Between Two Beers podcast: Dean Lonergan - How I got myself out of a $1.8 million dollar hole

Dean Lonergan is one of New Zealand’s biggest and best event promoters.

The credits to his name include David Tua v Shane Cameron, bringing Fight For Life to New Zealand, the rise of Joseph Parker, the Auckland Nines and Manny Pacquiao v Jeff Horne.

But on the latest episode of the Between Two Beers podcast, Lonergan opens up on his business failures and how he found himself in a $1.8 million dollar hole of debt, after investing in a circus in Australia.

“I put together this epic circus called Cirque Rocks in 2006″, Lonergan said. “It cost about $2.5 million to put the bloody thing on, and it only turned over about $1.5 million, so I was a million short. Then I’d made some other mistakes so I ended up around $1.8 million dollars in debt.

“It was a very stressful time in my life, because I could see that if I went bankrupt or broke, every man and his dog would have me on the cover of their newspaper. I would be seen as an asshole if I couldn’t pay my bills.

“So I had a few staff so I laid all them off, and I sat down with my creditors and said to them ‘look, I’ve got this problem. Here’s my hole, if you hang tough with me I’ll get your money back, just don’t call me up right now, I’ll eventually pay you off’.

“So I went to about three or four different people, I borrowed half a million from my dad, I got some money off my sister and a girlfriend at the time, and I divided it up amongst the creditors, then went to work on a whole bunch of low-risk events. I would work for anyone for any price.

“We did things like corporate stock car racing out at Waikeraka Park, and a bunch of other gigs. It took four years to pay off. For the first year I was probably depressed. And the only way you can escape the pressure, and it’s like a heavy wet blanket, is to go to sleep.

“So you’d go to sleep, and you’d wake up and the pressure would be all back. The worst thing you can do going through all this is drink alcohol. The reason for that is the pressure, pain and hurt would disappear for three or four hours, but the next three days it comes back worse. So I kicked drinking to touch and it took me four years to pay all the money back.”

In the wide-ranging interview Lonergan also talks about his seven years in breakfast radio at Hauraki with the Morning Pirates, his NRL career and why he cut it short and why he left David Higgins and Duco.

0:00 Dean Lonergan on Mea Motu

7:00 Lani Daniels: the next big thing

11:00 Being authentic in the media

14:20 Doing business in Australia

18:01 The Fight of the Century: Tua v Cameron

23:20 The Fight for Life

28:41 The Morning Pirates on Radio Hauraki

37:23 Working in management for the Warriors

39:53 A rugby league interlude

46:46 Losing it all with Cirque Rocks

54:24 Lessons from failure

57:01 Working with Manny Pacquiao

1:03:29 Jeff Horn and life changing results

1:07:56 Joseph Parker, the Auckland Nines, and Duco Events

1:15:41 The art of selling

1:19:22 Family, fatherhood, and business

1:23:07 Last words from Steve, Seamus, and Dean