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‘Marginal gains’ could translate to big wins for mortgage brokers – Paradigm

by: Bob Hunt, chief executive, Paradigm Mortgage Services
  • 25/08/2016
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‘Marginal gains’ could translate to big wins for mortgage brokers – Paradigm
By taking a leaf out of Team GB's book at this summer's Rio Olympics, mortgage brokers could find themselves improving on their own personal best, writes Bob Hunt.

Whatever your level of sporting interest, you can’t help but feel proud of ‘Team GB’s’ efforts at the Rio Olympics. A record medal haul is of course a wonderful achievement, particularly given the post-home Games drop-off that we were supposed to see, but for every individual who even makes it to the Olympics there should also be a special pride for being there.

Much has been made of the team’s performance turnaround over the past two decades, and one can’t deny that increased investment from the government and National Lottery has played a huge part. Add into this a willingness to copy those sports where successful systems have been put in place – notably rowing and cycling – and we can see the benefits right across the board. Quite telling I think is the spread of gold medals across a varied array of sporting disciplines – more so than for any other country.

The lessons for business life are plain to see and they can be translated though to our firms – I’ve sat through a number of presentations in recent years from high-level sports people, coaches and managers and the comparisons come thick and vast.

Of particular interest to me is the notion of ‘marginal gains’ – a commitment, perhaps most thrillingly developed by UK cycling and Sir Dave Brailsford. The purpose is to eke out small improvements which overall can help bring about the better results we have all witnessed throughout this Olympics, indeed for many Olympic sports over the past decade or so.

This seems particularly relevant to adviser firms – many of which are SMEs – who may not be in a position to achieve ‘big ticket’, transformational changes, that often require large amounts of time, resource and money to deliver. Instead, we can all look to find and develop improvement across a number of different areas, whether that be in administration, time management, lead generation, introducer partnerships, utilisation of distributors – the list goes on.

Undoubtedly by generating improvements across a number of areas, the firm is likely to see overall performance enhanced and hopefully a noticeable increase in business volumes and income levels. Some of this may simply be a question of changing supplier, updating technology, or moving distribution partner – indeed, when it comes to the latter, the firm doesn’t need to change anything it does in order to see the benefits.

So, while we might not reach the dizzying sporting heights achieved by so many of our athletes at the Rio Games, we can certainly seek to improve our own business personal bests by looking for those ‘marginal gains’. A commitment to small improvements in a number of areas over a long time frame may well see you standing on your own business podium as a result.

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