Episode 304 · 26 May 2026 · 1:14:46
Al Elliott: "I've just ruined the last three years of my life.", Our co-host talks business, bankruptcy and the meaning of success
Al Elliott: "I've just ruined the last three years of my life.", Our co-host talks business, bankruptcy and the meaning of success
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.
Interview begins: young Al, intelligence and family dynamics
First business: from bar manager to Gimme Some Beer
Licensing loophole and the fall of Gimme Some Beer
Bankruptcy and the darkest moment
Building a property portfolio from bankruptcy
Global financial crisis and pivot to copywriting
Advice to younger self and ego
Wrap-up and reflections on the last four years
Show notes
"I've Just Ruined the Last Three Years of My Life" — Al Elliott on Business, Bankruptcy & the Meaning of Success
Episode 304 — Al Elliott celebrates his birthday with a twist: Leanne takes the reins and turns the microphone on her co-host for the episode listeners have been asking for.
From being named a "42 Under 42" breakout entrepreneur to navigating a £103,000 personal bankruptcy, Al opens up about the raw realities of scaling businesses from the ground up — and how hitting rock bottom ultimately shaped his blueprint for ethical, sustainable growth.
In this special retrospective, Al and Leanne dig into the operational turnaround that took a failing Manchester student venue from 27th worst to number one, the regulatory loophole behind his first tech start-up, and why he believes ego — not market conditions — is what really destroys early-stage ventures.
📈 Strategic Takeaways From This Episode
1. Operations & Turnaround: From Bottom Tier to Market Leader
Al details his early career in hospitality management, outlining the strategic operational changes required to take an underperforming Manchester student venue from the 27th worst in the region to the number-one position in total sales volume.
2. Regulatory Arbitrage: Exploiting Systemic Loopholes
Discover the origins of Al's first major tech start-up: an after-hours alcohol delivery service. He explains the technical loophole he engineered around credit card transaction processing windows to legally bypass strict UK licensing frameworks — and the bespoke 50-binder software system required to protect the operation.
3. Risk Management & Insolvency: Navigating a £103K Bankruptcy
When capital markets dried up post-dot-com bubble, Al faced a devastating cash crunch resulting in asset repossession and a £103,000 bankruptcy. He discusses the psychological toll of financial restructuring, the operational dangers of relying on short-term credit, and why shifting toward an American perspective on corporate failure can turn insolvency into a critical founder's credential.
4. Ethical Scalability: Building a 38-Property Portfolio Out of Crisis
How do you launch a real estate venture with maximum capital constraints? Leveraging high market empathy and strategic partnerships, Al built a 38-property portfolio during the dawn of the 2008 global financial crisis. Learn how his start-up outmanoeuvred corporate institutional landlords by designing an innovative, ethical "99-year tenancy" model for families facing foreclosure.
5. Founder Fallacies: Why Ego Destroys Early-Stage Ventures
Al offers critical advice for modern founders and next-generation executives. His primary directive: eliminate overhead-heavy vanity metrics, suppress founder ego, and prioritise rapid market validation over theoretical perfection. He shares the costly mistake of investing £40,000 into premium office infrastructure before securing an initial proof-of-concept, and argues for a biased-toward-action framework.
💬 A Few Favourite Moments
On the difference between intelligence and success:
"I'm not sure necessarily that you can define intelligence using just one sort of criteria."
On his first business being named 42 Under 42:
"Obviously it was quite cool. And being like, not being British about it…"
On the darkest moment of bankruptcy:
"In terms of shame, the worst moment was when my neighbour rang me up from Bradford and the house had been repossessed."
On why he went bankrupt:
"Do you think that you went bankrupt because you were trying to be right? — Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%."
On what he'd tell 15-year-old Al:
"Nothing. I'd leave him the fuck alone. I honestly would. I would not change anything."
On the biggest lesson of 20 years:
"Maybe it's just as simple as always do what you say you're gonna do."
On whether he considers himself successful:
"Yeah, I think I do now because I don't measure it against anything really."
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 ElliottComing up this week in work.
Leanne ElliottMy favourite person in the world has had a big birthday this week, so we're not gonna do This Week in Work at all.
Al ElliottNo, that— is that me?
Leanne ElliottHappy birthday, Al.
Al ElliottThank you, thank you. I've got, got less than 12 months now till I'm 50.
Leanne ElliottYeah, the big 5-0. Oh, that'll be a party.
Al ElliottYes, it will.
Leanne ElliottPeople still talk about your 40th.
Al ElliottIt was, do you know what? It was a really, really, really great day.
Leanne ElliottIt was.
Al ElliottAll our family flew out to Spain. Um, we had a lovely party out there and, um, some of our friends stayed in one of the UB40's, um, houses. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo we're gonna have to go, we're gonna have to go bigger for 50.
Al ElliottYes. Yes. We'll have our new house then. We'll build a few houses. That's what we'll do. We'll just build a couple of houses around in our garden.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Just do that and get everyone over. If you wanna come to Al's 50th birthday party next year, let us know. Drop us a line. We'll add you to the guest list. Yes, exactly.
Al ElliottExactly.
Leanne ElliottBut it did mean that we, we took the bank holiday and it was glorious. Um, I know it's, it's, it's proper hot in the UK right now, isn't it? About the same, same here. So we thought we would do that thing, you know, when companies give like employees their birthday off. I thought I'd do the same and I thought I'd give you a birthday off.
Al ElliottNo.
Leanne ElliottUm, so an easy edit, which I thought as well, because I had loads of people, haven't we, getting in touch recently asking more about you.
Al ElliottYeah. Weirdly, I, like, the whole point of this podcast is that Leanne is an incredible expert. She's a great organizational psychologist. She's chartered and God knows what more letters after her name than in my name. Um, yet people have started saying, well, Al, what are you doing? What are you bringing to the table? I think is what people are saying.
Leanne ElliottI'm not sure it's that. I think they know you're bringing a lot to the table, but they don't know much about your background and your history. We have, we have covered it on the show before, but like ages ago, like first 15 episodes ago.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottWe're now on what, 304?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo I thought it'd be fun to post an interview that we, that I did with Al almost 4 years ago now, talking about his background, which includes being 42 Under 42 Entrepreneurs.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottGoing bankrupt for a fair chunk of change.
Al Elliott£106,000, I think it was.
Leanne ElliottUsing lessons from that to build your most successful business.
Al ElliottThat's true.
Leanne ElliottToday.
Al ElliottThat's true.
Leanne ElliottAnd then how that turned into what we do today.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottIt's a good story. One person listened to it and got in touch. Was it Richard?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd started, yeah, reckoned it could be a movie.
Al ElliottYeah, apparently he's writing a Netflix miniseries. I know, I know. So shall we roll the VT, as they say, after this short break?
Leanne ElliottYeah, let's roll the VT. But I do wanna tell you about what happened to me today in the park.
Al ElliottOkay, go on.
Leanne ElliottI got attacked by a crow. I think so. What's the difference between something that looks like a crow and a proper crow?
Al ElliottCould be a raven.
Leanne ElliottRavens are massive, aren't they?
Al ElliottAre they? It could be a magpie. They're sneaky.
Leanne ElliottThere was no white.
Al ElliottAh, it was just a crow.
Leanne ElliottI don't know.
Al ElliottIt was black.
Leanne ElliottIt was a black bird. Oh no, it had a black beak.
Al ElliottOh, oh, oh, oh, no, it wasn't, was it? Black beak, looked like a crow.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYou know, it's the Bosnian black-beaked crow.
Leanne ElliottIs it?
Al ElliottThey are renowned for how ferociously they fight. It was keen.
Leanne ElliottYeah. It was keen. It went for little Bob, our little Min Pin. He wasn't that little, so it was still an ambitious, ambitious snack. Um, but went for him and then just wouldn't leave us alone. Just kept bouncing towards us. I was like swinging my backpack around at one point to try and distract it. Um, and then Peanut was off the lead, our big dog, who would probably like back us up. Um, I tried to call him back and he wasn't interested. He was like, nope.
Al ElliottNo, there's a bin over here overflowing with chicken bones. I'll get into that.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So, um, so that was a bit of an odd experience. Not gonna lie.
Al ElliottDo you think it was some kind of omen?
Leanne ElliottOr just a coincidence.
Al ElliottNo, it's—
Leanne ElliottJust something that happened.
Al ElliottNo, it's magpies that's unlucky. You have to say, good morning, Mr. Magpie, or something, don't you?
Leanne ElliottYeah, salute them.
Al ElliottAnd salute them. And then 3 for sorrow and 4 for joy. Or is that just kids?
Leanne ElliottYeah, 3 for a girl, 4 for a boy or something.
Al ElliottSomething like that. I don't know. If you know anything about, if you're a bird expert and you know about crows and black-beaked crows, then let us know.
Leanne ElliottYeah, in the Southern Europe area.
Al ElliottYes, yes, we'd be interested. We'd be interested.
Leanne ElliottAnyway, should we go to the break? Yes.
Al ElliottNo.
Leanne ElliottSponsor, Truth, Lies and Work, award-winning podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. We are contractually obliged to say that. So with that done, should we go, should we go hear from HubSpot?
Al ElliottTick, tick. The 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 hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Welcome back, welcome back. Um, straight to the VT, Leanne?
Leanne ElliottYeah, without further ado, here is Al Elliott. Oh, so today is a little bit different. We, um, we've been around for a little bit, a little bit of a few episodes now, and 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. Um, and today we are learning all about my wonderful co-host, Al Elliott. Elliott and his very 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. I think we should just dive straight in and 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. Oh, 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 tended to be around sort of trying to be popular or trying to be cool, because as a kid, I was never popular. I was never cool. I was the biggest nerd ever up until about the age of sort of like 19, 20. Still am a huge nerd, but I was like an uber nerd. And so, but so I was never particularly like in the comprehensive school, which is, I think for Americans, that's public school, I think. For the UK, public is different. So for just like your general bog standard school. Yeah. And I say it because I went to one. So with that, I was never particularly popular because I was never good at sports. I wasn't like— I looked weird in my teens. I still look weird now. I wish I could have grown a beard in my teens. And also, 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. So when I When I left university, I went into pub management. So I had a few pub jobs, that's bars. So I had a few jobs in bars and then went into 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, 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, 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. 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 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 I honestly don't think it is.
Al ElliottI think it's just practical. Um, I— my brother is, um, a professor, um, very, very clever. Um, and so obviously, naturally, with being 2 boys in the family, you kind of— you are pitted against other— one another to a certain extent, or compared, I suppose, is more likely. And then I remember some of my earliest memories were, were, um, there was a, a girl called Eleanor who was in my class, and she was very, very smart. And my mum kept going, 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 so there was a lot of this sort of competition to be intelligent, which I wasn't able to win as much as my brother did. Now, I think I've got intelligence in 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 again takes me onto the entrepreneurial So, 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. New business. So I don't think you can say someone isn't— you can say I've got a universal measure of intelligence, even though I'm sure psychologists do, and I'm pretty sure that's IQ. But I would argue that intelligence is probably within your domain. Do you have intelligence? Do you know things that other people don't? So if we talk about intelligence in terms of 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 About a 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. Two 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 you going into business, being an entrepreneur?
Al ElliottYeah, maybe. Honestly, I hadn't really thought about it like that before. Yeah, in my family, that wasn't a game 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. Um, 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. Um, we have a monthly quiz with, um, with, with my family and with your family, and I am always last in it. Like, they, 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 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. Yeah. Is incredible. So I suppose I'm competing against time rather than people in that 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 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 produce 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 can imagine something existing, like I remember when I was living with my brother in Bradford, we built a cabin bed, And so we just sat there and we're like, okay, let's design it. Let's go and cut the wood. 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 I sound like children here, and then a bed above it. And we created that and we created from nothing. So 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, and then it just never gets built.
Leanne ElliottIs that a pattern that is quite familiar to you then?
Al Elliott100%. I'm not sure there's many things that I've finished. I've started lots of things. And what is funny is that I meet a lot of people 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're going to get a landing page website this afternoon. You'll 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 am 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 first business, that first opportunity 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. And so I just wanted to do something different. And so I looked at all kinds of different things. And then this idea of doing beer delivery after hours was—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al Elliottwas, was like the most appealing and the most exciting to me. And also, because I'd been in the license trade already, I knew a little bit about, about licensees and licenses and all that kind of stuff in the licensing law.
Leanne ElliottSo, was it just a case that you were kind of bored managing a, a bar and wanted to, to do something different in the same industry?
Al ElliottYeah. Well, I mean, I, I got sacked from managing the bar, uh, 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 a 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, um, 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 year was this?
Al ElliottThis was 1999 to 2000 and 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 know where it was going. Whether— 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 sacked because 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 horrible cycle of just So Gimme Some Beer was your first business.
Leanne ElliottUm, 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 off— like, 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 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, or no one could sell alcohol after 10 PM until 10 AM the next morning. However, I started looking more into it and realized that actually a sale according to British law is only consummated when the money is taken. And this all started when, and this is gonna 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 the rest of it's 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 around 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've been 29, I think. And no, sorry, 25. And it all sort of started quickly. 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 Bank. I rented a a little sort of shed. I built a big walk-in fridge in there. And then 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 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 the lines 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 my first week I took £5, 6 weeks later we were doing about £6,000 a week. And it just blew up just because of that. And that's where I think I started to get the attention of the paper. I was on local radio 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, 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 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. And it was quite cool to sort of like 10 o'clock at night, people start to drift in. Staff would drift into my office and they'd sit down and start taking phone calls. And then 3 o'clock in the morning, it'd be like busy and there'd be phones ringing, people shouting, and someone going in the beers and stuff. So it did It did feel like it was like finally 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 philosophy behind your business in terms of 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 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 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 so that sort of moved around every single Every single night was was a 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 trained 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. At its peak, how—
Leanne Elliottwhat 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 were 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 sense of community. 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'd work at 6 in the morning. We'd all sit around and have a couple of beers and watch MTV or something 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 onto that, you mentioned before that about the licensing laws and sounds very much like a loophole there. Was there any repercussions to that? Was there any follow-up 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 have their normal day would go of dealing with someone who'd stolen a car or fallen out with their wife or 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 of 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'd walk into the stockroom, grab the 4-pack 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 the police ever raid us and they want to see, and we've got like 2 bags, Yeah. 4 cans of Stella going out to Leanne Elliott in Manchester. Then they'd go, has she ordered this? And at that point, we're 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? So 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 cans of Stella. She'd ordered 12 cans of Stella. 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 magistrates for— I think this is the 4th time we went back there. And the magistrates 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 license. My liquor license, my off-license.
Leanne ElliottSo what happened then? What was left of Gimme 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. And they'd be like, well, we don't want 24 cans of Stella. Can you not just bring us 4? I'd go, no, because we've not got a license, so 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 a wholesale in points. So we came up with an idea. In Costco, there was a very, very cheap case of something called Lambrini, which is perry, 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 quid. And so 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 was quite difficult 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. And 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 a new one. So you never have to pay for it. 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? Probably only a few months.
Al ElliottThe licensing law 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. So I think maybe about 6 months after that, the business closed. We were selling out the back of a car. I remember I got mugged. Well, not mugged, but I got an order to this dodgy part of Leeds. I went there and they kicked the crap out of me, took my money, my phone, my car. And at that point I was a bit like, you know what, this just So, so unfortunately I stopped and I went and got another job, um, but I 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. And 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 100 grand. 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.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottWhich 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 in, but I couldn't really because I got so much stress. So much stress. I was basically working so hard. I was behind on my mortgage that I lived on 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 like 500 quid 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. I remember I used to go and raid my copper jar to go and put petrol in my car. And that's the most ridiculous thing is when 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 going to last you all day. So the, the most sensible thing was to look at bankruptcy, and which is what I did in 2007.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network? We actually have a lot in common.
Al ElliottWe both use behavioral 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 And you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of 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. Seamless, seamless.
Al ElliottTell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, 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 behavioural 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? It And are we all just status-seeking monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottHow did it feel at that time to be living in that kind of world? Like you say, you're coppering up 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, um, 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 the licensing guy in Leeds. How did it feel being in that, in that darker place and looking back at what you'd had and what you'd lost?
Al ElliottI mean, it was awful because, like you've said, you'd lost it. And at that point, I was maybe 28, 27. That'd be 2007, so I'd be 30. I think I'd be 30. 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 going to do with the rest of my life? And it was just quite a frightening situation. I think actually thinking about it, I think I went bankrupt a little before that because 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, like 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 not worked? And it's like, of course no one You know, there's 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?" 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. But I kept thinking, you know what? If he'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 for the moon. It's not worked. So I was taking a little bit of solace in that, but it wasn't a great time.
Leanne ElliottWhat was 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 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. 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 a few months later, But at the time I was like, I'm gonna have to get another job. And 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 starting 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 it was me because my parents' influence was very much, and I don't blame them at all for this. My parents' influence was 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. So there's, you know, 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. Yeah. 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. And so I think maybe I'm wrong, but 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 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 interested me.
Leanne ElliottIs that true? You'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 gone bankruptcy 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 programs or eat the same food and go to the same bed.
Leanne ElliottSo clearly you were driven 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 and you know there's 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 two 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 probably more about debt, debt management, mortgage areas than the average person. In fact, more than probably like seventy or eighty percent of the people. 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 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 gone to university and he was doing his degree. And I just said, 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 help people who have been repossessed to stay in their property. And if you do it ethically, most people aren't doing 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 the same 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. 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 and save your family. 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 them 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, um, 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, um, you're never late, uh, you don't contravene the licensing, the, um, the tenancy agreement or whatever, whatever. And that was really just a marketing thing. It was just to say, because everyone else— that was the biggest issue with other companies in the sector, was 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. And that was going on a And so I thought, well, what— 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 so that kind of won us. We were beating— we went to see customers who'd gone to see these massive companies advertising on TV, and these customers are choosing us purely because of that 99-year tenancy, which was really not— I mean, if they were late with their rent, that entire undertaking went. So 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 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 salespeople 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 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 and How did you even navigate getting mortgages? How does it all work?
Al ElliottWell, without going into the ins and outs, the trust was there because Chris, who's still my business partner in that business, what, 15 years on, maybe a bit longer, he'd worked for me in Gimme Some Beer and he'd seen that I literally, I was sleeping there. 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 you went to university and I think you 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 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 we ran an ad in the Manchester Evening News. 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 Manchester Evening News and then tried to rewrite it in the same style. It didn't look like an advert and it worked so well. So we basically went out on the Tuesday and then the Wednesday we had like 8, 10, 12 people who'd inquired about it. And so we had these appointments, we went to see them and I think from that we bought 8 houses. Each of those houses probably at the time gave us about 20 grand worth of equity. And over time those 8 houses have probably given us just from that one advert, which was 1,500 quid, which was the last £1,500 we had. I had to convince Chris to get an overdraft, I think. So the So the check 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. I mean, what was the growth trajectory of your business?
Al ElliottOh, well, I think we went from literally starting, let's just say arbitrarily May 2006, We started then. I was obviously bankrupt at that point. And we bought our first house in, I think, say September 2006. And then it was 18 months and we bought 38, 39 houses in that period. Right? Yeah. Something like that. 37, 38 houses over 18 months. But at some point we were buying 2 or 3 houses a week and it just grew and grew and grew. And of course, the more we got good at the process, the more 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 so that we could buy their house. So the growth was phenomenal, but then it just finished as soon as it started. Like, it finished like the same speed that it started because, like you said, the global financial crisis, people were— you're getting mortgages for nothing. And people will give you a mortgage if you had a pen to sign the documents, didn't ever check your And then if anyone's seen The Big Short, then back 2008, lenders started going to the wall. And then we got— I think was 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 had 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 said that 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, my primary, and it sounds like a sales, like an advert for Oblong, it's not, but my primary thing is how can you help 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're buying the houses, we probably had about a thousand applications. 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 3:00 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.
Leanne ElliottHuge difference. Where 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 going to help. You know, you stop at the side of a road with someone who's, 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 to be the next prime minister, for example. And even if they never see you again, the fact is that had you not stopped that night, then perhaps someone would've come down and smashed into them and killed them, and then they never would've been the next prime minister, for example. So I kind of like 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 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. Sort of like the opposite of that. And I think that that's always something that I know you and I, Leanne, we look at things and go, how can we help So you built the property portfolio up.
Leanne ElliottSo a business that is no longer— well, tell us about that business. So as you said that all the mortgages start to be pulled, lenders were changing their policies. What happened with the properties? What happened with you and Chris then?
Al ElliottSo we stopped buying stuff in about 2007. We just held our properties. And then I in 2008, we had a massive problem. didn't sell anything for about 5 years, I don't think, and just basically rented out. 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 us. 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 had some opportunity with That, 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 around Manchester and Salford, 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 rather than actually a property manager because management is. Not my strength. It's definitely more starting things and solving problems. We want different things. I think he's got a young family. We haven't. We want to travel. We love moving around Europe and travel. He doesn't. He wants to stay where he is. So definitely things have— I think 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 perceptions and 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? How did you kind of go from properties into what you're doing now?
Al ElliottOne thing that I got really good at was marketing and copywriting because that's how I wrote the Google Ads. So this was my very first foray into marketing really was Google Ads. And so I wrote the ads, I wrote the landing page copy.
Leanne ElliottThis is for the properties you're writing?
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 letters. There was a guy called Chris Cardell. I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember Chris Cardell, but he used to do all these webinars, or these— actually, they 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 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, business psychologist, self-employed. I was doing marketing, self-employed.
Leanne ElliottAnd we're just having a drink one night and we're like, why don't As you look back then 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 don't know, it sounds really cheesy, this, but the fact that, you know, there was 39 families that we saved from bankruptcy. I say from repossession, but they were on the brink of bankruptcy. There was another 200 or 300 people who we saved by helping them to remortgage or helping them to restructure their debts so they weren't in so much financial strife. 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 everything you told me to do. Now I can afford things. I'm on this repayment plan. I've spoken to my mortgage company, et cetera, et cetera. And that was 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 ElliottYeah. What is the biggest lesson you've learned over the last 20 years?
Al ElliottOoh, 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 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 gonna 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 wrong. 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 for 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.
Leanne ElliottSo I think that's probably the biggest What are 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. 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. But although there's stuff I've told you, said here that I don't think I've ever told you, we're very similar. 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 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 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? Would you give him?
Al ElliottNothing. I'd leave him the fuck alone. I honestly would. I would not say or I would not change anything. I would not say anything because you don't know. It could be that if I went back there, I could tell him that actually nerds are going to be really popular, really, they're going to be quite cool at some point in the mid-2000s, 2010. 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 2 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 a different country most of the time doing different things. So I would not give him any advice. I'd just let him carry on knowing that he's going to be miserable for a little bit.
Leanne ElliottJoin Samaritans.
Al ElliottOh, 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 own life into context. Oh, 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 gonna 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. I just basically kept sending him emails going, I want to take you for breakfast, I wanna 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, 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 Y, the people you're building this for, see if they actually want it and whether they care about the problem. Validate your idea and don't Don't get rid of your ego because your ego is the thing that's going to ruin everything for you.
Leanne ElliottWhy would the ego ruin everything for you?
Al ElliottBecause I think that ego stands in your way 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, to give you the, to put it in context, I told you I built a walk-in fridge. Um, I rented an apartment. I rented a, um, not an apartment, a, 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, even though actually that wouldn't have worked because of the licensing law, which I was actually getting around. 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've 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. And if you'll start thinking, oh, well, how do I register as a business in 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 bureaucracy of getting a business started. But, and you don't have a business just because you've got a business card.
Leanne ElliottI think 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 Al 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 he 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 and 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.
Leanne ElliottPhenomenal professional.
Al ElliottPhenomenal professional. Yes, exactly.
Leanne ElliottNo, you are, you are, darling. You are. You've been through, you've been through a lot and you've, you've really, you, you, you're a proper entrepreneur. And I think when people, you know, we say you're a business owner, you are a business owner of, of 2 different businesses and you've started several before and, um, you've had a couple of bankruptcies. And you're a proper entrepreneur to the point where like you found the loophole in the licensing laws and, and yeah, went to war with them and almost won.
Al ElliottAlmost.
Leanne ElliottThey hadn't changed those pesky licensing laws.
Al ElliottI fought the law and the law won. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, you make me feel uncomfortable now. You were saying nice things and I was looking around at my desk trying to find something to fidget with. So I was like, stop it being all British. Like, no, no, no. No, not really. No, no, no.
Leanne ElliottIt's awesome. It's awesome. And, and yeah, even in terms of, of kind of all the ethical approach to, to the property business, it's, it's a really cool thing that you saw an opportunity at a time where people were struggling and it massively helped them. So that was that. We interviewed— with that interview was 4 years ago almost. Tell me about the last 4 years, Al. What, what has been your proudest moment, your biggest learning moment? What stands out for you in the last 4 years?
Al ElliottThere's a great sales trainer. I can't remember exactly what his name is. Um, he says timid salespeople have skinny kids. Um, and he said the quickest way— Jim Rohn, perhaps— uh, the quickest way to get what you want is to help other people get what they want. And I think, um, by helping you as much as I can get your voice out there, I've got so much stuff. Like, there are people, Danny and And you know, Richard and and Jeremy, who who I would say like our friends and Christian, who I'd say our friends now that I've met through the pod and never would have met. So so that's probably one of the biggest learnings I would have said. The other thing is, and this is gonna sound really weird to anyone in their twenties, is you just don't have the energy or the fucks like you did in your twenties. All the stuff I used to do, I used to work eighty hours a week, and I'd be doing it, and now I'm like, what can I do this in twenty? And then they go, can I actually do it in 15 hours a week and still get the same quality? And it's funny, it's not about being lazy. It's just more like you only have a certain amount of energy in a day as you get older. And so you go, well, I'm going to put that, all that energy into this thing today. And then that's me done for the day rather than when you're 20, you'd be like, right, look at my task list. I'm going to get as much as I possibly can done. Now, my task list now, the most important thing I do is I go, right, I get one of these tiny little bits of paper and I only put on tasks that will fit on that bit of paper and usually it's only like 4 or 5 And often I'll cheat and put one I've already done on so I can, I can tick it off. What about you, love?
Leanne ElliottI think I'm with you on the, on the energy, or certainly the amount of fucks you've got left to give. And that is a brilliant book, by the way, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. I read that in my early 30s.
Al ElliottYeah, yeah, that's a good time to read it.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it definitely helped me put things into perspective because I think that the kind of slightly dark reality is once you're in your mid-40s to late 40s, there's not that much time left. Like, there's more time gone than it probably will— like, than is ahead. Um, so you need to, yeah, use your time carefully and for things that you care about and have meaning and, and yeah, contribute to other aspects of your life. My biggest thing that I, I always knew was important, I didn't appreciate how important is network?
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottAnd I'm not talking about network for network's sake. I'm not talking about just going to like, do you know what I mean? Networking groups.
Al ElliottA shitty travel lodge for breakfast and having social chats.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I'm sure they do like virtual ones now and like coffee things. And it's not just that in terms of like going into it going, what can I sell you? What can I get from this? Just a genuine, genuine belief that relationships are what makes everything work and investing in them over time. And the great thing we have the opportunity to do this podcast is to help other people shine and put their messages out there. That's our only agenda, is that they sound great and that they're putting something important into the world. And that process has, as you said, brought incredible people into our lives, both on a personal and professional level. And yeah, the people who are more connected than you might realise as well. You suddenly realise you're one degree of separation from Adam Grant, for example.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottOr other people. And, and, and yeah, I learned this when I, I used to work in executive branding. So like top 10% of, of leaders and the most successful people, like the highest people, were always the absolute nicest, best to work with. And that's what I've seen as well through the people we meet, like the, the big cheeses, the ones that have got, you know, a lot of, um, influence, are just lovely, lovely people.
Al ElliottYeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it's funny because you just said That we work really hard to make our guests look great, and that is basically giving you know you get what you want by helping other people get what they want. And and those those guests people might not know, but the guests sometimes when we do interviews, the interviews don't aren't quite don't flow quite as well as they could do, or there's lots of ums and ahs and stuff. And so we we spend a lot of time taking that out, repurposing content, well, removing content around because we're so keen on making the guest. And that's one of the things which does slightly. Annoy me when we put all this effort because we do probably put 10 to 12 hours of effort into it. Easily, easy, easy. And then they just don't share it. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Sweaty Startup. Yeah. Oh, cool. He's not been listening. He doesn't. He pops up on my YouTube all the time.
Leanne ElliottOh, he's.
Al ElliottHe doesn't think about me at all. No.
Leanne ElliottBut anyway, but that's the thing, isn't it? You put your energy to those people who do, and you got to kiss a lot of frogs. Yes. And we've had more people on the show that we haven't stayed in touch with than we do, or haven't shared the episode than have. But yeah, yeah, you find the gold.
Al ElliottYes, exactly. So talking of gold, luckily that's the end of it. Um, I think, is there anything else to add to the—
Leanne ElliottDid you have a nice birthday?
Al ElliottI had a lovely, lovely birthday. And today, those of you who are in our inner circle know that we're building a house in Herzegovina. And so today we're off to the plot. Um, the parcel of land to decide exactly where the house is going to be. Yeah. Um, where the pool's going to be, where the terrace is going to be. So it's all very, very exciting.
Leanne ElliottWhere the party huts are going to be next year.
Al ElliottYeah, exactly. So if you are interested, get in touch and we'll send you some photos. Um, which, oh, incidentally, Leanne, oh, if you're looking for a birthday idea, it was so lovely. Leanne gave me a photo album yesterday and it was half full of all the photos we've already taken of the parcel of land, including when we very first saw it, including before it got cleared. Including pictures of her with a big JCB. And that was such a lovely, lovely— Leanne's really good at birthdays. Sorry, the doughnut you bought yesterday is starting to repeat on me. I sounded a bit emotional then. It wasn't necessarily emotional, it was just the doughnut that I ate this morning for breakfast, which is probably— yeah, it's not my birthday, so I shouldn't be able to do that. Okay, my love, anything else?
Leanne ElliottIt's your birthday Boxing Day, you can do whatever you want. Yeah, no, that's it. Tune in on Thursday. We have an awesome guest. Normal programming resumes Who have we got?
Al ElliottWe have the fabulous Laurie Macpherson. Now Laurie is an expert in getting people jobs, but we talk a little bit more about how selection processes work. We talk about resumes and how important they are. We also talk about ways in which you can sneak in the back door. That sounds a bit rude. Sneak in the back door into a—
Leanne ElliottSneaky.
Al ElliottYeah, sneaky. Very, very sneaky, sir. And it's just a fabulous interview. So if you are a recruiter, recruiter, or if you are looking for a job, or if you think you might be looking for a job, then this is definitely the episode for you. And if you're a founder, definitely listen in for this as well, because there's loads of great tips about the mindset of someone looking for a job, which is just gold.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it's an interesting one. And then come back again next Tuesday. This Week in Work will return with the return of Dr. Jake Tuber.
Al ElliottJT in the house.
Leanne ElliottSee you on Thursday.
Al ElliottBye.