Confronting Rob Moore - How He Makes His Millions

In this video, I'm confronting Rob Moore. Rob Moore says he's a millionaire. He says he's bought lots of property. He says he's grown a business from scratch. Well, in this video, I'm going to confront him and find out just how Rob Moore made his millions. Question number 1, are you a millionaire?

Yes.

How much you worth?

Why would I answer that?

Well, I want to know. I think everyone that's watching this wants to know.

I don't think that many people care about how much money I've made.

I want to know.

So my wife—

What do you roughly think you're worth?

I know what I'm worth. I've just done tax return for this year as well and paid a lot of tax.

Oh, that's one of my questions actually. We'll come back to that. How'd you make your first million?

Well, I haven't answered your first question yet.

Well, I feel like you're going to give me a politician's answer.

So my wife, my business partner, my accountant said never tell anyone how much you're worth, and I think that's good advice. I can tell you this, there's someone who apparently researched me on my YouTube channel and said my net worth is £70,000. I've made more than that in about 3 months on YouTube, so that's wrong. But there's also someone who said I'm worth a quarter of a billion. That's also wrong. You never really know what someone's worth. I can tell you it's a lot more than 10, a lot more than 10, and a lot less than a billion. And that's all you're getting. That's all you're getting, because otherwise the wife and the business partner will be on the case. What are you worth?

I reckon north of 20 million, up to 40 million now, somewhere in between that level.

You reckon, but you don't know. I know what I'm worth to the nearest 3 million. I've just finished a 100-unit apartment block. Minimum £20 million, £8 million equity, £1.3 to £1.5 million in income, and that's just my last deal. Probably do £2 million this month. So there you go, there's a bit for you, but I will never tell anyone how much I'm worth because my accountant doesn't want me to.

Okay.

And my business partner and my wife. Okay.

How many properties do you own?

Don't know. Probably 1,540 tenants. 'Cause here's the thing, one of my properties could have one tenant in it and my biggest one's got 159 tenants in it. So it's actually, the question I would've asked is how many units do you own? And for me, I count a unit as a tenant. I know we're in Peterborough at the moment and if I took you around some of them, I could walk 100 yards and I'd show you a property I own with 42 tenants in it, one next door with 26 tenants in it, one about 15 metres away with 159 tenants in it and one across the road that we're just developing with 45 tenants in it and they're all very different in size. 1,540 tenants at the moment.

Do you track your rent roll each month?

Yeah.

Do you know the answer to that?

So, well, my business partner, you know this, but they may not, but I have a business partner and he manages the real estate property side and I manage the training business and the brand side. So he has a spreadsheet on it. He sends me every 6 months. We had a good look at it the last couple of weeks because we just finished this big project. So our total rent roll is probably just Nearing £3 million.

A month?

No, a year.

A year.

In terms of our properties. We have a managing company as well, the biggest letting agency.

You're bringing in £3 million a year doing that. Why do you do all the other business stuff? Because that's a, you know, after your mortgages and debt and services, you can make some decent cash.

We're quite low on the loan to value. We're not one of these, you know, 85, 90% loan to values. Because we do a lot of commercial, you can't be. 'Cause if you go over the covenants, you know they can ask for the money back. So our average loan to value is pretty low. So obviously we've got quite good equity in that portfolio as well. I don't know if Mark would be happy with me saying how much, but definitely worth more than £35 million and some, but I'd have to check with him for the full figures.

Do you want to buy more?

Well, we're currently developing 42 units, an apartment block. They call it one of the two gateway properties in our city. So we're finishing that off. It's been quite— 'Cause it's pretty hard to develop when you go through COVID. You know, you can imagine trades prices have gone through the roof big time. I think, I mean, I'm only 43 and I've been doing this for 15 years and we've got 1,540 tenants. So by the time I'm 53, 63, 73, or 83, could have 5,000 tenants. But you have to think about a few things. Number one, you have to think about exposure and you can have too much of something. So, you know, you wouldn't want too much residential in the town centre or you wouldn't want too much commercial in the town centre. 'cause you can get exposed. Mark said to me a few years ago, I think we've got enough residential now, we should get some commercial. And he said to me, finishing this project, I think we've probably for now got enough commercial. So he's now probably going to start looking into, I don't know, industrial or agricultural or land or full development 'cause we do conversion. 'Cause I think it's really important not to be too exposed. And then your question about why do you deal with the other things? Well, most people who like cars, wouldn't just stop owning one car. I've got a collection of supercars because I like cars. So I always find it really interesting when people say, well, if you make so much money out of property, why would you do training? Well, because at one point we did £21 million in revenue in training. Why would I not?

No, no, I'm not saying it's the wrong or right answer. I'm just thinking about the people. I like—

I think it's important to have multiple streams of income as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. How profitable is your business?

Um, depends which one you're asking me about.

So we've got this property business We've got training business. Is there something outside of those two spheres?

We have 7 different companies, management company, that's really profitable.

That's like an estate agent?

Letting agent.

Letting agent.

So that I would say is probably, that one is like probably 30% net. The training business is probably more like 15% net. We've got a lot of staff up there.

Yeah, I've seen.

That's a big overhead. 90-odd and ads are really expensive at the moment. I've never been able to keep the training net profit margin, because a lot of people, oh yeah, get into training, sell a few courses, massive margin, really easy. You know, some of the fly-by-nights in our industry, they've bought 3 properties and then they think they can be a big guru trainer. They don't realise there's quite a lot of moving parts of that business. So to scale it anyway, so that net margin is— because we've had COVID for 2 years, actually our net margin went up a lot in COVID because we didn't have any overhead for hotels and stuff, but Probably 15, 20% on that one, net.

I'm just thinking about this. I've got a better question for you. If you had a million quid to invest and I said to you, you couldn't do it into property and you couldn't do it into a training business, what sector would you like to invest that money in to get the best return on investment? Is there anything that you think, oh yeah, I'd like to have a go at that?

Well, I'd never put 1 million all into one place. I think that's stupid. So I can't do real estate and I can't do training. I mean, I'd definitely max out my ISA and do my, you know, sort of stock market.

Specifically though, because you know, you help a lot of entrepreneurs and I think a lot of people come to me and go, what do you think about this idea of business, that idea of business? And so people ask me that all the time and I imagine you get that question as well. Like, this is my business plan, what do you think, Rob? Is there anything that you'll think, oh yeah, that's something good that I should maybe put some time, effort and energy into in the future?

Not that I would advise because I get asked that question a lot as well, but why would you do something different if what you've done really worked?

Yeah, I get that.

You know, my friend Neville Wright, he sold Kiddicare for £75 million, and someone said, oh, what would you do differently if you started again? And he went, I sold Kiddicare for £75 million, why would I do anything different? So actually, I'd probably say an information type business. Yeah, because information, no stock, don't need premises, you can do it on a laptop or a phone, really low overhead, you can set it up real quick, you can turn what you know into cash flow, your ideas into income. So I'm a big fan of that kind of business, and What Progressive has done, you know, you've seen the training business over the years come and go and people come and make a big noise and then go bust and in and out, but we've been a mainstay for 15 years because we've got into different types of information, e-commerce, public speaking, property, joint ventures, etc. So I like the information. It's a low-risk, high-speed business. I'm not advising this, but I am really fascinated on NFTs and metaverse, but I would never say I'm going to put a million into that or recommend anyone put a million into that. But I've just soft pre-launched an NFT series, my NFT series, and it's gone really well. I haven't even launched it yet. I've sold more than half of them. I haven't even launched it. So that's a really fascinating space because I think I can see a world where virtually anything that used to be a piece of paper or some glitchy app could be an NFT.

What about brick and mortar businesses? You ever thought, yeah, I'd like to own a hotel or a car rental business, anything that's traditional in the eyes of the viewer that you might think, oh yeah, I'd like to, I think I could make a difference in that space with the knowledge that I've got.

I think a lot of this is about timing, depending on when people watch this. But if they're watching this the day we recorded it, bit fricking risky to go and buy a hotel when, I can tell you this for a fact, a lot of people are not leaving their house. We've got an event in there. We'd normally have 200 people in an event. We've got 21, 22. People are not leaving their house. The world has changed. They've got used to Zoom. I think you've got to be pretty fucking crazy right now to build a big gym or a hotel or a restaurant or a chain of restaurants because I think the world is uncertain. But if that business has been hit, that could then bring an opportunity because often opportunities come when things have been wiped out. There's a lot of empty real estate. That real estate is cheap depending on the area. Here's another thing, James. Like, I know my limitations. I've never run a restaurant.

Yeah, no, and I think that's a smart answer. I'm not trying to trip you up here, but these are entrepreneurs and business owners that have got staff and trade that watch my stuff. And I think that's a smart thing to say, I'm not in that space, I don't know. And that's why I like to ask people. I think a lot of people wouldn't answer it the way you did. How much tax did you pay last year?

A lot. More than a million?

Yeah.

More than that in the last 4 months.

When you talk about that tax, are you talking about corporation tax, personal tax? I'm not talking about turnover taxes, VAT. I mean profit tax.

Well, I am not in the game of drawing all of my profits right now. Why do I want to pay 45% income tax? So most of it is, well, corp, a lot of corp, of course. You say I'm not going to count that, but do you know what? Entrepreneurs don't get the credit. We generate all that revenue.

No, I get that.

And all the business rates we generate.

I hate turnover taxes, you know that.

Yeah.

You know what? I think I pay considering more than anyone else I actually know, you know, I own a lot of leisure businesses. How do you, you know, you had Nigel Farage on your channel the other day and he came to our ice cream factory the other week and I asked him this question I'd like to ask you now. If you're the UK government, I believe the UK is full of great entrepreneurial people. The facts are—

Who are getting suppressed right now.

Yeah, absolutely. 50% of them fail within 2 years, 80% within 5 years, 5% of businesses get to their their 10-year anniversary. It's a horrific set of facts and they're absolutely factually true. Now, I don't think it's because people have got the will. I think one of the problems is they don't actually understand. They don't know how many beans make 5. Watching people like you and hopefully myself and others, like, they can pick up stuff, but a lot of people don't actually discover us. And that's a real shame. But what would you do if you was in UK government that you think could really help business owners get past that magic 5 years?

I'm very fucking clear on this. Good. The first thing I would do is if I was in government is I would get mentorship and advice from people who've run big proper businesses. They're not being advised by the right people. That's number one. Number two, I'd stop hating on or looking my nose down on entrepreneurs because I spoke to Nigel Farage and he said they just don't respect entrepreneurs in government. That, you know, that it's not the Etonian way. So number one, I'd go and find all the biggest entrepreneurs in the UK and I'd give them some kind of bonus, reward, incentive, or reason to come and advise the government and start learning about business. Business, because it is also a fact that the public sector is financed by the private sector almost entirely, yet they are biting the hand that feeds them.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, so number 1, get proper advice. Number 2, stop looking down on entrepreneurs and business owners. Number 3, incentives, tax breaks, subsidies to start and grow a business. What I think they're doing wrong is they're seeing the way of paying their debt and generating their revenue by taxing us.

Yeah.

Instead of encouraging and incentivizing us to turn over more.

Yeah.

And because surely it'd be better if they got a smaller share of a much larger economy.

Yeah.

But they're actually suppressing the economy.

What drives me insane, I don't know if you feel like this, the UK could be like the world leader for entrepreneurship. People trust our legal system. They— we've got, whether you like the banks or not, we've got some of the most trusted biggest banks in the world on our doorstep.

The Queen, the universities, all of that.

And I just feel like we just don't—

I mean, America is just the fucking same. They're all leaving a lot of the states. I mean, you know, in America they have federal and state taxes. At least we don't, you know, we don't have double tax. But yeah, like in the last recession they got rid of that. Well, no, I think it went down from 20% to 15% and then maybe to 12.5%. I can't remember, but they— why have they not reduced that? Not only have they not reduced corp tax, They've put it up.

That's really—

and they didn't just put it up, they've fricking nearly doubled it. Well, I know. National Insurance has gone up 12, 12.5%. Income tax, inheritance, you name it.

Yeah.

It's insane. And if they're not careful, they are— well, they're not just buying the hand that feeds them, they're buying the fricking arms off.

Well, the problem is the world's a smaller place, you know, especially the next generation, them going off to Australia, they just do it like that. About 30 years ago, that was a big Or should we go on a plane and go somewhere? People just do that like that. They're off to Singapore.

Don't care. I reckon all in turnover, profit and what I buy, I reckon I'm about 70 pence in the pound I pay in tax all in. I figured it out.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think 64 is what I get.

So I reckon you're 75.

So if that goes to 75, I'll consider leaving this country that I was born in.

Stupid. Absolutely stupid. Let's talk about debt now because you've obviously, you're doing these commercial conversions, loads of property stuff. You know, if you're an entrepreneur, you've got to get used to, especially if you want to grow, at some point you're going to have to take investors, bank debt and stuff like that. You've definitely borrowed money.

Yeah.

Millions?

Yeah.

Tens of millions?

Yeah.

20, 30, 40, 50+ million over your career?

Well, the last one we did, we borrowed £12 million just on one deal, so yeah.

I like debt, good debt that makes money, but a lot of people have a real problem with it.

Yeah.

What's your relationship with debt like?

Well, Dave Ramsey says all debt is bad and he's wrong. I'm just going to say it. He is wrong. Not all debt is bad. Yeah, I agree. This building I'm in that houses over 100 people has some debt on it, mortgage. But I'm not going to be too loose with my language because if you don't understand debt, know how to manage debt, and if you start over-gearing yourself, then it becomes bad. So it's not just that there's good debt and bad debt, which there is. You have to understand what good debt is and how to properly leverage good debt and not turn good debt into bad debt. So gearing, you know, we talked about that before. I don't like my gearing over 6 50%. If it gets under 50%, I think there's some wastage there. You can refinance and reinvest. So I like my gearing to be 50% to 60%, but we've got covenants on some of our commercial. If we go under a certain gearing ratio, they'll call the money back in. Back in the last recession, I knew the, um, the guy who owned Meadowhall, and he had £3 billion worth of debt on shopping centres like Meadowhall. And the banks in the last recession, they just called in— it was in the billions. Because his property values went down. In residential, if your property values go down, it doesn't matter. But in commercial, they'll call the difference back.

Absolutely.

So a good loan, I was going to say low loan to value, no, a good loan to value, whatever the banks are comfortable with, I'd go 10 to 15% below that. So, you know, when the banks are comfortable at 85, I'll go 70. When the banks are comfortable at 70, I'll go 55, 60.

Yeah, got it, got it. Aside to that question then, I really want to ask about interest rates. What's the highest interest rate that you've paid on a loan for a business transaction?

1% a month.

So that's 12% APR.

Yeah, but it's private finance.

Yeah, people would really like, oh my God.

That's private finance, that's not bank finance.

And you have, would you carry on doing that?

Well, we bought this building which is 6,000 square foot. It's probably, it's worth just under a mil now and we paid 495 for it and we paid 9% over 9 months and refinanced out. So as long as 1% a month is short term, it has to be short term. I mean, I know people who pay 3% a month short term. But when you've got the in and out fees, it ends up 4% a month. So long-term debt, I mean, right now you can get long-term loans in the under 2%, but I mean, that's unsustainable. But if you can fix it for 5 years, you're all right. So obviously it depends on the interest rate at the time.

So are you constantly looking to borrow money to put to work? Or you and Mark, you know, your business partner, you're like, yeah, we can get a million here, let's just borrow it and put it to work. Or do you, you're always looking to get your Funds in place before you put it to work or do you find the opportunity then go and get the money?

So we're always looking for opportunities and we're always moving money around the place whether it's ours and we've got a few private investors. Mark's a bit different to me and my business partner and he takes responsibility very seriously, which is good. He would much rather use his own money 'cause then if it goes wrong, well it only goes wrong with us. For me, I did my first 50 property investments all with other people's money before I even put any of my own in, which was profit from no money down deal. So I have a slightly different view. Yes, you want to put money to work for sure because inflation is high, cost of living is really high, the return on cash is really low. So right now cash is probably losing 10% a year and it might be more. You don't want cash for very long. You know, I know Grant Cardone, I'm friends with him and he keeps going on about how cash is trash. Well, when there's COVID or a lockdown or a recession, cash is not trash. So that is too one-sided that. So you need liquidity, for irregularities, short-term issues. So, you know, I would like to have a few million liquid always. You know, you probably want a ratio of your net worth to be liquid. And by liquid, I mean a week, not a month. I've got some assets and I thought they were liquid, but actually it's 3 months. That's not liquid because when a market goes the wrong way, 3 months can be 30% down. So I do like to have some unlevered access to money, but I'll put it in watches and cars and other things like that. I mean, what— cars aren't really liquid. Rolex is a very liquid stock market, like I said.

Let's talk about business partners. I don't have any business partners.

I think you're missing out there.

I don't have private investors. I've never borrowed money from a private individual other than in vendor finance when I've bought businesses over a period of time, and I slightly think that's different. How do you find those people that lend you money privately? A family or business connections?

We've borrowed from Mark's family, then my family, but incrementally. And once we'd shown a bit of streetwise-ness and proof, we've borrowed from people who've attended our courses or connections that we've known. But we've only got a small handful of private investors. You don't need a lot. In fact, dealing with a lot of private investors is a fricking nightmare. It's like having a load of kids. So you don't want too many of them. So that's quite a small inner circle. We've met them at property network meetings or business type events. I know you're a big fan of going to business events and I am too. Masterminds, things like that. In the modern times, obviously you can meet people online. I think having a business partner is great. By the way, you chose the right person to interview because the first 2 questions he'd have just told you to fuck off and get out of here, you rude bastard. I remember when I asked Robin Sharma, what's your net worth? He was very upset. I mean, I don't care. I have no problem asking those questions, but you chose the right person to interview because he's private. He'll watch this and he'll go, Rob, let's have a chat about this. You know, we've done nearly £200 million in revenue. Yeah, it's amazing in the training business, but I wouldn't have been able to do that if he wasn't doing all the real estate.

But I, and I've spoke with lots of business owners, lots of partnerships don't work. Why does yours work? Because you're very pro it, aren't you? And I've seen him on stuff and he's very pro it as well. Why does yours work when most don't?

Why do most people never get to black belt? Why do most people never make professional-grade football? This is the thing. A lot of people think that something's a scam. I'm not— it's not what you're saying. I'm going off on a tangent, but they think things are a scam because most people fail. You know, you said that the ratio is about starting a business, but how many white belts ever get to black belt? It'd be the same. Yeah. So in life—

so I know why I think you've been successful. It's a different way than what I think you're saying.

So the reason most people fail in partnerships is because most things fail. Like naturally and organically, that is the way the world works. The reason our partnership has been good, and I'll give you a few tips now. Number 1 is you have to be in partnership, I believe, with someone with a different set of skills but a similar vision.

That's exactly why.

And that is different skills, similar vision. If you've got different skills but a different vision, in the end you're going to go like that. If you've got similar vision but the same skills, you're just going to get in each other's way.

Absolutely.

And we didn't even know that. We learnt that on the journey.

So that was luck, really, that you met each other?

Yeah, I mean, I suppose it depends how you define luck. If he was the 72nd person I met, is that luck? Because I went to a networking event and gave everyone a crappy, cheapy Vistaprint business card and stayed till the end end when, you know, those networking events when it's just dead and the cleaners come in right at the end. Well, I stayed there and I ended up meeting him. So yeah, it was— I do believe that some good fortune can come your way, but I do believe you can go out and hunt that good fortune.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I did that. The next thing, why did our partnership work? I have so many people that come to me with partnerships and they're like, oh, James, he's not doing this, he's not doing that. He's supposed to do this in partnership. He's not delivering. Too many people go, you're not delivering, instead of how can I be a good partner? And you know, there's that famous saying, be the change you want to see in the world. I want to be a great business partner to Mark. I don't want Mark to answer to me. And you know, yes, I want him to be accountable. Probably both of us in the first 6 to 12 months, we're sort of like, 'What are you up to then? Because you should be doing that.' 'What are you up to then? Because you should be doing that.' That's the wrong way to have a partnership. Like, if I'm in a partnership with you, I trust you. And if there are issues, I'm going to take responsibility for it and try and make sure that I'm a good business partner to you. Because if I'm a good business partner to you, you're going to want to be a good business partner to me. It's a very different perception. Like your kids. When your kids are upset, you can either go, 'You little shit,' or you can go, 'There must be something beneath this behaviour.' Yeah. That's, you know, my wife's brilliant at that. Whenever I'm upset with the kids, she's like, well, they're just kids and there's, you know, he's probably got something up with him or probably something going on at school. I've learned with people, because I have a lot of staff, if there's ever an issue with them, there's usually something going on in their life. If you find out what that is and you're sensitive to that and you can help them with that, you're—

They're shy and—

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that nicely brings us on to employees. How many have you got?

At our peak across contractors on the building sites, VAs and outsourcers and in-house was nearly 250. I would say at the moment we've probably got 150 across those.

So let's talk about the PAYE ones that are really, you know, akin to you, that they need you, they're paid every month. How do you find your superstars and what do you do to look after those employees and keep them motivated and becoming profit centres for the business?

Okay, so there's some recruitment companies and consultants that are really good, probably 10% of them. So you've probably got to find— I'm not particularly pro-recruitment consultants because I think there's a slight misalignment of interest. But there are good ones in your town or city and you shouldn't dismiss just because their fees are really high. That could be a good business to get in when we come out of this recruitment, 'cause their fees are fucking madness.

Yeah, yeah.

20, 25% fee.

They make a lot of money. But it's very stressful.

Oh, I'm not saying it's wrong.

They start from zero each month.

Yeah.

So they're always, they never get ahead of themselves.

Yeah.

My other half was a recruiter.

Yeah.

Really stressful to see the ups and downs.

You do get good salespeople out of recruitment companies.

Yeah.

So recruiting people from recruitment companies. Actually, when people answer this question, I kind of feel a bit disappointed. Don't judge it, just listen. But actually, a great source of our great staff are our great staff who recommend people to us.

Yeah, absolutely.

So what we do, but if you don't ask them to refer and then pay them to refer, they don't refer. Yeah. But if you go out there, so for example, there's not many videographers in Peterborough, but there's a couple of shopping channels, Ideal World, you might have heard of that. I've got a couple of people who came from Ideal World and I was just like, who's good? Who's good? And you just stay on them. And then do you know you can get £500?

Yeah.

So your good staff.

So you're using your staff to bring in people and you'll know if they're a good fit for you.

Yeah, exactly. So your good staff is a good source. Indeed works really well for us for certain types.

So if your staff are going to watch this, if they haven't been asked, they know that you don't think they're good. You're going to have to go and ask them.

Everyone. Now, maybe we just don't have a vacancy in that department before you throw me under the bus. For certain roles, Indeed has been good, for others not. For certain roles, Upwork has been good, for others not. So there's 5 sources for you.

What about recruiting within? Do you love pushing your team to go up within the business or do you prefer to bring leadership from outside?

In an ideal world, you would Tara Leahy in Tesco stacking the shelves all the way up to the, you know, the top dog in an ideal world. Those people are rare. I'm not attached to either because I know there's a plus or minus.

That's a good answer.

And I'll tell you why, just real quick. Someone who's good in a role, as soon as you move them into management, they've got no management experience.

Yeah.

And they're good technically, and then their next promotion is management, but then they're in the deep end.

Yeah.

So sometimes I want management experience, sometimes I want technical.

What do you think is the best traits for winning in business as an entrepreneur?

Good artists copy, great artists steal. I think the best trait of an entrepreneur is to nick all the best bits of everyone and then put your own unique sprinkle on it. So Rage Against the Machine, I don't know if you're into that kind of music, but rock, metal, and hip-hop hybrid.

Sounds horrific.

Okay, so you must have heard of Frank Sinatra, but you must have heard of Dave Grohl, drummer of Nirvana.

No, I know Nirvana.

Okay, right. Dave Grohl said, I shamelessly ripped off soul music when I made my drum riff in their most famous song. Hip-hop was brought over from Jamaica. Hip-hop singers used to just be announcers, MCs. So if you look at any niche or industry, they have evolved and they are hybrids of different things all merged together. And I've got an artist background, I used to be an artist, so for the first couple of years in business I had this snooty, well, I have to be so unique and original. Yeah, on the one side. And then on the other side, you have people that just rip off.

Yeah.

And I think you've got to do the middle. So I would love to learn the best bits about what you know, and I would love to not do the things that didn't work for you.

Yeah.

And the same for everybody else that I can meet and talk to, because why invent— reinvent the wheel? Stand on the shoulders of giants, model the traits of the greats.

What's your management style? How do you manage the 150 people that work in this building?

My management style isn't necessarily the right style, but it's my style, and my style is to give people energy, excitement, enthusiasm, inspiration, and vision, and let them crack the fuck on. And then keep a little bit of an eye on them every now and again. And if they repeatedly make mistakes, I am quite a forgiving manager because I think we're all human. And I think if you support people when they're struggling, I think that could be good. But if it's too much, I'll then come in and just cut it. People don't communicate enough, I believe. You know, I like to know what's going on.

You know, you've got a lot of people here. Do you like the people you work with?

As in, as mates?

Yeah, do you like your team?

Yeah, I love my team.

Yeah, me too.

And I walk in and I feel really freaking proud.

Yeah, that's good.

Unless you're an entrepreneur and you hire a lot of staff, you don't get what good you're doing in the world and, you know, how much money you're generating in economy. You know, when all these people on Twitter, oh, Elon Musk's a grifter, doesn't pay any tax, doesn't— you know, they don't fucking understand. They just— and they've never had a business. But every single one of those staff's generating all this tax and all this revenue and all. Absolutely. You have to be careful not to get too close to your staff. And I've definitely done that before. You know, I used to go down the gym with a couple of them and I'm a bit soft sometimes. And if you get too close, they don't take your instruction seriously and they'll start, they won't even do it consciously. Oh well, that won't matter 'cause Rob's cool. We're mates, it won't matter. So you do have to have that line.

You've interviewed some big names on your YouTube channel and podcasts and stuff. Who's the most inspirational one out of all of them that you've met for business owners and entrepreneurs?

I would say this isn't the most inspirational person I've met or I've interviewed, because like you said, I've interviewed a load, like hundreds, loads of billionaires, but probably Jordan Peterson. And I'll tell you why, because he sent the world on fire a few years ago and really divided people between 'Good on you, Jordan, for speaking your mind and standing up for free speech. I'm with you.' And then, of course, a lot of the people who are professional getting offended— 'For a living, I'm just offended by everything.' They all hated him. And he went on quite a dark personal journey of exploding, and it really affected his mental health as well. And I'm relatively close to their team, and we have our second interview coming up this summer when he comes over. He's been, he's been very, he's put himself in some very vulnerable positions, mainstream media, you know, and his illnesses and battles that he's gone through. But the interview we did with him is one of the highest viewed Jordan Peterson videos ever, and he's had loads, tens of thousands of comments of people going, this is the best Jordan Peterson interview we've ever seen, because we talked about selling and marketing and business, not just about personal pronouns and non-binary.

What did he say that you thought was—

Oh, go and watch the video.

I will go and watch the video.

Everyone else go and watch the video.

Chudzie makes all my videos, big fan of his.

Well, I'll give you one thing he said, and people don't get this, and we discuss this in detail, but the risks entrepreneurs take, and we put everything on the line, how the instrument of a limited company is a genius design and invention of humanity that people don't give credit for. Because if your liability wasn't limited and you had to put your mortgage and everything on the line, you would consider not doing it. But the limited company vehicle of limiting the liability if a business goes to the business and not everything that you own, that is a genius financial structure which gives us a bit of protection to take the risk. And a lot of people don't understand the entrepreneurial risk. So we had a big chat about that because I actually think the limited company, the LLP, the LLC, it's a really smart wrapper. It's a really— there's a lot of things that have been invented by humanity people don't understand how genius they it is, but they bitch and moan about it. Oh, well, a business owner could just wind up a company and start another one. Well, no, it's not as easy as that, and your reputation's gone to shit and all this.

Yeah, absolutely.

But we wouldn't take a fucking risk if we had to put the house on the line every time.

Have you put your house on the line for your business?

No, that would be fucking stupid.

I've done it many times.

I think it's stupid.

Have you personally guaranteed anything?

Yeah, loads, but not the house. Well, yeah, it is similar. I know that there's layers on my PGs and it's not going to get to my house. And by the way, my wife would never let me.

Yeah. What about your wife? Is she interested in the business? Yeah.

She's a shareholder in two of them.

Does she want to know what you're up to? If you borrow £10 million for it, does she care?

No. But yeah, she got more interested when COVID happened. We were burning a shitload of cash. And for everyone that says cash is trash, if we didn't have millions in the bank, then we wouldn't have been able to keep this training business going. So cash is not trash, but she was interested then. Over the last couple of years, we've got much more involved in our personal finances. She invests in our crypto, she sets up all the wallets, she manages it all. And I like her being involved. I want her to know everything. I think accountability is important. If I'm thinking, you know, I said putting your house on the line is stupid, but what I will do is I'll sit on your seat and go, putting on the house on the line gives you accountability to not fail. And, you know, my wife being involved in everything gives me accountability to that, you know, that relationship to make it work, and I think it's good. So yeah, she's much more interested now.

What are you like as a person though, right? Are you an introvert? Are you an extrovert? You know, you seem quite extroverted here. And I think a lot of people would say that of me, but I like being on my own just as much as I like being with lots of people.

Yeah, I am. I spend more of my day on my own, and I love it. I get up at 6 AM and start work. No, I get up at 5:30 AM and start work at 6 AM every day, and I work on my own until til 9 AM, and I love that time, and that's one of my favourite parts of the day. I was the fattest kid in school, and I grew up with a lot of baggage having that. Well, in the year at school for about 3 years, and I had a lot of rejection, and I felt very unloved, unvalued, unrespected, unadmired on the outside all the time. And so that created a big neediness in me to be noticed, admired, loved, respected, etc. So that's why I've been able to turn on this extroverted thing, get the world record for the longest public public speech, you know, be pretty out there on socials because it's like I want to be noticed, loved, respected, and admired.

Do you have a lot of friends?

No, no. Everyone who knows me knows I don't have many mates.

Do you drink?

Virtually none. I actually quit drinking when I started my proper business in 2006. It was one of the best things I ever did. Yeah, I used to get 2-day hangovers.

I've been studying entrepreneurs and business owners more now than ever. 35% of self-made millionaires in the UK are dyslexic. There's loads of super successful people that have elements of autism, ADHD, dyslexia, all of these things.

Like, they're just labels, by the way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I appreciate that, but I actually feel quite motivated that the world is now looking at that going, actually, they're lucky.

Well, for me, that's just common sense. Yeah, like, people think that that's weird. I got an A* in religious studies, and I told that to my son yesterday and he laughed at me. He said, you're not religious. And I said, no, I just read St. John's. You know, you got— we got a little book, it was St. John's, and just read it and memorised it. But that doesn't make me a good entrepreneur. Reading and memorising shit doesn't make me a good entrepreneur. What makes me a good entrepreneur is being the fat kid in school and not being noticed and having to find a way to get noticed. Or being dyslexic and getting board rubbers thrown at you. No, no, no, but a lot of them, you know. So my friend Neville Wright is wildly dyslexic and the teacher used to throw the board rubber at him and he couldn't see letters, but could see numbers, and he would go and sell on the, you know, in the playground. So if you've got all these labels, and this is really fucking important for me to say this, don't own that fucking label that someone else put on you. Own who you are. And every upside has a downside, and every downside has an upside. So what's the upside of dyslexia? You're probably good with numbers, you're probably good at selling. But if you read St. John's and got an A*, that makes you a terrible salesperson.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, to sell, you have to take rejection, and you don't need to write well or articulate calculate well.

What's your number one skill set for your business? Like, what do you do?

Seeing the future. So I'm the person out of all of them that can see a clear future better than anyone else.

What's your worst trait? What do you do that is so bad that someone else has to do it for you?

All general admin. All general admin.

If I went and asked your team here, would they all agree with that?

Oh, they definitely agree on the admin side of it. Yeah. I think they would—

I think that is most entrepreneurs. That's why I'm asking these questions.

They would perceive my, changing my mind a lot. Yeah. Some of them would be frustrated by that, but I actually think it's a strength to change your mind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you have your mind changed by your team?

Yeah, 100%. If I can't, I'm a fucking idiot.

So many of the people that I've met, this is all super successful people, all aligned. You want someone to like do a survey on successful millionaires and you will see. So what about subject changing in conversations? Do you do that?

Well, you've done it more than I have this week. One, because I haven't still been— I'm still on a couple of your last answers. I'm a bit OCD like that, and I'm thinking there's 7 questions we half answered. So I try not to do that. I'm quite a linear thinker, so I get frustrated on that. And I seem to attract a lot of people in my life that change conversation a lot, so I've got to learn to do that. No, I find that frustrating.

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