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Know Your BDM: Holly Andrews, Saffron Building Society

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  • 25/10/2021
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Know Your BDM: Holly Andrews, Saffron Building Society
This week Mortgage Solutions is speaking with Holly Andrews, team leader at Saffron for Intermediaries.

 

 

What locations and how many advisers and broker firms do you cover in your role?

I manage the telephone team at Saffron, so I cover all our brokers and supporting of key partners.

 

How have you changed the way you establish and maintain a good relationship with brokers in the pandemic?

I think having the ability to chat with brokers via an online meeting facility has been so much easier, it has given us another way to interact. At the end of 2020 we launched our Saffron for Intermediaries (SFI) live webinars which has been a great way to present our criteria in a relaxed format and for brokers to speak to some of the specialists at Saffron.

 

What personal talent/skill is most valuable in doing your job?

Listening. I think this is the key part of the role as a BDM, understanding what our brokers’ needs are and how we can both help the customer to complete on their purchase or remortgage.

 

What personal talent/skill would you most like to improve on?

Delegation. I am a nightmare with taking on a lot of work and not sharing it out when others could help.

 

Where would you rather be stuck, in bumper-to-bumper traffic or back-to-back Zoom calls?

Back-to-back zoom calls. I love being out on the road but definitely don’t miss traffic jams and rush hour. Being able to do everything virtually over the last year has been so much better because I get to see more faces and utilise time better.

 

What’s the best bit of career-related advice you’ve ever been given?

The best bit of career advice was being asked “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”. Since then I have broken down my workloads into small chunks and constantly have a to-do list on the go.

 

What is the most quirky/unique property deal you’ve been involved in?

A lot of the self-builds that Saffron deal with are at times really quirky – we have had houses that look like treehouses, eco-builds and turning ex-commercial properties into residential properties.

 

What has been your lockdown coping strategy?

When the weather is bad, films and wine. When the weather is good, sitting in my garden enjoying a gin and tonic.

 

What was your motivation for choosing business development as a career?

I first joined Saffron in a different department, however, it was a suggestion by one of our executives to join the team and from the minute I joined I just knew it was the right role for me. It allowed me to develop my skills and to build relationships with our registered brokers all whilst work in a fantastic team of individuals

 

If you could do any other job in the property sector, what would it be and why?

I would have to say a property finder. I love looking at Rightmove and the properties available and would love to be able to find people their dream home and help them through the buying process.

 

What did you want to be growing up?

I wanted to be a dancer however I am more “Strictly no dancing” rather than “Strictly come dancing”.

 

What’s your favourite face mask design/pattern to wear?

Anything bright and jazzy, my most used design has lots of cat paws on it.

 

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