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Anyhow, that’s my morning rant out of the way.  The real point I want to make is that in spite of all the recent troubles and hassle, financial services is still not a bad job.  For most people not as good as it was 2 years ago, and not even close to how good it was 5 years ago, but compared to what else is out in the jobs market, it’s not too bad, and with a bit of forethought, a bit of planning and some changes to working practices most Mortgage Brokers and Financial Advisers can still make a good living during the recession, which is also coming to an end if we are to believe business leaders.  One of the main indicators I have for saying this is that on our company website www.which-network.co.uk  we still see a lot of new starters coming into the industry, and while it’s true that some of them are somewhat deluded, like the bloke who I asked what his 1st years projected income was and he said £50,000, based solely on a conversation he had with a mate in a pub who said “them bloody mortgage brokers do all right, they all earn about £50,000 a year”.  He didn’t have any ideas where he would get leads from, didn’t have any marketing plans (obviously hadn’t read any of our newsletters), but he had done some research in the pub and taken a feasibility study with a sample of 1 before diving in.

The vast majority of people coming into the industry however are neither mad nor poorly prepared.   Often they don’t have a lot of experience or really in depth knowledge of the sector, but that fresh approach and naivety can be a plus rather than a negative.  Everything is different now, read it again, “EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT NOW” so why would anyone walk in the office at 10.30am, shuffle a pile of papers around and wait for the phone to ring, from a referral or that little advert they placed in Yellow Pages 10 months ago, but people do. It’s really difficult to change they way you work, in fact it’s really difficult to change anything you have done for a while full stop.

Where we are now…… We all know this involves a creek but not a paddle, or a toilet U bend depending on how you were brought up, but without wanting to be accused of being an optimist or worse being away with the fairies I think it’s only too easy to concentrate on the negative aspects of the job, and life generally.  You might be standing in a meadow full of wild flowers, with the sun beating down on you and a skylark soaring upwards singing sweetly  to the other birds and bees,  but if a cow has dropped one in front of you , all you can smell is poo, and that’s a big part of the problem.

The other part is that almost all of the UK’s banks have screwed up massively along with the FSA who were supposed to be regulating them (and I can’t even write that without laughing), and now through some sort of  guilt transfer mechanism which is well beyond my comprehension they are seeming to turn as one, point at mortgage brokers and financial advisers and scream “it’s all their fault”.  The banks made the products, the FSA dictated the rules we had to follow when selling them, we do exactly what they both tell us to, and it’s our fault (I don’t think so).

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If you want a great example of how difficult it is to really change; the next time you are in a town, look at the people walking past and see how many of them are overweight, I know because I’m prone to be a little thickset myself.  

Almost everyone is aware that this is bad for you, I know  I am, when I’ve finished a hard days work tickling the keys on my computer keyboard ,I like nothing better than to collapse in front of the telly with my bag of chips, a can of Tizer, and study the latest health reports on the good old BBC so I know what I should be eating, and how much exercise I should be doing, so don’t accuse me of being ignorant.  

All we (I’m using the royal we here to include all thickset, big boned and naturally big people here) have to do is eat less, take more exercise and we would lose weight.   But when it comes to life style changes, saying it and doing it are a million miles apart, and I haven’t had my car fitted with Warp drive yet (sad Trekkie).

What is “The Financial Adviser Community”....A free resource basically you could define in three words “strength in numbers”.  This is help for you from people like you.......read more

Useful Contact Details.....Contact details of Banks, Insurance Companies, the FSA, and others.....go to this page

Network League Table.....See who are winners and who are losers in 2009....go to this page

Lenders Witch Hunt Against Brokers......As ever increasing numbers of Mortgage Brokers find themselves struck off lenders panels we ask why?...read the article here

If you’re wondering what this sad tale has to do with your business, it’s the apathy that is the enemy here.   As a general rule, doing anything is better than doing nothing. The moral of this story is that to survive in the new age we are going to have to adopt new ideas.  Look at everything and discount nothing without investigating it thoroughly first.  You shouldn’t really have spare time, since when you are not sorting out a clients mortgage or insurance, you should be marketing, but make sure you spend some of that time visiting any seminars in your area given by most of the insurers, and if you don’t know when they are or if there are any, go on the insurers web sites to find out Most people will need to be thinking about Client Retention, and Marketing about 2 or 3 levels up  from what was sufficient in the past

How Difficult is it to Change?

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