In bed with Mattress Mick

0:00The Mario Rosenstock Podcast with On Ice. Ireland's premium ice skating experience where winter memories are made. Visit onice.ie. Go loud. Sounds better with us. Coming up on this episode of the Mario Rosenstock Podcast I decided then to give it a go and I had to think of some name that was going to be catchy and I had to think of somebody who was going to be that person I had different ideas like I had to have the word mattress in it Go on, what were your ideas? Mattress Mickey, Mickey's mattresses and one or two other ones which I won't repeat

0:49And after a little bit more deliberation, Michael Flynn settled on, yes, you've guessed it, Mattress Mick as the name of his business. A business that has become so well known in such a short space of time, in no small part due to the marketing genius of the man behind it. Michael Flynn, a.k.a. Mattress Mick, has a great story to tell. He's a true entrepreneur at heart and thrives off the cut and thrust of business. He has a very successful company now, but this wasn't always the case, and he has his fair share of very tough times to tell about, including when he had to sell his family home to pay his debts.

1:23In our chat, he tells me about the highs and lows of his life in business, some of the hilarious guerrilla marketing campaigns he has come up with, including, of course, where the whole idea of the character Mattress Mick came from in the first place, and loads more. I put a big 16 by 16 foot sign up on both directions, and I was very, very fortunate. The great Stephen Fry noticed it and he did a tweet about who the hell is mattress big? Yeah, and it exploded. They don't want the cheap mattress anymore. They're looking for the upgraded mattress. People now know to invest in a good mattress is for their own health.

2:01They're not going to be suffering with back issues or whatever it might be. 100%. And they're not afraid to spend the money. When we visited the orphanage the first time though, I found it very sad because there were kids outside shouting, Mama, Papa, Mama, Papa. Oh, no. They thought we were coming for one of them. Oh, my God. Don't be afraid to follow your dreams and do what you think. Have tunnel vision towards your own goals. If you have an idea, go for it. Don't be afraid. And don't ever be afraid to fail. I would not be sitting here today with you unless I failed. Mick will also be telling me about his new book called Bouncing Back Memoirs of a Mattress Salesman Right after we cross over to the Mario Rosenstock Podcast hotline Mick is such a well-known guy you see that so when I put it out there on my socials that he was coming in for a chat the voicemails started to literally pour in Hi, you've reached the Mario Rosenstock Podcast please leave a message Mick, this is Matt Cooper here I just want to thank you for your help the other day when I was in your mattress shop looking for mattresses for Ivan.

3:09As you know, Ivan has a very bad back and we were going to record a podcast this Saturday. Oh, that's much better. And I wanted Ivan to be able to lie down to secure his bad back and he is delighted with the mattress. Matt, this bed is just wonderful. No, Ivan, I can't. Join me in the mattress. Ivan, cover yourself up for God's sake. Get into your little kimono and show me. Oh, you're a dirty thing. Okay. Jump in there, Matt. This is outgoing president Michael D. Higgins. Mattress Meek, I was wondering if, well, as you know, I'm out of a job in the next couple of weeks. I've had rather extensive experience with mattresses, living in a large house for the last 14 years, and revolving and rotating my own mattress up to 46 times a year with my wife Sabine or Sabina.

4:01I've also had experience in dealing with mattresses for dignitaries in the past. I have the relevant experience for any mattress requirements that you may require. Email at mixertepoest1945 at hotmail.com if interested. Thank you. Hi Mick, this is Miriam O 'Callaghan here. thanks for everything you've done for Mattresses genuinely I was thinking of changing it up on primetime we're really not getting enough juice out of politicians and I was thinking if we could make the you know the interviews more intimate maybe we might be able to squeeze a bit more out of these politicians remember the big breakfast years ago when they used to do it on the bed together I'm just trying it out on a certain minister now and minister love the PJs Are they from Hugo Boss Loungewear Collection?

4:52Well... Anyway, what about the three million that went missing from the department budget? Yes. Is that a little bit of walking around money you squirreled away for yourself, you little minx? No, it was me, Miriam. I took the money for myself. You see, Mick, it works perfectly. Could we order 11 mattresses for RTE, please?

5:12An exclusive comedy every week on the Mario Rosenstock podcast. Please just tell one other person about this podcast if you like it. That's all I ask. You can suggest characters for sketches. You can suggest sketch ideas. You can come and see me on tour. I'm just coming to the end of my autumn tour at the moment. Last gigs remaining in Wexford National Opera House, Derry in the Millennium Forum, and the final gig in Leisureland Galway on November 29th. You can see me in action live. The last few chances to catch my Gift Grub Live 25 show. And of course, I would like to thank our great sponsor, On Ice.

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6:24So Michael Flynn, a.k.a. Mattress Mick, has been waiting patiently over in the Go Loud studio. Not on a bed, but in a comfy seat. So let's cross straight over and kick things off. This was not the first time Mick and I had met. The first time was, let's say, a little less conventional. We met in my shop in Peer Street. we were asked could we give you the use of the shop for a period of time to do a take off of Miriam O 'Callaghan I broke my heart laughing when that happened because we had a green screen at the back of the shop where we used to do the videos with my colleague Paul Kelly and I really enjoyed that experience seeing you walking down the shop imitating Miriam yeah we were very good I don't know how many years ago it was now Now, I think it could be.

7:13Oh, I do. It would have been by 2012. Was it that long ago? Wow. Yeah. I wouldn't have said that. Well, I know because I know what I was doing around then. So, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, it was very enjoyable. Yeah. And it was great the fact that the shop was in there. Yeah. And of course, you would just be sort of, I think, become Mattress Mick, if you like, right? That's right. So, what the hell was Mattress Mick? I mean, Mattress Mick, how did it come about? Well, I was always in the furniture trade. and in 0809, before up to 0809, I had a shop in the Northside Shopping Centre and I also had Pure Street.

7:48But in 0809, things just took a big dive in my life and in my business. Because of the economy. Because of the economy. So I had to eventually just liquidate that particular company. But I made a huge mistake because before I liquidated, I kept plowing whatever reserves into the business thinking I could make it work. but it was throwing money literally away. Good money after back. Yeah, yeah, it was. So, when I liquidated that I had Pear Street and I had a warehouse out in Kulak which was outside my liquidation. They were my own and it wasn't part of the limited company. So, I decided that after closing Northside, after going through the liquidation, I decided what do I do now?

8:34I kept saying to myself I failed but I'm not a failure. So, So I decided I would look at my business and in the original business, we were selling more beds and mattresses than sofas and tables and chairs. And I realized that there was no bed shop or dedicated bed shop in Dublin. Go away. No, there wasn't. There were a lot of furniture shops selling beds. Yes. But there was no dedicated bed shop. Okay. And I realized this. So I decided with the help of my suppliers or some of my suppliers, now some of them were a little bit nasty with me. over the liquidation. Of course. But most of them were friendly enough.

9:12I formed this business called Beds Plus. Now, Beds Plus, I put that over the shop in Peer Street. I put it over the shop in Kulak. It went very well, but not well enough for me because it just hadn't got the right ring about it. Beds Plus. Yeah. It was good, but it wasn't great. Okay. And I decided, what do I do here now? So I happened to come across on television, I think it was on television anyway, This American idea of the guy selling cars and selling motorbikes and selling clothes in a different way. So I came, started thinking, thinking, thinking. Why don't we do something like that in Ireland?

9:49Again, nobody was doing it. You know, this putting yourself out there. So I said, right. You're right. Nobody was doing it. Nobody was doing it. No. And I decided then to give it a go. And I had to think of some name that was going to be catchy. and I had to think of somebody who was going to be that person. So the first thing I thought about was the name and I had different ideas like I had to have the word mattress in it. Go on, what were your ideas? Mattress Mickey, Mickey's mattresses.

10:24And one or two other ones which I won't repeat. But then I came up with Mattress Mick. It had a nice ring about it. It does, it scans. Yeah, and it's Mattress and Mick is Irish. Yeah. So it was quite good. Yeah. So what I did then was I decided who was going to be the face. I had three choices. I could have got a cartoon made of this individual or this person, Mattress Mick. I could have got an actor. Or I had me. And I said, well, why not me? I'm the cheapest. I'm probably the best looking. I have the long hair, a bit different, the glasses and whatever. So I decided to use me. And I got a fellow friend of mine to take a photograph of me standing with my hand out.

11:12This was my trademark, my hand out. And I formed a company called Mattress Mick. You formed a company, yeah? Yeah, well, I registered a business name. You called Mattress Mick. And what I did was then I registered the name as a trademark for both Ireland, England and Europe. So I have a registered trademark of Mattress Mick. so it began to work and what I did with not having a lot of money When you say it began to work what the beds company began to work The beds company But what began to work when you What I did was to get the thing off the ground or to launch it I put posters everywhere around Dublin Okay Literally everywhere Which cost money Well I just put them Oh right I didn't really care It's what I would call guerrilla Guerrilla marketing Guerrilla marketing And these posters were colour posters of yourself mattress making They were yellow background and me in green and black blazer and red writing.

12:09And I put them everywhere, on empty shop fronts, on lampposts, in fact, everywhere. And would you believe I got more summonses from Dublin City Council and I never paid one of them. Yeah, for posting bills. Yeah, for litter. For littering. They called me litter. Yeah. I couldn't believe it. For putting them on post-op thing. Yeah, yeah. and I got these summonses and these fines and I went to court I didn't pay any of them I went to court and I defended myself and I got away with every single one Did you? Yes I did On the basis of? Well I was explaining to the judge that I was trying to get my business going It was the only way I could do it The judge was sympathetic Sympathetic yeah and it was great but I was very fortunate I put a big sign up at the five lamps There was an empty corner space at the five lamps and I put a big 16 by 16 foot sign up on both directions and I was very, very fortunate.

13:04The great Stephen Fry noticed it and he did a tweet about who the hell is Mattress big? Who the hell is Mattress big? Yeah. And it exploded. It went viral. Oh yeah. It gave me a great... So the Stephen Fry connection just gave you a little kick. Oh, a big kick. Did it? It really did. It really worked because I got great response to it. It went viral. Yeah. And people were saying, God, this guy must have something. And it helped the business. And soon after that tweet went up, my sales went up as well. Wow. Yeah. Did they? So really, you owe Stephen Fry a good bed. Well, I did offer him a mattress, but he never took it up.

13:44Did he not? No. Yeah. He was doing some gig here in Ireland and we tried to contact him, but we put it up on social media. Look, thanks for everything, Stephen. There's a mattress waiting for you. Yeah. In Dublin. Anyway, we never heard any more from him. Yeah. But it was a great boost to the brand. It was a great boost to my ego. Yeah. It gave me more confidence to put myself out there even more. So you had posters. Yes. And then the tweet. Yes. What else happened then? Well, RTE were doing a programme. It was called Wagons Den. I don't know if you remember. Yes, Catherine Lynch. Catherine Lynch.

14:19She was doing an interview with two ladies who were married to footballers in England. Yeah. And they needed a mattress. Yeah. So she invited me as a result of Stephen Fry to go on the show and carry out a mattress. And that is actually on YouTube, that particular part of the show. Yeah. So that again was great publicity. Yeah. Which I couldn't buy. I couldn't afford to buy it. And Catherine's program was actually huge at the time. It was, yeah. It was really popular. Yeah, yeah. It was really super. And it was, as I said a moment ago, it was a great boost to the business. Then I also got some very interesting phone calls from Joe Duffy and Ray Darcy.

15:00So Joe Duffy would be there, Mattress Mick, Mattress Mick, you're in town. You're causing a bit of a storm, Mattress Mick. This is great. So was the Joe Duffy live line angle, they're interested in this, who is this Mattress Mick? Well, the reason why he rang me was there was people buying mattresses online and it transpired that some of the mattresses that were delivered to these people were secondhand. Yes. They were covered or recovered. Yes. So Joe rang me on Liveline live to ask me what my opinion was of this. And what was your opinion? Terrible. Terrible, of course. Terrible. Come to me and buy a new mattress.

15:36Oh, this is gold dust for you. Yeah, it was super. And Joe lives quite near me and he was very good to me over the years. Different thing. Any query about beds or mattresses, you'd make the call. Yeah. The show would make the call to me. Yeah. That was great. Ray Darcy was also very good to me. He had me on the show, I think, twice. Yeah. Talking again about my life and the main things and how you're getting on or whatever. And then we decided we do, we were doing these videos all the time. For online? Online, yeah. And you were putting them on? YouTube. Yeah. YouTube, Facebook, wherever. Facebook.

16:12Wherever it could go. And Instagram. And these were kind of like the American sales videos. Mattress Mick here. come on down to buy this you know yeah Paul Kelly was doing all them for me on the green screen in Pierce Street and they worked very very well they kept getting the name out there all the time one of the reasons for the success of the guerrilla campaign and the campaign was you and what is you people didn't understand people were confused you see in a kind of a funny way about you yes right so they were going who is this yoke Yeah. All right. So first of all, Mattress Mick. What's Mattress Mick?

16:53Is your man Mick or is your man just an actor? Or what is he? Also, it's your look. You know, you look kind of eccentric. Thank you. Well, I don't mind. You know. It works. It's a great look. It works. It's a great look. It's better than looking boring. I still wear high heels shoes. You wear high heels? Why do you wear high heels? The Beatles. Oh, yeah? I do. But you have a very eccentric look with the long hair. Yes. And why do you wear that? Why do you like that look? Well, I've always had long hair. Have you? Yeah, I never had this. And was your hair blonde when you were younger? Blonde. What colour was your hair?

17:28Blonde. Blonde? Yeah, brownie-blondie. Brownie-blondie, yeah. So were you a rocker? I could have been, yeah. People often said to me, are you in a band? Yeah. Yeah, I often got that comment. But no, I always had the long hair. I know I have a unique, well, I'm not boasting now, but a different kind of look. You do, yeah. And I have a very outgoing personality. Yeah. See, there's two. There's Michael Flynn and there's Mattress Mick. They're one and the same, really. Yes. Mattress Mick is allowing me to be the real Michael. Yes, there's Elton John and there's Reginald Dwight. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

18:05But also, I tell you what I love. I got these cardboard cutouts of myself. Yeah. I have them all around the shop. I've seen them. Have you, yeah? Yeah, it's down there. Yeah, of course. And they're super. and people come into the shop and they say, where is he? And he's there, he's there, he's there. Yeah. Then I come out, I'm here. Yeah. People can be looking for selfies or whatever and it's great. Yeah. I love going through town. People say, can I have a selfie? And I never say no. Yes, of course. Never. Yeah. It used to annoy my wife. I mean, you're so recognisable and you enjoy it, don't you?

18:37Because you're gregarious and outgoing. Yeah, yeah. Even when I was coming here today, I was parking my car in the car park down the road and the lady said to me, is that you? Yeah. Yes, it is. I met you before somewhere. You know, it's great. Yeah. And I go for a pint or I go for a drink. I'm never on my own. It's always somebody comes up and has a chat. Yeah. Asks you about mattresses or asks you about how you are. Yeah. It's really nice. Yeah. And I also do talks in schools. I go around to schools and colleges, particularly in the North Dublin, and I give talks to either inter-sert and leaving-sert students about what they want to do.

19:14if for example you have an idea work on the idea don't be afraid to follow your dreams and do what you think have tunnel vision towards your own goals and it's lovely to be able to do that i even did a talk in wheatfield prison there was 26 prisoners in the room and i was talking about basically my own life and also again if you when you get out of here if you have an idea go Go for it. Don't be afraid. And don't ever be afraid to fail. Failure gives you success. Yeah. Because I would not be sitting here today with you unless I failed. Yes. And I failed twice in my life. Yes. When were those times?

19:57Well, there was 08, 09. Yes. And prior to that, I had a grocery business in Peer Street and in Ringsend. And that went belly up. Why? Because I was out enjoying myself in Leeson Street, having the fun, took my eye off the ball. and I was robbed. Yeah. Blind. Oh, by accountants or whatever? By everybody. Dodgy money. By customers, by everything. They were open shelf shops. Oh, really? You were literally robbed? Yeah. Really? Yeah. And I took my eye off the ball because I was out enjoying myself. I was such a good looking guy. The women were just... Well, it's the hair. I know. The hair. It's the Led Zeppelin hair.

20:33Yeah. But it was, that was a second failure and I actually had to sell my house in Sandymount. Yeah. To clear up the, what was left behind. Yeah. And what I did was I owed people X amount of money. I went around to them all and I said, I'm prepared to, I owe you X amount. I'm prepared to sell my home provided you accept, we say, $5 ,000 off a$10 ,000. Because I'm not going to sell it unless I have a clean slate. Yeah. They all agreed. So I sold the house on Sandy Mount and I continued in my life. So the person you're portraying here to me is that you are an honourable businessman who believes in trying his best to pay back his debts if he had them.

21:12Yes. And you're sort of, I suppose, old school. Yes. Like that. And you believe, you believe in doing, doing, doing your best, working the hardest you can and treating people with respect. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very important that you treat people with respect. Have you found that, have you found that your attitude that you seem, I presume you've had all your life of treating people with respect helps that to come back to you? Big time. Absolutely It's a big wheel The more you give The more you get Now you mightn't give To get But it's a big wheel Correct And I've noticed that In all my dealings Have you?

21:51Yeah Oh absolutely Yeah Absolutely Well that's an amazing lesson To learn in life It is It is And not everybody Believes in that No but that's what I put out to kids But you're a living Testament to it Yeah So according to your life You've had your ups And your downs Absolutely You went bust twice But you've tried to Treat people with respect You've tried to pay back people you owe and you find that if you treat people with an even hand the big wheel of life karma comes around and they treat you with respect ultimately then yes totally agree with you totally and it's i've proven it myself even some of the students that i talked to say i spoke to about three or four years ago they've come into me afterwards when they've decided what they want to follow and they said thank you for the advice you gave me thank you for your time because now I'm doing accountancy or medicine or whatever it might be and it's great that means so much to me and I could not I would not have been asked to do that only because I'm Mattress Mick and I wouldn't be Mattress Mick only because I failed Yeah exactly and that's where the benefit comes Yeah or the joy of being what I am And I suppose that if there's another lesson to be learned which is the lesson that you know we're often we often see but we have to believe in it to believe in it and that's the old kind of the Rocky Balboa thing and the Rocky Balboa thing I think was in the actual film called Rocky Balboa it was about the sixth one or fifth one where he makes this speech about it was a really good speech about it's not how many times you get put down it's about how many times you're prepared to get up that's right yeah you know and so the more times you're prepared to get up the more the more success you will find and the more because you'll learn about yourself as well and you'll become more resilient each time you get up.

23:35You learn, I'm never going down. Never. Never. They're never going to get me down. Well, not again in my case anyway. I couldn't, I don't think I could deal with another down at my age. And I think I've done my purgatory. But I just love giving. Yeah. And I love helping. Yeah. I love being part of the community. And it means so much. And you're very youthful as well. Yeah. You're very youthful because there is a kind of a thing that with people you can tell. I mean, you're 74. Yeah. But you're very youthful. And part of that is your community. I think your community feel. And they say, of course, that the more a person is involved with the community in their lives, the younger they're going to be.

24:19I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. It's one of the secrets to longevity. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the things that makes people old and eventually wither and die is stepping back from community and becoming lonely and isolated. it. It's the people that stay with the community. That's why you find an awful lot of Japanese communities. People in Japan live to very, very old ages. And it's not just because of great diets or eating sushi. It's because after they get old, old people, the culture, the older people, the culture in Japan is that they then become more members of the community. They chip in and help in the community.

24:55They don't withdraw into themselves. That's very interesting. I wasn't aware of that. Yeah, it is. Look it up about Japanese and And also, for example, in some, a lot of Italian rural cultures, people live to very, very old ages. And it's because of the mamma mia, the mamas, the grandmamas and everything. They are brought back into the family. They're taught to mind the grandchildren and to, you know, make stuff and be part, play games and stuff and help the children, the grandchildren with homework. So the older members of the family are very much meshed into the community. And so the word community, volunteerism, for example, the idea of volunteering, people who do that live longer.

25:38Really? Yes. Yeah. So it's being a part of your community. Let's talk briefly about mattresses. Yes. What makes a good mattress? Well, a mattress to me is your best friend. Okay. And everybody is different. but what I would suggest I think the most suitable mattress for anybody is a firm spring a nice firm spring with a nice on top of the springs you have a lovely layer of foam and some fibre which gives you the soft effect but you're not sinking into the mattress and most of the mattress nowadays you don't turn them you can just rotate them because the springs are at the bottom they're not two sided So the idea is to rotate the mattress I suggest every season Four times a year Because if there's two people in the bed One could be 10 stone The other could be 20 stone And people sleep on the same side of the bed every night They do They do So the guy or the woman The heavier one The mattress will sink By rotating it Yeah It gives the springs even worse Oh yeah Yeah So a lot of people don't realise that So you rotate your mattress yeah Four times a year yeah Well I notice Yeah because in my one Obviously Sometimes I look at my mattress And there's a big dent In my side of the mattress And my wife's side Of the mattress There's no dent Oh Rotate it Yeah exactly She's only like She's only small Yeah well That's the answer And there's a big trough On my side of the mattress Right Yeah And what's the most Expensive mattress You have Mick The most expensive one We sell My competitors Would sell it A lot more expensive I'm not going to mention My competitors Okay But the dearest we say king size mattress which is five foot in width six foot six in length I sell for 1395 euro that's not expensive no no but I get volume I give value yeah because I'm the best he's selling you're in sales mode so the person I meet here is a very positive person and you're as I said you're very outgoing and gregarious and you like being recognised and you like doing selfies and everything but in the last few years you've had you've had a lot of sadness in your life.

27:54Yes, particularly in the last five years. First of all, my dad died when I was 19. Yeah. So I had to take over basically the family business. So he died very young. He did. He was only 47. How did he die? He had an emphysema. Yeah. It was the disease he died. Jesus. That must have been chronic. It was horrible. There was no cure for it then. There was no... Inhalers and everything and antibiotics. Well, there was antibiotics probably but there was no... He couldn't deal with it, no? I couldn't do it at all and he smoked What did he smoke? John Plair Did you play a blue? No the untipped ones The John Plair the white ones Yeah the white box The white box Yeah So he died when I was 19 and at that time Did he drink a pint as well?

28:36He enjoyed a pint down in the local pub because we were living in Pierce Street at the time the local pub was Moroni's on the corner Yeah It's still there is it? It's not called Moroni's but the pub is still there What's it called? The Pierce Tavern Okay Yeah and he would go down there and he'd have a pint or a bottle of stout actually and a whiskey. Yeah. That was the The chaser. The little chaser. So he wasn't I think you're almost implying he wasn't a massive heavy drinker. He wasn't really. No. No. It was more of the smokes The smokes. And the emphysema. The emphysema. That killed him. And did you inherit any of the bronchial issues?

29:10No. No, I didn't. No. No, I'm quite healthy that way. Good, good. Thank God. Well, I did smoke. Yeah. But I gave him up 27 years ago now. What did you smoke? John Pair Blue, actually. John Pair Blue, right. Yeah. No, I gave them up in the year 2000, or, yeah, 2000, sorry, 25 years ago. Yeah. And the best thing I ever did. Yeah. Best thing I ever did. Yeah. But, yeah, my sister, my mum died then in 85, and then my sister Mary, who worked with me for the last 40 years, or up to 440 years, died in 2020. During the pandemic? Just before the pandemic. She died in January. It was nothing to do with the pandemic.