Stripping Off with Matt Haycox
Welcome to 'Stripping Off with Matt Haycox,' where we bare it all on business, money, and life. Get ready to peel back the layers of success with entrepreneur, investor, funding expert, and mentor with over 20 years of experience building and growing businesses, Matt Haycox.
Tune into steamy conversations with industry titans, celebrities, and successful entrepreneurs as they strip down their stories of triumphs, setbacks, and the raw realities of their journey to the top. Matt is going down on business, money, and life, and will take DMCs to new heights!
Stripping Off with Matt Haycox
Rob Moore: The UK's Economic Collapse & Political Corruption Exposed
Tell us what you like or dislike about this episode!! Be honest, we don't bite!
In this explosive episode of Stripping Off with Matt Haycox, Rob Moore is back to shake things up! Known for his unfiltered takes and unapologetic stance, Rob dives deep into why the UK’s economy is on its knees, how politicians are failing us, and what we need to do to save the future of entrepreneurship and innovation.
As an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and investor, Rob has built multi-million-pound businesses and isn’t afraid to call out the government, tax systems, and even big banks. His controversial opinions will challenge everything you thought you knew about how the world really works.
Key Takeaways:
- The UK Economy is Insolvent: Rob explains why the country’s financial system is broken and what needs to change before it’s too late.
- Why Politicians are Failing Us: Find out why Rob believes politicians are unqualified to fix the mess and how billionaires like Dyson and Branson could do better.
- Tax is Killing Ambition: Hear Rob’s no-holds-barred take on why high taxes are demotivating entrepreneurs and driving innovation out of the UK.
- Cutting Through the Bullshit: From reducing red tape to challenging outdated rules, Rob shares how business owners can thrive in a broken system.
- Decentralisation & Asset Allocation: Learn how Rob protects his wealth through property, gold, crypto, and more.
Timestamps:
0:00 – Meet Rob Moore
1:47 – Is Rob Controversial?
4:14 – Fixing the UK’s Problems
13:47 – Boris Johnson on Rob’s Podcast
14:56 – Overpaid Politicians, Underpaid PMs
17:04 – Why Rob Stays in the UK
18:08 – Balancing Family and Work
22:48 – The Truth About Kids’ Education
27:30 – Why School is Outdated
33:27 – Is the Matrix Real?
35:33 – Fixing Education Systems
39:17 – Rob’s Take on AI
45:00 – Exposing the Banking System
52:53 – Watches as Investments
59:30 – Business and Partnerships
1:07:01 – Why Podcasts Matter
1:16:38 – Rob’s Final Takeaways
Connect with Rob Moore:
- 🌐https://robmoore.com
- 🎙 Podcast: Disruptors
- 📖 Books: Money: Know More, Make More, Give More
- 📱 https://www.instagram.com/robmooreprogressive/
If you’re ready to question the system, challenge the status quo, and take control of your financial future, this is the episode for you.
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Who Is Matt Haycox? - Click for BADASS Trailer
Are you ready to unlock your full potential and take your business to the next level? I’m Matt Haycox—entrepreneur, investor, mentor, and your go-to guy for no-bollocks advice on business and personal growth.
With over 25 years of experience building and funding businesses across industries, I’ve faced it all—wins, losses, and the ultimate comeback story. Through my podcasts, No Bollocks with Matt Haycox and Stripping Off with Matt Haycox, I cut through the bullshit to bring you real, actionable strategies and raw conversations with entrepreneurs, celebrities, and industry leaders.
Whether you’re looking to scale your business, secure funding, or avoid the mistakes I’ve learned the hard way, my goal is simple: to help YOU create YOUR success story.
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They don't care if you go bust, and they don't care if you get depressed, and they don't care if you commit suicide.
Speaker 2:Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Stripping Off with me, matt Haycox, and let me tell you this week has been full on. I've been keeping my head in the game. I've been using my go-to formula of ice bath saunas and hitting the gym. There's just something about sweating it out and keeping the system shocked to clear your mind when things get chaotic. And talking of chaos. Today's guest he knows a lot about it, both navigating it and coming out on top.
Speaker 2:Rob Moore's in the house. He's here for round two. Five years ago, we did our first podcast together on Zoom during COVID Never as good on Zoom so I was so happy to be sat down with him face to face here in Dubai for this one. And a lot's changed since then five years ago for Rob, for me and also in the world of business. But the one thing that hasn't changed is Rob's ability to shake things up and to challenge a status quo. If you've been living under a rock and you don't know Rob, rob's an entrepreneur, he's an investor, he's a coach, he's a mentor. He's a guy who's built up multi, multi-million pound businesses and he's stirred up his fair share of controversy along the way, whilst teaching thousands of people how to create real wealth, and in today's episode, we're going to dive deep into everything from taking risks and breaking rules to making money and maintaining your freedom in an increasingly regulated world. So grab a drink, sit in the ice bath, if you're feeling brave, and sit back.
Speaker 2:Let's dive into round two with the one and only Mr Rob Moore. Hey, matt, here, just interrupting myself to say can you believe that 62% of listeners to this podcast don't actually subscribe? Now, I know you like it because you listen to it, you come back and the stats are great, but 62% of you don't actually subscribe. So make sure you subscribe, whether that's on YouTube, spotify, itunes, wherever you listen to your content or watch your content, and make sure that you never miss a future episode. Guys, Matt Haycock's here and I've got a guest I'm very excited to be talking about today. I'm sure most of you already know who he is, but if you don't know Rob Moore, he's an entrepreneur, he's a property expert, he's a speaker, he's a podcaster and I guess I would describe him as a general motor mouth with some outspoken and interesting and potentially controversial opinions that we'll probably have a chat on today as well. So what's that head movement for? Are you disagreeing with me?
Speaker 1:Well, controversial is subjective. Controversial is subjective if calling out labor for the outrageous taxes and calling out platforms that censor you just what? Yesterday, zuckerberg's come out and admitted that they censored on facebook, which I knew was going on. If you you call that controversial. Well, there you go. I think it's standing up for important things in society. Don't tax the hell out of us, don't tax 70% of everything we earn and spend and don't censor important information. Those are surely fundamental human rights. And yeah, I speak about those things and get fucking cancelled for those things yeah, it's quite ironic because zuckerberg comes out, who are generally.
Speaker 1:I like the guy as an entrepreneur, but he comes out and says oh, you know, we're moving away from fact checkers um, and so I did a facebook live on our 501 000 followers on facebook.
Speaker 1:I did a Facebook Live on it. I have 501,000 followers on Facebook. I did a Facebook Live on Zuckerberg stopping censorship and that Live was censored. It had 23 viewers on it out of 501,000 followers. So we'll fucking see about that if he actually does it. But yeah, I don't think I'm controversial. I don't think there are lizards in the moon like david ike does. Um, is the earth flat? Um, so yeah, you call me controversial. I find that fascinating.
Speaker 1:I'll, I'll take it back, but no no, you don't have to, but yeah, no no, I, I, um, I mean I agree with your sentiment entirely.
Speaker 2:I mean it is speaking out for things that are fundamentally wrong, but I mean I wasn't going to get straight into politics and censorship and some of those things. They were on the agenda, but I mean you mentioned To me, it's not politics, it's human fucking rights.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be political, I'm an entrepreneur. I don't want anything to do with politics, but freedom of speech and retaining a small amount of money that you earn, it's a human right.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you, when I say politics, I'm talking Labour government and, I guess, the economics of the UK. I've been out of the UK for four plus years now and I've paid limited attention. I obviously know what's going on over there. But I ask this as a genuine question not leading in any way how does the economic situation of a country like the UK ever get fixed? And I give a bit of context If I looked at, let's say, the UK in terms of a business, I would say it's fucked and needs to go through an insolvency process.
Speaker 2:You know there's some good bits in there, but there's too much debt, there's too many problems and if it was a business, you know it would need to go through a process and it would come out the other side better and cleaner and safer and, you know, have have more longevity. But I guess I mean, is that? Something like that's probably not even possible for a country. I mean, is it or it's? Certainly no one's going to want to put their hand up and say, yes, let's do this, because even though it might need it, they're going to be hated, hated for so long. They'd never get them. How would you fix the UK if you had a blank canvas?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think there's probably three main ways that a government or an economy can raise money, ie, to grow the economy, to borrow money from other nations, but we're trillions in debt, which has billions in interest payments, which takes a decent amount off the tax we pay anyway. So that's not going to work now because the debt is so high. The other way is to print money, but the problem with that is it erodes the value of our money and it creates inflation and pushing inflation too high has a lot of downsides. But the other way which is surely every entrepreneur will know this and to me it's common sense to attract investment. So you raise money, you attract investment. It's simple.
Speaker 1:But what we did was we sanctioned and sent away all the Russians, you know, and all these overseas billionaires and corporations and foreign money that London used to be the best in the world attracting and having some tax breaks, being a tax haven, you know, giving us incentives. The UK have just dismissed it all and sent everyone away. So no big overseas institutions or billionaires or companies. Why are they going to want to come to the UK? Why are they going to want to chuck billions into this country? And that's what we need to do. But then when you increase tax, you reduce motive and incentive. So why would you sell more or try and generate more revenue if you knew most of it was going to be given to someone else? You wouldn't. So you're thinking I'm not going to bother starting a company, I'm not going to bother growing a company, and if you're outside of the UK I'm not going to bother coming in. And the easiest way to just fire up the economy and generate revenue is to draw money in. So I don't think they have any clue.
Speaker 1:You know no one in Labour, the top. You know the prime minister, the chancellor. None of them have ever run a business. The prime minister, the chancellor none of them have ever run a business. And yeah, the UK is insolvent. I mean, america is insolvent, although it depends if you add the assets, because London's got a lot of assets, if it still owns any anymore. Obviously America's got a lot of assets. You're supposed to look at the debt, the trillions, but then net it out with the assets.
Speaker 1:But certainly from a liquidity point of view, the UK is trading insolvently knowingly. Now, if you, as a business owner, trade insolvently knowingly, that could be a criminal offence. It's definitely a civil offence, you could be struck off as a director, not run a business for five years, or worse, you could go to prison. Yet the government are doing that. But you're right, and a new government aren't going to come in and go. Oh, for 30 years we've messed it up. So let's just wind everything up. Let's pay off the national debt, which would have to be more, more tax increases. Then they're never going to do it, they're just going to kick the can down the road, but in the end, money will devalue to nothing.
Speaker 2:With a celebrity, with an athlete, with just an international inspiring character, we find out what makes them tick, we find out how they got to where they got to, and we find out how you can learn and benefit from them too. So jump on over to Spotify, itunes, youtube, wherever you listen to your content, and I'll see you on a future episode.
Speaker 1:Like everything is so expensive, so expensive, and then the pound's weak. So I come here and a Starbucks and a water it's like 11 quid and it should be two or three quid. So there are the things that are wrong. Um, and what would I do? I would, um, I would get people who've run wildly successful businesses, who love the UK, like Dyson. He buggered off years ago. You buggered off years ago. So I'd be like, hey, james, james Dyson, come back. Hey, richard Branson, come back. And all these amazing, globally inspiring, billionaire entrepreneurs who know how to generate billions in economic revenue, who did it from nothing.
Speaker 1:I'd say come and sit on the board in the government you know Facebook have done that recently with Dana White and I'd draw back all these billionaires and all these entrepreneurs and I'd sit them around a table like this as the prime minister and the chancellor, the treasurer, and go right, what do we do? We'd love your support. What do you need from us? How can we partner? How can we partner? How can we make you bring all your business here, your staff here, your offices here. We can't give you everything and you know we do need you to pay some tax. How about we do a deal. You start paying more than 4% tax. What about you pay 9% tax? We'll do a deal. Donald Trump did that when he got in the last term. He brought Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos around the table and said right guys, what do we do?
Speaker 2:That's what we need to do and do you think it's realistic that we could raise enough investment, generate enough income in a quick enough time period to stem the outflow? I guess what I mean is you know we've already got the running costs of the country. You know plenty of waste and stuff on there, but again you're taking it back to business terms. You know, if you were going to look at a business plan for an insolvent company, you could say well, it's going to take us X amount of time to generate this new income that's going to get us to this level of profitability. However, during that time, we're going to still be burning money on these things. Again, in a business context, you'd be cutting some of those costs, but cutting those costs are going to cause, I guess, more outcry and outrage, whether it's stopping services or doing whatever. Do you think it's possible to just bring investment in without people needing to feel some pain and some loss somewhere?
Speaker 1:well, yeah, there definitely needs to be pain and loss. For example, um lockdown cost one trillion pounds and everyone was like, yeah, give me the loans, bounce me back. Oh yeah, I'll just take it. Oh yeah, I'll spend it, I'll live on it, I won't work, and how naive was that. And now that trillion has to be paid back and, by the way, that won't be overtly admitted, but it's about a trillion that it cost.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, there's a cost. It's a trillion of real money, not just loss of productivity.
Speaker 1:No, money is real money.
Speaker 2:Money isn't real, but I guess what I mean is an outflow of money as opposed to, let's say, loss of productivity. Another less tangible.
Speaker 1:Oh, I imagine, when you add in loss of productivity and the 20,000 millionaires that have left the UK since lockdown and you add all that in, it's trillions, not just a trillion. So yeah, I mean mean everything's a mess. Yeah, I mean the worst things are the harder. You know, if you've been an alcoholic for 25 years, you know why do you go to the priory for three months and just get locked in because it's fucking hard. And yeah, the country it needs a complete, radical shake-up. And here's the problem the people who are in the institution are holding on and they don't want to let go of the institution. So something that America are doing.
Speaker 1:I've always believed this needs to be done. There's too many civil servants. There's too many people employed in government being paid too high a wage for too low a productivity and too low an output. And Elon Musk's gone into America like he went into Twitter. He went into Twitter and he fired what 85, 90% of the staff Didn't really seem to do it. That much damage Still going, even added monetization. And now he's going to do it in government. He says Department of Government Efficiency. He's going to go in and wipe out most of the civil servants there. That needs to happen here.
Speaker 1:People need to justify their job. They are supposed to be civil servants, which means serving civilians. That's what civil service means. But they're not serving us because the country's ruined, so they're failing and they get rewarded for failure. You know, if you're a failed um prime minister, you can have someone else write your book, sell millions of copies. Going on podcasts. I refuse to have boris johnson on my podcast. Fuck off. Why are you coming on my podcast when you fuck this country up? And then you're going to come on my podcast. And then what? You sell a load of books and then you get paid a quarter of a million or a million a speech. I'd have this trust on my podcast. That's a different story. But they get rewarded for failure. Now, if an entrepreneur fails, they go down. The creditors. Creditors go down. You put your, you remortgage your house, you put that on the line. It goes down and the politicians just get a better job or get quarter of a million pound keynote speeches fundamentally the wrong way around I'm surprised you wouldn't.
Speaker 2:You didn't want boris, though, to to take him to task on the things that you've got. You've got your strong opinions on yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:I actually one thing I will correct myself on is I never say never so. But if he was to come on my podcast and it was just one big book promotion, nah, sure. Um yeah, if he came on my podcast and it was just one big book promotion, nah, sure yeah. If he came on my podcast and said, rob, you can ask me anything you like and I will be open and honest and I'm not here just on a PR mission. Yeah, all right, you got me on that one.
Speaker 2:But just going back to what you're saying about, about people being being rewarded for failure and being paid too much to do too little, about people being rewarded for failure and being paid too much to do too little, I think for me, there's two sides of that, though. Yes, absolutely Too many incompetent people, by number and by amount they're paid, but then also so I think they need to go but also, certain roles aren't paid enough to get the quality of the person you want.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, Prime Minister's way underpaid Every entrepreneur knows it. They're way underpaid. Every entrepreneur knows it. They're way underpaid and that's probably why they um take all these bloody. Yeah, we'll pay. How much of those glasses he got given? How much was that box at arsenal the prime minister got given? How much were the clothes his wife got given? Even while I'm gonna boris, fair play, because Labour accused you of, you know, taking handouts while they were doing it themselves.
Speaker 1:And yeah, that's completely wrong, but they don't get paid enough. Like, being the prime minister or the president would be one of the hardest jobs in the world. You can't please all of the people all of the time. In fact, if you can anger half a country, you can become a president. And that was Barack Obama that said that I might have got. It might not be anger, but if you can get half the nation to hate you, you can become a president. So he knows what it takes and I do have empathy for high ranking politicians and prime ministers that you're never going to keep everyone happy and you've got people like me who've got an opinion. But I'm not just blurting shit whilst on the dole, getting paid a load of money or being a lazy bastard. I have paid hundreds of millions in taxes on entrepreneurs since I've been an entrepreneur in VAT, corporation tax, income tax, national insurance for my staff, their tax hundreds of fucking millions. Where's my service for that? If you paid my company hundreds of millions, you'd demand a service.
Speaker 2:Why do you stay in the UK?
Speaker 1:My mum and dad my dad's 81, and it looked like at age 50 he wasn't going to be with us very long my wife's parents. I've got 345 rental units and 400 and odd tenants in my portfolio. We've got a management firm that manages 1250 tenants. I've got the UK's largest property training business all in my town and city. You know my sister, my kids' cousins, you know everyone's there.
Speaker 1:So if I fucked off to Dubai and then I got a phone call one day from my mum saying my dad had died, I couldn't live with myself. So I'm not ready yet. Do you see a lot of your parents? I probably should see them more. I probably should have more friends. I probably should have better self-care, probably should do things for myself, more self-love All this stuff that everyone tells you you should do. You know, do things for myself more self-love all this stuff that you know everyone tells you you should do. Have more balanced life. But, um, I'm an entrepreneur and I want to work every day and that's all I want to fucking do. Um, so, yeah, I probably should see the more my mum works. Um, in my company I get to see her a bit more because she's in and out and in and out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started. I came, came across over the last six or nine months, I can't say his name, probably jesse, it's yeah, uh, married to sarah blakely.
Speaker 2:That's the one, yeah I find his content you know, I think it's his personality, his content together comes across real, real nice. And I've listened to him talk a few times lately, um, about how he measures measures time not in time but in, let's say, units of seeing that person, for example. I was talking about the fact, you know, if you see your parents once a year, a couple of times a year, and you're thinking, oh, they've got 10 years left to live, you're not thinking my parents have 10 years left in them. He's thinking I will see my mum 12 more times or 15 more times before she snuffs it. And whilst I guess most of these concepts aren't rocket science, it's just that you don't probably think of them yourself until someone identifies. But when you start to think of things in those terms, it's quite frightening actually, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is. I heard something similar that by the time your kids are 18, you've seen them for 90% of the time that you're going to see them in their whole life, and my wife's brilliant at reminding us of that often. You know, my wife goes through lots of challenge to um to raise my children, as every mum does, but she puts herself below the kids because she keeps reminding herself that when they're 18 or 21 she's going to see them for just another 10 percent of the total time she's seen them. And, yeah, maybe we would see life differently then. However, one thing I want to say, which is the opposite to that, is there's lots of people projecting that from a high and mighty position that you know you should have good work-life, life balance and self care and put yourself first and be selfish and this and that.
Speaker 1:No, no, no. People like myself and I'm not putting myself in the same bracket but Elon Musk we were born to do something and the world needs people like Elon Musk and it needs people like me and people like you, people like Elon Musk, and it needs people like me and people like you, and it needs people who spend time raising a family. So I just have never really fit in with social and friends and just you know, christmas I get so itchy I work every day. I said to my wife I don't remember the last time I've had a day off. It's been a while. And she said, rob, you haven't had a day off since Steve Jobs invented the iPhone. And she, she said after that she said I hate Steve Jobs. Um, but you know, I am meant to be what I am. I'm not meant to be what you tell me but it's.
Speaker 2:But it's just. It's just doing what you love, though, isn't it? And ultimately, you know, either, most people either do what they love or wish they could do what they loved. It's just that work isn't their thing. You know, and I don't know if someone loves tennis and plays tennis for seven hours a day, I don't mean as a professional player, but just as a hobbyist. If they could play tennis for seven or eight hours a day, no one would go. You're playing too much tennis. You need balance.
Speaker 1:You need balance in your life, uh, but I guess it's just that tag that gets attached to work, because well, it's it's usually from lazy people or people who have sold out their own dreams or people who want to sell some kind of course based on that. It's usually those cause, you know. They say are you never going to get to the end of your life and wish you worked harder or worked another day? I fucking am, because I could have started my business at eight, cause my dad actually taught me business. Okay, let's say that's not realistic. I, at eight, because my dad actually taught me business. Okay, let's say that's not realistic. I definitely could have started at age 18. I definitely could have started at age 23. And I started at age 27 when I was 50 grand in debt and nearly went broke. So I actually am going to get to the end of my life and wish I worked more days. I'm going to wish I could have another life to work another life, because this is work and it's not work.
Speaker 1:And we've met through work and we didn't meet, you know, just having some hike up a mountain.
Speaker 1:We we met through business and, um, you know we were talking outside this studio that one of the reasons you do the podcast is the connections you get. Well, so that's our version of friends and I just want to say to anyone who's thinking about being an entrepreneur or wants to be one fucking be one and ignore all the noise, because they're projecting you know, them onto you. Yeah, you want to spend time with your family, so I've just been in Dubai. Well, I'm in Dubai now, but I've been here two weeks and the first week I did a speaker course and I'm working, and so the family comes. So I can, you know, you, take your family around the world and work around the world, or get your kids working for you, my family around the world and work around the world, or get your kids working for you. My kids come and work from time to time in the company. Work-life balance bollocks Work-life blend and merging things together and living both simultaneously I think that's realistic.
Speaker 2:How do you educate your kids as in state school, private school, home school?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so both my kids are in private school. How?
Speaker 1:old are they 10 and 13. And I did consider homeschooling. I think the school system is outdated. I'll just full stop there for now. But you know I have the financial resources to put my kids through private school and if I didn't I would feel like that's selfish, because I have the resources. I had a post just blow up on Twitter. I got invited to three major basically the Times, bbc Radio, lbc and London all wanted a scoop on me on this story. Because three days ago, with no warning, because three days ago, with no warning, the school communicated to the 200, 180 students that my daughter's in she's 10.
Speaker 1:She's in this very inclusive, holistic, caring, nurturing school. They all love it. I hated boarding at school. She loves it. She comes back from boarding. Oh, did you miss me? No, daddy didn't miss you, she loves it. She comes back from boarding. Oh, did you miss me? No, daddy Didn't miss you, she loves it. Anyway, they're shutting down, and they're shutting down because of the VAT added to school fees and because of the national insurance. I tweeted that Went viral, got millions of views.
Speaker 1:They all want to scoop and you wouldn't believe the hate on there. You know, look at you, cry me a river, or oh, it's just because the school doesn't know how to run itself properly. Well, when you're a school and it's hard enough to make money anyway because education isn't supported as well as it should be, and you're probably running at a bit of a loss, and then there's 20% VAT added on and national insurance added on for each staff member, that's the straw that breaks the camel's back. And my daughter's school recently got bought out and got funding and they're like 200 kids is break even. We've got 180 and now they need 225 to break even because of these tax increases. So they've just fucking shut down.
Speaker 1:What an outrageous, disgusting scam. That labor taxed education like leave, leave the fucking kids alone. And like the future of our failing nation is our children and they're taxing education. That is financial rape. It is completely wrong, wrong and all right. I've been affected by it personally. My daughter's in bits. The kids are in bits, but even if it was your son or daughter or anyone else's, I'd be just as outraged. It's outrageous. So, yeah, what am I going to do now with my kids? I'm probably going to send my daughter to another private school. But if they get any worse, I'm I going to do now with my kids?
Speaker 2:I'm probably going to send my daughter to another private school, but if they get any worse I'm probably going to pull them out.
Speaker 2:And you say and I ask these questions more nowadays because I have, for context, two kids I've got an 18-year-old back in the UK who's just about to finish her A-levels and go on to uni, and I've got a daughter here who's nearly two and, I guess, a daughter here who's nearly two and um, I guess you know, just go back to what you said a minute ago about by the time they're 18, you've seen them, seen them for 90 of the time. I get to simultaneously live that that dual thing with the kids where, for the 18 year old, obviously she loves me, but you know I see her infrequently and she'd she'd rather be off with her pals and um and doing a school and doing everything else, whereas Whereas for the one who's nearly two, I'm still the hero that you know. When she sees me walking towards the front door, she runs to grab her shoes and cry and cries if, if she doesn't get them on. And from that two to 18, I mean, fuck, it goes in, it goes in three blinks, doesn't it and.
Speaker 2:I remember the eight, I remember the 18 year old being that two-year-old, like it was yesterday. So I mean it is frightening. But moving the question back on, obviously education is going to be something that happens from for my youngest very quickly and I've been very much considering, or say I am going to home school a out of, let's say, flexibility to me from a selfish perspective, because you know me and the missus are semi-mobile and you know I don't want to be confined to school holidays, but also because I I want to teach the curriculum that I want to teach. I say I obviously won't be me, but I want to, let's say, direct or dictate the curriculum that I I want to teach, which I don't 100 know what that is yet, but I certainly want, you know, a focus on entrepreneurism, on communication, on languages, on on other social skills or life skills, you know, like musical instruments and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But you mentioned, you see, the education system as outdated. You know, expand, expand on that for me. I know a lot of people who are outspoken about education say, you know the system is designed to keep us as sheep. I mean I'm not convinced it's designed, you know, done by design. I mean, maybe it does. You know, keep us as sheep and keep us as workers, not, not entrepreneurs. Uh, okay, I think it's. It's probably just a byproduct of inefficiency and antiquated whatever, but uh, you, but expand on it for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so addressing those two points outdated. When Henry Ford invented the factory line and we had, I guess, a sort of industrial productivity revolution in the UK, we would have needed millions and millions of workers. Do you know that coffee was introduced in coffee breaks as a way to drug the employees to work longer? People don't realise that, they just think it's recreational. So a bit like we're here in Dubai now and they're expanding all the roads. I mean there's six lane roads. They built this great state for tens or hundreds of millions of people and they need to expand it now more.
Speaker 1:And that's what needs to happen to the education system. It was generating workers, then managers, and that's what most of the curriculum is. But now people can be content creators, they can set up a business in their bedroom on e-commerce, they can sell information. We have AI, and the education system is not and maybe cannot keep up quick enough. So it needs either disruption or revolution, and that's slow. So that's one element where the education system is outdated.
Speaker 1:The next thing is it's too expensive. So the average person in the UK gets 35 grand in debt in a three year degree and then therefore probably about 50 grand in debt in a three-year degree and then therefore, probably about 50 grand in debt in a five-year degree. And then their average wage when they can get a job, although in some industries they get more than if they didn't go to university. Do you know, in some industries you get less if you went to university, but let's assume they get more, because that's the rhetoric, isn't it? Oh, you'll get paid more. It takes nearly a year to get a job on average after university, so you're probably going to have to lay more debt in there. So you might add 20% of your debt. You might be 55, 60 grand in debt. And then the average person starts on a £26,000 salary, with house prices compared to wages through the roof, with inflation that's gone up 31% in the last five years through the roof. And you tell me that's not a broken system. So it's outdated in terms of what it's educating us that the world needs right now. It is financially broken because it's trying to make profit, but it's putting us in debt.
Speaker 1:And then there's your question of sheep, you know, is it? Is it by design? Well, if you think about how the banks make money, or the or controlled by the same entity, debt, tax, interest compliance that's how they make their money. They don't make their money if you're not in debt, because if you're not in debt, you're not paying them interest. So you either need to be in bad debt or good debt. I learned good debt so I could leverage them to invest in assets. So the banks are making money out of me but at least I am too but they don't educate us on that, because the mass population don't know how to leverage good debt and invest in assets. The mass population know how to get a loan for a car, a conservatory, a house to gamble, to travel on holiday. So then why are they not going to invest trillions in reeducating us? They just want you in debt and they don't care if you go bust, and they don't care if you get depressed and they don't care if you commit suicide. They don't, otherwise the regulations would be tighter. Now there is some regulation in the UK compared to other countries, so they need you in debt, otherwise they can't make money. And so then they get maximum interest, and obviously being a student puts you in the debt interest trap or trail for your life. Um, taxes, which is obviously government-based, and and then compliance ie, they need you to do it and be happy. Oh nothing, be happy, shut up, be happy, smile, be happy. If you to do it and be happy. Oh nothing, be happy, shut up, be happy, smile, be happy. If you rant about it on social media, we might cancel you, we might even imprison you.
Speaker 1:Andrew Tate came on my podcast. It went, we clipped it and it went fucking wildly viral Tens, if not hundreds of millions of views. He said when you get powerful, they take you through three stages they cancel you and shut you down on all your content, so you've got no voice. If you still keep going, they imprison you. So you've got no voice. And if you keep going, they assassinate you. And that's what he thinks.
Speaker 1:Now, obviously, the imprisonment and assassination. That's extreme. I've got no evidence of that. I'm just telling you what Andrew Tate told me, and I don't know if I'm a bit with you. Is there really a nefarious Dr Evil sitting in a Dr Evil chair with a few buttons controlling the world? Is there really a matrix? I don't know. Probably not.
Speaker 1:I mean, there are powerful families.
Speaker 1:If you have a company, you have a CEO and he's the most powerful guy in the company and you need that guy. So the banks are going to have a CEO and the world might have a panel of CEOs, but you know there's a lot of conjecture about who that is. There's definitely powerful families, but no, not all the system is nefarious and it's not all out to get you, because you can educate yourself. You can educate yourself to take tax breaks and if the country shuts them all down like the UK is you can move to Dubai where they don't pay you much tax. They don't charge you much tax. You can learn how to be an entrepreneur. You can learn how to start your business. You can learn how to leverage social media channels. You can learn how to borrow money from the banks and make money on the money from the banks and you can earn all this stuff. And you can get a lot of this on the internet on podcasts like this. So some people think you know Rob's got a bit grumpy. He's always moaning about this.
Speaker 1:No no no, I became an entrepreneur in the UK. I'm super grateful for the UK. I haven't left the UK, even though they're really turning the screw on entrepreneurs. You know that the top 10% of earners in the UK earn something like 70%, pay something like 70% of the tax revenue. You earn all the government money and it always makes me laugh when people say government spending. There is no government spending. The government don't have any money, it's yours. The government's money is your money. When they print money, they create it as debt for you and then the money that you pay in tax you earned they printed it, loaned it to you, created debt on you and then you earn it and give it back to them. There is no government money, there is only our money, and we're not getting good civil service.
Speaker 2:And just to finish on that education thing you, you mentioned about the um, the fact that this, the system's broken because it's too expensive. Uh, how, I mean, how do you propose that's fixed? I mean simply in terms of different methods of delivery that like, for example uh, things can be delivered online and people are at home, therefore you don't need big buildings and an infrastructure, etc. How else would you fix the financial model of the education system?
Speaker 1:well, that's one way is to reduce overhead. Of course, that's essentially what you're saying, but of course, if you have all education online, then you miss the social aspect.
Speaker 1:That's going to have a knock-on effect accountability, which is probably more of an issue with the youngsters yeah, true, exactly, um, although meeting your friends and getting drunk all the time probably hurts accountability as well, but at least you gain friendships. And you know, I don't think that the solution to everything is everything online. We're humans. We still need to connect. You know, I actually think a bit of a revolution or opportunity in business will be more human connection. Um, you know, more luxury items, more bespoke service as ai grows, because as ai grows, we'll have less humanity and we'll crave more humanity. So, yes, you could do things online, but then the swing will be we need we still need to connect. You know, we love physical touch, we love emotion, we like to be loved, we want to. You know, you and I can't have the same relationship until we've met and we know each other, and we've shaken each other's hands and we've had a face-to-face conversation. You said to me zoom podcasts are just not the same as face-to-face, so I wouldn't just radicalize it by making it all online.
Speaker 1:What we need to do is we need talent. It all starts from talent. Talented teachers, talented teachers, talented students the best of the best make most of the money, and it's money that drives the economy. So we had great institutions, british, let's say, for example, we had had jaguar and then we sold it off, and then now they've rebranded it as some woke asexual brand. And so what? What happened to the great british institution of jaguar which, by the way, used to reflect j Bond, you know? And Aston Martin's been sold and we don't produce. You know, we're not producing our own energy, and so what we need to do in the UK is build assets, again, assets that are worth billions or trillions. Great companies, great institutions, be independent so we're not held to ransom by other countries for things like energy.
Speaker 1:And then we need to attract talent. Think of all the money that's flown around Silicon Valley. Think of all the billion and now probably the trillion dollar companies through Silicon Valley, because all the talent wants to go to Silicon Valley. All the talent used to want to go to London. So, but why would the talent go to some shitty university and get 50 grand in debt to get a 30 grand job? All the great talent will leave to America, or now Texas and places like that, or leave to Dubai or start their own business. So it is, yeah, talented teachers and they need to get paid more. So it is, yeah, talented teachers and they need to get paid more Talented students who build things. You know the future Elon Musk's, mark Zuckerberg's, jeff Bezos's? Now people will say, oh yeah, but you know they're too powerful and they create monopolies. Well then, it's up to governments to regulate and to have anti-monopoly, anti-trust rules put in place, which they don't. So I mean, it's a complicated question. That's where I'd start.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned AI a couple of times. How do you use AI in your business?
Speaker 1:OK, so we're building a robot, so there will be an admin robot which, for anything you might do in my companies, anything you might need administratively, there'll be an admin robot, a chat bot, obviously. Now, with AI, that'll be my face speaking, as opposed to just a little chat. Then we'll do it for all my content. So we're making a rob bot which will take all my content from the internet ever and it's you essentially have your own personalized rob search engine. Um, we've just started testing a couple of months ago, um ai outbound sales calls I was just about to say I don't want to interrupt, but uh, I did.
Speaker 2:I received a demo on on an outbound sales call person two or three days ago. I mean fucking unbelievable. I mean about two seconds in. I'm like where do I sign? Because this is going to just revolutionize the, the bdm side of our sales department. Yeah, I mean the quality, the replication and the price, just unbelievable.
Speaker 1:But we'll move on to that in a minute. So, yeah, we started a test with 1,000 dials of 1,000 leads that had registered but not shown up for events, so obviously there was not too much risk of us trying that. There was only 3% that knew it was ai. Um, there was a 60 percent um pickup, which is like way high um, and then there was a 10 of that 60. So there was a thousand, 1,000 dials, 600 conversations. Only three, to our knowledge, knew it was AI, and then 60 of those re-engaged. Yeah, yeah, so we'll see how that goes. I still am a bit sceptical with AI that more people will just demand human interaction, the more AI is a thing. But then I'll make sure I'm all over that as well. I still run live events, I still fly. I've flown out to Dubai and done my podcast face-to-face.
Speaker 2:But I guess for me it's using the AI on either the entry-level bits or the periphery bits, you know, not replacing the human interaction, like you say, but so I human interaction like you say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, adding to it.
Speaker 2:I'm in the financial services sector. We either do or need to do lots of outbound calling to lots of data of mediocre quality, and you've only really got two options you either don't do it or you've expense what is ultimately expensive. People calling it, uh, you know. Do I suggest that you can use the ai all the way down the sales process? Absolutely not at all.
Speaker 2:But if I've got a hundred thousand leads or, you know, cold leads- all these are sat there, you know, to have someone fire through those quickly and cheaply. Uh, you know, even if you that hundred thousand turns into 0.5 percent of something and we get 400, 500 warmer things for the real people to do, uh, you know, the roi on that is just, is just phenomenal. I mean this, this, this ai system that we're looking at. Uh, entry level pricing is a thousand dollars a month for two thousand minutes. A month that's two thousand minutes of talk time. So you don't get charged for non-connects and all the coffee breaks and all the stuff. So 2,000 minutes is realistically probably one full-time BDM for the month. Yeah, for $1,000. That's the most expensive price point. It scales down 80% cheaper as the minutes go up. So 100,000 minutes a month is 10 cents as opposed to 5 cents. So 100,000 minutes a month costs $10,000 a month. 100,000 minutes a month is 40 to 50 full-time employees. The quantum is just unthinkable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, it's an unprecedented opportunity. A lot of people say, oh well, ai is going to take out my job and I'm scared for the future of AI, just like any tool, just be smart with how you use it. You could use a hammer to put up a nice picture, or you could use it to smash someone's skull. And use it wisely. So I think, where you can get scalability, systemization and where you don't need personalization, use AI and then maintain human interaction and engagement, because you know AI is good enough. We could have done a Zoom and you could have interviewed my AI, but you probably wanted to interview me. I guess the people listening would want to interview me.
Speaker 1:Also, the thing that AI can't do, because I've started to get more prolific on LinkedIn and you see, on LinkedIn there's so many AI generated posts and AI generated replies. All my posts and all my replies are written by me and a lot of people. You can see their AI fatigued on LinkedIn. So if you want to build a personal brand, if you want to be a really well-paid speaker creator, it can't do your tone, it can't do your energy, it can't do your rants and people say, oh yes, it can. They're the people who are trying to sell you the AI. No, ai can do my tone, energy, my rants, my language. It usually puts me in some kind of australian accent it so there's a massive opportunity for personalization and um personality. That ai is also going to help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's talk about the banking system. I mean, you've met you've mentioned that a couple of times I guess in the context of good debt, bad debt, you know leveraging it. But you know, I've also heard you in the past, you know, talk quite, I guess, quite whatever the word is outspokenly about decentralized finance and the fact that your money is not really your own and you know, I guess you should never have all your money in one bank, etc. Etc. Again, all sentiments I completely agree with. But also, I mean as someone running a UK-based business large, you know, large-scale business, you know businesses where they're not very portable. You know, I think the thing obviously you're speaking is, but your properties aren't. I mean, what do you do to protect yourself and what do you? Where do you think the future is going on that?
Speaker 1:yeah. So there's decentralization and there's asset allocation, and both strategies essentially do the same thing. So asset allocation is the portfolio theory of dividing up your assets in certain percentages across different either assets or funds or classes. So for me, I like to have real estate. That's probably my biggest allocation. You know my company actually my companies are probably the biggest allocation, but that's a business.
Speaker 1:It's a different type of asset Gold and silver, s&p 500, ftse 100, which are essentially funds, watches, other material possessions like classic cars, bitcoin and crypto. You know there might be a couple of others that people, people have. But if you look at the asset classes that there are, you're going to be probably mostly in in your one main one and then you're going to be so you might be 30 to 70% in in your main one. If you're starting out, you're going to be a higher percentage in your main one and then you're going to take your second best or most knowledgeable or most interested asset class. I have a reasonable allocation of watchers because I'm really interested in watchers and I love having watchers, so I have a higher allocation than someone that wouldn't be interested in it. Someone who's really anti-government, anti-fiat currency, anti-banks, would have a high allocation of bitcoin and gold because they're decentralized how do you own your gold?
Speaker 2:physical? Yeah, because otherwise it's not decentralized.
Speaker 1:Here's the irony of people um, buying gold and putting it in a vault. Who owns the vault? The banks, so it's still in with the bank. And why would you put gold into an ETF? Or why would you put crypto into some kind of fund? Like, if you're going to invest in Michael Saylor's business, because you're just essentially going through an agent or a middleman, you might as well just go straight to the thing and own the thing. So there's asset allocation and diversification based on are you high risk or low risk, are you old or young, what level of insurance you have, what you know and what you don't, how much of your overall portfolio of money is divested. So you know, I'm not trying to make it overly complicated on purpose, but you know, if people are going to listen to me, I'm sharing my experience. So you need to factor these things in. But at the same time, it's really easy to start because you can. You can buy really small amounts of gold, or you could buy silver. Two ounce silver coin won't cost you more than 50 quid, plus that, depending on the price in the market right now, I think, um, I think an ounce is 30, so two ounces 60 at the moment just quid, so you can start with silver and have it personally.
Speaker 1:Then there's a decentralization, which essentially means not under monopolistic control, and you know the banks have a monopoly on money. That's not a loaded statement, I'm like. They're not evil, they just currently have a monopoly on money. Joe rogan has a monopoly on podcasts. You know tesco have a monopoly on supermarkets would not be, you know. So the banks have a higher, a high monopoly on money because there aren't.
Speaker 1:There used to be multiple currencies 150 years ago. There was, there'd be, multiple currencies in circulation, and then the banks got together and sort of created a bit of a cartel and the biggest ones merged and wiped all the others out and then there was one currency. So, by the way, centralization can be good because you get higher speed, lower cost, but it can be bad because you have less control. So if you want to be decentralized, away from bank monopoly power, you need minimum amount of money in the bank. So where can you put it that still gives you convenience of a bank Well, cash, but that's getting wiped out by inflation. So that's not good. That's why a lot of people put it in Bitcoin, especially those who figured it out, and they find it easy, although Bitcoin is still harder to transact, like like cash and money, gold and silver are completely decentralized. They're a hedge against high inflation because generally when money goes hard down, gold and silver go hard up generally, and anything that you own, anything that no one knows about or you physically own or there isn't a financial paper trail to a bank, you're safe. They can't take it off of you.
Speaker 1:But my friend, nigel Farage, just without warning, got his bank shut down in RBS Group Because they deemed him as a politically exposed person. They call them peps, and a pep essentially now we know, is someone that has a political opinion that the bank doesn't agree with, essentially what it is. In layman's terms, they'll go wah wah, wah, wah, wah, wah wah, but their prerogative to not agree with you personally and they don't like your stance, they don't like your social media posts and they shut your bank down. And Nigel went to nine other banks and they all turned him down and they turned down his friends and family from bank accounts and they got debanked as well. I mean you would say that's a violation of your human rights, especially as how the banks have sold us. Give us your money convenience, look after your pension, your future, your retirement um. And so what did he do is?
Speaker 2:it public what he did in the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he went on a major campaign and exposed them all and the head of natwest had to step down and she had to resign.
Speaker 2:But he got rebanked in the end, did he?
Speaker 1:I actually don't know. I I mean, I imagine he's found a bank, but it might be like revolute or someone. It might not be now west um or coots um. He did a subject access request and he got all the communications from them and they're all basically like just leaking information everywhere about him and he's, you know he starts on immigration. Why should he start on immigration? Like have his bank account cancelled? That's not good human rights.
Speaker 1:If the banks are supposed to be a public service, which stance on immigration? Why should his stance on immigration, like have his bank account cancelled? That's not good human rights. If the banks are supposed to be a public service, which of course they're not. They're a for-profit corporation to maximise shareholder value. Now, look, I have bank accounts, I use banks. I don't hate banks, I just know that they have their best interests at heart. And you know, when I put my money in the bank, I've essentially loaned it to them. And then, if I read the terms, we can use it as operational expenses, we can lend it out, we can invest it, we can freeze and hold it if we deem that you break our terms or whatever. So you should just be streetwise about that. No one can touch my gold. No one can touch my gold. No one can touch my watches. No one can touch my physical possessions. No one can touch my Bitcoin.
Speaker 2:I'm a big watch fan myself, and do you, when you buy them, do you always buy with an investment goal in mind, or do you happily just buy the watches that you want?
Speaker 1:Okay, I've done both. I've made on every watch.
Speaker 2:I've sold by luck or design.
Speaker 1:No, I think both actually. So, because I'm passionate about watches, I would essentially study them all, but it wasn't study. I was looking at them all, wanted them, found out as much as I could about them because was interested in it. And I always say to people with investments like invest in things you're interested in because you'll naturally get really good at it. Warren buffett is in interested in the stock market. Yeah, he reads memorandums all the time, like most people don't sit there reading balance sheets. He does because he enjoys it. And so I was making really good percentage returns on buying, owning and then selling watches when either I felt like I'd worn them enough or I wanted to trade up or whatever.
Speaker 1:But then lockdown happened and also people's tastes in watch really changed and I had a lot of Audemars Piguet's the really big ones and the popularity of them went down quite a lot and I own a fair few of those. So they've dropped. I think it will come back round. All you need is another Arnold Schwarzenegger in the next 10 or 20 years. He's a big guy to do a collab with a watch brand and it's like jumps off your wrist, like that and they'll all. They'll all go up in value again. So I did buy some emotionally that I wanted. Um, I bought some limited editions and they generally limited editions go up but because people's tastes and what's changed, and then lockdown happened. So I had a Richard Mille RM11. I must have paid 75 grand for that and back then they were a lot more new but they'd go down like crazy and I think I sold it for 80 to 85. I made five to 10 on it.
Speaker 2:Probably 200 or 1,000.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the problem. And then lockdown happened and then that thing went up to 250. It's dropped a bit since Patek Philippe Nautiluses. I sold which went through the roof, so I made on them, but I sold them just at the wrong time. But no one could have predicted what lockdown did because basically what happened was watch brands couldn't make watches for months and the supply got restricted, and then everyone was making money in crypto and there was all these perfect storm of things that happened that fueled, you know, increased demand, reduced supply and pushed the watch prices up like crazy, which is why they've now dropped, because they're back to being more realistic.
Speaker 2:You say about people's taste changes. You say about people's taste changes. One thing I think, and say as well, is that I'm not convinced people's, let's say, taste or interest in certain watches are genuine taste. People love the Nautilus, for example. Don't get me wrong. I think the Nautilus is a nice watch, but the way people cream themselves over it, is it really because it's a nice watch or is it because you can buy it for 50 grand and it's worth 150 grand?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's not that easy to do that. You have to be on the list.
Speaker 2:No, no, no.
Speaker 1:But what I mean is people go oh, I love it, I love it, I love it.
Speaker 2:Well, why?
Speaker 1:do people love it? Because other people love it.
Speaker 2:Yes, but I think what they're loving about it is the fact that they think oh yeah, I want that because if I get it for 50, it's worth 150.
Speaker 1:If you could get it for 50 and it was worth 20, would you really love it as much, yeah, and if no one else loved it, yeah, and if there wasn't an undersupply of it. So all these factors do I mean? I like to think I'm a disruptor and an innovator.
Speaker 1:My podcast is called Disruptors Not controversial, yeah, but I was into Nautilus way before they were popular, because I bought, I had a steel chronograph Nautilus and it was 35 grand new and I paid 25 grand for it and I sold it for 36. So I was a bit before the time and you know, okay, these watches have dropped.
Speaker 2:Now they're probably what I don't know 100 now I'm talking pounds, not dirhams, um, but they went up to what? 170, 180 000 pounds? Well, I remember the days when you could walk into a rolex shop and negotiate a 20 discount.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't do that anymore. You can't even get the stock. Yeah, six year waiting list, probably on a daytona, something like that, yeah, so yeah, I mean you raised an interesting point about do we love it because we love it or do we love it because, um, other people like it and it'll go up in value and there's desire. I mean, my favorite watch for a long time when I hadn't built a collection, was the rolex daytona, just the plain steel rolex daytona and it is a beautiful watch. But now I look at it and I just see that as like a Ford, a regular car, but like that watch hasn't changed. But my taste of it has changed as I've gone up.
Speaker 1:And when you're growing your business and you're trying to show yourself, you might dress a bit more showy. I might wear bigger watches because I'm growing and showing, but now I want to be way more understated. I can't stand having any labels written on my clothes because it's showy and my watch tastes. They're now smaller and more subtle. This is like a, a disruptive british brand that most people don't know about. Who is it? Um, they're william wood. I'll give them a shout out. Um, but no, it's it's. It's one of the top up-and-coming british watch brands.
Speaker 1:Um, so, a few thousand pounds? Um, you know, I have my. I have watches that are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, but you know, as now I I don't really have so much to prove anymore. Therefore I'm less showy. So my watch tastes have changed. So the nautiluses I now like are the really the smaller, thinner ones. I like a bit more, um, understatedness. Like I said, I will not, but I will not buy clothing with any label on the front unless it's my own name. I'm gonna have my own brand rather than make these brands rich. Because here's the irony in lockdown, when people couldn't afford heating and eating, they're still buying designer clothes because people could afford them. And you know, louis vuitton, moe, nrc probably made even more money through lockdown. Um, you know, don't go broke trying to look rich and don't go broke making brands rich.
Speaker 2:The way you get rich is by creating your own brand we were talking just before, just before we started recording about, about your business and and your business partner, um, and how, how, I guess he runs his side of the business. You, you run your side and, uh, I mean, you know, to me it sounds like the perfect partnership, um, but I mean so many people make mistakes when it comes to picking who they partner with on a business and how they manage that relationship ongoing. I mean, did you guys know each other before you were doing?
Speaker 1:No, no, we. We met right at the end of December 2005. We got to know each other early 2006. We met at a property networking event.
Speaker 2:How successful were both of you.
Speaker 1:I was 50 grand in debt, but motivated, and Mark, yeah, he was doing well, but understated well and quiet well, and I think he may have had seven or eight properties at the time. He was still living with his mum, though, and I think Mark became a millionaire net worth while he was still living with his mum, because you can make a lot of money, but you can spend even more than you make. There's a lot of broke people earning a lot of money, and Mark's smart with his money. So, yeah, we met at a property meeting. We got on because we're similar age and we both wanted to be entrepreneurs. We started socialising and then he helped get me a job in the property sourcing company that he was working for, took me under his wing because I was hungry. I was listening to sales CDs in the car all day, every day, got them on my MP3 player in the gym, replaced all my music with, you know, zig Ziglar, jim Rohn, you know, and all the American sales trainers.
Speaker 2:I love listening to Jim's voice. Yeah, so soothing, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:Zig as well. Yeah, they were somewhat poetic as well, because you know they'd have all their cool phrases. You know, the more you learn, the more you learn, yeah. So I went on a bit of a mission to catch him up a bit. I mean, yeah, in that first year I wiped out my debt, earned a decent amount of money, uh, and we bought 20 properties together in in the property training world.
Speaker 2:Obviously you know which, which you're very much at the top of. I mean, there seems to be so many property trainers out there yeah, most of them have um been trained by me.
Speaker 1:Really, yeah, I won't. I won't list them all, but ev pro, we're number one by a long stretch, and probably numbers two to eight have been trained by us and and well, I guess you probably answered my question by saying they've trained by you.
Speaker 2:I mean, my original question was going to be do any of these people teach anything particularly different? Uh, insofar as, have they got their magic formulas, or is it very much by property to hold, by property to flip if you haven't got any money?
Speaker 1:these are some strategies to uh, to do it with no money down yeah, I probably couldn't comment because I don't go on their courses, though maybe I've sent some of my spies on their courses and maybe I know more than I'm telling you. Everything in the world is simple and complicated simultaneously, so I could tell you how to buy property. You go to local estate agents. You go and view properties. You find the highest yielding properties you can. You go to a mortgage broker to get a mortgage and if you can't get a mortgage, you go to property groups online and face to face, and you find investors and you borrow their money and you buy property and you get a good local managing agent to manage it locally and you start with small ones and you work your way up to big ones. And you buy property and you get a good local managing agent to manage it locally and you start with small ones and you work your way up to big ones and you go from little two-bed houses, like I did, to 100 apartment blocks, like I did. That is all you need to do.
Speaker 1:But it ain't that fucking easy, because if it was that fucking easy, everyone would be doing it and there's a load of technique and nuance and emotion and competition and everything in between, so there probably are different ways to do it. There's different sales techniques. You know you were just talking about andy elliott. You know he's got a very in your face style and grant's got a very. You know my friend, grant cardone, has got a very in your face style and um wolf of wall street, he's got his style. And then, um, the british style might be different. Then you've got the consultative style. So there's lots of different styles and they work in different contexts. And it's the same with property. There's different strategies and there's different ways of teaching it. There's different ways of putting deals together. So, um, no, everyone's not just teaching the same stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, although they're teaching similar broad strategies, and as we've taught most of them, I can probably quite safely say that most of what they're doing, that's good. That they're teaching is good. They've learned from us, but we've been doing it 20 years. What there is in our industry is quite a few people who are teaching it who aren't really doing it, and I would just say to everyone as a rule just make fucking sure that the person you're learning from is actually doing it, because if I've got a surgeon, I want to know how many fucking surgeries he's performed, and it needs to be hundreds. If this is his first rodeo, get that fucking knife far away from me.
Speaker 1:And now, with TikTok and social media, it's easy for anyone to just bullshit. And so do a bit of research, and sometimes research is hard. You will never find all of my properties online or all of my companies intentionally, but you'll find enough and you'll see. We go back 18 years and you'll see videos of me where couldn't even grow a beard and I was. I was in property and that's something that pisses me off. The two things that pissed me off in our industry the most are when people bullshit and they're not doing it and when people raise money to freely, easily, quickly, without knowing what they're doing, and they fucking take people's money under. They're the two things that piss me off, and so we're very careful.
Speaker 1:Um, we've we've raised millions, but mostly from banks. We do private investment, but very carefully, and we put a lot of our own money into deals that we've made. Even with deals I've gone in with other people's money. I've put skin in the game myself, because in America it's like I'll go bust, try again, go bust, try again, go bust, try again. And whilst I respect the mentality of trying again. I don't respect how easily people go bust, because that's your reputation and I of trying again. I don't respect how easily people go bust, because that's your reputation and I've fought hard over 20 years to never go bust when things have been hard. I didn't go bust in lockdown. Um didn't go bust one with her cash flow issues cash flow issues over the years and I've fucking worked hard because that's your reputation and I'm proud of that when did you start to build your personal brand?
Speaker 1:um, probably when facebook got big and back in the day when you you went on facebook you probably went and checked an ex-girlfriend who she was with now, or you went and checked your old school friends and what they were doing now. It was kind of like an extension of friends reunited. If anyone's, how old are you? 44 okay, so I'm 46. I was 46 out here, so, um, you'll be old enough to remember what facebook was before what it is now um, and so that we all went on to facebook just to connect with our friends and myspace?
Speaker 1:yeah, exactly, it was basically a better version of that um. And then it evolved and your facebook groups and you can have your own page and do your own content. Um, before personal brand was a thing and that was probably 12 to 15 years ago, maybe, yeah, and what about the podcasting? Nine years so the disruptors is nine years old with nearly 1300 episodes.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah so I mean I, so I've we're talking a little bit before we came in. I mean, I've had my podcast since about 2018, so not as long as you, but they're still big and long.
Speaker 1:Average podcast lasts 21 episodes, apparently.
Speaker 2:So what I heard was similar. I think I'd heard that 75% of podcasts don't make it past episode six or seven, and the ones that do make it past six or seven 75% of the remaining don't get to episode 20.
Speaker 1:So yeah, if you hit episode 21,.
Speaker 2:You're liking the 10% of longest running podcasts.
Speaker 2:It's crazy, yeah, but I guess that's because people don't realize the, the, the effort it takes. You know the investment, whether that's time, money, money or whatever and um, but I mean, I, I look at you know, podcasting as a as a fundamental part of my, my business and my life. Really, you know both in terms of, uh, being able to connect with people that I may not be able to connect with without you know, in terms of having conversations that I get to learn from, because, you know, I don't know how you treat all of your different content, but a lot of the time I'll sit down with people and the questions I ask are just the questions that I want to know. I want to know the answers because I almost take the view I don't care if anybody listens to this or ever watches it, because this is my chance to be with that guy to ask the stuff that I'm lucky enough to learn from. And then the other benefit I get is that if you Google me and someone doesn't know me and they see me sat in a podcast with all of these people, it's almost like an instant credibility builder.
Speaker 2:I was giving a talk at an event for some people yesterday, talking about networking and talking about basically networking is easier if you've got a personal brand, but a podcast should be an essential tool for everybody, not necessarily to try and make yourself famous, but just to have that framing and to have that access. So I kind of guess you probably agree with everything.
Speaker 2:I've said and maybe go further. I remember you said something. I'll probably butcher it, but I heard you say something along the lines of if you were offered Andrew Tate to come on your podcast for 100 grand or whatever the figure was, you said and you didn't take it, then you clearly don't take podcasting seriously enough. Do you remember saying something like that? No, I don't.
Speaker 1:Well, you did say it, but OK, well, maybe we need a fact check on that. I remember being on a podcast it was my friend, dodge, Dodge Woodall and he's got Eventful Lives podcast and we had a discussion, debate, stroke, argument and I got a lot of hate from his fans, but most people with a business head agreed with me that the discussion was around if you pay for guests and Stephen Bartlett denied, denied, denied that he paid for guests and I have proof and evidence that he paid for guests and I have proof and evidence they paid for guests. So people, some people have asked me about that because they probably want the scoop. I have no issue with bartlett paying guests and he probably doesn't give a. You know, care about my opinion on it, um, but I just found the dishonesty not great personally, but I also appreciate his prerogative and right to not disclose if he pays for guests, because if I come on here going, yeah, I pay for every guest, whatever they want, everyone's just going to want a fee when they come on my show so I get the you know why. And and Dodge was poking me and trying to get a clip out of it and I said, yeah, I've probably paid for five to 10% of my guests. It's probably still similar and I explained that if they're big or I can get them quicker, because sometimes I know I'll get a guest in one to two years or we're being just. You know what it's like, you agree, and it just takes forever to get it done. And sometimes I just go look, there's some money, let's get this fucking done. I'm an entrepreneur and I know I know how to monetize my podcast multiple ways. I'm a businessman and he sort of. He respected that, I think Dodge.
Speaker 1:And then I said well, surely you'd pay for you know guests. He went no, never. And the amount of podcasters who've said no, I'll never pay. And then privately messaged me for a recommendation and said they'll pay the fee. So I will call out 99 percent of podcasters who say they'll never pay. Everyone's got a fucking price and I don't Fair enough. Just don't fucking lie. So anyway, he said no, never. And I went come on, who's your favorite guest'd you love? And I think he said joe rogan and I said if you could get joe rogan for good money, what 25 grand would you pay? And he went no and he was. I know he was fucking like dodge is my friend, but dodge if this gets back to you. You fucking lied and you know it.
Speaker 1:What was his logic for saying no? I think he wants honest, real conversations that aren't staged, which I do too, but I know I've paid for some guests who've given the most honest, real, non-stage conversations. I've had guests who I haven't paid, who've not given me jack shit, so I think it's ego as well. Oh no, I don't want to pay, I just want them to want to be on my show. Well, I want Donald Trump on my show, but right now, as we stand, he's not knocking on my door going. Can I come on Disruptors? Maybe he will one day, but if I could make a commercial deal happen to get Donald Trump on my show, then I'll fucking do it and I will tell everyone Because I'm. You know it was funny because on Stephen Butler he had Simon Cowell, yeah, and he paid for Simon Cowell and Simon Cowell said, well, thank you for the donation. So you know like, yeah, you could say, oh no, I don't pay for them, I donate. You fucking paid. It's the same shit. Does he deny?
Speaker 2:paying Cowell, then I don't know that he specifically denies paying Simon Cowell.
Speaker 1:But you know, sometimes these guests I mean when I had Chris Eubank on my show, like people often stop me in the street. Well, they stop me in the street a lot in the UK, not so much in Dubai. Probably three or four times every time I go out I'm stopped and I would say it goes, rob, I love your stuff, rob, I love you. And Andrew Tate, rob, rob, I love your stuff, rob, I love you. And andrew tate rob. That chris eubank episode was fucking crazy, rob, I love your stuff. That's probably how it goes. You never get robby racunt. Um, I haven't yet.
Speaker 2:Actually, I mean, I get it online all the time.
Speaker 1:But no, no, people are nice to me in the street, which is good. I'm probably not quite big enough yet to get the hate. So, yeah, this Chris Eubank episode. It was mad. You just have to watch it to understand. And he said thank you for the cash. I've got the cash. Thank you for the cash. You know, I paid him in cash because that's what he wanted. And he said on the show thank you for the cash. And so if I'd have denied on I never pay and denied I'd have looked like the biggest fucking twat ever there. So just be real. So would you pay for a guest if it was a good guest and the right money? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I do.
Speaker 1:I mean, you'd rather not?
Speaker 2:Listen, we'd all rather not.
Speaker 1:Where do I send you my?
Speaker 2:invoice the donation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the donation to the Rob Moore Foundation.
Speaker 2:The way I see it you you know, like you do is is it's a business and what? What am I going to get out of it? And one of the and this isn't a justification to myself, but one of the ways I I look at it. So if we do high profile uk celebrities, for example, uh, typically, most well, many, if not most of them unless I already happen to know who they are and they're doing it because I know them they'll be paid. I don't try and control the conversation in any way and I guess in return on that, I won't give approval of what it said. I'll always tell them.
Speaker 2:I'm not here to stitch you up, but I'm going to ask you something. If you don't like the way you've answered it, you don't like the way you've answered it, you shouldn't fucking answer it like that. But you know I'm not going to give you any editorial approval. But when we put a high-profile guest on, we then do a press release when the podcast goes out and typically well, I mean, let's say typically it's going to get one or two or three pieces of national press coverage, depending on the guest and what's spoken about. I mean some of my big ones, kerry katona, we got 23 or 24 pieces of national press, uh all with backlinks to my podcast, backlinks to my website. If you went out to a social media agency or a digital marketing agency and said I want backlinks to my website and and I want you to do some digital, you know digital pr to charge than the guest I mean for 23 backlinks from the sun, the mirror, those kind of things.
Speaker 2:There'd be tens of thousands of pounds, certainly 10K plus, and I'm paying nothing like that to get the guest. I'm also getting decent content for the podcast and meeting people who are interesting people to meet that will then leverage into my network in some way shape or form, so I think it's a fucking bargain, yeah.
Speaker 1:Agreed, agreed. Now, ideally you don't pay and ideally, people come on your show because they want to. And, by the way, if, if people don't pay, I'm going to promote the shit out of them Um, because they're giving. You know, really a good podcast is where there's equal benefit. So if you get reach on my show, you get benefit. And if I get a great guest and I maybe get some of their audience now as followers and fans and subscribers to me, everyone wins. And if I have to pay to play, because some guests just won't do it unless you pay them, now, sometimes I get exclusive. So I got Supercar Blondie no fee. She was great and she doesn't do podcasts, so that's scoop and I get exclusive. So I got Supercar Blondie no fee. She was great and she doesn't do podcasts, so that's scoop and that's exclusive. But even when you're big, that's hard to get and it doesn't come up often. Sometimes you get the exclusive because they won't do it unless you pay them, but still saying that 90% of my guests unpaid.
Speaker 2:Listen, rob, it's been a pleasure having you here. Super excited, we got connected. Like I said, I'm a follower of your content and your non-controversial opinions.
Speaker 1:You just lied to me. You like my controversial opinions.
Speaker 2:You're just standing behind me but you know, obviously you've got things to do in Dubai. I'm glad we got to meet here. If I come back to the UK sometime, hopefully we can do a round two and a follow-up, and I'd love to hear more of what you've got to say. Thank you very much, matt. Thanks for being here. Thank you, you you.
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