 o'clock at night start As people start to drift in, staff would drift into the, to my office and they'd sit down and start taking phone calls. And then, you know, 3 o'clock in the morning, it'd be like busy and there'd be phones ringing, people shouting, and, you know, someone going and getting the beers and stuff. So it did feel like it was like finally I was the big, I was at the center of something quite cool and people were there because they wanted to, they were with me on this journey.
Leanne ElliottWhat was the, what was the philosophy behind your business in terms of your, your people? What did your culture look like?
Al ElliottI'd written at the time, I'd read a lot of Tom Peters, which I think he's kind of fallen out of fashion now a little bit. But way back in the day of 2002, and my dad was big into, into Tom Peters. And so I was reading loads of stuff about that. And so I was trying to implement as much of that as possible. So for example, one of the things we used to do was we have a job swap. So a driver would take calls for one night and then the, the, the The person who took calls would either go out with the driver, or if they're insured, do their own deliveries. And then we had a job called the Board Monkey, where the idea was every single order that came out went on the board. And, and so that was— that sort of moved around every single, every single night was, was this different person on the board. So my whole idea was to create this environment where people had different experiences, everyone understood everyone else's job, and they just had a really good time at work. And I suppose that probably does come back to The time when I was working, either doing my teaching practice when I was training to be a teacher before I moved into all this, and then when I did my sales job, I'm just thinking, this is just a— this is boring. I don't want— so I never wanted to create a culture or a workplace that was boring, that people went, I don't really don't wanna go there.
Leanne ElliottAt its peak, how, how, what did Gimme Some Beer look like in terms of number of staff, in terms of revenue?
Al ElliottI think we had, at its peak, we had 30 staff. We're doing about £20,000 a week turnover, about £5 profit. Didn't— it wasn't a very profitable thing, but it was, it was really cool. And there was such a great environment there, and people just, you know, like when we finished work— it sounds ridiculous to say finish work at 6 in the morning— we should work at 6 in the morning, and we'd all sit around and have a couple of beers and watch MTV or something. Oh, that's great. Um, because no one wants to go home. They just felt like they'd had a really good time, and they were just— it was exciting, and things were new, and there was problems to solve that they all had the opportunity to solve themselves.
Leanne ElliottBefore we get on to that, you mentioned before that, um, about the licensing laws, and sounds very much like a loophole there. Um, was there any repercussions to that? Was there any follow-up in, in terms of that? Somewhat. I don't know, it seems a bit cheeky to me.
Al ElliottYes, there was definitely repercussions. The local— in the UK, there's like a member of the police who's in charge of licensing to allow you to sell alcohol, because in the UK you need a license to sell alcohol. And so his job was to ensure how the people were fit to hold a license. So I got my first license. Of course, it's just an off-license. It was a normal license. And then when he discovered what I was doing, he pulled me back to court, which almost never happens. Pulled me back to court and he's like, I want, you know, I want to clarify what you're doing. You seem to be contravening the licensing laws. And at that point, that's when I was doing my sale and completion swipey of credit card kind of thing. And so the magistrates, I mean, the magistrates kind of liked when I went there. I went 3 or 4 times. They kind of liked it because I think it was just different to how their normal day would go of dealing with someone who'd stolen a car or fallen out with their wife or something. Yeah. Something. So he basically said, my problem is not that he's— I can understand he's not taking money, but still he's picking his stock outside permitted hours. And I was like— and at the time I was like, what the hell does that mean? So I went away and did some research, and it turns out that yes, it's fine to deliver alcohol, but only if it's been pre-ordered, because in theory you can only go into the stockroom during permitted hours. And of course we weren't People were ringing up at 3 o'clock in the morning saying, can I have 4 cans of Stella? And we walk into the stockroom, grab the 4 cans of Stella, and go and deliver it to them. Now, even though we weren't taking the money, we were still contravening the UK licensing laws because we were actually going and getting the stock outside of permitted hours. So I had an idea and I thought, if we ever get— if the police ever raid us and they want to see, and we've got like a can, 2 bags, 4 cans of Stella, going out to Leanne Elliott in Manchester, then they'd go, how has she ordered this? And at that point, be like, yeah, just a few minutes ago. Show me when she ordered it. Oh, just a few minutes ago. Right. Well, you've broken the law. So I thought, wouldn't it be interesting if we created an order of every permutation of everything that someone could order from us and for every single customer we've got?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSo I spent about 4 weeks writing this computer program that would essentially create an order, every possible combination of orders of products we sold for every possible customer we had. We honestly had about 50 binders, each one with probably about 500 pages in there, and each one in tiny print. So if anyone ever stopped us and said, where's the order? We can go, yeah, we printed it out. Look, let me go and get my file. Look under G for Gopsall. Which is Leanne's maiden name, find it and go, look, Leanne's ordered 4 Cantastella. Now the fact is Leanne had also ordered 8 Cantastella, she'd ordered 12 Cantastella, she'd ordered a bottle of wine, she ordered 2 bottles of wine. So there was maybe 1,000 different orders for Leanne. But the fact is that legally she had ordered it beforehand. So that's how we kind of got around that. That he didn't like that at all. So he took me back to the, uh, to the magistrate's room. I think this is the 4th time we went back there, and, uh, and the magistrate went, look, fair enough, you've given it a good go. We've seen you 4 times. You tried every possible way to get around this. And so, no, we're taking your license away from you. And they took away my liquor license, my off-license.
Leanne ElliottSo what happened then? What was left of Give Me Some Beer if you had no license?
Al ElliottWell, nothing, because suddenly, suddenly, what could we do? People ring up and go, can I have 4 cans of Stella? And you go, well, legally, we're allowed to sell you wholesale, which means you have to buy 24 cans of Stella. of Stella. And they'd be like, well, we don't want 24 kinds of Stella. Can you just bring us 4? I go, no, because we've not got a license. We can't sell less than wholesale. And that was the licensing law back then before it changed, was that you could sell it wholesale anytime you want, no license required, but you couldn't sell it sort of not wholesale in, in points. So we came up with an idea. In Costco, there was a very, very cheap case of something called Lambrini, which is Peri, which is basically pear cider. It's horrible stuff, but they came in packs of 6 1.5-liter bottles, and they were about the time about £6. And so what we, what we discovered, or I discovered, was that if I sold 4 cans of Stella and I also made them buy this case of Lambrini, that was qualified as wholesale prices, and therefore we didn't need a license for it. So it, it was quite difficult to, to convince someone who'd been drinking all night ringing up who wants 4 cans of Stella, they also have to buy this Lambrini. But— and we probably lost 50% of our business, but the other 50% were kind of like, okay, I see what you mean. So essentially this is like a delivery fee. I was like, yeah, basically, yeah. So you get your 4 cans, you get these Lambrini. And I said, and also, I tell you what, we'll bring— next time you order, we'll bring you another set of Lambrini. But if you've got the original one back, we'll take that back and give you the new one so you never have to pay for it. Yeah. You only pay for it once, kind of like, I suppose, a Costco membership fee. Again, really convoluted. Allowed us to get around it for a while, but ultimately wasn't the solution.
Leanne ElliottSo what, what happened? How long was there between kind of this final change in, in how you're operating before you realized that the business was unsustainable?
Al ElliottProbably only a few months. Um, the licensing law was, was starting to change. It was allowing local shops to stay open till 3, 4 in the morning selling alcohol at half the price we were selling at. Um, so I think, I think maybe about 6 months after that, the business closed. Um, we were selling out the back of a car. I remember I, I got mugged. Well, not mugged, but I got an order to this dodgy part of Leeds. I went there, um, and they kicked the crap out of me, took my, took my money, my phone, my car. Um, and at that point I was a bit like, you know what, this just Isn't worth it. So, so unfortunately I stopped and I went and got another job, um, but that still wasn't enough. Um, that still wasn't enough to sort of pay all my debts because I borrowed like £103 grand at this point.
Leanne ElliottWhy'd you borrow that, that amount of money for?
Al ElliottWell, the bank kept giving me more and more money because they were like, this is an exciting business. It was in the dot-com era. So all I did with my— when I wanted more money is I just, I went there and I went, I've got a new business plan. I put dot-com at the end of Gimme Some Beer, which was my company name, gimmesomebeer.com. They were like, oh, we're investing in dot-com companies now. So yes, here's another £50,000, you know, and they increased my overdraft to £40,000 or something. Then I had a van lease, which was like £30,000. So, and credit cards and all this kind of stuff. So if anyone's ever run a business and it's not going well, you'll know what the credit card dance is, where you go and apply for a new credit card, then that gets maxed out, and then you go and convert it to a loan, which Egg used to do all the time, then you'd max out your credit card again, and you just were just getting deeper and deeper and deeper into the shit. Um, which it all sort of came to a head when I realized that, you know, I owed this £103 grand. I was earning about £3 grand a month from my sales job, commission-only sales job, and I don't think I even covered the repayments on everything.
Leanne ElliottSo what happened then?
Al ElliottWell, I went bankrupt. It was the person, because everything was personally guaranteed. So it's the only thing I could do. Well, it wasn't the only thing I could do. I could, I suppose, have gone, but I couldn't really because I got so much stress, so much stress at— with all— I was basically working so hard. My— I was behind on my mortgage that I lived in, the place in Bradford which I bought. I was behind on the mortgage on my investment property in Manchester that I'd bought. And I was also renting somewhere that we were behind on rent there and electricity and all that kind of stuff. And I was just thinking, what's the point in even getting up in the morning, going to work? Because I need, I need like £500 today just to keep my head above water, just to pay the debts, let alone any kind of any food or travel or petrol or anything like that. You know, I remember used to go and raid my, my copper jar to go and put petrol in the, in my And that's the most ridiculous thing is when you, you go in and you put £8.40 worth of petrol in your car because that's all you've got in coins and you're driving so slowly trying to make sure it's gonna last you all day. So the, the most sensible thing was to look at bankruptcy, and which is what I did in 2007.
Leanne ElliottHow did it feel at, at that time to be living in that, that kind of world? Like you say, you were, you know, you're, you're coppering up to, to pay for petrol. Knowing that just a few months previous to that, you had a business that was doing 20 grand a week, 30 staff, a great work environment, a great culture, exciting problems to solve, and, and, you know, the drama of being an entrepreneur. And it does sound like a TV, some kind of like short series of, of kind of Al versus a licensing guy in Leeds. How did it feel being in that, in that darker place and looking back at what what you'd had and what you'd lost?
Al ElliottI mean, it was awful because like you've said, there you'd lost it. And, and at that point I was maybe 28, 27. That'd be, uh, 2007, so I'd be 30. I think I'd be 30. Um, and I was like, what the fuck? I've just ruined the last 3 years of my life. Not only am I starting— not starting at zero at 30, I'm starting at Minus £103 grand. So what the hell am I gonna do with the rest of my life? Um, and it was just quite a frightening situation. I think actually thinking about it, I think I went bankrupt a little before that because, um, I think I was 30 when I started my next business. But yeah, it was just— and it was also a bit of embarrassment that, you know, I said before about the 42 under 42, and I'm like, oh God, you know, what happens if someone finds out that it's, that it's not worked. And it's like, of course no one's, you know, there are 42 people who've been given that award, you know, no one's really going to go follow each one of them and go, how are you getting on? Um, so it was that, but it was just, there was a lot of shame, I think. And obviously my parents were pretty upset about that because, you know, there's that, that stigma attached to being bankrupt. Um, but I kept thinking, you know what, if it's, if you've gone bankrupt, it's shown that you've at least done something. It hasn't worked, but you've done something and you've tried something. And I kept borrowing a lot from the American philosophy of just bankruptcy's not— bankruptcy's not like the final bankruptcy, kind of like the beginning. I was reading a lot of things, people saying that, or books, people saying that they only ever invest in entrepreneurs who've been bankrupt at least once because it's shown that they've gone, gone for the moon. It's not worked. So I was taking a little bit of solace in that, but it wasn't, it wasn't a great time.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not gonna say which. Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge, wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut next time, come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back, because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottWhat was the, the darkest moment during that time?
Al ElliottIn terms of shame, the worst moment was when my neighbor rang me up from Bradford and the house had been repossessed. So I'm guessing they'd put some kind of notice on the door being repossessed. My neighbor, who I'd gone on really well with, And she rung me up and went, what's happened? Your house has been repossessed. What's happened? And I had to pretend it was like a banking error or something, but she knew and I knew. So that wasn't great. Um, and of course there was lots of times which were dark because I didn't really see— I did see a way out of it, um, a few months later. But at the time I was like, I'm gonna have to get another job. And I'm, I'm, as I said, I'm worse than where I was 5 years ago.
Leanne ElliottYou mentioned there that you were kind of looking at the American philosophy and, and starting to, to look at kind of the positives behind bankruptcy. Was that— where did that drive come from to try and shift that mindset? Was that you, or was that somebody else's influence?
Al ElliottI suppose, I suppose it was me, because my parents' influence was very much— I don't blame them at all for this— my parents' influence is very much Okay, right, you gave it a go, it didn't work, let's go and get a job. You know, you can go and get a job in Aldi or Wetherspoons or something like that. Um, so there's, you know, you have a— you have another opportunity to become a teacher, for example. And that was the last thing I wanted to do. So I suppose that it was almost like a negative motivation that I didn't want to go back to a normal working life that made me start to Reframe how I looked at things. I think about the same time I might have done a Tony Robbins thing, you know, when you run across the coals. And I think that might have been a bit like, wow, that was sort of as cheesy as, as it can be. And of course, you know, you have your own opinions about it. But I followed him for quite a bit and like bought his tapes and his CDs and all this kind of stuff. And that did help because it just started to reframe really that what had happened yesterday doesn't necessarily dictate what's gonna happen tomorrow.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd so I think maybe I'm wrong, but I think, I think I got a lot of motive, a sort of self-motivation to do this and not much external motivation at that point, I don't think.
Leanne ElliottWhat was it about a normal life, a normal job, to use your word, normal career, that, that was so off-putting for you, especially after you'd been through so much and the heartbreak of building and losing a business? What was so bad about that more traditional career path?
Al ElliottI honestly don't know. I'm— I've never wanted to be the BMW in the drive of a £400,000 detached house in an estate. That's never really interesting.
Leanne ElliottYou've never kind of wanted those things?
Al ElliottI don't think so. I just felt that was mediocrity. And like, I felt that the, you know, the opposite of, of being on, you know, on your ass like I was after going bankrupt is mediocrity, not riches. It's like people seemed— I just felt that those were the two opposites, whereas it was a totally different direction to go in, to build something. To— I don't know whether it was I wanted the recognition for building something, or I just wanted the excitement of being able to wake up and go, I'm excited about what I'm gonna do today rather than I'm gonna go to the same job and see the same people in the same car and then come home and watch the same TV programmes or eat the same food and go to the same bed.
Leanne ElliottSo clearly you were driven to, to go again, build another business. I mean, tell us that. How do you go from bankruptcy for more than £100,000 to setting up business number 2?
Al ElliottWell, it was funny because if anyone started— if you're listening and you've started your own business, then you know there's usually a business is born from scratching your own itch, from solving a pain that you've got. And the pain I had then was I had 2 houses being repossessed. I was late on my rent. I had all these people chasing me. There was a particular water bill that wasn't included in my bankruptcy by mistake. And so I was a CCJ. And so I realized that I knew I knew probably more about debt, debt management, mortgage areas than the average person. In fact, more than probably like 70 or 80% of the people in the UK because I'd been through it. And I also had this— I had empathy as well. So it was at that point that I started talking to my— the guy who used to manage my business for me in the beer business. He was only a kid at the time. I think he was like 18 or something when he came to work for me. And I started talking to him, and he'd been— he'd gone to university and he was doing his degree. And I just said, you know, do you fancy doing something a bit different? Because I've seen this way in which you can buy houses for less than what they're worth, rent it back to the people, and you can— and you can help people who are being repossessed to stay in their property. And if you do it ethically— most people aren't doing it ethically— If we did it ethically, not only would we make some good money on it, we'd build a property portfolio, but also we'd be helping people in, you know, in the same way. And so I think that's where my next business was born, was purely that I had the knowledge and the experience of going through massive amounts of debt, bankruptcy, repossession. And then Chris, my business partner, who was only 21 at the time, but he was mortgage— he could hold mortgages.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottMortgages so we could kind of bridge that gap of saying, if you are getting repossessed, then let us buy your house, rent it back to you for 99 years. And I know anyone who's a landlord knows that's not right, but we'll talk about that in a second. Rent it back to you forever, um, and save your, save your family home. And so that's kind of like how, where the next business was born.
Leanne ElliottWhat do you mean 99 years isn't right?
Al ElliottWell, technically, um, an AST, an assured short-hold tenancy, which in England and Wales is only allowed, you're only allowed to give 12 months. What we did was we give— we, if we said we buy your house, what we'll do is we'll give you some kind of undertaking that means that we will renew that tenancy every year for up to 99 years, as long as you keep your— as long as you pay your rent, you're never late, you don't contravene the licensing, the tenancy agreement, or whatever, whatever. And that was really just a marketing thing. It was just to say, because everyone else—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottThat was the biggest, the biggest issue with other companies in the sector was that they were— that they'd buy people's houses, they'd rent them for 6 months, and they'd buy them for like 30, 40%, the cheapest they could buy, 30, 40% below what it's worth. They'd buy them for, rent it to the family for 6 months, then serve them what's called a Section 21 notice, an eviction notice, and then sell the house for what it's worth and realize that gain. And that was going on because it was totally unlicensed back then. That was going on a lot. And so I thought, Well, what— that's, that's their big— when we started getting into this, we found that's the biggest objection to anyone doing this. We said, well, how do we get over that? Well, simply, we'll give them a 99-year tenancy. And that's that. So that kind of won us. We were beating, you know, we went to see customers who'd gone to see these massive companies advertising on TV, and these customers are choosing us because purely because of that 99-year tenancy, which was really not— I mean, if they were late with their rent, that entire undertaking went.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSo we were safe, but it just felt like such a— felt like such an advantage in the market at the time.
Leanne ElliottWhere did this confidence come from to launch yourself into a new area of business that you didn't have any former experience in beyond your own personal experience?
Al ElliottThe impetuosity of youth, perhaps. I don't know. I was about 30 at the time. It's about when we met, I think, wasn't it? So maybe I was 29, 30. And I just felt like, why not? Why not? It's not necessarily confidence. I almost felt like it's a necessity. Like, I had to do something about this. And not necessarily from a moral point of view, but just because if I didn't attempt to, to build something based on this idea, then what would I have? I would have this mediocre job. I'd be 30 and a salesperson. And nothing against salespersons.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al Elliottsalespeople at all. I love sales, and some of the most wealthy people I know are salespeople, but I was just selling crap. I was selling advertising space over the phone. So I'd be 30, and then soon enough I'd be 35, then I'd be 40, still doing the same job, same dull things, and just the same dull life. So it's not a confidence I felt. I felt it was a necessity that I had to try this and I had to do this.
Leanne ElliottSo we— what, what were the kind of the steps behind that in terms of actually setting up that business? What were the things that you had to— I mean, how did you get the trust of a 21-year-old to hold multiple mortgages? How did you, how did you even navigate getting mortgages? How does it all work?
Al ElliottWell, without going into the ins and outs, uh, the trust was there because, um, Chris, um, who's still my business partner in that business, um, what, 15 years on, maybe a bit longer, um, he was, um, He'd worked for me in Guinness and Beer, and he'd seen that I literally— I was sleeping there. I was— he was going home at 5 in the morning or 4 in the morning, then coming back in about 11. And in that time, I'd had 2 hours sleep, then I'd gone to the cash and carry, bought more stuff, and then I was doing the accounts and I was typing stuff up and whatever. So he'd seen that I'd worked hard. And in fact, he's the only person who ever made money from that business because I paid him well. In fact, all the staff I paid well. And that's probably what made me bankrupt in the first place. I should have been paying people per delivery like Uber does now, and I was just paying people an hourly rate where they were busy for like 2 hours and then they were quiet for 2 hours and they're busy for 2 hours and they're quiet for 2 hours because I wanted to make sure that they— that it was fair and right for them to come into work. So, so I think Chris had seen that. He'd seen that I, I really genuinely wanted to help people. And also I think that he was a bit bored at university. He'd had this exciting sort of like 18-month gap year where we were building Gimme Some Beer. He came with me to the 42 Under 42. We were like brothers and we got on really well. And he went to university and I think he felt a bit deflated that, oh, oh, I mean, maybe you're asking me, it'll be totally opposite. But I just said to him, look, just come down, hold some mortgages. This is how it's gonna work. All you have to do is hold the mortgages, et cetera, et cetera. And it turns out actually that property is Chris's passion. Like now he's a big developer, he's done all kinds of bits and pieces, which he probably wouldn't have done had we not started that business together. Really, there was, there was no real trust required because Chris trusted me. And then in terms of actually starting it, back then it was Google Ads. So I just went and bought all the Google Ad books I could. I can't remember if Amazon was around then. I can't remember. I might have gone to the bookshop. I read them and then started implementing them and started running ads. And then, and then we ran an ad in the Men's Evening News.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottUm, and I remember distinctly we ran it as an advertorial, so basically editorial that we'd paid for, but I wrote it. So I read all the articles around money in the, in the Manchester Evening News and then tried to rewrite it in the same style so it didn't look like an advert. And it worked so well. So we basically, we went out on the Tuesday and then, then the Wednesday we had like 8, 10, 12 people who'd inquired about it. And so we had these appointments, went to see them, and I think from that we bought 8 houses. Each, each of those houses Probably at the time, it gave us about £20,000 worth of equity. And over time, those 8 houses have probably given us, just from that one advert, which was £1,500, which is the last £1,500 we had. I had to convince Chris to get an overdraft, I think, so, so the, so the cheque would clear. And after that, we were off to the races because we had a proven model.
Leanne ElliottSo this was kind of 2007, 2008 time, the beginning of the global financial crisis, repossession was high, so I guess business was booming. Um, I mean, what was the, what was the growth trajectory of your, your business?
Al ElliottOh well, I think we, we went from literally starting, um, let's just say arbitrarily May, uh, 2006. Um, we started then. I was obviously bankrupt at that point. Um, and we bought our first house in, I think, say September 2006. And then it was 18 months We bought 38, 39 houses, um, in that period. Right, yeah, 30, something like that. 37, 38 houses over 18 months. Um, but at some point we were buying 2 or 3 houses a week. Um, and it just grew and grew and grew. And of course, the more we got good at the process, the more we, we could go to the court with the repossessee, if that's a word, and we knew what to say to make the judge give them a 56-day extension.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSo that we could buy the house. Um, so the growth was phenomenal, but then it just finished as soon as it started. Like, it was finished like the same speed that it started because, like you said, the global financial crisis. People were— you're getting mortgages for nothing. People will give you a mortgage if you just— if you had a pen to sign the documents, then didn't even check your income. And then if anyone's seen, um, The Big Short, then back 2008, Lenders started going to the wall, and then we got— I think was the, the point, the day we knew it had finished was when we were due to complete the next day on a property for this poor couple who'd had a really shit time. I think there'd been a death in the family or something like that. They were about to get repossessed. We were buying it 2 days before the repossession date, and the lender pulled their funds and we just couldn't get another mortgage. So we were like, well, this is it. So we've let these people down and We know that we can't buy any more houses for a while because we can't get any more mortgages.
Leanne ElliottIt's interesting that you tell that story and say that you, you let these people down rather than reflect on your disappointment of not being able to buy your 39th property.
Al ElliottYeah, I think that's definitely a theme, is that with everything we do, like with Oblong, we're doing together. Um, my primary— this sounds like a sales, like an advert for Oblong. It's not. But my primary thing is How can you help someone to get what they want? Because there's— I think it's Jim Rohn who says that in order to get what you want, help others get what they want. So I've always sort of like tried to think that way. And now I think naturally I do, of just like taking responsibility for the soul, for this, for a problem, for a solution to a problem. And then even if that solution doesn't involve you earning any money, still ensuring that the person can, has a solution to that problem. Like, for example, when we were buying the houses, we probably had about 1,000 applications for, for help. I would guess about half of those, we told them, we gave them some free advice. All you have to do is this, this, this. It won't cost you any money. We won't make any money from it, but that's what you need to do and you'll solve your problem. So there was probably half of the people we spoke to we never made any money from. But I took a personal, such a— I used to stay up to like 3 o'clock in the morning answering these emails, helping people out, sending them links to resources and telling them the strategies they should be doing because I just felt like I was helping someone. And it was just great because you made a difference to that person's life. Huge difference.
Leanne ElliottWhere do those values come from?
Al ElliottSo I suppose a lot of it's come from my parents that you should help people if you can. But also there's— I've always been a little bit fatalistic, whereas you don't know who you're gonna help. You know, you stop at the side of a road with someone who's, um, Someone whose car's broken down, and then you maybe sit with them in the rain, and they sit in your car, and you ring the AA and all that kind of stuff. And then that person turns out to be, um, to be the next prime minister, for example. And even if they never see you again, the fact is that had they— had you not stopped that night, then perhaps someone would have come down and smashed into them and killed them, and then they never would have been the next prime minister, for example. So I kind of think this weird fatalistic sort of idea that Maybe it's not fatalistic, maybe I'm thinking something different, but that you never know what people are going to do and what they're going to do with their lives. So if you can help someone in a, in a small way, then you may never know it, but their son, daughter, or whatever goes on in their life, it could have such an amazing effect on the world. And it's sort of like a reverse butterfly sort of idea, you know, the idea of the butterfly flapping its wings in Japan and then earthquake in Australia.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSort of like the opposite of that. And I think that that's always something that I know you and I, Leanne, we, we look at things and go, how can we help someone? Not how can we get something out of them? And that's made a massive difference, I think.
Leanne ElliottSo you built the, the property portfolio up, um, so a business that is no longer— well, tell us about that business. So as you said, that, um, all the mortgages start to be pulled, lenders were, were changing their policies. Um, what happened with the, the properties? What happened with you and Chris then?
Al ElliottSo we stopped buying stuff in about 2007. Uh, we just held our— held our properties, uh, didn't sell anything for about 5 years, I don't think, and just basically rented out. Um, and we were quite lucky in that the global financial crisis meant that interest rates dropped. So at one point, I think they were 0.25%, and our mortgages were 0.5% below the base. So in theory, they should have been paying But actually there was some mortgages, either they were zero, I can't remember if they were zero a month or they were just rather than £300 when they started off with, they were like £50. So we got, we had some opportunity with that. Um, and then over time I've started to lose a bit of interest in the property side of it. I'm still interested in the investment side of it, but not the property side of it. Whereas Chris's interest has just massively grown. He's doing his own developments. He's absolutely killing it at the moment, um, around Manchester and Salford. Um, and he's asked what he does for a living. He does property. So we are at the point now where I think we are looking to sort of slightly change things around so that I become more of an investor, um, rather than actually a property manager, because management is not my strength. It's definitely more starting things and getting, you know, solving problems. We want different things. I mean, he's, he's got a young family. We haven't. Um, you know, we want to travel. We want to— we, we love moving around Europe and travel. He doesn't. He wants to stay where he is.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSo definitely things have, I think things, things have changed massively in our lives. We're still very grateful that our wealth has come from these properties and will continue to come from the properties. But I like everything, it changes and your, and your perceptions and your, what's important to your life changes. And therefore I think your business needs to change at that point as well.
Leanne ElliottSo how did that change for you? What does, um, how did you kind of go from properties into what you're doing now?
Al ElliottOne thing that I, I got really good at was marketing and copywriting, because that's how I wrote the Google Ads. This was my very first, like, foray into marketing really, was Google Ads. And so I wrote the ads, I wrote the landing page copy. Um, I even—
Leanne ElliottThis is for the properties?
Al ElliottI'm sorry, this is for the properties. Yes. So we're going back to 2005, '06, '07, and that's what I was writing. Then I used to do follow-up, um, letters. There was a guy called Chris Cardell. I don't know if any of you are old enough remember Chris Cardell, but he used to do all these webinars, all these, these actually were teleseminars back then. You'd pick up the phone and ring in onto this teleconference, and he used to teach you marketing stuff, and at the end he'd try and sell you something, of course. But, but I learned loads from him, so I copied him. And so I started to get really good at marketing. And then when we couldn't buy any more properties and I was like, well, what do I do? I didn't want to go and get a job, even though we both applied for jobs. We've just looked at each other like, we're not doing this. And so I went off and started becoming a marketing consultant. In fact, I started a marketing company which then morphed into a web design company. So maybe a year ago after doing all that, so Leanne was doing stuff, you know, business psychologist, self-employed. I was doing marketing, self-employed, and we're just having a drink one night. We're like, why don't we put, you know, why don't we work together and I do the marketing and you do the psychologizing?
Leanne ElliottAs you look back then on, on, on your career, I guess I have a few questions. What do you see as your biggest success?
Al ElliottMarrying you, of course.
Leanne ElliottIn your career?
Al ElliottI think it's probably just helping. I know it sounds really cheesy, this, but the fact that, you know, there was 39 families that were— that we, that we saved from bankruptcy. I say from repossession. Uh, there was another 200 or 300 people who we saved by helping them to remortgage or helping them to Um, to restructure their, their debts so they weren't in so much financial strife. Um, and I just remember getting like sometimes getting emails from people who I'd helped months ago, just going back and saying, thank you so much, I've done— I've did everything you told me to do. Now I can afford things. I'm on this repayment plan. I've spoken to my mortgage company, etc., etc. And those just filled me with joy that we were just— we could help all these people. So I would say probably the biggest success is the property business, but not re— I mean, financially, yes, it's successful for both of us and for Chris and his family. But really, it's the biggest success was that we made such a big difference to so many people's lives who were just desperate and despondent and didn't know where to turn. And that was pretty incredible.
Leanne ElliottWhat is the biggest lesson you've learned over the last 20 years?
Al ElliottOh, maybe it's just as simple as always do what you say you're gonna do. I think that's probably it, because in almost all the, all the concepts, all the situations I can think of, when we haven't, or when I or someone I'm working with hasn't done what they said they were going to do, nothing good has ever happened. A few times, like, we were buying houses and we did some more calculations, realized what it went— got it I went back to this woman and said, I'm so sorry, we can't give you the price we originally— we made a miscalculation. It can only be this price. Oh my God, you'd think that we'd broken in and stolen her cat and set fire to it in the garden because she was so angry with us. And I think that is just like— it's just because if you get the reputation of doing what you say you're going to do, then people are going to trust you. But more importantly, you never have to look at someone across the room and go, oh shit, I said I'd do that thing.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al Elliottfor them. I never did. I can't speak to Bob. Quick, talk to me or we'll have to go somewhere else. You can hold your head up high and walk through life knowing that every single thing you promised, you kept those promises on. Of course I've not. I've mucked that up lots of times, but each time I feel awful about doing it. So I think that's probably the biggest lesson. It's not a very exciting one though.
Leanne ElliottWhat are your, your hopes for your future in business?
Al ElliottIt's funny, you know, I'm 45 now. I don't have the same hopes, dreams that I had when I was 25. Um, I do— we— because you and I have a very— I mean, this is a bit of a weird interview because obviously you know so much about me. Um, but although the stuff I've told you, said here, that I don't think I've ever told you. Um, but our life is very different now. So for me, it's not about building a business, selling it. I'm not interested, and nor have I got the energy. to work like I did when I was 25, to work to build something amazing. So my goals for the business is more of the same. Talk to people, show them a solution, or help— or you show them a solution if it's technical. Show them a solution. And if— and even if that solution isn't our solution, show them the right solution.
Leanne ElliottDo you consider yourself to be successful?
Al ElliottYeah, I think I do now because I don't measure it against anything really. I don't care how much money we've got in the bank as long as there's enough for when I go and get some money out. There's enough money there, you know. I don't, I don't get excited about having X number of thousands or tens of thousands in savings accounts or investments. I don't really care. So yeah, I think I'm successful because I don't care about success. I think that's probably what it is. I no longer care about success the way I used to. And so therefore, I think I'm successful.
Leanne ElliottWhat advice would you give to 15-year-old Al who was in school feeling awkward, not feeling clever in comparison to his siblings, not feeling particularly popular? What advice would you give him?
Al ElliottNothing. I'd leave him the fuck alone. I honestly would. I would not— I would not say, or I would not change anything. I would not say anything because you don't know. Like, it could be that if I went back there, I could tell him that actually, um, nerds are going to be really popular, really, like, you know, they're going to be quite cool at some point. Um, you know, in the mid-2000s, 2010. Um, I could tell him that It doesn't matter because this is going to happen in your life. But anything I would say, if I disturbed the tiniest little bit—I don't want to get all back to the future on you—but if I disturbed the tiniest little bit, then I wouldn't be here today with a podcast or two podcasts that I'm very proud of, a lovely wife who I work really well with, a business where we genuinely get to help people, and we get to sit in you know in in a different country most of the time doing different things. So I wouldn't. not give him any advice. I'd just let him carry on knowing that he's gonna be miserable for a little bit, but then ultimately he's gonna be happy. Join Samaritans. Oh, join Samaritans. Yes, that's a great bit of advice. That's how Leanne and I met. We were both in Samaritans, both volunteers. That made a massive difference. In fact, that's probably the biggest thing that made the difference to business and my life today is the Samaritans, just because not only did I meet my lovely wife. But I learned so much about listening, about just putting your life, your own life into context, you know. Oh, you, you went overdrawn today. Well, here's someone whose mum died and they just can't see a way to carry on, you know. It's just a great way to contextualize what's actually going on in your life. So you're absolutely right, join Samaritans. That's in the UK. Join Samaritans. It is one of the best things you can do for yourself.
Leanne ElliottI mean, on that, what advice would you give to, I guess, any kids out there who might be, you know, don't want to go to university or have decided not to, perhaps have an idea to start their own business? Is there any advice you'd give to them?
Al ElliottYeah, I think first of all, don't chase the dollar. That's never going to make you happy. Secondly, build a network. Just go and meet more and more people. We used to go— we took the guy who started lastminute.com, we took him out for breakfast one morning. We just— I just basically kept sending him emails going, I want to take you breakfast, I want to take you for breakfast, and asked him like, how did you start? Whatever. We learned loads from him. So I would say build your network, listen to other people. And then one of my sort of maxims is be rich, not right. Don't say I've created a brand new X for Y. And then spend 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 months building it, whether it's tech or whether it's a service or whatever. Just go out there and see if your why, the people you're building this for, see if they actually want, want it and where they care about the problem. Validate your idea and don't get rid of your ego because your ego is the thing that's gonna ruin everything for you.
Leanne ElliottWhy would, why would the ego ruin everything for you?
Al ElliottBecause I think that ego stands in your way, and get— and, and there are so many people I know who are obsessed with being right about something, to the point where they will go bankrupt trying to be right. They will be in a job that they hate because they want to be right and never want to be wrong. And I think that this whole idea of making mistakes is so, so important. That by trying to avoid being wrong, you're going to avoid about 90% of all the good things that are gonna happen to you. So don't let your ego stop you from trying new things, even if the odds are that you're gonna be wrong about it.
Leanne ElliottDo you think that you went bankrupt because you were trying to be right?
Al ElliottOh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. 100%. I, I To give you the— to put it in context, I told you I built a walk-in fridge. I rented an apartment— I rented a— not an apartment, an old garage. I had phone lines put in, I had printers, I had all sorts of stuff put into this office before I sold a single thing. Whereas I could have started that business a day after the idea by going— by basically advertising. And when someone said, I want 4 cans of Stella, I go to the shop and buy 4 cans of Stella.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al Elliottsell it, even though actually that wouldn't have worked because of the licensing law, which I was actually getting around. But, but, you know, go and buy like a couple of cases of Stella, a couple of cases of Carlsberg, few bottles of wine. I could have put probably £800 into stock, another £500 into advertising, and I could have validated that idea in about 6 weeks. And I would have known in 6 weeks probably there's not really much money in it, which is why I went bankrupt, because it wasn't very profitable. Whereas instead I went and got this loan, £40 grand. I got an overdraft, I got this And I got a van and I got the other because I felt that's what you needed to start a business. You don't. To start a business, you just need a number of people to say, I will buy what you're selling, and there's a check. And that's it. No business cards. You don't. And if you'll start thinking, oh well, how do I, how do I register as a business in my, in my county? Oh, it's difficult. I've got to do paperwork. My advice, which is not legal advice, is to fuck it. Just Try it. And if you start to get 20 or 30 people who want your stuff, okay, well then you probably need to look into the actual, you know, the, the bureaucracy of getting a business started. But, and you don't have a business just because you've got a business card.
Leanne ElliottI mean, that's a good note to end it on. Al, thank you for your honesty and your candor. And I think my favorite thing about, about Al is, is his humility and just is his willingness and joy of just throwing himself into different things. Um, you might think you know Al now, but there are at least 5 or 6 jobs he's had that you didn't even mention there that all have stories behind them. So fear not, if you meet Al one day, you can still sit down, have a couple of pints, and hear a good story. Al, thank you so, so much.
Al ElliottThank you, love. And it's kind of weird being interviewed by someone you know so well, But you asked some great questions and stuff I'd never really thought about. So I've got— I'm interviewing you next. So I'm gonna have to go and write out some questions. And yeah, it's gonna be a tough one.
Leanne ElliottSo as you said, this week we're bringing you 2 episodes. So another bonus after this one, which will be with me. And Al gets into my psychology, which will be interesting. So yeah, so tune back in on Thursday. If you haven't already, Please do consider subscribing. Um, so all of our episodes will come straight to you without you even having to pick up your phone. Um, and yeah, if people want to get in touch, Al, where will they find us?
Al ElliottJust go to truthlieswork.com, and there's a website there where there's— you can just look in the bottom right and you can get in touch with us there. Or just all the socials, look for Truth, Lies and Work.
Leanne ElliottSee you soon.
Al ElliottSee you soon. Bye-bye.