What locations and how many advisers and broker firms do you cover in your role?
I cover a large geographical area in the South West which includes Reading, South Wales and the South coast of Southampton to Penzance. I have over 3,500 active broker registrations, but thankfully, they don’t all ring at the same time.
How have you changed the way you establish and maintain a good relationship with brokers in the pandemic?
As others have said, the pandemic brought about a shift in the way relationships with brokers are established and maintained, with previously unheard-of Zoom calls becoming an essential part of the role.
I’ve always been proactive – be it following up new registrations, applications started and not finished, in addition to new business – so it’s great to be able to be back out and about.
What personal talent/skill is most valuable in doing your job?
Generally, I think having a positive attitude irrespective of what is going on can be really valuable.
More specific to the role, I think an important skill is having a good grasp of your own criteria because this gives you the ability to talk through enquiries pre-application. Essentially, this is to ensure the business coming in is right for us and the borrower. Of course, some cases need a helping hand to get them to fit and being able to spot that and provide the necessary support is beneficial too.
Knowing your criteria is one thing but having strong internal relationships with underwriting/processing is a real asset to any business development manager (BDM).
What personal talent/skill would you most like to improve on?
Typing.
Where would you rather be stuck, in bumper-to-bumper traffic or back-to-back Zoom calls?
Bumper-to-bumper traffic.
What’s the best bit of career-related advice you’ve ever been given?
You have two ears and one mouth – use in those proportions.
What is the most quirky/unique property deal you’ve been involved in?
Working for a specialist lender means that cases are rarely straightforward. One recent example was a portfolio remortgage in a personal name where the borrower was looking to incorporate through to limited company ownership six months post-completion.
What was the greatest lesson you learned during the pandemic?
Working in front of a screen five days a week isn’t as good as being on the road. I guess that explains why I’d choose bumper-to-bumper traffic over back-to-back Zoom calls.
What was the first social event you attended once restrictions were eased?
It was a Dynamo event held at the Celtic Manor, a nice resort near Newport in Wales. It was really good to catch up with some people that I’d not seen face to face in what felt like ages.
What was your motivation for choosing business development as a career?
After spending several years as a broker, an ex-colleague called me and asked if I wanted to work for L&G.
The interview was at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff watching the Barbarians and the former colleague convinced me it was a great path. He was right.
If you could do any other job in the property sector, what would it be and why?
It’s difficult to say but I do know that I wouldn’t consider anything that was 100 per cent home or office based.
What did you want to be growing up?
Taller.
If you had one superpower, what would it be?
I think time travel would be interesting and pretty useful.
And finally, what’s the strangest question you’ve ever been asked?
The strangest question I’ve ever been asked is unrepeatable in such a respectable publication.
