Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / Standing Out From The Crowd, with Mortgage Adviser Graham Taylor

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Standing Out From The Crowd, with Mortgage Adviser Graham Taylor · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, and welcome to the Financial Planner Life Podcast, where we talk to professionals at varying stages in their career about what it's like working in the wonderful world of financial planning and financial advice.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is proudly sponsored by Recruit UK, a recruitment consultancy specifically focused on the financial services.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: They have a new specialism, recruiting, within the financial planning industry.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: So check out their website for the latest job opportunities, hints and tips, and blog articles.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And today's guest is Graham Taylor.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Graham is a mortgage advisor and a business owner.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: His company is called Hudson Rose.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I stumbled across the company via an Instagram advert, and I was instantly compelled to want to learn more about him and his business.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I loved the branding of Hudson Rose.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: It looks almost like a funky art shop or a cool barber shop you'd see on the Gloucester Road in Bristol.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he himself isn't your average suited and booted mortgage advisor.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: The guy's got a pink Mehican and he's covered in tattoos.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: I felt compelled to speak to him because I love it when I see people stand out in what is usually considered quite a dull market.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Suited, booted, very grey.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I love it because it's kind of like, well, if you're making it and you're doing well and you're being truly authentic, I wonder how many other people are looking at financial services and being put off by the old school suited and booted look.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I brought him on.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: He talks about his journey from working in some of the larger corporates, giving mortgage advice to high net worth clients, to running his own business, managing marketing and client development.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it's a wonderfully inspiring journey.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed talking to Graham.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoy it.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Graham.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life podcast.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Even though you are a mortgage advisor, still classed as financial planning in my eyes, anyway.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Specialists.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Specialists.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like the SAS, mate.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I just mortgages and insurance.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: There we go.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Mortgage SAS.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's a yeah, there's a branding.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: SMS, maybe.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably something that's already something, isn't it?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: SMS.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Someone's called that one.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Damn it.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go, I'm gonna work on my electronic mail idea instead to see if that takes off.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: It'll never take off, mate.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no chance.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: International network, yeah.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right, bro.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, Graham, thank you.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks everyone very much for joining me today.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you came up, popped up on my my Instagram.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've been using Instagram quite a bit now with Financial Planner Life to try and get down with the kids, you know what I mean?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um and I and you guys popped up.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm always keen to see financial planners or mortgage advisors utilizing um other forms of social media outside of LinkedIn.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or I think really somewhere like Instagram as well, is somewhere where you can be truly yourself and be authentic unapologetically.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas there's this kind of anxiety sometimes, I think, with the likes of LinkedIn that you've got to be kind of all straight and you know it's professional and all that kind of stuff.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, when I saw you, I thought, yeah, he's definitely very into it.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Not many like us.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's not many like us.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought I'd get you on the podcast.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: So um I tell you what, the in the very, very beginning, let's just kind of give us a brief overview of where you are currently in the world of mortgages.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: In the world of mortgages, we're the epicenter of the world of mortgages.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, we're um oh wow, well, where are we in the world of mortgages?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, we're a whole market, we're we're we're more we're jobing mortgage insurance advisors, right?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's uh I've been in the industry 14 years, 13 and a half years, man and boy, um, in various various levels and management, all that kind of stuff.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, we we are predominantly direct to direct to consumer.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so you mentioned LinkedIn.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I hate LinkedIn.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I really absolutely can't stand it.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Actively rally against it to some extent.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm on it, so so that undermines everything I'm about to say, but um, you'll notice it's not something we do a lot of.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's my uh marketing uh lady Jess, she she's on plays in LinkedIn a little bit forwards, but I don't like it because it's it's just it bores me.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um to some extent.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So sorry I don't know it was on LinkedIn because it's a vague platform, so things, but you're right, it's not where our brand particularly fits because um, as you say, we're we're we're a little bit different.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: So where do we sit in the mortgage world?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how we compare to to peers, but I know our reviews are are where I want them to be and increasing because uh we look a bit different, and because of that we have to um we have to make sure we're better than everybody else.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's look at that then, let's talk about that because you are very different.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you popped up on my Instagram, um, you know, you've got for a start, you can't sort of hide this one, you've got a pink Mehican.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Christ, I have I don't know.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was Rainbow.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: You got a rainbow mohawk, you've got, you know, you're covered in tattoos all up and down your arms.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And your company itself, the mortgage broker that you you run, that you own, is a very alternative looking mortgage broker.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it wouldn't look out of place, you know, in one of those posh sort of the Gloucester Road in, you know, in Bristol.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't, it wouldn't look out of place somewhere like that.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's very alternative looking, and it's not your typical mortgage company.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you're right, it's not, and I as I say, I haven't found one quite like us.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we'd be going three and a half years.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've got we'd have two offices as of as of next week, one in just outside Stroud, a place called Nailsworth, so South Cotswolds, one in Sciences, uh, again, so we're Cotswold-based.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, maybe not the areas you typically think Sciences are having a more alternative approach to things.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it's uh when I started, it was in my mind, it was to be all it's about being authentic, right?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: I've done I say I've done this job, I've been in the high net worth sector, I've done it um, you know, in the corporate world, I've worn tweed suits and not had a mohawk and hidden my tattoos and all this kind of stuff.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there's an underlying um push towards authenticity.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: People want to know that the you know, big companies are out there, they're great, and some people get a lot of comfort from that.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Other people like to have that more bespoke, more personal, more relaxed thing.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And all we do is we we do exactly the same as as any other whole of market advisors that's that's any good.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because carrying it back because you know, um, in that we're advising clients on mortgage structures, um, we're arranging ranging loans, we're doing the insurance piece with it, and we're doing complicated stuff for people as well.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're doing those pieces that are not served on the high street.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, 75% of all mortgages now originate through an intermediary in the UK.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I started in the industry in 2007, it was 50-50 and they were undercutting us.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Chats with business development managers now in major banks saying that we account for 93, 94% of their whole mortgage book.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: So the distribution side's really gone gone our way.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: But if you look around, right, there's no, and I say this to a lot of people, right?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: How many mortgage advisors' offices do you remember walking past, right?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the universally, I mean there will be universally, there'll be some people, but the university answer is none, right?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because it is, it'll be a plaque on a wall, or it'll be like uh an industrial estate outside a town, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that'll be, you know, and and and that'll be it, or be in an estate agent's office, but it'll be associated with the estate agent.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So if you could be the one that people remember walking past, you've done 80% of the battle, haven't you?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because then they they walk past.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we've been told we look like, I mean, look, we take inspiration on on aesthetics of all the stuff I like.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there's this tattoo culture, there's rave culture, there's rock, you know, there's metal, there's all the kind of stuff, art, street art stuff that I I kind of like.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And people of course people thought we're a tattooist, people thought we're an art gallery, someone thought we're a massage parlour.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I can see that.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't run with it.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I could have done.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: I might be uh, you know, mortgage and a massage.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't that sounds all right.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: These hands, these hands can heal.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, no, so you know, but but the point is people drive past and uh people see it and it piques their interest.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then as a client said to me, he said, Graham, I drove past your office every day for six months, didn't need a mortgage, didn't need a mortgage anymore, just drove past.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: One day I needed a mortgage.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Where was who was the first person I was going to call?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, well, there we go.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're a bit odd because we're taking it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a lot of our a lot of the our peers are probably taken off the high street.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea with Zoom and all this, we're going onto the high street.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um as much as having a presence, it's a it's a it's a trust thing.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're dealing with big numbers for people.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think being sitting in a local, a local office, even though a lot of our stuff isn't done face to face, having that presence there, I think, you know.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: When you're saying you're doing big numbers for people, is that you're you're focusing more on sort of high net worth mortgages for clients?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you mean?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, but mortgages are big.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Matt, you know, talking hundreds of thousands of pounds, and you're talking about the time where many people will only it's the only time where many people encounter professionals, right?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: So um I don't want to say man in the street because that's really condescending, but but people that aren't in financial services, right, don't, you know, you generally will go through life and you'll only encounter professionals at certain points, you know, your doctor, right?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you're not self-employed and you won't have any accountants, but buying a house is kind of the one time we don't, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have that conversation.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we, I think, as as advisors and as people in the industry underestimate how frightening it is that how alien these things are.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because we sit there going, oh, yeah, well, you know, oh well, Santander, we do that, and nationwide will do that, and oh, you bore 150 at this and whatever, right?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and we know it because we do it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but flip it around, right?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you're the person, you're you're you know, either a first-time buyer, whatever age that is, or even someone that's buying for the second time in their 40s.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um they after you or not.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Got rid of the evidence.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: No, so so you someone in their 40s, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: So but but people don't buy properties often.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's this misnomer that once you bought one, you know what you're doing, all right?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of in terms of sort of mortgage finance, because you don't, because you do it so so rarely.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I've got my else going on my point now because that thing spun me out.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: But uh we're talking about high net worth mortgages.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: I know, so no, so one's a big numbers, it's it's people coming into contact professionals, and actually, uh, I've had clients who have come to our office and have said to me, I would not be sitting here if you didn't look the way you did, because I wouldn't feel comfortable.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we should we work for our clients, right?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: They employ us to do a job.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: They shouldn't feel intimidated, bored, um, you know, it should be relaxed, it should be nice, because we've got to we've got to understand what they're about.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're gonna structure a debt to someone, we need to know where they're gonna be two, three, or where they hook to be two, three, five years from now.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because obviously, structuring their debt is important to the advice that you give, right?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: If they're not comfortable and don't want to give you that information, you're not gonna do a job on it.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So there's plenty of people out there that will look at us and look at Hudson Rose as an organization and me and think, good God, no.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: There is, but when we're not interested in that, we want the people that come to us because they come to us and say, Well, do you know what?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was drawn to you because you look different, because your reviews are good, but because you look different, because you're clearly doing something different, and I like that approach, and that's that's who we're who we're to serve.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not doing, you know, our our loan sizes are good, a few hundred pay probably average, because of where we're based in the country.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're not a sort of pile em height, sell them cheap operation.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a customer, it's a customer service-based operation.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: It is very much about giving that service to the client.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're a good middle ground.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: We we go up a bit, we go down a bit.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I've done the high network thing and it's not all the crack done.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: So prior to setting up Hubs Hudson Rose, let's just give the listeners a little bit of an idea of where you, you know, how you got into the profession, where your profession took you, your journey, career journey to end up setting up your own business.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, obviously, like most of us, when I was five or six, I dreamt about becoming a mortgage broker.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um you did.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was just that one thing.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Mum and dad were like, what do you want to do?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Racing car driver?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Fine.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, no, I'm gonna give mortgage advice.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so no, I went to uh honestly, right?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: I love my job.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: My job is the best job in the world.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was I think I was put on this earth to do this job.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's brilliant.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And people look at me, you know you go you go to a party.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't I don't go to parties anymore because I'm 38.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, you you go to uh I don't know a play date with your kids, and you speak to people, like, oh, what do you do?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you go, Oh, yeah, I'm a mortgage broker.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: And they look at you, they go, Oh, well, no, sometimes they go, Are you?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: But after they go home, they go, Oh, right, okay.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, Yeah, and uh the reason why I think I'm suited to it is because it goes back to your question is that I started off in like 15, 16, working in uh four or five-star hotels, doing restaurant bar work, you know, and got a massive buzz off the customer service, right?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like being on point to this day, I still like just love that, you know, serving someone in such a way when they go, do you know what?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And they give you a bit of cash at the end, you think, yeah, I nailed that.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I like the I like the sort of upsell side of it, you know, someone ordering whiskey and ask if they want a double, just chatting, just chatting to people.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I did that for a bit.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: I then went to university and studied politics uh in Bristol.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and whilst I was there, I did a bit of the telephone fundraising stuff.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I learned a bit of the phones for charities.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then latterly, last two years, I was working in better managing betting shops or system management betting shops in Bristol.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that was exposing me to lots of people, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: From different backgrounds uh at quite a young age.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then the whole the money the market bit and you know, watching being fascinated by how people chose to do things.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I kind of graduated and I was like, oh shit, I've graduated with a mediocre degree from a second-rate university.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna do?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't do that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: I stayed in grading shops for about yeah, 18 months, was decided what I was gonna do.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um saw a job in London and country back in 07.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, they're based in Bath, I was in Bristol.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my then girlfriend now wife said, Oh, you should apply to them.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they were the one who sort of graduates and everything back then, because it was you know the jobs market in 2007 was, you know, they could they could be a quite fussy as to how they how they pick people.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I said, Well, they're never gonna, I know the OT and everything else.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're never gonna pay me to do that with a 2-2 politics, you know what I mean?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, I went in, did the kind of four four start or start four uh stage interview process that they were running back then, um, made it through, did their academy bit, stayed there for about four years, was pretty successful there, I like to think.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, then kind of did my CIFAS.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: I did my uh old FPC, wasn't it?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it was CFA.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: So before they did the diploma, did put myself through that LNC, then decided I was going to go into financial planning and investments and pensions, got a job with HSBC, as the as the old route was to kind of go there, get them to pay for your exams, learn, and then chip off.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I and this was this was obviously financial crash going on in the background, like you know, things collapsing.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I they gave me a job as a mortgage advisor, which is a wholly different job to, you know, whole and market broker to bank mortgage advisor.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: They're the same price, but it's a different, it's a different job.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember saying to them at the interview, I said, Look, I've come to you because I want to do this role, I can do this role.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: They said, Oh, well, we'll put you in a mortgage advisor role six months.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you're any good, we'll bump you up.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I said, That's fine, but if I'm still doing the mortgage advisor role in six months, I'm I'm I'm not gonna stay, right?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not my sort of thing.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so I started with HSBC, and then literally they made all their financial planning managers redundant, like because of the the RDR and everything that was coming in.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was RDR, yeah.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh so I was there thinking, Christ, I dodged a bullet.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And for anyone that will remember 10 years or so ago, HSBC didn't really like lending money to anyone, right?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: So my job was to sit in an office in Clifton in Bristol and just tell people that we weren't gonna lend them any money, which which is great, which is brilliant.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it got to the point where I would sit there in Clifton and I'd look out, I'd be facing a client and you know, customer across the side of the road, I can see Santan there, I can see nationwide, right?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they're just they're just actually Halifax down the road, right?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: And clients, we'd say to clients, customers who were, I'd be like, yeah, no, this is not something we're gonna lend on.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: They go, Oh, right.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd lean across the desk and go, but if you go to Santan chair, they probably would because obviously had that knowledge of like, you know, the the the rest of the market.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I didn't I didn't fare massively well at HSBT, it wasn't my cup of tea.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: I uh started, I moved house up here, started looking for another job, and event eventually ended up getting a job.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh boy with the story of how I got it, but with uh a company called Capital Private Finance, which was the high net worth arm of countrywide and mortgage advice bureau at the time.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's now wholly country countrywide owned.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in doing the Copsworth offices for Hamptons, um, Hamptons International, and we had Baron Sotario and John D.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wood and all these kind of things.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I did that for six years, final 18, well, final year or so.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: I was a manager's uh sales manager for the country team.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I broke some Bristol to Brighton.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, didn't go on with that because all of a sudden I was kind of like in the middle.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't doing the job that I love, which was is advising clients.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of, you know, cajoling managers in estate agents to try and pass us leaves, which is a different skill set and not fit together.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, right, sod it.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go and set up Hudson Rose.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was three and a half years ago.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And here we are.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: There we are.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, great.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, very typically then, university, not quite sure what you're gonna do with your life.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, got a few jobs here and there, built some skills and some experience, realized you really enjoy people, you like to have people, customer service was a big forefront of what you were doing.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I went down that route as well.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Customer service for me, I I really enjoyed customer service.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I did sales really before customer service.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I absolutely beat myself into this kind of hatred of sales, left sales and then went into customer service and then really enjoyed the whole process of customer service, the client experience, looking after people.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: I did that in a viva, so it's with pensions, investments, and protections, yeah.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: People phoning up and their partners had died, or you had financial advisor calling up, asking about, you know, why is it, you know, where's the investment?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: How's it doing?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: You had to service IFAs who had to service clients about multiple things he didn't really understand.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um IFAs did.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I found customer service really, really enjoyable, and then customer service and training and development, and it's a people game, isn't it?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then I took that skill set that I learned, which kind of I suppose I learned empathy and understanding, and then took that back into sales and then really incorporated that into sales.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of being so hardcore, I'm all about the money, it was more about the experience, you know.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted people to like like the process they were going through, even if they were pissed off.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I wanted them to have a great experience through a complaint or a or a or a or a problem.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I can't.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, resolving something is is is is is as important.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: You get the buzz, right?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: The buzz, the sale for the customer service and and and the the buzz from the customer service, the buzz from the sale for me are one and the same.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like it makes it makes no odds.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's something that I've been very keen to instill into business, and we have instilled is that you know, people ring us up for a chat 12 months, 18 months in advance of doing anything, and we'll chat to them, and we'll chat them for half an hour because it's half an hour of our time.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we have the we have the you know, because we're not saying because we're not a sort of pile them high, sell them cheap kind of thing.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I need to just also stop this from beeping at me because it's really annoying me.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because we're not a sort of uh pile them high, sell them cheap kind of operation, we can we can take that time with clients, and that is kind of you know the uh the crux of it really, you know, it's it's why we do it.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I I think customer service comes first, and you know, when when people want to are ready to to buy something and they'll come to you and and and it makes it ultimately um more straightforward.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh did you find as well then working more in the corporate environment, so HSBC, some of these larger firms, did you feel that you know, let's go back to you and who you are as a person doing the job that you now, you know, that you really, really love?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Did you feel disconnected when you were working for larger corporates than than you are now running your own firm, Hudson Rose?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like you were a better, happier mortgage advisor than you were when you were working in the bank, for example?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the bank was a different one.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: So the bank was uh was a tie proposition.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, I yeah, I mean the the bank was funny because I was with people, some very good advisors, some very poor advisors, if I'm honest with you.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, we're not gonna name names, but there's people that will stick out and think they just didn't didn't know the basics.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And they were in the financial planning arm, they weren't the mortgage arm.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: My financial planner once said to me at HSBC, I said, Oh, I'm not really too sure about this uh, you know, this critical illness, but it wasn't a critical illness policy trauma cover as they were selling at the time.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I said, because it doesn't really meet the associated British insurance, or the as I say, it doesn't meet the ABI definitions, does it, for certain things?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And she turned around to me and she said, Who are the ABI?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I do mean like that kind of base level, and obviously it's probably changed a lot since then, but that was the thing that sort of shocked me.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, you know what?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is so so no, I felt constrained at HSBC, but that was more by product offering.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've been fortunate to work for some really good companies.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: L and C are a machine, but they train me well and they train me compliantly, and I've and I haven't got a bad word to say, man.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: They they do what they do and they do it incredibly well, and I'm glad I started my career out with them.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the high net worth bit was interesting because I was then, you know, you go from being jobing mortgage advisor, mortgage broker, dealing with, you know, whatever, 100, 125,000 pound loans to 600 if you're lucky.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then you go into something where you're all of a sudden you've broken six million and you're doing things with private banks.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, hang on a minute, these things, things that you thought couldn't be done, all of a sudden can be done if your client's got enough money, essentially, right?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that that that was a learning curve.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that the the day.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was the young, I was the youngest person employed by CPF at the time.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: By some margin, I was about 28, maybe.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, about 28.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I was sat in a room in London in the city with these Savils, ex-Savills private finance, ex-Knight Frank, you know, old wizened advisor been around for 20 years in the High Networth London thing.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I don't know anything.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that day thinking this is guys like, I don't know anything about this.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: They talk about like Lombard loans and like all this kind of stuff, like you know, assets under management.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that was alien to me because that was a that was an investments thing.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, so so that was that was really good.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think coming out the other end, I enjoyed my time at CPF.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was really good.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've got nothing against the corporate world, and and you know, as I said before, what we do at Hudson Roads is it's the same thing, it's just wrapped up in a slightly different boat.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we just present ourselves differently.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think you're right.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think financial services, there's a fear of of stepping out of the box a little bit, right?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's either robo and it's digital, and it's just like a a chatty, um, a chatty app on your screen that kind of like, hey, we're gonna invest some of your money and off it goes, yeah.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or it's traditional, and by traditional, I'm not just saying suited and booted, but that kind of middle ground where it's still, you know, in an estate agent's office or in a in a in a very just the offices that I say, you know, that that kind of thing.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's stepping outside the box, you know, no brown in town, all that kind of stuff.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's still that still rings very true.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And what we've done is step outside of that and really, you know, really gone at it to some extent.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, our our our our market the way we present ourselves is on the extreme side of uh of alternative.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: You're alternative, aren't you?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: We are, you know, so we're not attracted to alternative clients.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like everyone will deal with his piercings and tattoos and stupid hair.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's just far from it.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: We get a lot of um, you know, a lot of people from civil servants in Cheltenham and all that kind of stuff because they want, they they they just think a bit differently.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and they understand that professionalism and and and looks aren't one and the same.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And have you found though that your look and your image and your brand it has attracted so you mentioned earlier in the in the in the beginning of the podcast that you've had it's not just people turning out with piercings and tattoos.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: No, far from it.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're not trying to be this kind of niche mortgage advisor to look after the punks and rockers and ravers.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're you're you're open to absolutely everybody.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: But what you're saying is, look, you know, we are slightly different, we're going to stand out in a crowded, in a crowd of suits and ties and boots and typical views of what financial services looks like.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, is the response you're getting quite refreshing?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do people go, oh wow, do you know what I mean?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: You are refreshing, it's different to talk to you.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do they feel more comfortable?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: What what difference have you found by being this way up against being perhaps a bit more corporate and your typical financial services employee?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, from what I found personally, my you know, my experience is it's huge, right?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and Hudson Rose is my business, right?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: But Hudson Rose isn't about looking like this, and that's the key thing we need to press with.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Hudson Rose is about people working, people who work in Hudson Rose being who they want to be.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, Jess comes from a BBC background.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: She doesn't, she's she's she's not alternative, you know, guy who's our other broke at the moment is uh is is in is I always say he's into old escorts, but the car, right?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I think yeah, Wayne Rooney was into that, wouldn't he?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: But he's into old escorts, right?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that's his thing.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he and he's not about to die his hair, he's not about to get tattooed, he's not about to do something stupid, right?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Rosie is again, so it's say, although the business has a certain aesthetic about it, it's not this.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is just me, right?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you you're welcome to come to our offices sometime, Sam, and have a look, but the offices aren't like there's not anarchy symbols like painted all over the walls, and it's not like a squat.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's uh it's a smart, you know, uh it's a smart, we've got art, we like that kind of stuff.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's just nice.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so in terms of yeah, the feedback that we get, and what I've seen is things with like uh even just the advertising, right?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we do digital advertising, we have our our ads are shot professionally.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: We work with a couple of guys who are absolutely awesome, we've done some really big things, some really big brands, and we're lucky to work with them.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: But we put those out on social media, right?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it might be you saw a paid ad of ours, it might be those popped up.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't I don't know what it was, right?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I also see the paid ads of other brokerages purely because the algorithms think I'm really into mortgage advice.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it's like what I look at.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I get fairly these other ones.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we've had like a hundred comments, right, on one of our ads.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now, who comments on the advert of a mortgage advisor?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you just don't do it, do you?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't go, oh, yeah, and we've got and and almost bar one or two who are just trolls or spam bots or whatever, just like making no sense whatsoever.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we like to sort of respond to them and call them out anyway.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: But um, almost all of these things are this is brilliant, how refreshing.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wish I'd come to you guys, I'm coming to you guys next time, you know.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you're just thinking, people don't people don't comment on advert.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I see like other firms that have adverts out, and it'll be a very standard, it'll be a stock image, it'll be a picture of their office, and it'll be we can help you with, and that's fine.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's a marketing, you know, you we're whole of marketing.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's very vanilla, though, isn't it?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's all about what they do, yeah.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think what we do is it should be a given, right?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: We don't tell people we're qualified, um, particularly.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: We don't maybe scream whole of market.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: We just say, look, we should present ourselves and be like, we do it, but we do it like this.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to come and join in, then you're welcome.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think overnight that that's the thing I see compared to the corporate world, even the big brands, it's just um it's ticking boxes, it's not giving the feeling.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's a personal business, it's not managed.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Personal feeling, exactly that.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're on social media, people want to people will only stop and look at something if it's authentic, it's and it's interesting and it's likable.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Simple as that.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna be like pumping out adverts on on Instagram or Facebook and it's really stuffy and really boring, and it looks like somebody like 10 years ago that you'd see on a billboard walking through bloody central Bristol talking about mortgages, and no one's gonna be interested.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're popping out a video that's really engaging, really interested, and there's somebody on there who's not your typical looking type mortgage advisor, then people are gonna stop and go, and as you've you know, as you've experienced before, people are gonna remember you and say, Well, I when I need one, I'm gonna come and see you because I stand out.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the uniqueness.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: You need to stand out in financial services.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the people that are actually putting a little bit more of an alternative spin on what it is they do are picking up new clients and clients that want to continue using your services, yeah, because they're building that relationship with you.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because if they're logging into social media and they're seeing a post from you every few days, and you're you know, you're talking about yourself, you're talking about the business, you're not just talking about mortgages, and they're building that deeper relationship with you, aren't they?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it's it's you know people, everyone always says it, people buy from people, don't they?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's the classic thing.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: But in our world, in the mortgage world, like I said, we're dealing with big numbers, people need to feel comfortable, right?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then by by by putting the information out there, when somebody rings us to have a chat, they want to use us.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: We don't sell to people.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: We sell to we say to clients, look, you know, time something is up and say, Oh, I'm speaking with other advisors, we'll say that's fine, right?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, go around, interview some advisors, find the one you like, yeah, and then work with them.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, there's no benefit to having multiple people look at it because if they're all hold of market, they're all going to do the same thing, hopefully.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, that's a protection us from from you know uh needlessly doing work where people aren't serious.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: But also it's the right thing to do is say, Look, yeah, go around, interview them.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're right for you, give us a call.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: But equally, if we're not, don't.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because we don't want to work with people.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: The relationship works with both parties, and it is it is a relationship of two people, although we are working for them.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's I think there's been there's certain uh elements of I think the financial advice profession as a whole, where the advisor is seen uh maybe a bit old school, has has this kind of belief that they're somehow in the driving seat and they've because they've got the knowledge of the power, and it's almost a little bit um master servant kind of stuff.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it shouldn't be, it should be master servant on the client side.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: We work for them, but if they're not happy, then you know the staff, didn't you?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I you know, I like as I said, I picked you up on Instagram, you know, and um you you obviously do like to invest some time uh and money and energy into into social media, into marketing.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm somebody that has also done that over the years.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I've uh sometimes spent money and not made money on marketing.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you have to tread water, you have to try new things.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the one thing that I know for sure is that marketing can be quite expensive and can be very time consuming.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: And there's this assumption that if we put content out there, that we're gonna make money.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's not always the case sometimes.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: So what I'd like to sort of steer this conversation to now, really, is just your experience of running your own mortgage company and obviously trying to write mortgages, but at the same time trying to then invest and improve your brand by investing in marketing.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, what areas do you think that you have been really successful in when it comes to marketing?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think works?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And what would you say has been like a bit of a back, you know, a bit of a kind of learning curve and thought to yourself, wow, I wish I never did that.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, that's a tricky one.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Marketing's a funny one, isn't it?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I early on, um I've worked with some agencies, I've worked with some consultants and things.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't anymore.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they were right at the time.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: What one has been very, very useful.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: One has shown me what agencies do, and and I like and they're great guys, you know, it just it wasn't it wasn't particularly good for for our industry.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and the thing that I learned through that is that it's not like selling, insert your prompt of choice, cheese.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Don't know about selling cheese.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, it's not like you can put Google ads out there.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and there's this whole marketing saying, if you do this, if you create this, this, this landing page, you will do that, you spend that, you get that.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's bollocks, right?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: No one has yet been able to show me that.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if and if it's not bollocks, someone come and do it for me and uh I'll pay you at the end, right?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because it just doesn't seem to work.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure it works on certain products, but financial advice say and mortgage advice and should it's people need to get to know you.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want, they're not people don't make buying decisions on their advisor there and then, right?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm a sucker for stuff like you know, I'm scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, and you know, generally someone like the hip store or whatever comes up and is like, oh look, Levi's vintage.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, bang, have that, you know, it's done because that's that impulse.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: But people don't generally do that for financial advisors.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's all a bit um, it's all kind of like someone passing you a card, referral.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, referral is a huge part of our business, as I'm sure it is for all advisors, yeah.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like kind of like, oh, you should speak to my guy, speak to my guy, right?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to be, you need to become that guy.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: You need to be the guy in front of them to say, well, well, well, come and speak to us.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I think what I'd what I'd uh done differently, I probably wouldn't have hired, I don't get on very well with Google ads, although we're about to move into the YouTube thing.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I will do that again.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: I did some pay-per-click stuff early on with an agency nationally that gave us uh absolute dross.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, people people that weren't serious or people that just didn't understand it because, you know, again, who's clicking on the top ad to get mortgage advice are not necessarily the clients that are there to do something straight away.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: It it needs a bit more thought behind the customer side to get to you, I think, right?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that that was uh that was uh a learning curve.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: We don't spend huge amounts on ads.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we advertise in a local facility, so kind of 15, 15 miles or so from each office location.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh it's very it's very softly, softly approached.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just it's just put out there the video, the ads that we have explain who we are and our ethos rather than what we can do.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: So going back to that, it's not um, oh, we're a hold of market advisor and we do this and we're qualified and we've got experience and you know there's a dog in the office.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's just like this is us, this is this is this is how we roll, this is how we're set up.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: We'd hope you'd like to come and come and join us.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's worked really well.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest thing that's worked for us so far, well, because it is the office.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: The office is part of our marketing tool, which is not, as I said, you we a lot of our business is is uh is telephone based, um, a bit of Zoom stuff as well.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're happy to have clients in the office if they want to, and that's why it's there, but the majority is it is it is seen as a marketing cost to some extent.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not in high footfall areas, the offices we have.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: There is a deliberate way in which we try and choose a location.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have a neon sign in each office that says your mortgage are problem, and that is positioned in such a way that as you drive past, you will see that neon sign.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's lots of things that we do um to get people interested in the office.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: But how does it look at night, for example?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like when the lights go down, all the hue bulbs change colour and it glows.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just people just just seeing it.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's worked really well.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: I say the the the marketing um the marketing guru approach hasn't been great for us, although I have learned some good things.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing was email marketing did work.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: That was something that a consultant had used to me introduced to me.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: We have an email trail which we haven't run for a while, but we can stick out a we've got a self-employed guide that I wrote, uh did a big sort of PDF thing in Canva.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: Enter your email, get that, and you go into a 13-week email chain once a week, just touch points.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have some success with that.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm not running it at the moment, I guess.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: I need to do that, write that down.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: I found email to be quite successful.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's just one of those things again with the email marketing, you have to just invest a bit of time in the very beginning.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned there about having a download.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, for example, I'll have a guide to all the financial qualifications that are out there.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: I won't have a guide to the salaries for 2021 within financial planning.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Someone clicks on it, they they get their guide, they go into my marketing, my marketing email um database.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I think when you run marketing, when you run email, I think email is one of those we we've been so taught, we've been told so much that you should be doing landing pages, Google AdWords, and social media marketing and all of that, that we've we forget the basics that actually work.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if you've got a well-constructed, well-written email, people do um click on them.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if there's a few of them over a say a three-month period, and especially how you can then monitor the progress of people that are opening them.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if someone lands in your inbox or in your in your database and then at you know, week eight, they're clicking on things and opening things, and there's probably a high percentage chance that they're they're they're ready for business.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you they're then able to pick that telephone up to them and speak to them.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the connecting the database to your website, a few of the landing pages and then to email, I think that's a really valuable piece of marketing that that I've definitely learned.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we get a great deal of leads going through that way.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think when you're spending a huge amount of money on really overproduced videos, I think that can sometimes be just not just pointless.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Where you know, sometimes I I pick up my camera and I've got something to say, and I'll record into my camera and I'll you know do the subtitles on my on my app on my on my phone and I put it onto LinkedIn straight away, and I get way more interaction.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's been zero kind of like money spent on it apart from the cost of the app, and I get and I get responses from it, and I get you know, it's just I think sometimes we can overcomplicate marketing, but I think that's damn that we are marketed to by digital marketers.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's got to do with fail.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: We've got we've got a fancy ad that we spent loads of money on, so don't you know don't put some my chips just yet.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't come on, no, but it is but but it's but it's about the way it's shot.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's got to be, and again, you can spend we and you know the the say we're very lucky.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Our our directors are brilliant.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the people we the guys we just done with, they they shoot stuff for Burberry and Chelsea football clubs.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like they it was just fluke that we came across them locally and they were had a bit of downtime and they they they like what we do.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they even said to us, they said we're not doing we're not shooting stuff for everyone, but what they liked is the fact that we were able to say from that first video, the first ad they did last year, we we we got business out of it, right?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: It paid for itself multiple times over.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: And one of them said to me, said the thing is we don't do stuff for Burberry, you shoot it, you know, you know for Nike, where you shoot it, you go, and then you never hear about it again again.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, it's we're you we get to know that what we've done, what we put together is uh is is working.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: And but again, I uh you know, with with the professional shop, I don't, you know, you you don't want it, or we don't want it to be just another professional advert.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to look like nationwide.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, no, nationwide are pretty good.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's not fair because nationwide do their whole kind of like alternative kind of uh kooky kind of stuff, don't they?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but you see what I mean?
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's about the vibe, and and we've got the way Hudson Rose has grown up, right?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you allow me to indulge myself and how I see it now, but the way it's kind of grown up is that we have we have these these sort of different circles that overlap to to sort of Venn diagram stuff to produce what is Hudson Rose, and it is the way we look at the office, the way we present ourselves on social media, the professionally shopped videos, right?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: These three things come together, the customer service and the tech.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: So tech's always been a part, we've always punched above our weight, um like tech-wise from day one.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a client hub that was built just through web tools on our website.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: We had a very nice website from day one, right?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, the hub's not the most flashy thing in the world.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna, it's not gonna wow you into that.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: But what it was, it allowed us to build our own fact find.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: So with our clients, we could have a conversation with the client about well, what do you want?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: How do you want this to work?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about the the the, you know, let's not do the hard facts, let's just get to the root of what you want to do.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: We can then triage it a little bit and say, okay, can we, can't we help?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: We then uh set them up with their own details, they log in, do their fact find.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fact find that we've built, so it's enough for us to do the initial information, the initial research.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's enough for the client to buy in and not to be a throwaway exercise, but it's not too much to put them off, right?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then we do uploads and download of documents, we can take payments, we can do all this lovely stuff from there.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we've had that from day one.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think all these elements, so we're now actually working with a software developer to have bespoke software made for us and potentially something that we then might take to other small brokerages, almost like a digital bolt-on for one man, two-man bands, right?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're part of a network, as most mortgage brokers tend to be, due to the the access to products and things that brings.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously, some aren't, but a lot are.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And networks will have their own online, you know, portal thing on the whole.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: But it'll be just uh a copy of the the the compliance software they use, and it'll be big, and it'll be clunky, it'll be all things to all men.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, what we're trying to do is find is build something that's just Slick, it just does the fact finders, the documents as your payments, makes your life a little bit easier as a one-man band, you know, it'll cost you whatever it will a month, no contract.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's an element of that because so many people have asked us, say, oh, how'd you how do you build your current thing?
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, we did and we've done it.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and now we want to move it through.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, Hudson Rhodes, lots of different pieces.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you'll notice Hudson Rhodes isn't there's it's not, we don't mention mortgages in our name, right?
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're not Hudson Rose Mortgage Advisor, we're not Hudson Rose Insurance Advisor, we're Hudson Rhodes.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because I've got a I've got a wider plan.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a wider plan that this could be this could be opened out.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Our model is not exclusive to mortgage, it just so happens I'm a mortgage broker, right?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but going back to that, when do people encounter professionals?
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Should they encounter professionals that they get on with and feel comfortable with, or should they encounter professionals that they feel they have to doff their cap to?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: So Hudson Rhodes could have an accountant, Hudson Rhodes could have a financial planner and investments in pension specialists, Hudson Rhodes could have a solicitor, right?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you always become that's where you go if you want that professional.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you just you make one phone call and that's and that's there.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, look, that's a long way off.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't found the right people yet.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's good to it's good to have that sort of plan in your head, you know.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's and if you if you make yourself too super deep in niche in the beginning, then you you aren't opening yourself up to the opportunity to be able to branch in other areas.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for now it's just more than tech.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Got enough of like it's interesting you think about the tech then.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: So there's that so the the way I look at that is if you can get that looking absolutely fantastic, running really smoothly, then that should be at the forefront really for Hudson Roads is the growth of your business using that technology, using the process.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you can do it internally with a high number of mortgage advisors, all plugging into your software and doing the job incredibly well, then that's going to make you a differentiator in the marketplace anyway.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it stops that individual perhaps who you know maybe doesn't want to go self-employed, set their own firm up, and just wants to plug into a firm that's doing it all already.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that would only help you grow your business further.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: So time will tell with that, wouldn't it?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because the proof be in the pudding by the by how you grow.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is that your sort of plans?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Are you looking to grow Hudson Rose?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking to grow.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and and you know, we're at the beginning of a second growth phase.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: I would, I would have thought, you know, we've gone from me to four of us in you know 12 months, and uh, there'll be more than four of us this time next year.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can almost pretty much hopefully uh uh guarantee it unless anything goes drastically wrong.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I've always won I I've always wanted Hudson Rose to be a place where um people want to work, right?
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily can, but want to, right?
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I would rather have five brilliant advisors who can communicate really well, earning 150 grand a year than 10 earning 75, right?
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because we can support the the role of an advisor, it whether be it investments, pensions, mortgages, insurance, whatever, right?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: The role of an advisor is to communicate effectively, right?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now and communicate well and clearly.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: And now not everyone, but people can do that at different levels, right?
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: People can go, but when you find someone that is really good at it, well, then you need to take some of their weight off.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: So power planning has always been a part of the investment world as well as far as I'm aware, right?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's not quite part of the mortgage world.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're dealing with, say, a first-time buyer or someone who needs to just know some rough numbers, right?
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you that the advisor, the broker can have that conversation, build a rapport, chat to them, go out, but then they don't actually necessarily need to do that and then go to one of the tools and plug it into the multiple calculations.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: That can then be handed off to someone.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Who maybe enjoys the technical aspect but doesn't want to do the client-facing role.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then all of a sudden your advisors can do more because they're not doing the, they're doing less of the research element.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: They can still do the complex stuff, stuff they want to.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're keeping your skilled communicators on the front line where they should be and where they get a buzz of it, a bus off it.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, more than anything else.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's the kind of the plan is to have an elite force.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, you know, people that want to be, because we're offering something different.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want packet high type business.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: You want some advisors, you know, you want your mortgage advisors coming in that can write decent levels of business, but have that structure in place that they are supporting.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's a platform.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know, if you're if you're an advisor in the Gloucestershire area, right?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's not there's not many like us.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's not many places, not many offices where you'll go, you know, there's not places you can come to work, and and you know, we you've got your beer fridge in there and we we all go out and you know, we've got a taxi.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: I would come to that man, that's another marketing thing.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: But do you mean it's a nice, relaxed atmosphere?
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can be you and you can you can you can see you.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man, we bought a taxi because marketing, right?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: I bought a taxi last week.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, week before last week.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: London TX4 uh black cab.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's done a quarter of a million miles.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's brilliant, mate.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's literally the best thing ever.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna get that branded up um and we'll drive it between here and Sarincester.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: People will see it.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: I might try and link up with an agent that we work with to see if he's he's got an open house.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: We can sit at the bottom of the driveway and offer mortgage advice to people if they want it.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's just it's it's marketing and it fits the brand.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we've got tax.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: So what just use it as a kind of drive around and and park it up somewhere and offer mortgage advice on the go as a taxi.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, not necessarily that.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, no just drive around to vehicle and it'll have it'll be designed.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it'll be the, you know, people see it.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: People see it, people remember it.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, estate agents have done it for years, haven't they?
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not a taxi.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's cool.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're you're chip, you're obviously picking a taxi because it stands out, doesn't it?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is it like a London black cab, is it?
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a London black, it's a London LTI black black cab, as I say.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um we picked a taxi because uh we were chatting about the guy and I were chatting about cars and we were on right uh auto trade or whatever it was, um, in like January.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, you get a cab for a grand, and that was it.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we would have bought a cab for a grand off uh we've got a great story about it.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh yeah, and and and you know, we'll keep it for a year.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: We'll again we'll exploit it for you know, we'll we'll take social media shots.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's one of the things well, part of our social media strategy is to say it's not big money, you know, you allude to you can pour a lot of money down the drain on these sorts of things, but we have a photographer on retention um that we pay that comes and gives us three shoots a year to get those professional shots on there as well.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, with the cab, we'll get it liveried up, get it done, we'll get him to take some shots, we'll drive around, we'll go on a night out in it, you know, we'll we'll park it in different places around different towns in Gloucestershire, get some photos.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: So at a later date, we can then be like, oh look, the Hudson's cabs in Gloucester Docks or the Hudson's cabs in Cheltenham Parade or whatever you want to be.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we'll come down, park it in Baldwin Street, outside your Gaff.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, you know, and it and it's just it's just why not?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for you give things a go, don't you?
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, so what?
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing venture, nothing game.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um quite a hands-on visual type person, aren't you?
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because you obviously you you you do invest a lot of time and energy into your offices, you like the video element of things, you like the you know, the buying the taxi, you're getting another office set up in another location, aren't you?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: So quite the visual person, aren't you?
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: You like stand out and you like yeah.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm I'm useless at uh anything arty.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not I can't do it.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: I can just know what I like.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I spend more time in an office than I do at home.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: So why do I want to go to an office?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: Why does anyone want to go to an office with those?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't offend anyone.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, those tape, those bloody office desks that are like white plastic sprayed, and they've got grey legs, they've got the grey plastic covers for the holes, and then the most they've got one desk drawer at the side.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they're just they're like everything that's wrong with uh, and I just that is that that would drive me nuts.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why why can't we have art on the walls in the office?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why why can't we, you know, I don't know, have Lego?
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's just it's nice, you know.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: You can't everyone comes to work and people relax.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: But like I say, not for everyone.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um have you found that that the what you've built there culturally, you know, you've taken on four people in the last year.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do they feel relaxed?
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do they feel quite calm coming into your office space?
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I hope so.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Are they open?
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: Are they a different type of person you're working with?
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know I think if there is that sterile environment, then people have a fear of being able to step outside of who they actually are.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's very restrictive.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we're lucky.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're lucky.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: The people we've got working here are brilliant.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they are the the the four people here that we have are the core of this business, and and the people are the people are everything.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you get them.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: They have to get it.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's not, and I'm I'm very confident as we talk about this.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want them to think that this is some cynical thing.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't sit at home and be like, right, I'm gonna devise an alternative looking mortgage advice firm.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right, it didn't, it didn't happen like that.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was just, I want to go out and give advice.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm confident enough now, after 14 years or 10 years, whatever it was at the time, that I know I'm doing right.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I like all this stuff, so I'm just gonna put that in it.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna, and and honestly, until the office, we had an office, uh, had a small episode with me in a little room, you know, uh, where I started out, and we moved here just over a year ago.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it was when we got the first premises that that was when I really took a stand in front of it and was like, actually, this is this is it.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: So the office became part of because before when you're kind of just online, people don't know who you are.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas now, you know, in the in the local town where we are, people know who we are, they give us a wave.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: We always tell people to give us a wave.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: We spend our time waving at people as they drive past, they know who they are.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: We just always tell people I give us a wave you go past, and they do, and they give us a two, and they, you know, it's it's brilliant.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: Your different your different channels generating clients, okay?
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you know you're not gonna get every single client come through social media, you're not gonna get every single client walk through your front door or referrals or whatever.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: Does that you know what's what is your top your top sort of um client generating niche?
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um referral.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's always going to be always it's always going to be the case, I think, in any sound business, yeah, financial advice, especially, because it's it's people passing the virtual card on.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um then I would say the office and the social media advertising are pretty, are pretty um the social media is hard to track, right?
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because people could fill in a form on Instagram or or or Facebook.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: But what we often find is that they won't.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: We'll often find that when we're running those ads, we'll get more uh website inquiries because they're seeing the ad, it's parking, they're seeing what's going on, they're going to our website.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: They obviously like what they see there, and then they're filling in the form by the site.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it, but but that would be, yeah, I think I think it's going to be word of mouth first, and then sort of equal kind of the paid for, and then they're seeing the shops.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: We've got those three things, but it's a nice split.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's an it's a nice split.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't really uh, unlike a lot of advisors or some advisors, we don't have we don't have a massive introducer network.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: We work with a couple of small agents.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but therefore we're not reliant on that.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: We are direct to consumer.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we don't don't go wrong, we'd love to work with agents if there's agents out there or there's uh you know there's investment advisors um that don't mind introducing their clients to DAFT looking people.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: But does it mean we were we will work with it, but we don't go out and tout for it.
• 51:29
  unknown: Right?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: Someone comes to us, we'll we'll have a chat and it's right for us.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're working with a very uh nice developer, you know, big, big, decent outfit building half a million to 1.2 million pound homes just a size Stroud, uh family-run firm.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: You look at their marketing on paper and think, well, they're not going to fit with you guys.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're absolutely smashing out the park with them.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're really happy what we do.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we get to to speak to all their people buying, and they're the feedback that they're getting on us is great.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it's a because it's a it's not about the looks, it's not style and substance, it's what we do, and that's the fundamental thing.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's we can talk about how I look and how the business looks and all that, but fundamentally, it's our reviews.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that's that's that's what people need, you know, that's what people need to take away from me.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can the point is you can look like however you want, you can present your business however you want.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do the old traditional model, but you have to be good because otherwise it's just because people are looking for a reason to find why oh yeah, people will people will review you badly if they think you're poor.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: Did you do you do you sort of um request a lot of testimonials and um reviews from your clients?
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: And do you, you know, what what do you use then?
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do you use trust pilot, Google?
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: Which one, which is your favorite sort of review site?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: I used we used trust pilot to begin with, um, but yeah, I mean they just wanted to extract money out of us for uh not a lot of benefit that I could see.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so we now use Google, uh Google reviews.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone writes a Google review that we can't well, not everyone, but everyone we are we ask people and we'll ask people that you know have rung up for you know that because people come to you say, Oh, I don't know if I can do anything yet.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you have a chat and we have that you know that customer service piece.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: You do half an hour, you have a half an hour chat with them, get to find out a bit about them, which is always nice, and say, say, look, come back to us in 12 months, 18 months, whatever, you know, we're we're not going anywhere.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll ask, we will generally ask for a review then as well.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: Say, look, if you know, if you'd be happy, just there's no obligation, but write on right on this page.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: And some do, some don't.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: But that from a from a hard business perspective, right?
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: You are then still getting value and and you're getting um you might be making a monetary sale out of uh out of an interaction.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: But if they're happy, they're spreading the word.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: And someone, I don't even someone said to me about it's about doing things for people where you don't want anything in return, right?
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, you might say that goes against what I just said with the review, but just I mean, you give the information out, it's no problem for me, and I never want it to be a problem for me or for Guy or for any other brokers that come in.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want them to feel I haven't got time to speak to this person.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because if they if if that's how they feel, then they're in the wrong business.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's why you give the planning support to the brokers and have those conversations and ultimately people walk away feeling feeling happy and uh happy people are better.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: One thing you said that I find really interesting, and I'd like to just know a bit more as to why is you mentioned that LinkedIn for you is a platform that you detest, you not you don't like it.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because from looking at you, right, and what your brand is like, and you as a person, as a personality, I would say LinkedIn for you would be amazing because you would stand out, you know, you'd say a turn.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Watch me get on there now, if that's what that's how it is.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I've never used it.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't care.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like and it may be maybe I was following the wrong people, but maybe people humble bragging.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe people humble bragging.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just like I don't know.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's social media.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe and you're probably right, we're probably missing a trick, and it's it's not by sitting here going, I'm never gonna go on LinkedIn.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: I have a LinkedIn page, I say we put the odd thing out there.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really understand necessarily what I would use it for because uh it's a very uh it's just a bit dull, isn't it?
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean there's a huge amount of business to be had on LinkedIn.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: You've got lots of individuals.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: What you can use what you can do with LinkedIn is target people that you think would be your type of client that you provide services for a start.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you can pinpoint people based on salaries, income, everything, cut types of money.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: But also as well, because it is so professional and your style and your approach is obviously great service, but not traditional, look, you will just stand out massively.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the people that have gone on there and done that have done really, really well.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'm looking for clients on LinkedIn.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's maybe well got I think it's good for building maybe profile within the industry, and that and that might be something I'd look at.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: But there's plenty of people on there that that need mortgages.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, right?
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you were to target Do you work for LinkedIn, Sam?
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, I use it, I make loads of money out of it.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: I like as a business, we make it we make a shitload of money out of it.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you're in recruitment, right?
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a best, that's your natural hunting ground.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's natural hunting ground.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: But with mortgages, let's say, for example, you looked at say, like, for example, you looked at recruitment consultants, right?
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: Recruitment consultants tend to be younger, they tend to be doing the job to earn money to be able to be able to buy their home.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: So if you link in with a shed load of mortgage, like a load of recruitment consultants, for example, you get a load of jobs sent out you, but you connect with a load of recruitment consultants and you start marketing your services in that way, they will remember you and they will want to use your services because they are at that point in their career.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you can look at people from that the age of 20 to 30.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: So they're, you know, first-hand buyers.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you can really pinpoint those people and they spend a lot of their time on LinkedIn.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll they'll see your stuff.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you'll be surprised how much business you will get from LinkedIn if you invested some energy and timing.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: People, I mean you're probably right.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't I can't say wrong because I've never done it, right?
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I I can't, I can't quite.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my it is a bit a business tool.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, business people have mortgages, right?
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: But we're we're trying to connect with people on an individual basis as a human, not as a job, right?
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's certain so this is part of it.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you go go back to the marketing, you look at some of the people that market themselves to um doctors, lawyers, right?
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I say that as someone who's you know got family members in the in the legal profession, I think, right?
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: All the marketing is geared to them around as if they walk their whole, spend their whole life walking around in a suit, right?
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and and have very serious meetings, right?
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: My mates that are lawyers and doctors are the biggest bunch of reprobates I know, right?
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just it's it's insane.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: So so I don't want to connect, right?
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want I don't want to connect with people based on their job.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, I'm not, you know, we'll get to that.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: We want the we want the person, so we want to speak to people when they're not in work mode, when they're in downtown.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now I get what you're saying.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a complete crossover because obviously they have mortgages.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we probably are missing a trick.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um we don't need to go because we're you're standing out of the way.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's the quite yeah.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I haven't got time, I haven't even got stuff on haven't even got stuff on uh you know YouTube at the moment, I haven't got my email marketing out.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: So at the moment, it's not a need we have to uh it's not a rabbit hole we have to go down.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: As the business grows, we're gonna have to have more nets out there too.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: I completely don't stand.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I I I don't I just it just bores me, man.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's just one of those things where I just look at it, I think, oh Sharon's had an office party today with yeah, but I don't like spending too much on the news feed.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: But and there's lots of you lot, recruitment consultants coming after me to ask me on a job.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um I like putting content out.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't particularly like looking at other people's content on there, if I'm honest with you.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: I spend as well then maybe that's where I'm missing a trick.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I spend as little time as possible on social media.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: I like to put content out there.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like you've got content on Instagram anyway, just put it on Instagram, sorry, just put it on put it on LinkedIn and just you know you there's loads of tools that help you build connections up, you know, automated.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's just a bit of a bit of advice, you know.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: You might find it.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it's I think I think you're right.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's something we need to look into.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: But we've got when you when if you imagine a lot of people that are playing on Instagram and playing on LinkedIn, maybe don't have Instagram accounts or don't in the series.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we've chosen Instagram and Facebook to be more of our we put a lot of energy into that.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, we probably are missing out on things on LinkedIn, but we haven't got the time and the resources to put onto LinkedIn as well.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: We could get an agency in to do it, but then it it's it's not it's not us.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we we we I think profile raising stuff I'm keen on on LinkedIn and you know that kind of stuff.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh somebody chatted us out on LinkedIn the other day, a client of ours, which you know was very nice of them.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's not it's not a platform I know.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, it's like you know, it was an argue on TikTok.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: Possibly a good place for you as well if you ever want to grow your workforce because you know Yeah, yeah, clearly.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: As we become more professional.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: All right, great.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: So what's the future hold for the next couple of would you ever get actually I was going to ask you, wasn't I, would you ever go down the financial advice route then?
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: So you you're sort of mentioning like Hudson Rhodes is a name and you'd look at solicitors and this, that, and the other.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: But have you got a kind of uh would you like to set up a financial planning site to Hudson Rhodes?
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: But it, you know, because I think it would complement it quite well, wouldn't it?
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I would, I think in time.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think it relies on finding the right person.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a qualified investment advisor.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we we we are financial advisors, you know, mortgage insurance is is we are qualified to do these things.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said to you probably before, you know, it's seen as the the poor little brother to some cent of investors' pensions.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't buy into that.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a market in itself you have to sit in.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_01: We we we accept uh you know, we have introducers and people that will send us who are investment advisors who just say to me, I do a mortgage, yeah.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: They say I do a mortgage once every two months, three months.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: Someone's son or daughter will want something.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: My palms will sweat because I think, oh great, I'm gonna have to take three days to try and sort this out.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm only gonna earn a thousand pounds out of it or whatever it's gonna be.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas because we're sitting in it day in day out, it'll come on our desk, we'll have a chat, 20 minutes, we'll know where it's going.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like you we know where we're gonna place it most of the time, 90% of the time.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it allows us to do that, that volume.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, so I'm so I'm not a qualified financial advisor, but um, yes, I would like to add investments and pensions into Hudson Rose, uh, but it requires the right person because it's it requires someone that could set up and run something.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a separate business, but it's under the same banner.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's that platform.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've got the tech.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's no difference doing a fact find for a mortgage than there is a fact find for uh a pension.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's some different couple of different questions, but they're they're the same thing.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: In principle, you could do the documents, you've got you've got the nice offices for people to come to you, do all of these nice things.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I'm not an investment advisor, so you don't want me touching an investment.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'd fuck it right up.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone considering to get an you know, if if anyone's listening to this now and they're considering to become a mortgage advisor, what would you say to them?
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I will I enjoy it.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want to say?
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, you know, it's from a career perspective.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: Can you I think people get it's a brilliant career, like come on, like you know, it's a brilliant career because you get to speak to people, you get to like do nice things and and learn about stuff and and keep and it's always changing, and it pays pretty well, you know, if you can if you if you're good at it, you can earn a decent living.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I don't know, I and yeah, do it.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I think it's one of these things people fall into.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: But if you've just come across this podcast or you just look into financial advice, or you and you come across more and you think, actually, I like properties, I like that, then what I'd say is don't dismiss it for what you think the role is, go and do it.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because almost every broker I know loves what they do.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's none they go, we don't wake up in the morning thinking, oh, I've got to go and do that.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, unless you work in a particularly awful place, but everyone loves it.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we'll whinge about clients every now and then and we'll say, Oh, the market's tough, or lenders being an idiot, or that kind of stuff.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_00: But we love it because it's it's fun, it's you know, it's and you can do it how you want.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: Graham, listen, the future's thright for Hudson Rose, then, which sounds like um sounds like a great future for you guys anyway.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, the market's looking really, really good for mortgages, fingers crossed, it stays that way.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I wish you all the best with it.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, we'll keep in contact as your as your journey sort of progresses.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um, thank you for sharing um your stories then.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's fantastic.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, Sam.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'll uh come down to see you in Bristol.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give you a lift of the taxi.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're welcome, mate.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely do that.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_01: Bring the taxi down, that'd be cool.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_01: Bring me a track on the cab.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a bit worried that other taxi drivers are going to start like sharing that with them.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: They've got to be blue in Bristol, though, don't they?
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: They might get a bit.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, can you drive around in a black cab without it being a cab?
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is that like the done thing?
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're allowed to do that?
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I am doing, so I hope it's delicensed.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like otherwise, I'm in a lot of trouble.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's delicensed, so it's got no uh it's got no plate on it and it's got no uh meter, which is justified vehicle.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you like the programme Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: I have watched a bit of it, but not much of it.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're gonna quote them, I won't I won't they've got one where they um they get a police car and they go out and they sort of get an old old police car and start driving around the town, sort of booking.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think that might be I'll tell you what's the best about the cab though is the turning circle.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my word.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_01: You just like spin around like you know, off you go the other direction.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh really?
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'll get you a photo when it's done.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, indeed, mate.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to see that.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant, great.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for your time, buddy.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.