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Andrew Reynolds Accountant and Bank Manager get some flack

Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2025 6:34 am
by muskanislam99
Andrew Reynolds talks about his accountant and his bank manager – and why you should never listen to their business advice. With his advisors in the audience at the O2, Andrew talked about why accountants and bank managers are not ideally placed to give you good solid business advice – and why you need a mentor that has ‘been there and done that’..

Transcription:

Andrew Reynolds: They don’t teach you this stuff at school.

There was a report done a couple of years back by the, I think it was the Federal Reserve in the States. They did a study of 100 school children, 100 average school children going to a normal kind of state school like we have over here and they projected those people through to the age of 65. One hundred of our kids, they found that less than 4% would ever have an annual income above $35,000, £35,000.

Twenty percent of the kids in that class would end up phone number data below the poverty line. More than 50%, half the class would be wholly dependent on relatives, social security and the welfare state, what kind of bloody school system is that?

When I went to college… first person that sends me an email by the way after the weekend they can work out from the DVDs which one is Andrew Reynolds, you get a prize….

That’s me at college, that was our group at college, I went to college because me dad thought it would be great to get a business diploma. “You want to go into business son.”

It was a two year course and that was the biggest wasted two years of my life. Why? Because I was taught by professional teachers, I was taught by people that had failed in business.

The guys teaching me business couldn’t run a business if their life depended on it, so they decided to teach it.

In that photograph, and I’m not going to point them out I went on one of these friends reunited sites recently to do some research and see what happened to my old classmates.

Andrew Reynolds: There is a guy there, this two year course had a slot in the middle where they sent us out to work to get some work experience. This guy because they like to pigeon hole you when you are at college. I was a pain the arse for them because they couldn’t pigeon hole me into any particular trade. But this guy said “I want to go into banking.” It was right, pigeon hole him. He went to work for Barclays Bank on the friends reunited type site that I looked on he was proud to say that he has been with that bank now for 30 years. He went to college, halfway through his business course he went to work for a bank and he is still there.

The guy standing next to him in the photograph on his friends reunited site, it says “I’m a bit happier now because I’m off the anti depressants but I am still unemployed.” What kind of business course was that?

I learnt nothing on that business course because I was being taught by people that had failed.

Andrew Reynolds: It’s weird and if you know my history you will know that my dad when I was a kid he ran a hardware shop and he kind of failed in business, he kind of bounced along the poverty line. But I actually learnt a huge amount that I was able to take forward into the next generation by learning from my dad’s mistakes.

And you might want to just jot some of these down because this is useful stuff.

My dad when he had a great business idea and he was a bit like me, he was always coming up with these wacky ideas right. The people he would go and talk to were his bank manager and his accountant. They were the only people he knew in business.

I remember he would come home for his tea and he would be so excited he would say “I’ve been to see the bank manager; bank manager thinks it’s a great idea.” But I just said that they guy I was at college with, he was in his business course, he went to work for a bank for 30 years, he’s never run a business, he doesn’t know a good business idea when he sees it.

My dad used to go and see his accountant, he used to come home and he used to say “Oh John thinks it’s great. John’s advised me not to do that one, John’s advised me to do this one.”