Adam Stott – the man who put an ice rink in his car showroom

The beginning: mum's spare room as head office

It is 2008. The recession is biting, the motor trade is in freefall, and a BMW salesman from Essex decides this is precisely the right moment to jack it all in. He hands in his notice, sells his house, and moves back in with his mum. Most careers advisers would have quietly reached for a glass of water at this point. Adam Stott launched a used car business called Big Cars from her spare bedroom instead.

The maths made no sense whatsoever, and yet it worked. Within a year the company was turning over a million pounds, and six years later that figure had reached twenty-five million, across two sites and dozens of staff. The London Stock Exchange named it one of the thousand companies inspiring Britain, three years on the trot.

The lesson Adam has been selling ever since: bad timing is occasionally the best timing going. Although it does help to have someone willing to move back in with their mum.

The ice rink that sold the cars

At Christmas, most dealerships hang a wreath on the door and leave it there. Adam slid a working ice rink into his showroom. Gliding about next to a freshly polished bonnet carries a fair bit of risk, but as a publicity stunt it was inspired — the press adored it and the punters poured in.

Big Cars was also an early adopter of Facebook back in 2010, building an audience of 255,000. For a used car dealership, that is roughly the social media pull of a minor pop star.

The face of Big Business Events. The ice rink, sadly, didn't make the shot.

A fall, and a comeback

Big Cars closed its doors in 2018. The market shifted, the finance dried up, and a decade-long run came to an abrupt halt. Plenty of entrepreneurs would have taken the hint and retrained as something sensible. Adam took ten years of hard-won experience and pivoted to the one thing he was best at: standing in front of a room and talking about business.

That became Big Business Events (these days Big Business Entrepreneurs), one of the UK's fastest-growing business communities. The empire he built from coaching, training and live events now runs out of a two-million-pound headquarters in Chelmsford, with a retreat in Marbella thrown in for good measure. A tidy upgrade on the spare bedroom.

The celebrity collection

Adam's list of stage partners and interviewees reads like the guest list for an awards do that nobody quite meant to organise. Boxers, Hollywood veterans, rappers and fashion designers have all stood beside him for a photo at one time or another.

With Floyd Mayweather. Two men with strong views on money.

With Al Pacino. "Say hello to my little business plan."

With 50 Cent. Between them, a decent amount of business sense.

With John Travolta. No footage of the dance-off survives.

Heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua makes the collection too — Adam clearly has a good sense of who's worth sharing a ring, sorry, a conference room with.

With Anthony Joshua, the heavyweight world champion.

The telly detour

On Channel 5's "Rich House, Poor House", Adam twice swapped his comfortable life in leafy Essex for a household in a very different situation. At the end of the show he didn't simply head home and pull the shutters down — he pledged his time to help a mum of three get her own business off the ground. That bit is genuinely rather lovely, jokes aside.

On the set of "Rich House, Poor House".

"Success isn't about where you start — it's about the bold moves you make and the grit to see them through." — Adam Stott (who, let's not forget, started at his mum's)

The dry facts, no jokes

Born in Essex, currently forty-two.
An official member of the Forbes Coaches Council.
Has sold more than £100 million in products and services through social media.
His book "Millionaire Success Secrets" became an Amazon bestseller.
His podcast, Business Growth Secrets, has passed 450 episodes.
Started out selling in an electronics superstore, then worked his way up through luxury cars to his own business academy.