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📍 Hello guys, welcome back to another episode of the Mortgage Mavericks show with me, Ash Borland, and in today's episode, we are joined by quite a familiar face for many people in the industry, to be fair, he's got a recognisable face, is the wonderful Rhys Schofield with beard and mullet. The irony is you can't see my face because I'm that hairy.
No. It's just it's just hair, glasses and a cat. Exactly. I don't think people recognize me without a pink hat. That's the one item of clothing that kind of look like you're wearing a kind of disguise when I look at it like that. Like you're wearing a kind of, a clip on beard, the glasses and then the hat.
Like it's the, who are you really? That's about right. You don't want people to know what you're up to. That's probably a wise decision. Yeah. I love it. Respect. Welcome to the show for people who don't know you. You're quite a character obviously in the industry, but people who don't know you could just give us a bit of a kind of background as to Who you are, what are you doing?
Yeah I'm at a bit of a juncture myself. My background is I worked at the lowest banking group for too long, taking me corporate pills. And then I took a broking job at Spicer Heart, working out the back of the worst heart estate agency branch in the patch. It was a proper dive. My replacement ended up actually having a builder land on her desk in the middle of an appointment once with a customer.
What? I don't know. Yeah, it was that falling down sort of building. I ended up running the region there. And then I wanted to do it on my own. Cause if you're working for someone, you're making someone else some money at the end of the day. So I thought, yeah, you know what, I'll do it, do this. And I had a very good team, all of who had some really good ideas.
And I was like I'm going to take that best bit and mush it all together into my peak process. So I set up peak. Coming up to five years ago now, I think it's five years ago in June, but I actually sold it last summer. Everyone always wants to know how much for, and I'd say not as much as you think, but also more than purple bricks.
It turns out mortgage brokerages aren't actually worth that much money. But I'd always said this thing that I wanted to retire by 40. So I've got two years to go. Okay. And that, that was always really big for me. I think I just pigeonholed myself. I actually don't really like mortgage advice very much.
Fucking hate them. Hey, why not? It's quite hard work sometimes. I am joking a bit. I do actually quite like it, but there are days where you're just like, this is a bit a bit much, but we were talking before I came on air. But I never actually wanted to do mortgages. I was always very passionate about protection and mortgages with my lead gen, but the problem is you get a reputation as being a good mortgage broker, everyone wants to come to you for the mortgage, right?
So it just took a life of its own. But then, I've always had my eye on this exit from the industry in two years time and actually you can't just decide on the day that you don't want to do it anymore. It's quite tricky to exit overnight. It's always a bit of a drawn out process.
That gets me up my Welsh mountain, hopefully in two years time. So is the goal then to complete in two years time to down tools on all of it? Is that what You're actually like, or would it still be, I'm definitely out of mortgages. I don't have a mortgage license anymore. And don't really want to don't really want to really do that again.
I guess it depends how much money fix my legals makes at the end of the day. Cause those of you don't know I am a co founder of. business fix my legals, which by the way is really good. We just do what all conveyances should do. And people's minds are blown a little bit by the fact that conveyancing doesn't actually have to be terrible.
But that's going really well. I like protection advice. I find that interesting. And generally it's done so poorly that actually you can do it really well and. Make a real point of difference. Ideal situation though, is that I don't need to do it. And I will very happily, like I say, move up my mountain.
And what I actually want to do is become a blacksmith done quite a few blacksmithing experiences, huge fan of forged in fire. And I basically just want to make a very bougie, very expensive kitchen knives for people with more money than sense, basically. But, oh yeah. That's such a, that's such a. I'm not shocked.
I've been chatting to you for the last kind of 20, 30 minutes. You're quite a centric guy. So that's quite an interesting. So blacksmithing, do you blacksmith right now? That's currently what you, do you have a forge or anything like that? Not professionally and I don't have a forge and I think the neighbours would whinge because it's quite noisy.
Who is it? I did do it. I've been and done quite a few day experiences where I've made bits and bobs. But it's just really nice to make something and not have to worry about it, to there's, it either works or it doesn't work. It's not like a mortgage deal that falls apart four months in.
It's been an arduous process to get there. And then it all falls apart because the seller decides they don't want to sell the house anymore. Once it's done it's done. And as much I joke about, so the bougie kitchen knives, it's a bit like mortgages. If you make something and you want it to be. the best it possibly can be.
You're always going to have an audience, right? People will come to you. But I'd like to be in the position that, Either makes money or it doesn't, but hopefully I don't actually really need to worry about it too much there. And I think I'll never leave the industry entirely.
I'll get bored and I do want to do maybe a couple of days a week. And again, in an interesting situation now where. People have asked me questions, Oh, could you could I, do a bit of coaching development with me? To be honest, I wouldn't know what to charge you. And I don't, and it's, I wouldn't know where to start.
Yeah, but I have made loads of mistakes that people can learn from. So I could tell people what not to do, maybe. Let's talk about that. I'd love to, there's so many things. The thing with you, and I knew this was going to be the case is that you're such, I find with you, you're such a An enigma of a character in our industry.
Cause so you're a name that just appears everywhere. I look you're there, but you do so much different things that it's hard to pinpoint what every time I speak to people, I'm like, what does Reese do? And they're like it does this. And he does this is always, I'm not one thing I can definitely guarantee is that if there is ever an article out about conditional selling I always, whenever I see, I like, I'm going to Just go on a whim, it's going to be Lewis Shaw and Rhys Schofield are going to be the people commenting on this.
Very probably, yeah, probably in the article. That one that one's a funny one. Because We don't actually have too much of it happen around here. We, anyone who's this podcast industry knows who the boogers are, who's doing it. So let's not get sued. And I used to, and I used to call them out. And then I got told by Charlie Lambden, you need to stop. He came on the show and he was like, you need to stop. They'll do you for libel. And I was like, really? He was like, yeah. Yeah. The tricky thing is where a lot of these things do grind to a halt with media is it's getting people to go on record to say, oh, yeah, this happened and provide an email trail.
But people don't want to lose the house. And then once they're in, they don't, they don't care. So it's it's a tricky one, although there's a few rumblings that there's some hidden cameras being worn at the moment TV shows being made on that. But. You know what? It's always done wonders for my social media engagement, where I'm trying to talk to other brokers, probably be my best ever recruitment tool.
Because I knew I was being talked about very regularly. So we've took a lot of mortgage brokers over the years from the corporates. Yeah, like I say, it's a double edged sword, it's awful, but it does do wonders for my engagement when we talk about it, but It's always going to be you, I always know, it's you, Lewis, and normally going to be Bob Singh as well.
So it's the three, they're the three names that are always cited as the spokesperson against The acting, and I think that's because obviously you guys are very active on NewsPage and you do that, but it's this, it's interesting stance, I mean I agree with it, but it's such, I don't know. Yeah I think also because we, with our branding, we absolutely did not want to be, another very corporate agent.
So rainbow colors we're all that sort of thing. I think we've got Leah Turner to thank for rainbowy. But we stand out and our relaxed approach means that we do deal with a lot of first time buyers and those guys do tend to be the ones who get picked upon because they don't know what they don't know yet.
Yeah, it's good. It's done wonders for some. Media contacts as well. That then actually builds a bit of a platform. If there's something where you can almost be one of the go to's, you end up talking to people who do put together stories and the next time they're putting a story together, that's not maybe about that thing, which you've become known for like I was in the times this weekend talking about, Oh, new.
Which is a scheme I completely don't understand, if I'm honest, because I haven't broked in nearly a year, right? And Amrit in our office had to do all the sums, but I'm the one who got quoted in the paper. So I felt really guilty for that. But it's nice to have a chat with George Nixon on the on the the money desk over there and definitely open some doors.
So yeah, I hate that it goes on, but secretly I'm like, yeah, okay. It does wonders for my platform. It's a good thing. You want the negative. I always think that when, whenever I've got competitors who are doing practices that I don't like, and there are, that happens a lot, there's lots of people in the industry do it.
Yeah. And I'm always like, in some ways I'd like it, I've obviously I'd like it to stop from an ethical point of view or whatever, but then I'm like, I can also walk behind you with a bucket and clean up. It's quite nice. Yeah. And I think it's, if you see a negative, it's okay. It's easy to just get very caught up in.
This is really shit, all that sort of thing and get really angry about it. Point is, it happens. What are you going to do about it? And that shaped a lot of the ways we do things. So we've always done, a lot of us come from a corporate estate agency, so we know exactly what the practices are.
We probably did them for years. Without knowing, didn't it? Yeah. You're so indoctrinated. But we knew that, If our clients are going out looking at houses, the estate agent's going to try and win that business from you. And so they should, yes, they should try and do it in the right way, but you're always going to do that.
But then that shaped the fact that every single time we see a customer, we do this document called a passport to buy. It's got their AIP on it. It's got their certified documents. It's got their solicitor's details. That basically means that we've got everyone sewn up with everything sorted out before they've even found a house.
You, you look at our guys Legal stats for survey for conveyancing referrals. I should know that word. I do. I was gonna say literally. Yeah, That's like finding your other job. Yeah, exactly. Although if you ask Rox, she, she wouldn't be surprised that I didn't know what the word for conveyancing was.
But but actually we're securing those referrals in that business before someone's even found a house sometimes, and the results for the team actually makes us better. So sometimes a bad practice, yes, you could shine a light on it, but what are you going to do that's better?
There's often an opportunity in there. I don't think you can just moan moan. You got to do something about it at the end of the day. So that's what we've always tried to do is do something about it to make it better. I think that's an interesting point as well, is that if you, as you say, if you Get them an educated, a customer's educated to the point where, when they actually are interacting with the agent, they don't need, they've already got it.
So they're educated enough to understand. They don't need to have that. They don't need to see them. They don't need to do all that stuff. A lot of the time. It's just that they haven't, as you said, they haven't had those things sorted because I guess brokers will go, I'll deal with it once you find a house.
Probably a bit too late at that point. That would make more sense. Yeah. So you run multiple businesses. So I want to talk a bit about that. His idea of how, so first of all how do you do that? I can barely run one. How do you, how have you managed to and the fact that you were saying before You're quite like, I'm ADHD.
You might like bounce around the walls. How you manage that? I have no idea. Yeah, exactly. We were joking before that I'm actually diagnosed with ADHD and everyone in the office will tell you that I am. autistic. And I probably am to, to some degree. The ADHD thing, I just wanted some Ritalin at the end of the day definitely helps me concentrate which is how you self diagnose yourself with ADHD is take some controlled substance.
And if it works that, yeah, but that's not how the NHS do it. There's an actual official process to go down. Yeah the spinning all those plates piece is is challenging. I, but I've learned over the years, because my brain is naturally as scatty as you can imagine it probably would be with how it works and all those places that I have to spin, and I've learned ways to cope over the years.
The big thing for me is I'm lost without a to do list. The other day I left my notepad at home and it's not an insignificant drive back home to, to go and fetch it to then come back to the office. But I just won't be able to do anything today. I'll just be paralysed by. What do I do? What do I do? You have to force yourself to be organized.
I've not always been as good. As I'd like to be at keeping all those plates spinning. I think the biggest issue maybe is that sometimes I've not been very good at saying no to things. So an exciting opportunity comes up and you're like, Oh yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to do that, but then you've got, you're already rushed off your feet doing one and a half jobs already.
And those plates then start to then start to wobble. So I think this is a thing that's obviously coming down the track with. Me stepping back from running Peak to the extent that I've been, I'll still be around, but the day to day stuff is not really going to land on my not going to land on my desk to the degree that it does that it does now.
That then frees me up a little bit more for fix my legals, which I'm not hugely involved in the day to, to be honest. I think, one of the co founders and the people with the vision vision to to create this thing, but then they don't actually need me very much anymore.
I used to do all the social media and content, but we've now got someone who actually does that for a living and is better than I am at at it. So that's taken care of. We just wheel me out when we need to talk to mortgage brokers and engage with new users. Obviously I'll be doing my own protection advising.
We're talking before we came on. I can't believe how little compliance there is with private medical insurance, but then actually it's such a gateway to the things that you might actually want to talk to your clients about as well. And then we do some interesting stuff with the wheels business, which was another offshoot of, we set up a wheels business because it was going to generate.
Protection leads for peak advisors to, to deal with, but to be honest, it never really generated that many that many protection inquiries. It was a nice thing to maybe get something over the line where we're already working with a client, but we've got to the point now we've got 72 mortgage brokers who send work over to wills and estate planning.
But again, that's very much Sam's the driving force behind that. And I'm there to keep, as a bit of a sounding board and outreach for users. And I think if I was probably trying to do all those things myself at the same time, and it all be resting on my shoulders, there's no way I'd be able to cope with it anymore.
And. There's probably times where, when I was running peak, it's especially when you've got a big and a growing team and it's been a rollercoaster over the last few years, that trajectory overall has been upwards, but it's not been smooth. And there've been times where I've been really overwhelmed.
There've been times where if I was an employed, if I was an employee of a business, I would have walked, but you can't do that when you've got loads of other people dependent on you. And that's, that, that keeps you going. And I think that's probably the bit that I might want to get away from is not having that mental load that you're carrying sometimes because it's the highs are high, right?
But the lows are really low. And sometimes you're trying to do it all on your own. I just don't think that's manageable. And luckily, we've got a nice close knit. Industry, and there's been points over the years where I've had my sounding board when something bad's happened. And I'm like, I don't know what to do.
And it's just really good to know that I've been able to pick up the phone to someone like Dave Corbett. Yeah. I love Dave. Yeah. Dave's great. Or Paul Grattan, who's one of the co founders at FixMyLegals. And he's been there, done that. And he knows this, he knows his stuff.
So it's been really useful to have that. And I think. But then I think if you, if our industry ever sees someone in need of help or advice, I think we're pretty good, us mortgage brokers, although I'm not one anymore, but you're not even mine anymore, but I know what you mean. We're pretty good at rallying around and giving a bit of advice and guidance.
And I'll generally do it if I can fit it in. But if someone ever gets in touch and says, can we have a chat, a bit of advice on something I'm more than happily. Hop on and I will try and fix my legals to him, but I will always try to accommodate that because I think we've got, it's big thing is we want good people to stay in this industry.
And I, again, I've always been, as much as I say, I'm not passionate about mortgages. I'm not passionate about doing them because I think it's a lot of hard work sometimes and that, and I find it a bit energy sapping on occasion, but I am passionate about standards being really high and it's really heartbreaking.
I think sometimes when someone comes into industry, maybe they're new, but they've got that little. Je ne sais quoi to quote Thierry Henry to become a really good advisor, but then quite often a lot of people get brought in, especially new starters and dumped into a pretty rubbish situation, left to swing in the breeze and crash and burn on their own.
The problem is that we will lose those guys to the industry forever because they're never going to come back. Yeah. I find that frustrating and I hate to see anyone who's good and has the potential to do really well leave the industry. Cause if, if everyone's coming in and those standards keep going up, everyone's life is going to get a little bit easier.
You look now at the stats for how many mortgages are done through a broker compared to the direct to bank. Which it should be more in our favor because compliance probably shoot me for this. But I'm not regulated to give mortgage advice anymore. So who cares? But we know that if you look on paper, if you go to direct to your own bank, are you statistically as likely to get the best possible deal than if you went to a mortgage broker?
I'm not going to answer that question, but anyone who works in the industry can tell you that, but that, that, that's really swung in our favor in the last few years where, what's the number now? 90 percent of mortgages done through a broker. It'll be something higher. Yeah. I believe with that, the industry.
Because I when I was leaving the industry after when my kind of Sold my firm and moved but not like you gosh I not like you sold my firm as in like I did a crappy deal. It was not the same thing that's all But it was one of those where I was leaving because I genuinely believed that we were becoming a bit obsolete.
And and that would have been 2019. I was thinking like we're getting like, this is really, and then COVID changed everything. Like I think COVID made people realize just how much we were needed. Like it's kept the housing market going.
I didn't think it was before I genuinely was like, vintage come in. I really was going a bit like this is, and the rates were so low and the stakes were so low and it just didn't make sense. I just remember going to an event at HLP where I was a broker there. And I remember being like, I'm just thinking the writing's on the wolf.
This doesn't make sense. They're not like not tomorrow, but I was like, this is going to be gone. And then I think the whole thing has changed. I think it completely is. And I don't think that at all now. Exactly. I think we're still some way off. AI is great and make some funny images today and stuff like that.
But I, it's not at that point where you can have that conversation. AI would work if clients told you everything and listen to advice. But they don't tell you everything. Buyers are liars. That was what drummed into me when I started in state agency. Yeah. I always remember that.
Buyers are liars. Clients don't give you the right information and they'll rather listen to their mate in the pub than listen to you. So it's that feeling, isn't it? I always love it where and I always, it's similar to, your partner, your wife your fiance that you go, that you say to them, you can have a talk now and you can go, I just spoke to Ash and he said, this is such a great idea.
And she'll go, I've literally been telling you that the whole time. And that always happens with both buyers. And then they come along and they're like, Oh, yeah. I think we'll get this insurance. My mate down the pub said, this is a really good idea. And I've gone to this person. You're like. I've literally been telling you about it the whole way through the process.
Yeah, it's one of those ones and you're still always going to get those cases. It doesn't matter how good you are as a protection advisor, you will get the odd person where you do a really good thorough job and recommend something that's absolutely fantastic. All bells and whistles fits within the customer's budget.
And then you come to put it live and they say, Oh no, I've got something from bloody Beagle street. And you're like, Come on, Beagle Street have a place in the market and it's making every other insurance provider look good, I think, sometimes. That's the joke. It does look good on a CI expert comparison report, put it that way.
But I think you can make anything look good if that's what you're comparing it to. But I think there's still that. And I think. We're doing a better job at educating people that it's not just about price because I still think that's the obstacle sometimes when it comes to protection and insurance is people very fixated on just want it as cheap as possible.
The reality is actually once you break it down to benefits covered, people want the better policies. They want the enhanced children's critical illness cover and things like that. I've got clients and colleagues who've claimed on their kids critical illness policies. It's something that no one ever wants to think about having to claim on, but it does get claimed on.
And I think we do that. This is my other frustration. So who knows, maybe when I stop advising, I'll just become a true industry firebrand. Is I think the insurance industry is And certainly the protection industry is not in a good place because we've got so much compliance word in wrapped around our necks and I'm all for people having everything explained to them and people should understand what they're taking.
But the problem is there's so much jargon that no one bloody understands it. You look at network suitability reports that they essentially send out to a client. They don't make any sense. Does a client care if it's a decreasing term or level term. Assurance policy. That means nothing to a client.
They don't care. It's, what does it do? It pays me this if this happens, and this is how much I get, and this is how long that's what you need to know. Why do we need to almost worry too much about that? That other stuff, but we probably, I, I'm not sure I want to quite poke the FCA beast today.
I might if that's what you want me to do, but I do think Poke it as much as you want, mate. I'm all for stuff like that. Oh, absolutely fine. I'm launching into a diatribe now. I feel It's great. I'm loving, I'm just sitting back and listening to you. This is so great. Content.
I've seen It's the same with branding and marketing, right? With networks and compliance. And the problem is more, a lot of, there is a problem. There's people who don't know what they're talking about telling people stuff that's completely wrong on the internet. You only have to open, so that's my thing with that.
I don't, I think the networks and that a bit, and we can probably go down this thing, but you only have to open TikTok and type in mortgage and go. Oh shit. Yeah, I can see what they made like and there is a it's a few people ruining it for very good And Bob, but there are like, I'm like, I don't know what you believe that was not advice.
I don't know where you got that. Like, how did you not see that as financial promotion or how did you not see it as inappropriate when you called your client a twat? Yeah, those TikToks where people basically call their clients stupid. Yeah. That's not really going to get you any business.
I did learn very early in the process when I was at open work who not the quickest. When it comes to compliance, I have heard through the grapevine that then I don't know if we can include this, but banning advisors for using TikTok. They have. So you can include it on here because this will come out quite a while after now, but also they banned, they have got announced, I think on the first yes.
Yeah. I got a document leaked to me about three or four weeks before. Yes. I've seen. In advance, it was going around and people were like, I don't say anything though. And I was like, I'd like, cause it's unbiased as well. They've, oh yeah. That's because they can't say that the whole of the market.
So barely nightmarish situation. Cause actually it's a really good platform. But the point is that there is a load of rubbish out there and the FCA do have a problem with that. Probably the FCA is those guys can say whatever the fuck they want. Cause they're not regulated currently. That's not where the it so I don't necessarily think the issue and this I think this is how this podcast came about because I think we actually got into this in comments on something.
Oh yes it was really good and I went into that was where it was yes it was because it was about the fc it was about the fca rules and stuff wasn't it yeah and I think the problem is marketing is all these, this marketing guidance is based on stuff, which is 34 years old, which was done pre social media.
And the reality is let's say bank of England do something on base rates. Can you wait 48 hours to get, to get some content out, although historically I've never posted about it. Cause I don't think there's any point in me posting about what every other mortgage broker in the country is posting.
I don't think people care. So I think, do you know what it goes back to on that? Oh, I love this is we're going. down the rabbit hole here. So this is this is all the stuff I say behind closed doors. But I think it's, when you said, Oh, just about the insurance and like how people are like, it's all of these different level term, that type of stuff.
I don't think it's this, I think it's the same thing with the base rate. I don't think people care. And I think that we care because we're in the industry, but outside the industry. And one of the things I always said to you is. Make your content for your client, don't make your content like you're teaching another broker how to pass the fucking CMAP exam, which is what a lot of the time it is, it's this very complex over the top.
Base rate stuff is a waste of time, I think. Yeah, exactly. But, I think that's the point when there's something fast changing. And you saw it with the 5, 000 deposit stuff from Accord the other week, and that needed to come out pretty quick. But then you saw some stuff which was completely, bollocks out there as well from people who should know better.
So I do think that there is a problem. I don't think the current guidance Actually comes anywhere close to being in any way useful. And it's so vague and open to interpretation by networks that you get situations where you've got a massive social media platform that Advisors don't want to post on because the network's scared that it'll get in trouble.
Problem is the regulations need refitting for the modern day. And I think it's a tricky one, isn't it? Because I think What should content be is I think you should, I think there's a real good place for some of your content being educational because people like that stuff and I think if you're educating someone and it's a statement of facts and it is factually accurate and I think that's the key thing is actually, is the content just factually accurate if it's factually accurate and you've got your risk warnings on, although you've got Does anyone give a shit about your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up with your payments?
Does anyone actually read that? And it is on every illustration. It's on every document that client is going to get. Does it matter that it's not on a social media video? I don't think it is. I don't think it is. If they're not like my dad was obviously he was like in compliance and his thing with that.
He always used to say to me about this. He was like, I don't understand why it's on there. He said, when you still have your not yet. And he said, it's not the same thing he said, but. You haven't given advice. You haven't done any ideas. Nothing has happened by that point. It's just he said, I understand the financial motions behind it.
He said, but it's still, this doesn't make sense. It's just more fluff. And actually. makes it more confusing to read because it's drawing attention to things that sometimes isn't necessarily not the key message. And also you've put yourself in the shoes of someone who's probably tried to do a good job to educate.
And they've missed something, which is really important because they're making sure that, that bit is in there. Cause that's what the network wants. The funniest thing that illustrates how pointless this is as a risk warning. I don't know if you ever saw the video of me dressed as Hulk Hogan doing the voice.
No, I haven't seen that. I'm going to have to. It's Sim Hall always makes me wheel it out every couple of years, but when I first started, I was a bit. Not Sim Hall anymore, by the way. She'll tell you. Oh yeah, I know. Yeah, Sim will tell me off for that. She'll tell you off. She told me off. But I did this video as Hulk Hogan.
I did the voice and everything, full get up. It was when I was playing rugby, so I was a bit buffer as well. And I was going, I was talking about my 24 inch agreement in principle Python brother. But then they made me put the risk warning at the end, so I'm dressed as Hulk Hogan, doing the Hulk Hogan voice.
And then you go, there you go. Then you go, maybe even less if you do not keep that. And I think the definition of what is a financial promotion, that just shows you the definition of what is a financial promotion is utter rubbish. But I did learn very early on and actually this might have guided some degree of our success because actually it was such a battle to get stuff signed off when it was deemed a financial promotion because it was a call to business.
All we bloody posted was reviews of people almost, but. We were talking about this beforehand, not boring, but good client feedback presented in an engaging way. So people could see that we were really good at what we did. And just how approachable we were. Office dogs, beer fridge, the office beer fridge, probably the be the best investment we ever made in the business because people knew they could come in and have a beer whilst they're talking about their appointment.
They knew. What we're about, it was good. You're the second person to say that. Graham from Hudson Rose. He said the same thing. So he said that the office beer fridge was one of the biggest things they did. He was on here, like probably the cheapest thing you can do. Cause it's definitely cheap and paying for Facebook ads.
But he said it instantly makes people remember you like just instantly when they come in, they're like, Oh, yeah. Exactly. And I think me and Graham, we actually met for the first time at the Stonebridge conference a month or so ago. And yeah we both like to make it interesting. He's probably to blame for me trying to like up him on interesting hair with, I remember meeting him for the first time a long time ago now, many years ago.
And he wasn't like he is today. Like he wasn't that he hadn't fully become what he was. And, but he was the only guy he was sat on a table. It was a Gary Das event. And I just remembered, and like everybody, you said about being different. He was just so different to everybody else that he was talking, they were talking about ideas and he'd just done a video about babies.
It was like a baby video and it was like insurance for babies. And he had this baby and it was like, it was very, it was just so out of left field than anything like very similar to your Hulk Hogan stuff you're talking about. It was. Everyone was going left and he was going right. It was a very different thing.
And I just remember thinking, this guy's interesting. It doesn't shock me where he ended up because he was just and you, like I said, you're in that same ilk. I'd put you in that same category of there's a few people who've really embraced authenticity massively, like grabbed it by the balls and go this is who I am.
And. It's no shock that both of you're very successful and, but I think the thing is with that is that you are not gonna appeal to everybody. So if someone wants a, and I mean I will nick this from him, is that, there's loads of suit and he was interviewed somewhere. I can't, but he definitely said this around, if you want a suit and tie broker, there's loads of suit and tie brokers out there.
Yeah. But if you want someone who's not that, we are really clearly. That, and I think we both probably had that drew that same conclusion that, we're not genuinely, we're not that kind of person. We're not going to necessarily be naturally that person's favorite where he's draining to maybe keep up that front sometimes as well on a mental level too.
But there's plenty of people out there who do want something a little bit different, and you see the success that some brokers. Clearly have with maybe working with people like them because they're very Genuine in what they do or maybe specializing in a certain group You look at what Dave Sharpstone's done with, anyone ever get stuck even here about a CIS mortgage.
I do pick up the phone to Dave and say, mate, what the fuck do we do? He's he's the call before this. So Dave's one of my very best friends. I've known him for a long, long long time. And he is like the original niche of that guy. Like everybody. Everybody knows, CIS and Dave are so universally linked that it's It's known, it's oh god, what's the, you can get a reputation for being the go to, so it's the whole international mortgages thing, so we get people who are looking to buy homes overseas.
I'll just pick up the phone, Simon Carlton, that's isn't that what everyone does? And it's quite nice to have that niche and there will always be a niche out there for something. Yeah. We were joking about my niche, I seem to have calmed out, carved out for doing insured professional wrestlers at the moment, which is causing it a bit of a degree of headache.
How does that even work for them? And I haven't thought about that, but actually for insurance, it must be quite hard. It is tricky. It is tricky to place because they're doing something which is high risk and actually the life and critical illness side of things isn't too crazy.
It's the bit of a no go. Most of these guys aren't fully professional. It's, they've got a day job that pays the bills and they do a little bit on the side. Which means, there's MetLife out there who can do that sort of thing. If in doubt, MetLife will sort it out.
Yeah, actually, MetLife are very supportive of it. But I, for how long is this how much business goes their way. And yeah, it depends on the risk at the end of the day, isn't it? Yeah, they still want it, but they're still insuring rugby players. And I, I claimed on my four times over the years when I was still playing.
So I can imagine rugby is probably in the same kind of ill coming. You are practically the same sort of risk level, to be honest. We had one MetLife client who ended up. claiming and it wasn't a wrestling injury without, out on a night out and he slipped over on some cobbles.
And much discretion, ligament and, you can still have those freak accidents, which there might be some exclusions in what they want to do. They're still as likely as anyone else to get cancer or have a heart attack or any of those things. So they still, guess what? They still need insurances.
They still need mortgages. And actually it might be the. Wrestling that makes them think, okay, I'm quite exposed, but even you can get them some cover that doesn't cover that thing, which has made them have the conversation, the point is they still wanted to have that conversation and they're still worried about the other things.
But it's quite interesting. And once you. You deal with a customer a few times. You actually know a little bit more about them in their situation. I now know that through the performers union, they're they can actually get some income protection through their performers union.
So sometimes what you might do is you might not end up actually writing any business for what they've approached you for. You might signpost them to something else, but guess what? They're going to come back to you for the mortgage. They're going to do their life insurance with you. They won't do a will because they get free wills written through the union as well, but there's other opportunities that sit there.
There's still a person who can refer their friends and family to, to you as well. So I think, yeah, that, that's happened by accident. I don't say those niches are really strange when they type of fall into those, because that's such as a guy was finding when people ask about what niche should I be in all that stuff?
I think it's really hard because niches are. I would say they'd be like Harry Potter's wand. They find you, not the other way around, it picks you. Like a lot of times it you're just, as you say, like you've done that and then they'll refer and refer them for, it. I ended up, I worked with a lot of people in the gaming industry.
That was when I was a broker, that's purely because my best mate was a lawyer at Jagex. And then the next thing you know, which was like the place that did RuneScape and then it just there was, there's a massive company and then there's like the P the company next to them.
And in Cambridge, there's a lot of gaming developers. So it's one of those that people would often they go Oh, it's a really cool niche. And I'm like, it's just another, I'm still doing the mortgage. Don't change anything. It's normally an accident is how you come to the niche. Because we are saying, same boat when I was advising mortgages, we ended up doing a load of cases for the guys working down at Pinewood and Sheperton and that sort of thing.
They're all on fixed term contracts. If you don't never done one of those mortgages before. It's probably a ball eight to get your head around. Once you've done one, it's actually really easy. But that was only because I did my brother's mortgage and he works, he works on the, on, on the movies and you, I, I think.
It would be a danger maybe if I was a new advisor coming to the industry to be really fixated on a niche. I think you probably do have to be a, a jack of all trades a little bit at first, unless you've got some sort of previous connection somewhere else. My thing when I started was I did a lot of injury cover for rugby players because I've played rugby and it was something I had and I, and that was my network of contacts.
And I think without Belper Rugby Club, we'll give them a shout out to out. My business wouldn't be where it is today. That was really nice to be able to come in. And in the first, first month or month and a half written 20 grand's worth of standalone protection business.
That's a nice way to start, right? It meant we could go out and we could recruit an admin. three months in, but it was because we knew that there's this steady stream of steady stream of work coming in. The funny thing is you might tread on some people's toes as well, because I did get some arty phone calls from some competitors saying, oh you're trying to stay off my turf, that sort of thing.
Oh really? Oh yeah. I had a couple of them, which just wound me up and made me want to do it more because I'm stubborn and I'm awkward and all that sort of thing. So generally if I get told you can't do that or it's problematic, it makes me want to do it a little bit more. So within reason, like as long as I can't believe that people, it does show me that, but there's that air of that's mine and you can't have that It doesn't really work that way.
Yeah, I think it's that, that, that position of being threatened, if that makes sense, and that's not how I would react if there was something like that was going on, it would make me double down on, okay, how do we do what we do better? So we are better. And I think that's funny enough, this was a subject in the in, in our Fix My Levers board meeting earlier was we had, a It's going really well, but these are the things which are on the horizon.
And if they come along, how, how do we incorporate that or work with that to still be able to say, yeah, okay, we're still really good. Yeah. That, and I think it's really important that you've got to keep sharpening your axe to make sure that it's doing the job. But I don't have an issue with stuff like that because it just makes you and everyone drags each other's standards higher.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm I actually think it's maybe maybe a good thing. And you might find that you have a particular niche and then your niche changes. Always does. I think niches, they're never fixed. They're never fixed. Like even David. And I've worked with David for five years coming up to six now.
And he's, it's not, it looks the same. It's not the same. What we're actually doing is a different thing to what we did five years ago. Like it's not, no, it's nowhere near the same. It's very different. He, the, his business kind of scope is different. Everything's a bit different. So I think that's a really interesting.
We've chat for ages. I'm just looking time like I'm listening to time then when I wrap this one up. But there's so many of the things you do that we'll have to get you on again in the future to talk. Just do a whole episode on Fix My Legal for God's sake. There's so many things we could do but if people wanna learn more about you at the beginning I thought this would be this kind of introduction to you.
People know you anyway, but just an introduction on this show. But if you wanna learn more, where's the best place for them to go? LinkedIn is probably where I'm most active. Sacked off the others. We were talking, yeah, I do have a Facebook and Instagram account. What we were saying before, and I hate it.
I can't stand meta. I think the problem is when you've got a load of advisors that you're in admin for their account as well, you don't want to go onto those platforms because there's just so many notifications, you could send me a message. I might get back to you in six months when I actually see it.
But LinkedIn is where I'm most active. Yeah, I'm enjoying playing with TikTok, I've got a broken phone. I was getting quite good at making some good videos, but then I dropped a sauce bottle on my screen. Oh, so you've got to get a new phone, do you? Or you just Yeah, but I imagine don't that much hate te I hate technology, so I'm enjoying it, but I it is cracked right across my camera lens and Dave Corbett keeps video calling me 'cause he thinks it's hilarious.
'cause when it's sunny, it looks . This might stay in the PO in the podcast. It might not, but it looks like I, there's a giant lum. Penis in front of my face. That's a hundred percent standing in the podcast. So that is why that's being clipped . So that is why I don't , I'm not doing a huge amount on video at the moment is 'cause Reese needs to get a new phone because he doesn't want a giant penis in his face.
Yeah. LinkedIn is, yeah, exactly. LinkedIn is the place to go. I love it, mate. Thank you so much coming to the show. I've had a great time. It's been lovely just to sit and people listen, to sit and listen to you talk. You actually you were just. Thoughts around the industry is really great.
And I think that it's nice to, I'm just listening as a, as like a listener in this episode. It's so good, mate. Thank you so much. Pleasure. Thank you.