Adviser tells how being curious about your clients’ lives leads to good outcomes
Nosiness can be a virtue as a broker – and an inquiring mind helps ensure a good client outcome, according to mortgage adviser Laura Jones (pictured above). Having a keen interest in what makes your client tick is key, she believes.
“I love getting to know people's stories,” Jones explained. “To me, being a broker isn't just about the ‘boring stuff’. I love that you can really dig deep into people's lives, who they are and what has led them to this point. Is it a couple buying their first home together? Is it a family who are selling their first home and getting a bigger one because they've outgrown their first property? It's digging really deeply into the story of my clients and getting to know them, then working with what I learn - looking at their future and thinking, ‘How do I get the finances to fit this and help them meet their dreams?’ That is the big part of being a broker that I really enjoy - it's the client support.”
She continued: “I find that the whole process is such an emotive process. I think that can kind of get a little bit lost in the mortgage broker world because it is so regulated. You can get very tied up in the regulation, the interest rates and everything. All of that has to be considered. But if you focus on the emotional side of it, and the reasons why your clients are wanting to buy a property, that's the biggest thing for me. It's so exciting, and really interesting.”
Jones, who is the Sheffield-based director of her own business, Nest Mortgage Advice, discovered mortgage broking in her mid-twenties, when she was tiring of her work in forklift and construction training. “I was just going to work, doing a job I hated, and going home,” she said. “I was bored - there was nothing drawing me in, but I didn't really know what else to do. So, I just started scrolling job websites and I came across the job of being a mortgage adviser. I liked the idea of working within the property industry – that had always interested me.”
Having sought the advice of recruitment agencies, who advised that she needed more than simply the industry qualification, she quit her job, took a big pay cut and began working for a building society. “I knew I'd only have to do it for six months,” Jones explained. “I knew if I could just do this job, go to work every day, go home and get my head in a book to study, I'd be a mortgage broker, earn more money, do something that I was interested in.”
When Jones qualified, she took a role as an inhouse adviser with a corporate estate agency. “It was high pressure, high targets, and long hours,” she said. “I do like pressure. I was there for three years, but when I came back off maternity leave, the job just did not align with having young children at home. The hours were too long, and I was having to do a lot of overtime. It just didn't work and that's when I went self-employed. It wasn't so much about being my own boss, it was about flexibility around my children’s care.”
READ MORE: The challenge of delegating mortgage business
Going it alone
After a brief stint working for a nationwide brokerage, Jones decided to go it alone in 2022, as an AR of Stonebridge. “I am a bit of a lone ranger, if I'm completely honest,” she said. “I'm not someone who particularly asks for a lot of support. What I really wanted to do initially is set up a business where it would just be me and I could work around my children and school runs. I'll do anything that lands on my desk, but I primarily I like to work with first-time buyers. They don't know all of the steps, and I want to take them under my wing, and help them get through to the end of the process. Most of my business comes from word of mouth.”
Jones is considering possible expansion, which may include taking on more advisers. “I want the morals of the business and the reasons for the business to still stand,” she said. “I'll always be quite firm on that - it's about helping people. I don't think I could consider working for someone else now. I really enjoy being my own boss. I love the flexibility of it and I love being able to make the decisions in the business. You always have to be willing to learn more and never stop learning.”
What, then, would be the best business lesson that Jones has learned? “When you first start out in your career, just be surrounded by people who know better than you,” she said. “Other brokers who've done it, who've learned the lessons and they they've made the mistakes - they've figured it out.”
