Links:

Helen's business book: The Future of Time: how 're-working' time can help you boost productivity, diversity and wellbeing

Leave a review on Amazon here

My January newsletter: 'Goodbye hamster wheels'.

My January  blog: 'Advice from a recovering time-addict'

The Guardian article about flexible working and long hours

Engage for Success radio talk about time intelligence and The Future of Time

TotallyMoney's website and Linked In page

Alastair Douglas on Linked In

The Lean Start-up by Eric Ries

The Manual by KLF

Transcript:

Helen: My guest this week is Alastair Douglas who's CEO of the FinTech business TotallyMoney, the credit app for the 20 million adults otherwise overlooked and underserved by the financial services industry. Alastair's background is in high performing, high growth startups. He's motivated by his belief that technology should be used to genuinely help people and solve the problems that are holding people.

His time at TotallyMoney has been defined by its mission to help everyone move their finances forward by making people's financial data work for them, not against them. Under Alastair's leadership, the company now has 5 million customers and provides the UK's only free live credit score and report.

Plus, they give customers personalized tips on what they can do next to improve their scores and maintain financial momentum. Alastair has also pushed the company to build a diverse and inclusive workplace with a rich culture where people love what they do, develop innovative products, and feel empowered to deliver their best work for customers.

Welcome to The Business Of Being Brilliant Ali.

Alastair: Thank you for having me, Helen.

Helen: Oh, it's great that you could join us. And I think actually you are probably the first guest on the series who is in the FinTech world, so I'm really looking forward to digging more into that industry and hearing how you've been transforming it and I guess disrupting to a certain degree, traditional banking and credit.

Alastair: That's interesting in itself. Yeah.

Helen: Yeah. So what led you into the world of FinTech and consumer credit? Did you leave university thinking, gosh, that is absolutely what I want to be doing?

Alastair: Not at all. So 20 odd years ago when I left university FinTech wasn't even a, a word, I don't think at that point. That was before all the portmanteaux like TomKat and Brangelina and so on. And one of the reasons why I 'm in FinTech now is just complete chance.

So my first real job out of university was in insurance and like a lot of people who worked in insurance at the time, and I think also today, you fall into insurance. You know, it's not something that people like seek out from a young age, like when people want to be a vet or something.

So I fell into that selling insurance for a short period of time. And then I got made redundant and I was looking for a job and I got a job at what now would be called a startup but back then was just a very small company trying to do something with the internet. And that grew and was very successful and over time became Simply Business which is an online insurance broker doing a much better job for customers with their business insurance rather than the old-fashioned sending a fax to a broker or going into the High Street. So that was a fantastic grounding in what these days would be called FinTech or InsureTech, but back then was just an insurance company which was doing something clever with the web. So I worked there for almost 10 years in the end.

And then I did a couple of different things after that. I was very lucky at Simply Business especially towards the end, very strong culture, really good place to understand what makes people tick. I moved on and worked at WorldPay briefly and I also was working overseas in Copenhagen for a collaboration software business. So a lot of fairly random things and that ended up meaning that I had the background and experience that TotallyMoney was looking for when I joined.

Helen: That's really interesting to hear. I love how you say people don't typically plan insurance; they tend to fall into certain industries. I'm sure that's right. In fact, probably most of us fell into our first job, whatever that was. It's like whatever we could get, that got us on the ladder!

Alastair: I got my first job, literally just by uploading my CV to Monster. And then someone called me up the next day and said do you want to come to this place on Aldgate? And I was like, yeah, okay, great. So there wasn't really any thought in that whatsoever!

Helen: That sounds a lot less arduous than my first attempts to get a job where I definitely was counting a reasonable pile of rejection letters and a much smaller pile of offers.

Alastair: I left that bit out. Yeah.

Helen: Okay. It sounded great the way you said it, and I love how you highlight how much our language has changed, how many of these terms that we're just so accustomed to today weren't around 10, 20, 30 years ago, and it's a great reminder of how our own use of language changes. And I guess that's also something in your mind as a business that's looking to educate people and build their skills and confidence.

Alastair: Yeah, I think that's interesting about the language because I, for a long time was very suspicious when people used to say to me, I really want to work in FinTech. I used to think, well, why do you want to work in FinTech? Because for me, FinTech has a lot of negative associations as a word, because I think of a lot of these businesses that are really obsessed with shiny new things and gimmicks and trying to help a very small sliver of society rather than trying to reach out to the mass market or to the average person and help them using technology. But I realize it's just the same effect that when I left university, everyone wanted to be a commercial lawyer or work in strategy consulting or do the civil service fast tracking. You get these trends and FinTech was very on trend for a while. I'm not sure if it still is given what's happened over the past year in terms of fundraising and so on.

But what's interesting for me is that younger people are gravitating towards purpose-led businesses a lot more. And I do think that's one of the things that the technology industry is much better at, is that obviously there's such an opportunity to use technology for good rather than, certainly when I was at university, a lot of the top companies that were recruiting, you were just looking for something that was solid rather than something which made you feel like you were making the world a better place in any way.

So FinTech for me, I remember when I first heard it, and particularly InsureTech, which I always thought was hilarious because the insurance industry, ,back when I was in it, which to be fair was 10 years ago, was so backwards to to be coming up with some new word to make it sound cool and exciting, just seemed ridiculous.  But yeah, those, those are the standard words now.

Helen: Yeah. Yeah. And really interesting to hear your view about actually for people entering careers now or looking to switch career, it's less about the hot label that might be flavour of the month at the moment, and more about the real aims and ethos of the company that they might be considering working for.

So tell us a bit more about TotallyMoney and what it's doing that is so different in the industry. And I heard you say a little bit then that you are not just looking to support a small segment of society, but to reach and help as many people as possible.

Alastair: That's right. And our purpose and motivation is all around helping people move on up and helping them use their financial data for them, not against them, which is obviously you mentioned in the intro. So a bit more detail on that.

We did this research around a year ago now with PwC because we wanted to understand the problem better and understand who our customers were better. And what we discovered is that there's 20 million adults, which is about one in three, who are frozen out or not able to access the best or correct way of the banking system in the UK. So we call these people the under-served, and it's effectively people who the industry is not designed for them.

You know, the banking industry is not covered itself in glory over the years and in particular, It was very slow to adopt technology to improve things for customers and putting customers first. But you've got 20 million people who aren't even really being addressed by the market today.

And then you've got another 9 million people, which brings you up to almost one in two people in the UK who are close to that edge and that's what we're all about. So we're focused on helping those almost 30 million people get a better deal, improve their financial situation, improve their credit score so that they've got in the future a world of more financial choice for them.

Because what we've found is that the mainstream banking sector or consumer credit sector is very focused on what they would think of as their normal customers, but it's excluding those 20 million people.

And then you've got lots of disruptors and, and new business models and raising lots of money, FinTech type stuff. But often they're doing really crazy new things, which are early adopters, you know? So a lot of crypto, a lot of gimmicks, a lot of high net worth individuals moving currency around, gambling, that stuff. So there's not really very much focus on the average person in the UK and that's what we're all about.

Helen: Yes. Yes. That's really interesting to hear and helpful to hear you describe actually some of the hidden barriers that might not be at all visible to those of us who are used to having access to banking services and feel competent around managing finances, et cetera. But actually there are some barriers around the way the existing or traditional banking sectors set up that means somehow it has ended up being quite exclusive for some people.

And it sounds like you're trying to address those barriers and provide a service that is far more inclusive as well as specifically targeting those who have been under-served, as you say.

Alastair: Yeah, I mean, what's interesting about it is that if the system works for you, then it does work for you. It may not work particularly well, I don't think anyone says they love their bank if it's a traditional high street bank, but if it does work well, you don't even realize there's a problem.  So often, particularly when we've gone out on various investment rounds over the years, we've been talking to investors and they just don't understand why people would want to use our service. They're like, why do I care about my credit score?

But if you've got a good credit score, you don't care about it because you don't have any problems. Whereas if you've got no credit score or a bad credit score, then it's causing you all kinds of problems. It's not just the obvious problems like you can't get a loan, you know? Because in many ways, not being able to get a loan if you've got a bad credit score and the reason you've got a bad credit score is for a good reason, then that is quite sensible, because obviously people shouldn't be borrowing money that they can't pay back.

But what we're saying is that there's 20 million people who fall outside the system for no good reason. It might just be that they're young; it could be they've moved to the UK recently; I lived abroad for a year only at one point in Copenhagen, and by the time I came back there was chaos with my credit report, caused me lots of issues; and the types of problems that the report with PwC unearthed, where you've also got trends like high inflation, cost of tipping crisis, gig economy workers, younger people being quite skeptical of credit so that the data just isn't there on a lot of people.

And so the old way of doing things, which is that you've got this secret report about you in the background that banks are accessing in order to make decisions, just doesn't work very well anymore. And that's what we're all about: trying to help and trying to improve.

Helen: Yes. It sounds like you're trying to bring a whole lot more transparency and a bigger degree of control to individuals so they can feel equipped to know what their situation is and to know what steps they can take to improve it.

Alastair: Absolutely.

Helen: And it's interesting to hear what you say about the social trends that also are affecting it because it's not just about the banking sector and its traditional ways of working and offering, but it's also about how our society is changing and what their needs are and what's important to them or what help they need at any one point in time. And I guess for some people that's going to be very different today to what it was 20 years ago.

Alastair: Yeah. And what's interesting, really interesting for me as someone who grew up career-wise with the dawn of the internet, I guess not completely the dawn, but you know, I remember my first job doing a lot of paid search with Google and that Google was still very, very new at the time. And it was a new idea.

And what's happened now is that people have woken up to the fact that your data is worth something, that it should be protected, that you have rights. If you were trying to create a system like the system we have today for getting a mortgage, credit card or loan, you just wouldn't be allowed to even get started, you know?

Now the fact is that it exists and we're all about trying to provide transparency and helping you make the best decisions given that society is what it is like. But just imagine if Amazon came over to the UK and said, oh, we're just going to start collecting data on everyone and then we're going to sell it to the banks so that they can decide who is allowed to have a gas account and who has to do prepaid gas or who can have a mortgage and who can't? Everyone would think it..... it would be uproar, because people have become sceptical of the tech giants. But that's actually the reality that you have with the credit bureaux and the banks and the way the system works today.

Helen: Mm. That's fascinating. Fascinating to hear you lift the lid on the inner workings that aren't visible to all of us consumers.

And so obviously you've been CEO the last eight years and it's a fast growing and I guess maturing organization that's been transforming consumer credit industry.

Looking back on those eight years, what stands out for you as some key milestones or points in your company's development that you are particularly proud of, that were very significant for you?

Alastair: I always find it strange people say eight years because even though it has been eight years, obviously it all goes by in a blur and it doesn't really feel like it apart from the only thing which feels like eight years ago is when I look at the photo that I got taken when I started and kinda doesn't look anything like me!

But yeah, there's a couple of milestones that I always think about. One of them was that when I joined TotallyMoney the reason that I was excited about it was that they had just launched effectively a comparison website for credit cards. And what was cool about it was that it didn't just show you like the best buys, you could just enter some very basic information about yourself and it would only show you the credit cards that you would get accepted for.

And that was a big step forward from what existed in the past, which was that you'd see an ad and you think, oh, that looks like a nice credit card and then you'd apply for it and then you'd get rejected and then suddenly you couldn't get credit anywhere.And it was a really terrible system; it didn't work for anyone apart from the banks. So I was really attracted to that because I thought, okay, this is great. I've worked in insurance and seen a similar, very quick transformation for the customers' good.

And then even just as a consumer booking holidays and hotels and stuff, I remember when I was really young and you'd go into the high street and they'd say, oh, we've got a holiday in Fuerteventura for you. Then these days, yeah, you can do that, but you can also research everything and you see photos of the bedroom in the hotel that you're going to be in before you book anything.

So I thought this is great. But when I joined TotallyMoney, after the first year it became obvious that that credit card comparison website idea wasn't strong enough to attract the scale of consumers that we needed if we were going to actually make a difference and be successful as a business.

So we realized that we were going to have to build something a lot more hands-on and a lot more in depth, to do more for our customers. And that's when we came up with the idea and launched our free credit report service.

And so launching that free credit report service a couple of years after I joined, that was probably one of the big moments because that felt like we'd really changed as a business. We weren't just a website, we were a service that had customers and we were going to help them over the long run. And we launched that in July 2017, we still have customers who signed up in 2017 using us every month, which is fantastic.

And I remember we had a ticker, still have a ticker, but we had a ticker on every screen in the company back then which would go up every time someone signed up. And it took us a while to get to a thousand customers and that really felt like we'd achieved something then. And now we've just recently hit 5 million customers and actually it stops becoming exciting, the big numbers at one point. So we got to 1 million customers, and I remember giving a speech to the company and I said, this is probably as exciting as it's ever going to get, you know?

And everyone said to me afterwards, you're such a misery guts! Because how about when we get to 2 million? I do think that there's something about those early milestones which are much more exciting when it's you didn't even know if you were ever going to be able to do it, and then suddenly you've achieved it.

Other milestones are we sat down a couple of years ago and we said how can the free credit report service be its most useful? And we realized that our service needed to have this concept of a personalized action plan where actually we took all of your data, analyzed it, did really clever stuff with data science and other things, and then said, here are the steps that you should take in this order.

So we launched that towards the end of last year, and that has been a fantastic success. And that really felt like a big step forward as well, because I think that's the point at which it feels like a interactive tool that has some brain and it really is helping you make smarter decisions as a consumer rather than just as an information resource.

So that, and then recently we've launched open banking integrations that allow you to bring even more data into the TotallyMoney world so that our recommendations and suggestions can be even stronger and that's really felt like a big step forward as well.

There's also been a number of things around culture and stuff, but that's maybe easier to talk about that in a different section?

Helen: Yeah, we're going to come onto that shortly. And something that particularly is interesting to me is that as a business, you say you help customers with their long-term goals, and it's not about an immediate fix. And obviously what's very striking is that your original customers are still actively and regularly coming to your website for the help that they want. And they're still with you, so it's not like they've had a problem fixed and they've wandered away, it's actually helping them over the longer term. And I'm quite interested about that whole longer term mindset, strategic mindset as a business because so often today, business is all about growth at all costs and growing as fast as you can and much more shorter term metrics and definitions of success.

So could you explain a little bit more about, well, does that still apply to you the short term stuff or, how does the long-term mindset play out out for your.

Alastair: Sure. I think there's a number of themes there around short term versus long term, and I don't think there's ever any right or wrong approach. I wouldn't say ah look, you should always be like us, because it depends on what industry you're in and what the circumstances are.

But in our case, we're trying to help people do better with consumer credit and other financial decisions. So there is no quick fix for that stuff, it is just the reality. If there was a quick fix, then you wouldn't have a situation where the cost of living crisis was happening and many people are disadvantaged and cut out of a system.

And there's a really, really technical way of looking at it, which is that you could say, okay, well your credit report is one of the big things that you need to get right. And that credit report goes back six years, so therefore it will take you up to six years to get it fixed. But then there's also just the reality that moving from being young, looking for your first job all the way through to retirement is a journey and you will need support along that journey for most of the time for most people. And that's why we're all about the long term because we want our customers to trust us. We're a very customer focused business.

And one of the reasons we can compete with much larger corporations in the finance sector is because we're all in, all out about being on the customer's side. And so therefore they trust us; highest rated for the type of thing that we do by customers. And that comes from putting the customer first and so on. So I think that's one reason.

There's a, another theme around finTech and fundraising, which, clearly there was a huge wave of fundraising and you'd constantly be reading about these businesses that had just launched raising tens, hundreds of millions of dollars ploughing into growth and advertising.

And then many of those businesses fail, but they're taking the all out 'we want to rule the world' or nothing approach, but our approach has been a slower and steadier one. And something that I'm quite pleased with because I think that when it comes to money decisions, anything that grows very quickly out of nothing, you have to be a little bit concerned of because where's that growth coming from and why?

And there's been numerous examples of things that have grown very quickly and then it turns out that it's been because it's been offering bad advice or people are borrowing money they can't pay back or whatever it is. I think that there's a concept here around sound money and within our sector, things that grow very quickly it's not always good.  You want to make sure that you're around not just in a year, but in five years and 10 years, then there's a value to longevity.

Helen: Yes. That makes sense. And I'd love to dig a bit more into how you've built an organizational culture that makes customers really trust you and feel that you are absolutely supporting them and on their side. How do you go about as CEO shaping that culture? Have there been specific messages or initiatives or tools and processes you've put in place? Or is it more in-the-moment shaping and influencing?

Alastair: Yeah. Well, I think as CEO, I think how I've mainly done that has been through shaping our culture to reinforce that that's what we're all about. I obviously have ideas about our product from time to time, but I absolutely don't see that as my job to be ... I definitely don't have the answers about how you can build the best product.

So for me it's all about understanding that if you want to have a customer focused product, you need to have a really highly engaged team building that product. Because you can imagine a scenario, I always use tobacco or arms companies , you know, but I'm sure they've got really talented people working for them.

But do they believe in the product and do they get excited about it? Maybe, maybe they do, I don't know. But fundamentally, you're not going to have that good culture. And so the first point is always, okay, well if we want, in the long run, if we want to have the best culture, you can't just be a big company and be like, oh, we're just going to effectively buy a team of 200 to build us something which is customer focused. Because they won't care. People actually need to intrinsically care. So my focus is all about trying to create that environment.

So one of the ways we do that is it's very clear when we're hiring that that's what we're about. We want people to join us because they want to help us make a difference. We don't want people who just want to work in FinTech because they've read that it's cool or, but it's like top five trends in employment in 2019 or whatever it was .

And then secondly, we put a lot of focus into improving staff engagement internally. So we use a tool called Peakon to help us continuously monitor how staff are feeling, what's working well and what's not working well so we can have this continuous build-measure-learn approach to building a better culture.

And we also put a lot of thought into how we can make sure that the team is intrinsically motivated. And that's because our team is effectively very small, there's only less than a hundred of us and everyone is a specialist in what they do. So it's a small team of highly experienced, highly trained and specialist functions like an F sharp developer or a UX designer or marketing analyst or something.

So you really need to put a lot of thought into making sure that those people have the right environment to succeed. And for us we have drawn a lot of inspiration from the theory which is called self-determination theory. And there was loads of research years ago by Ed Deci and, and so on. And obviously there's been a million books and blog posts written about it all since then. But we've put a lot of thought into autonomy which has always been something we've been very strong on. So we're creating the environment so that our teams can go off and achieve stuff. So autonomy is a big one.

I often talk about how we have a 'no HIPPOS' culture, and HIPPO is a acronym that I stole from someone, I can't remember who, but it means the 'highest paid person's opinion'. So it's not the type of situation which I've been in. In the past I used to work in marketing for a number of years where your boss is saying 'no, I want this color red, not that color red, please for the logo'. It's like, what does the team think? Let's create a direction and the tools they need, and then let them get on with it.

So a lot of focus on autonomy, a lot of focus on learning and development because people want to feel like they're the master of what they know. And then a lot of focus on the sense of belonging which you get as a team.  

I'm always a little bit suspicious though when people talk about that too much. You hear a lot of people talking about 'oh, we're like a family', and I think we, we try not to be like that. I mean, people obviously are friends that work and we're a very friendly place, but I don't think work should feel like a family. I think you should be choosing to go to work , whereas you can't choose your family obviously. That's the big difference.

And then purpose is the final theme which we put a lot of thought into and that expression  'our customers data should work for them, not against them' and we want to help our customers move on up to a world of more financial choices.

Those are things that we repeat a lot just to remind ourselves of what we're all about internally. And that really helps us remind ourselves why we're doing what we do. And I think that really helps with that sense of purpose each day.

Helen: Yes. Thank you for explaining that. So a really fascinating mix of things that you are paying attention to, and I'm struck by how many of them are about the day-to-day experience that people have and interactions and the human environment that you are creating there, as opposed to things people might typically focus on when out in the jobs market or looking for candidates, which are more about the office setup and more recently, all the lovely tangible perks that people are busy adding to offices to persuade people back in, including nice heated spaces and all the cons that they might like from a hotel, at/near their desk!

But that only goes so far as we know in terms of getting people in the door, but do they end up staying? And I know all the research points to it's having high autonomy, ability to progress your career and feel like you're being invested in and being cared about and what you say about purpose, those messages about what you're there to do as a business, to me, sound so clear about why we are in business, what's the positive impact we're looking to make happen, and I think a lot of businesses perhaps struggle to articulate that in such a compelling way. It comes out a little bit more jargony sounding or just not quite that clear; as you can say it in one or two sentences and it's very clear to even an outsider of the industry like me.

Alastair: Well, I've worked in businesses which talk a lot about stuff. I'm just describing what it's like, which is easy, and I maybe added a bit of theory onto it, but it's very hard. You can't just say that you're doing that. That's taken years for us to build that up. It didn't used to be like that because it used to be a smaller business and it was just people figuring it out as they went along. And there's no shortcut to that.

Helen: And I love how you say you can't just say, as a company, you are doing X, Y, Z. You've really got to show that you are doing it, prove that you're doing it, and that takes time. And so words are very easy, but actual evidence takes a long time to build up and to get everyone in the company voluntarily saying yeah, that's what it's like to work here.

Alastair: Yeah. And you mentioned about having the cool offices and stuff and we put a lot of thought into our office and our office is really cool and we do have things like the beer fridges and the ping pong tables and all that stuff. But, but that's not really the point.

I've worked in businesses which had that and were really good and which didn't have that and were bad, but, but also vice versa. If you're going to have an office, then you need to make the best of it. And we were lucky or unlucky depending on how you look at it, that we moved into an office about a year before the first lockdown. So our office is really highly spec'd out, assuming that people are going to be in the office a lot. But obviously like most businesses since Corona, we've moved into a very flexible way of working and there's less people in each day now. But we do have that nice space which is good.

Helen: Yes, I'm sure everybody really appreciates that. Sounds like it was a well-timed office revamp ready to have a lovely space to welcome people back to.

It's been so interesting hearing about the business and how you're growing it and how you are shaping the ethos and the work culture around what you are trying to achieve as a business.

Is there something in terms of a resource or a conversation or a book that has helped you in particular in your career, that you find yourself coming back to time and time again that might be useful to others?

Alastair: There's two things I can think of; one is the sensible answer, one's a silly answer! The sensible answer is, and this isn't an original thought by any means, but it was a big turning point for me career-wise, which is that I went to a conference in New York in about, I think, 2009 or 2010, I saw Eric Ries, the author of Lean Startup, give a speech and he had just released the book. It was to promote his book, I realized. And afterwards I had a quick chat to him and he signed a copy of the book for me. And I read the book and I just found that incredibly inspirational at the time.

And obviously, that's very familiar now, the ideas around how you have to be continuously learning using a scientific method, LEAN, how to validate that customers want your product before you spend a year building it, et cetera, et cetera. But it was just such a different way of working for me. I just found that way of working fun, rather than some of the old ways of working I don't find fun. And that really made a big difference to me. So I. . I always talk about that and I try and persuade as many people as possible to read that at work and we have several copies in our work library. But it has become a little bit of a running joke that I'm obsessed with it, so I'm probably going to have to stop talking about it at some point!

And then the other thing that had a big impact on me of my life is going way back in time to the beginning of the nineties, which is there used to be a dance duo called the KLF, who I've always ,loved who were very big. I think they sold the most number of singles in the world in 1991 or something like that.

And they wrote a book called The Manual which is just basically 'how to have a number one hit single the easy way', I think was the subtitle. And that is, I think, also very inspirational because it's basically just a line by line description about how anyone can have a number one hit single in the UK if they follow their instructions and their instructions are ridiculous, but you can see how they would work.

It's things like, if you've got a job, you have to quit your job because unless you're unemployed, you won't want it enough. And then how to trick your way into a studio to get free recording time and all this stuff. And I first found that so interesting because it makes you realize that you can basically do anything if you put your mind to it.

And now it's definitely a tongue in cheek manual because cause I think it says something like, if you don't get a number one hit single, we'll give you your money back. But I think also it was distributed free as well. So but I just thought that attitude - and I think you got this a lot in the early days of the internet - which was, it was very DIY, try things. If I could write my own book, I'd try and combine the ideas of the KLF and Eric Ries and I think that'd be amazing.

Helen: That sounds so much fun. And definitely one of the more quirky things that guests have shared on the podcast. And but I can see how, from the way you've described it, it sounds like it's got quite transferrable learning actually, or advice that you could apply in different situations, not just if you're looking to make a hit single.

Were you ever tempted to do the hit single?

Alastair: I was tempted, but I a lot of the ideas are specific to the early nineties now. So these days I think if you've got the talent, you just need a laptop and off you go. But it starts with the line 'ready to ride the big dip of the mixed metaphor. Be ready to dip your hands in the lucky bag of life.'

So I think like that, that realization that if you want to be successful, obviously you have to be lucky because luck is a huge part of success in business, if not one of the major parts of it. But then you need to have the right environment so that if luck happens, that you can take advantage of it. And a lot of that just involves being in the right place at the time and saying, yes. But you have to be there in order that to happen rather than closing things down. So I think that mindset, I just find quite inspirational.

Helen: Yeah, creating the conditions whereby you can make the most of every spontaneously lucky opportunity that comes along. I love that. Thank you. Such two great, and quite different, but complimentary recommendations there. I haven't read either, so I'm going to be looking at them with interest.

Alastair: If you want to read the manual, just literally google 'The Manual the KLF' it doesn't take very long to read.

Helen: Okay.

Alastair: It's all online these days, so nice and easy.

Helen: Okay. Brilliant. And for people that have enjoyed hearing about the business and about your career and keen to find out more, how can listeners connect with you after the podcast?

Alastair: Well TotallyMoney, our business, is very active on LinkedIn, so you can check us out on LinkedIn or you can download our app if you want to improve your credit score. And then my name is Alastair Douglas, A-L-A Alastair and @alasdoug on most things. So you can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn with @alasdoug if you wish.

Helen: Wonderful, thank you. And I was absolutely thinking that a number of people listening might now feel more motivated to go and find out the credit history and check the credit scores. I know you got me massively thinking about that not just for myself, but people in my broader family who might enjoy that or find it helpful.

Thank you so much for coming on the show Ali and talking about the business and your career and all the positive changes you are looking to help bring about in society through the work that TotallyMoney does. It's been a real pleasure speaking with you and thank you for being a brilliant guest!

Alastair: Thank you very much for having me, and good luck the rest of series.