Know Your BDM: Jackie Wise, Norton Broker Services

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

I cover nationwide. I came back from maternity leave with a new task to grow our pool of brokers, I currently have 75 active brokers that are a mix of appointed representatives, directly authorised, multi advisers and individuals.  

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

Listening is the most valuable skill in my role. It is key to listen to the broker so I can understand how I can help or assist them in the best way possible. That may be educating brokers further on secured loans, bridging or general advice. All brokers work differently and have different types of customers, so it’s important to tailor our services based on their needs. This is also important when discussing individual cases, as each customer’s situation will suit certain lenders.  

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

Patience. This industry can be frustrating at times and turnaround times can vary extensively. I can be impatient when this is out of my hands, for example awaiting authority from a mortgage lender who refuses to send an email or waiting for a simple letter from a local council. I am that person that will click the same button 50 times because it hasn’t worked in the first two seconds. 

What is the hardest part of your job?  

Listening to voicemails. To reach out and grow broker accounts to their best ability, it takes a lot of conversations and meetings. Unfortunately, it can sometimes take 100 calls to speak to 10 brokers. This is a busy industry, I don’t take offence, but some days it can be deflating. 

What do you love most about your job?  

The people. Speaking to lots of different advisers, from all parts of the UK, you get to speak to some fantastic, crazy and interesting people.  

What is the best piece of career-related advice you’ve ever been given? Who gave it to you?  

The best advice I was ever given was “The only guarantee for failure is to stop trying”. I have no idea who said this, but it has always stuck with me. When I was younger, I suffered from a lack of confidence. I always assumed I wasn’t good enough after any failure. This quote is a great way to remind anyone that you will fail every time if you don’t bother to try. 

How do you keep up to date with developments in the market?  

Working with a whole of market panel of lenders daily is a great source of industry knowledge. You get to know which way rates are heading, how criteria changes, and the flexibility in affordability changes. Most lenders tend to adjust to the market at the time, so we see changes most days.  

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

Trying to exit a bridging loan secured against five buy-to-let properties when the first charge lender doesn’t grant consent to a second charge mortgage on four of the properties.  

Tell us about your trickiest case – what happened and how did you resolve the problem(s)? 

The solution to the above case was to remortgage onto buy-to-let mortgages. The issue was the applicant wanted to transfer the properties into her limited company name and the surveyor insisted they were houses in multiple occupation (HMO) properties when in fact they were not. The case was very challenging. It took a lot of liaising with the lender and surveyor to rectify the comments, but we got there in the end. 

What was your motivation for choosing this career? 

I like working in a role where I have the flexibility of getting on the road and meeting different brokers, seeing their set up and getting to know them. That flexibility also allows me to work from home and in the office, where we have a never-ending supply of tea from Joanne, dad jokes from Jimmy, snacks from Lisa and life hacks from Eddie. 

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

Training. Training advisers is a small part of my role, but it’s also my favourite part. Whether that be one-to-one, group training or a larger group with a presentation, that is where I thrive. I love speaking to people on topics that will help them grow. I get a little adrenaline rush when I’ve successfully completed some training and kept it interesting and not stiff. I have worked in the finance industry since I was 18 and I have learnt a lot over the years. I think it’s a pleasure to be able to share some of that knowledge and skills with individuals who can also gain from that.