Why Holistic Advice Needs the Right Home | Matt and Rebecca

In this episode of The New Leaf Podcast, Matt and Rebecca talk about why they chose to leave their previous network after permissions were repeatedly reduced and how that began to push their business away from the holistic service they wanted to offer clients.

They explain why finding the right home became so important, what stood out when they spoke to New Leaf, and how having access to a broader, more supportive structure allows them to help clients properly.

The conversation also explores how a holistic approach can make all the difference when clients have already spoken to other brokers and still have not found the right solution.

This episode will resonate with advisers who want to protect the integrity of their proposition, work more holistically, and avoid being boxed into a narrower business than the one they set out to build.

The New Leaf podcast is for people turning over a new leaf in financial advice. Learn more about how New Leaf Distribution supports advisers at www.newleafdistribution.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I am already sitting there kicking myself wishing I had done the wealth sooner because I've already got clients waiting.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Welcome to the New League Podcast, where today I am joined by Matthew and Rebecca.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

You know that you've got business for a lifetime with their family and everything else, and you can look after them.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Being able to take a client and not have to pass them off somewhere. It was like the number one thing.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I'm really looking forward to speaking to them about how they've developed a multifaceted business and why they joined newly from a competitor network. I really want to get under the bonnet there.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

And we're almost being forced into being a business that we didn't want to be.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Talking to you, everything you said we could do, you put it in writing. Yeah, it was the trust factor and all the permission areas and the support and being able to grow our business.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Sit back and enjoy this episode. It's going to be awesome. Matt and Rebecca, welcome to the New Leaf Podcast. It's really lovely to have you here in London today.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

How are you doing? How's the business going?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Really well?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Good? Yeah, excellent at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

You um you obviously joined us from another network. Uh how long ago was that now?

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Uh coming up, 18 months.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Yeah. Can you tell us what the reason was that you thought I need to leave this network and join another network? Not necessarily ours, but why you wanted to leave that network?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

So I suppose uh we had that kind of realisation when our permissions started to shrink quite considerably. So um we're quite I suppose we're quite a specialist broker. We don't think of ourselves as a specialist broker, but if if you're looking at it from the outside in, probably quite a specialist broker. So we did everything. We like to look after clients holistically, take them through the whole kind of journey, offer them whatever solution that they need. And we had a period of about six to twelve months, I suppose, with the previous network where first we lost commercial privileges, then we lost second charge privileges, then we lost a load of buy-to-let stuff, and then we lost ex. And it was just shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. Um, and we were almost being forced into being a business that we didn't want to be, yeah, if that makes sense. Um so it was it was that kind of realization of well, we need to find a new home. Um, and we didn't really know what home that was going to be, if if I'm totally honest. Um, but we knew we couldn't really stay where we were. Um, so it was it was it was not a blind panic, but it was a you know constantly looking for things and talking about them and coming back and you know, talking about it at the dinner table and all that kind of thing as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

So yeah, we actually spoke to you at newly first, okay, and we thought you guys were amazing, but we had nothing to compare it to. So off I went with my spreadsheet and went to all the different networks.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

And at the end of it, you stood out by a mile.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

So that's really kind of you. And what was that in particular that made you make that decision to join New Leaf?

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Uh so I as you're probably aware, I spotted you at the Mortgage Expo in in London. And I always think this is a great story. Yeah, that's right. I was wandering around on my own, yeah, going to these tech stores and like talking about apps and what have you, and there was there was like the odd person at uh each of the stands talking to people, and then out of the corner of my eye in the corner, I saw 50 or 60 people at this one stand and all this noise coming from it. I think, what on earth is that over there? Yeah, so I thought I better go and have a look. So I literally walked around the corner and I think I saw yourself and Dan with bottles of champagne. I think it's bread. I think it was mid bread, actually, or that one. Yeah, um, yeah. I was like, Well, what on earth is this? And and when it was a network, you thought, I don't think I've ever seen a network that would do something like this. Um it's bad, in it. Yeah, well, no, it was it it made you stand out, and then when when we talked to you, you did the spreadsheets, didn't you? And you kept on coming back.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Uh it was a few things. One, it was having um every single permission area. As he's really big into commercial, and we could grow that side of the business, that was a huge thing. Really exciting. But also it's trust. Yeah. Um talking to you, everything you said we could do, you'd put it in writing, you know, after having so much taken away, it's quite nervous. You don't want to jump ship and end up somewhere else. And yeah, it was the trust factor and all the permission areas and the support and being able to grow our business. Um, we had a meeting with you guys, and the thought of going into wealth, it was one of those back burner things, maybe in 10 years, but knowing that we would have that support to grow the business even further stood out.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

And you were really strong. I remember meeting you and thinking, crikey, I'm a bit scared of this one. Uh, you really were interrogating and and you knew that you wanted to find the right home, no mistakes. Yeah. Yeah, that was it. And so you you were really looking for wealth and you were looking for the commercial side of the business, the specialist side of the business, the holistic uh, you know, being able to take a client and not have to pass them off somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

You know, we we have that like almost I say we, but you know, it's very much as Rebecca and Alice in our office, they have that laser-like focus on clients and the journey of that client from the minute that they contact us through the advice process, through then you know, the back office and and and through to and even after that. Um, and we we just had to be able to do that with a client. It was it was like the number one thing.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Um, and whenever Rebecca would say, you know, I've spoken to these people, and what about this and what about that, and she would see the look on my face. And I think in the you know, the she had that moment of um, you there's no point me doing this anymore, is it? You you've you've got your mindset, you know where you want to go.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Yeah, um yeah, you made your mind up, didn't you?

SPEAKER_03 6:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

I actually prefer that when I meet businesses like yourselves who are really uh looking interrogating because you know you're gonna stay forever. Yeah, you know, you've done the job, you're gonna stay with us forever, which is wonderful. Um just going back to that champagne I used to drink in those days, it was wonderful. Uh don't drink it anymore. But we did drink a spurious amount of champagne that day, I believe, Matt. You stayed around. I did.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Well, yeah, the long train is only back, so you know it's yeah, you have to make the trip to London worthwhile, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Absolutely, we we really do. Um so, in terms of you, your husband and wife, uh partners in the business, how does that work on a day-to-day basis?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Um it has its challenges, really nice, ups and downs. We do have the thing that obviously once work's finished, sometimes you just have to shut the door and say, enough's enough and back onto home life.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Um but with a business, it's all a learning curve. I think we started trying to do a bit of everything. Um and it probably wasn't until we started to define our roles on what are we most good at between us with brilliant um the mortgage advising with clients, me, operations side, accounting, everybody hate, so that's on me. So yeah, when we defined our roles, everything worked better, but it also worked better for the staff because they know who to approach for what they needed rather than it both being the bosses.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

So that ability to to actually define, you know, do what you're good at. Don't try to be a master of like everything. So, you know, if somebody wants to talk to me about accountancy or, you know, process flows and you know, uh compliance and what have you, I glaze over really, really quickly. You want to talk to me about sales or where to place a case or how best to approach a client or the conversation to have with an introducer, I'm fine. I come to life with that. Yeah. Rebecca, the her attention to detail with stuff is just off the chart. Yeah. Um, and you know, almost almost to the extent that you had to teach yourself that perfect doesn't always exist. True. Um, and sometimes it's better just to do it and then adapt it than than try and get it perfect. Yeah. Um, but that that delegation, well delegation, but actually defining, right, I'm a director and I do this, and Rebecca's a director and she do does these things. That's what makes it work for us.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

What's the structure of your business now then? How's it working with multi-advisor, admin, what you two do, what's going on?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Uh so we have uh one, two, three advisors now that um myself is four. Um Rebecca's um just uh getting reauthorized more as a journey into wealth. So I have eight uh qualifications at the moment as well. Um so but each one of our advisors has specialisms, so which we think works really, really well. So we have a dedicated protection insurance business protection advisor, um, and then we have uh two main mortgage advisors, Lucy who's just getting up and running, Will that's been with us ever pretty much ever since we opened, I think five odd years or so. Um, and he you know loves contractors, loves self-employed people, um, limited company directors really passionate about helping the self-employed and all that kind of thing. Yeah, um, and then I do the really, really complex stuff which makes my um you know, back of my hairs go up and gets me interested. So you know, really complex incomes, um commercial, development, finance, bridging, second charges, you know, all of that kind of thing. And then we have uh Alice in the business who started as our apprentice, and at the ripe old age of 20, she basically need to find one of those, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 10:04

The boss, the boss of the office, effectively.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah, um so we're we're pretty h happy with the structure we have at the moment. We're we're looking to grow, we're constantly recruiting, uh interviewing, all that kind of thing, trying to find the people that fit us best.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

And how will Rebecca actually cope with the wealth side and running the business and the balance of the family?

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah, it's a tough one, but I've started with the will writing course, which was really good, and going to uh some of the network events, um, seeing how some of the other advisors started off doing the wills and what they said is completely true. The amount of conversations that you have with people that you wouldn't have as a mortgage appointment. I am already sitting there kicking myself wishing I had done the wealth sooner because I've already got clients waiting. Um everyone needs a will when they're looking to purchase a property. It then just opens up this huge conversation and then the wealth. I mean, we've got I had to look at our stats, and over the last five years, we've done a thousand mortgages just on Matthew alone. Our back book is huge of clients, so the wealth business is there. Um managing family life. I think you just have to be strict with yourself and be flexible, especially as a working mum. I'm there at all the concerts, but that means I work in the evening. Sometimes they're used to, you know, sometimes Saturdays they'll come in and work, they're a part of the office. You know, it is a family-run office. You know, if I'm having to work from home, people know that the dogs are barking. It's just kind of being flexible.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Sort of this modern world.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

It is.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

People work from home nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

She is like the queen of multitasking. It's just, you know, you have to work out which hat she has on at that particular point. So there might be hats like being swapped quickly, but yeah, um, she's all right.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

You obviously love what you do. You love it all, yeah. Every aspect.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yeah, and you know, I love working with Rebecca as well. Amazing. So uh, and I love the support she gives me, and hopefully I give a little bit back the other way as well, but you know, um, and she keeps me laser focused.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

And that is the culture of New Leaf, it's family. Uh that that's really important to all of us, isn't it? That we bring on our family members and we love what we do and we're happy. Decide to be happy is what it's all about. There's a couple of things that you said that I'd like to go back to. The first one is the specialism route. A lot of ARs who build businesses, they're very generic and everybody does everything. You've chosen to build specialisms. Can you explain why and and how you're doing that?

SPEAKER_01 12:43

So I suppose when we opened, we didn't really have that that specific focus on what we were going to do and what we were going to be as a business. And I think, you know, that's fine. You know, if people are are opening up and they don't know what the what their business is going to be, I don't think there's an issue with that. Very true. But you do tend to find that specialism almost by happy coincidence, I suppose. We we picked up a client like really early in in the process after we we we opened in September 2019. And he came across to us by referral from pretty much our first mortgage that we wrote. Um, and he had spoken to five brokers before he came to us, and he was convinced he couldn't buy a house. Right. Like, I cannot buy a house. Um, he had a really complicated income structure um for where he worked, so he was building a nuclear power station for for um Bailer, uh Hinckley down in Bridgewater. Um, and the way that their contracts were set up and the way that they were paid and you know their additions their salary, there were brokers that were just looking at this pay slip and thinking, you know, I just don't want to have anything to do with that. Me being me, I look at the pay slip and think, that looks interesting. Oh you know, I wonder who will do that. Yeah, and the little black book comes out of all of the contracts I've got over the years, and I start ringing underwriters and and you know, heads of it's not just about research tools, is it at all? No, it's about you knowledge what you uh what you know earns you money, right? Yeah, um definitely. Yeah. So we found a place to place this business, and I thought, well, that that sets us apart from other brokers, doesn't it? That that you know we could do something that somebody else or five other firms couldn't do. And that's kind of defined where we've gone as a business is well, let's look for other stuff that people struggle with. So it became you know locums and then optometrists and then you know, orthodontic specialists, and then you know, people with strange income. Um, and then searching out lenders that would do it and support it and getting onto pilots and um and then it was you know segueing from there into to commercial because we we we kind of did a Google search of are there commercial brokers in in where where we are?

SPEAKER_02 14:53

No, they're all giving the business to packages and losing half the money and losing control of the clients. That's all most of the other networks.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

So I think we're the only one in our city, and it's not really a city.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

You keep control of the clients, yeah, you keep the money, which is really important, you've got to make money.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

So and as you know, if you try to be a master of everything, keeping that knowledge where it needs to be is practically impossible. Got it. But actually, having a defined this is what I want to do as a as an advisor, yeah. Um, and you know, even moving away from protection and getting a protection expert, that's freed up our time to be better at what we want to do, the engine room of the business.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah, how how does the dynamics of that work though? So sometimes people can fret over that in the sense that how do we pay this person if I refer it to them within the business as a RI of the business, an advisor, how do I pay, how do you pay them for that referral?

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Um so when the business is referred over, they get percentage of the sale. Okay. Um, which are just agreed. Um but where she's all she's doing is protection day in, day out her sales compared to what a mortgage advisor would do with just a bit of life business on. She looks at conversion. And obviously, we deal with a lot of business owners.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Business protection. So again, it's that holistic, she looks at everything, so her sales are bigger than any of the mortgage advisors we had on TechSoup.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

So then we're missing out.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Yeah, okay, I get that. So if I was joining your business as a rookie, what would you do? How would you run me? How would you do it? We need to run you. You're pretty much uh No, so I was a rookie and I was 25 years old, 30 years old, and that's a big wish, you know. Uh a big, big one. But um, how would you run that person? What how would you decide what specialism they'd have and where would you direct them?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

I think we've just had Lucy starting our business at the moment. So while she's going through the courses and everything else, she is learning effectively back office. Okay. So how to process cases, so she knows everything apart from effectively talking to the customer. Yeah. Um, and then from there it's her general interest where it's going to be, her background. For instance, her background, she has an estate agency background and a recruitment background. So focusing on maybe the purchase, the sales, start with the simplest, then start seeing where her interests lie and actually what she's good at, what her conversions are, keeping an eye on the business.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Is that you know one of the realizations we had when we were in you know looking to grow the business? So originally we we went after experienced people and people that work for us in the past quite low-hanging fruit, you know, convince them to come across. But the more experienced they are, the more um challenges they have because they they can be quite set in their ways, right? And you know, that they they have their way of working and the things that they want to do. Um, whereas if you hire for attributes and not experience, so look for things that uh people need to be good in that role and then look to nurture them and develop them. You know, we've got what 50, 60 years worth of training, coaching, developing people to be mortgage advisors. Yeah, and it was you had that moment of well, why don't we do why aren't we doing that in our business? Why why are we going and why have we why are we looking for people that have got 15 years experience in the background?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah, we trained all these people, we've got some really successful advisors that we've both managed when we were both in the corporate world, and it was as though we stopped as soon as we opened our own business and we said, Well, why aren't we doing it? Let's go back, let's start training again and giving back, you know, part some of that knowledge. And obviously, if they start with us, they should stay with us.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

Really knowing your people, it's so uh valuable. So, where does this take you in the future? What are the goals and ambitions of the business? Is it gonna be a massive business with lots of new people? How's it gonna work?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

That depends what day of the week you ask us.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Get it, yeah. Um, I think I think short term, um, you know, at one point I think we have 13 advisors that work for us and and we would like to get back to that kind of level, but but 13 of the right advisors I think is probably the the the best way of looking at it. Um we've got uh the will and estate planning business that's open, uh will-wise, which which Rebecca's doing really well with. We want to get into wealth. Um I think we have aspirations to potentially look at a state agency and lettings as well, because we know people in that arena.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Watch this space then.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Watch this space, yeah. Um so yeah, I mean we we don't want to stay static, but um one of the big big mistakes that we made uh previously was uh being focused on turnover, like obsessed with turnover, you know, what turnover can we get this to? And our our kind of uh switch that we flicked was being more obsessed with profit, being more obsessed with you know, what does the business look like as a whole? What are we getting out of, you know, how are we servicing these clients and not being just defined by what we turn over?

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Yeah, I think we heard that from Ying Tan on the Mastermind Alliance on Monday, didn't we? Profit, know your numbers, know your transactions, your ratios, and you've obviously been doing that for years.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

And just going back to the wheel writing. So um how are you doing the wheel writing? Is that through New Leaf? Is that through the New Leaf? Oh good, good, because you can do wheel writing through any means, but we do have quite a lot of people in New Leaf who do it for our New Leaf Wheel Writers Federation. How does that actually work in brief?

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Went on one of your courses and you had one of your advisors, um, Shane, who stood up and told us his story about how he got started into wealth and he was saying about wills. And you had recently emailed out that you were starting a wheel writing course. So I think I was the first one to go, come on then, I'll do that. You were um so it went along, I think it's online now, but at the time it was for four days, where you learned all the background about wills, the regulation, and then the compute system and how to do it. And then it was coming back into the business and finding where to put that into our sales process and speaking to as many people as possible. Um, and it's really interesting the conversations we're now having. One of our biggest buy to um landlords um has been given the wrong advice on Wills. Wow. And very costly, went to a solicitor, everything else, but it's that having that communication and keep talking to your clients.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Um so the Wills process is really simple. So anyone who is looking to do it, definitely get on board. Um the chats that you have with people, they open up about their families. And again, from a business point of perspective, when you're talking to someone about their family and what they want to happen. Um, if the worst happened, you talk about their children and money and everything else, you know that you've got business for a lifetime with their family and everything else, and you can look after them. So it's just a different aspect that fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

You tend to find that people are quite guarded when you talk to them about mortgage, so they almost only want to give you the information that they think is relevant to the transaction that you're doing. Yeah. As much as you probe and all that kind of thing. What I've kind of noticed when I hear the will conversations is people just tell you everything because they you know they want it protected correctly. Um and that is obviously leading into the the wealth, the next bit of of it, which is you know that's a great feeding ground for the wealth business, which is no.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Glad to hear you've really embraced it all in all of the areas. So this uh podcast, the New Leaf Podcast, is all about turning over a new leaf in financial advice. Um, and I can't help but noticing that you have been transformed. You've and you told me as you came in, you've lost 10 stone in weight. How has that happened and why did you do it? And it's brilliant. But tell tell tell us how you've done it. There might be other people in the same situation.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Um so I you know, I'm I'm 48 now, but we've got eight-year-old twins, they're they're quite a handful. Um uh we had lots of things which we have planned to do with them later on this year, next year, etc. And I'd kind of let myself get to a kind of weight that that a lot of them I wouldn't have been able to do, you know, like weight limits on um cyan part that we want to go to, the water park and other things that we want to do. Um won't mention one of them because in case the kids watch it, they don't know about it yet. Um, but yeah, it was it was kind of that realization of well, if I don't do something about it now, when am I gonna do it? And there were, you know, getting up in the morning and you've got a different ache, you know, my my back hurts, my knee hurts, my ankle hurts. Um and where I used to play rugby, I already had you know some issues in terms of what they told me I could do in terms of exercise. Yeah. Um, and I just decided, you know, I want to be better for the kids, for my wife, for my clients, for the business. Um and I'm very good if I make a decision to do something, yeah, but I can do it, um, and just regimen with it.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

You look amazing, you both look amazing, and that transformation is just everywhere in your business, in your lives, and we're really thankful that you're with New Leaf as we witnessed the transformation for many years to come. Thank you for being with us today.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Pleasure.