Mortgage Broker Broadcast
Developing your knowledge to help you build a successful Mortgage Broker business. Craig Skelton shares his thoughts and experiences on all aspects of mortgage advice covering everything from operating in the banking world, estate agency based advisers all the way up to working as a self employed broker. He will be joined by experts from within the industry and other business sectors which all play a key part in becoming a successful mortgage broker in the modern world.
Mortgage Broker Broadcast
Three Years Strong: Celebrating Milestones and Strategies for Mortgage Brokers
Celebrating three years of empowering mortgage brokers to branch out on their own, our latest broadcast hits a remarkable 153 episodes! It's been an incredible ride, from my own leap into self-employment to cultivating a community that thrives on shared experience and expertise. Let's raise a glass to milestones and the powerful practices of accountability and habit formation that have gotten us here. Reflecting on the first quarter, we dissect the strategies that have helped us grow, inviting Leigh to drop his Mortgage Broker Bulletin with fresh insights for first-time homebuyers post-Easter.
This episode isn't just about looking back; it's a call to action for self-investment and bolstering your business ventures. We delve into why self-accountability isn't just jargon but the bedrock of successful entrepreneurship, and how mentorship can elevate us beyond our expectations. I extend heartfelt thanks to you, our dedicated listeners, for tuning in and turning up your game, and I'm eager to hear how you've kicked off the year. So, let's connect and share those Q1 wins and lessons—we're in this together, growing one quarter at a time.
Looking for one to one mentoring, visit my website to see how it works craigskelton.co.uk
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Hi and welcome to this week's Mortgage Broker Broadcast. This week's edition is the birthday edition we are. The Mortgage Broker Broadcast is three years old today. So, yeah, 153 episodes and some amazing guests over the past three years, some amazing feedback from you who listen and subscribe to the podcast. And, yeah, it's just good to see that the podcast is still going after three years.
Speaker 1:And why did I launch the podcast three years ago? Well, it was to help and support brokers go self-employed, or helping people who were already self-employed in the mortgage broker space dedicated to mortgage brokers, helping people to make that leap from employed to self-employed. Like I did seven years ago now, I set my own firm up and left the large corporate world behind and set up my own business and went from employed to self-employed and never looked back and absolutely loved the self-employed journey so far and I know that I will continue to do so. So, yeah, it was all set up three years ago dedicated to helping self-employed mortgage brokers and I just hope it served its purpose helping those and supporting those who have thought about going self-employed and made the leap, or gone self-employed and helping them enhance their business, grow the business. That's what it's been all about. So, yeah, yeah, an amazing three years and I'm hoping it continues and we'll keep going.
Speaker 1:So can you believe it's the end of quarter one already? We're already sort of three months into the year, and how is that? How has your year gone so far? And what I want you to do is the aim of this podcast this week is is the end of quarter one the beginning of quarter two? So I wanted wanted to use this birthday edition to really reflect on how 2024 has gone so far and, as I've told before about reviewing. So what I'm going to do is quickly review the podcast, the first three months, the first 12 episodes of 2024, from a podcast point of view and, like on the podcast so far this year, we've had some amazing guests, we've talked a lot about habits and accountability, and that's what I wanted to pick up in the last podcast of quarter one, or the first podcast of quarter two, depending on when you're listening to it. So, yeah, that's the aim of this week's podcast, this week's podcast, the birthday edition. And before we get into the podcast, here's Lee Lee, as always, with his weekly Mortgage Broker Bulletin.
Speaker 2:Thank you, craig. Welcome to the ninth edition of the Mortgage Broker Bulletin. Recording this today on Bank All Day Monday, and I've had a break since Thursday, basically and I just thought I'd mention how nice it is and I had to sort of re-engage my brain on the mortgages to do this bulletin, literally had to think about what I was going to speak about and on reflection, it's actually done me some good. I feel quite relaxed, been enjoying some time with the family and although when I was going to take the time off I was sort of dreading it a little bit because of the backlog and our clients were happy but obviously you know it delays things slightly it's done me the world a good. I feel like I'm very ready to go again.
Speaker 2:So I'm just wondering if that's reflected across other brokers who have taken a bit of time off the bullet, then, really, I just want to speak a little bit about the accord five-year fixed five thousand pound deposit. Not want to get into the detail of it really, but I just thought it was brilliant to see all the brokers announcing that there was new products available all over social media. New product five grand deposit, creating awareness across the market again for all of us to benefit from. So clients have got more choice. So well done to accord. Same with skipton. People drill down into that. But all these new innovative products are fantastic. Let's keep them coming. Let's move this thing on. Let's make it easier for especially first-time buyers to get into the onto the property ladder. Anyway, onwards, upwards and forwards, hope you've had a great easter and, uh, celebrate your quarter one wins. And on the quarter two, speak soon thanks for that.
Speaker 1:Lee, thanks again for your contribution so far this year with the podcast. You were sort of on for quite a few weeks with the, the mindset episodes that we recorded and the mini series that we did and, uh, the mortgage broker bulletin, uh, and thank you for your contribution for that. So yeah, as I said, this week is the end of quarter one, it's like with the first week into to april, so end of the first quarter of the year. So I just want to just check in and get you to check in with yourself and look at how has your year gone so far. So over the first three months, the podcast we've, like I said, had some amazing guests, but we've sort of focused a lot on habits and accountability and I want to use this podcast at the end of the quarter to reflect on habits and accountability. So it's up to you you can either put the podcast on, put it on in the background and take the time whether it's 15, 20 minutes of recording this podcast to reflect on your first quarter of the year and how that has gone, or just listen to the podcast and then take the time straight after to then review and reflect on your first three months of the year and being honest with yourself and how it's gone so far. So when we look back at the podcast we talk, the first sort of first few episodes were all about the difference of between habits and new year's resolutions. So if you did go down the new year's resolution route at the start of the year, then you will have forgotten about your new year's resolutions. So if you did go down the new year's resolution route at the start of the year, then you will have forgotten about your new year's resolutions already. So so we did look at the habits, we looked at um the difference between habits and new year's resolutions and why habits were important. So really look at it this time now and look at what habits did you have you introduced in 2024? Is new habits new habits that you have introduced and how has that gone over the first three months of the year with habits?
Speaker 1:Because in the first episode we talked about the science behind habits and about repetition and why repetition is so important. And when we repeatedly perform an action or a task, our brain creates that sort of neural pathways that make the behaviours become automatic, which, when they become automatic, they become second nature. When they become second nature. They're easy to maintain in the long term and that's the basically the science behind habits. Habits, very briefly, you want to know more about that we talked about in episode one of the year, so you can go back and listen to that and and think about sort of the science behind the habits. And then we went on to talking about small wins, and when we focus on like the small, manageable changes within what we're looking to do, we can build momentum very easily and it gives us confidence as well with regards to the new habits, and achieving those small wins is like a positive behavior. It's like sends a positive message to your brain and then that will make it more likely for you to continue with the new habits that you are looking to form. So, science behind habits, looking at the small wins, getting that consistency as well. So then we talked about sort of habit thriving on regularity and creating a sense of like stability in our lives. We talked about that as well, and this consistency allows us to grow, make steady growth over over time. It's not like um with resolutions, where it's like a hit and then back to where we were before. It's very consistency gives us, and consistency is key when you're looking to change habits. But it will give us that steady progression over time which you are, at the end of the day, when you're a mortgage broker. You are building a long-term mortgage broker career. So we talked about that.
Speaker 1:We talked about automacy and, um, decision fatigue. I don't think I've said that right actually, but I'm not going to go back and try and correct myself but decision fatigue. So when we look at that, our lives every single day are filled with decisions, whether they're big decisions, whether they are small decisions. But the beauty of habits, when you look at that, it lies in their ability to reduce that decision fatigue. When we talked about before about it being automatic and second nature with habits, it takes away that decision. So you just it makes it. They say you don't get that decision fatigue with habits which makes other. You've got energy then. But other big decisions you need to make. You've got that energy to make them when things are automated in your life anyway. So when things become a habit, there's no deliberation over it, it just happens automatically. So again, that's a big thing. With regards to habits, it does help with decision fatigue.
Speaker 1:The emotional component side of things as well.
Speaker 1:We talked about that.
Speaker 1:Habits often make the emotional component more sustainable. It becomes sort of like when you think about rewards and things like that. It becomes when the behaviour is associated with positive emotions and positive rewards. It creates sort of powerful feedback into your mind. It creates that feedback loop and then it reinforces the habit as well. So again, there's the emotional component side of creating habits and the thing is as well with regards to habits you are more adapting to change, you will be able to adapt more to change. So, as we know, being a mortgage broker is very dynamic. It will get thrown at us. Things will may day in, day out in terms of what we're doing and the changes and the circumstances we have, but when we have habits and they are more adaptable, habits are then more adaptable to the life's changes and things that we start to throw at us. When that happens, our change and how we adapt change will be a lot easier when we do just have those habits in place. So, um, yeah, briefly covering the habits and what we talked about in the first four weeks with regards to habits.
Speaker 1:We then talked about reviewing, which is what we're doing right now uh, reviewing your quarter and why is important to that. I've talked about that before, but when we look at reviewing specifically now, when it's at the end of quarter one of the the first quarter of the year, it will keep when you review. It will keep you on track to achieve what you want, what you want to achieve in 2024, what you plan to achieve in 2024. So review quarter one right now. Then you can plan for quarter two right now as well, and this is about investing the time in yourself and your business on being true to yourself. You've got to be honest with yourself. You've got. We talked before about over promising and under delivering. Don't do that to yourself, and that's important when you're looking at reviewing is being true to yourself, being honest with yourself. Look at how 2024, the first quarter of the year has gone so far for you. Being true, being honest, review properly and then you can start to plan for the second quarter of the year to make sure you're on track for what you want to achieve in 2024.
Speaker 1:So we talked about that and a little bit about accountability at that point, which we'll come on to in a second and the last part with regard and the reviewing was about reward as well, so that's important as well. If you have achieved what you set out to achieve and creating that positive mindset in terms of achieving what you, what you set out to achieve, reward yourself, however that looks time out, financially shiny things however that looks for you, then that's fine, because then if you do reward, then it's more likely because you've achieved, it's more likely to happen again in the second quarter of the year. So, yeah, please make sure that you are reviewing and rewarding yourself based on your achievements and what you wanted to do. And then we moved on to the accountability mini-series. Um, we talked about what accountability is and then the options you have when, when you're looking at accountability, because being, as I said, being self-employed as a mortgage broker offers incredible amounts of freedom and flexibility. That's why a lot of people go self-employed on that basis. But it also comes with its unique challenges as well, and if you're self-employed already, you will know what those challenges are.
Speaker 1:But one of them, and one of the most critical one, which I said, is about accountability, because if you come from an employed world, somebody is holding you accountable. I'm not talking about micromanagement, because I've talked before about that's not accountability. But you will have a degree of accountability when you've come from the employed world, when you're self-employed and you're not responsible to anybody, then it is about self-accountability. So what is self-accountability? But basically, it's a practice of holding yourself accountable and responsible for your actions, your goals and what you wanted to achieve, and those outcomes as well. I think that's something as well. When you look at self-accountability, it's about the outcomes as well, based on the decisions and actions that you've taken. It's about being proactive, managing your goals. It's about being proactive with tasks and responsibilities without that external pressure. There's nobody from the outside looking in giving you that external pressure with regards to accountability.
Speaker 1:What is accountability? What are the things you need to do with accountability? We talked about setting clear goals, defined achievable goals, creating action plans, business plans and around those goals that you've set yourself. Establishing deadlines as well is important with regards to the goals and the tasks you've set yourself. Establishing deadlines as well is important with regards to the goals and the tasks you've set yourself. So deadlines are important as well, because that will help you with accountability.
Speaker 1:Monitoring your progress as well. So self-accountable individuals regular monitor, reviewing, like I've talked about the progress towards the goals. So you've got to do that when you look at reviewing as well, taking ownership for your mistakes, which is a big one as well with self-accountability, because you do have to acknowledge that mistakes are going to happen. You're going to be about learning from those mistakes as well. So, again, that's self-accountability. Maintaining discipline as well, because again, you've got you've got to maintain discipline with regards to your habits and your routines. That goes hand in hand with what we've talked about before, because nobody's telling you where to go, at what time and how long you'll be there for when you're self-employed, compared to the employee. To maintain discipline as well about seeking feedback and self-reflection. So, if you, self-accountability is about seeking feedback from yourself and from others as well, if you've got somebody that you know and trust with regards to that but it's about getting feedback from yourself.
Speaker 1:Again, I said earlier on about being honest with yourself and being true to yourself. Celebrating that success as well. That's important. So self-accountable individuals will celebrate their achievements and milestones along the way as well. I've talked before about habits and why you should be doing that, but it's about celebrating that success and being adaptable to those challenges.
Speaker 1:Self-accountable individuals are resilient when faced with challenges. They are persistent when they're faced with setbacks. It's all about adapting to those challenges as well. And again I said, the last part about accountability was about self-compassion, and when you sort of really are having self-accountability, it's also good to be sort of kind to yourself as well. Don't be too hard on yourself. If you've not achieved something, then look at adapting your goal, look at adapting your, your plan and tasks and actions of how you're going to get there. But don't be too hard on yourself. You need to come back with resilience and come back with your persistence and then go at it again to look to achieve that goal. So that was self-accountability.
Speaker 1:And then we looked at, with regards to self-accountability, what options you have as a self-employed mortgage broker. So we talked that that was self-accountability. We then talked about accountability partnerships. So what do I mean by accountability partnerships?
Speaker 1:I got into detail on the podcast a few weeks ago about that. It was about creating a positive support network. I think that's positive. Uh is important, um, to enhance your self-accountability. So this comes hand in hand with self-accountability. So this comes hand in hand with self-accountability having the accountability partnerships as well. Alice Dartnell was on the podcast last week talking about accountability partnerships. So, yeah, that's an important one as well.
Speaker 1:It's about creating that support network around you, having that abundance mindset. You can't see other brokers as competition. There's enough business to go around. It's about you making sure that you have that abundance mindset. You can't see other brokers as competition. There's enough business to go around. It's about you making sure that you have that abundance mindset and helping each other, supporting each other, working with other brokers which can be difficult sometimes, because you've got to make sure that you're working with the right individuals, but working with other brokers to help and support you and you're supporting them to help the businesses grow. And why is that effective with accountability partnership? Because it will increase courage, it gives encouragement, it gives motivation. You can share each other's experiences and insights as well and, like I said, that is good. With accountability partnerships, you can skills development as well and you can learn from each other in terms of from from that point of view, and it's also as well emotional support, well-being. That is a really important one. If you've got somebody that you feel that you know, you can trust and that you can talk to again because you are self-employed, you could be, you could be suffering from isolation. It could be quite stressful in terms of what you, what's going on. So having that support network can help you sort of like alleviate those feelings. And having somebody to talk to, having something to vent to, sometimes can help. And if you've got that individual who understands and you can vent with each other, that will help. So that was accountability partnerships.
Speaker 1:And then the last one more recently we looked at working with a mentor. So, as I said, you've got two options. Working with a mentor, you can either do you've got two options working with a mentor, you can either do a group session with mentor the mints out there that work on group sessions on a one-to-one basis. So, being self-employed, you have to have self-accountability. You have, and how deep your self-accountability is will determine your success. So working with a mentor will just like you can have self-accountability, you can have the accountability partnerships.
Speaker 1:Working with a mentor will just go that little bit deeper, go that little bit further with your accountability. It will give you that commitment reinforcement. So when you set goals and make commitments for yourself, having a mentor will sort of make sure that you don't drift and don't slide, and holding you accountable for what you said you was going to achieve it will give you that deadlines and milestones as well. So if you can't hold yourself accountable, a mentor will help you with your deadlines and milestones as well. To make sure that you do that, regular check-ins will happen. Because you're working with a mentor, you will have regular check-ins with them anyway, so that's a good benefit.
Speaker 1:As part of working with a mentor, you're going to get the feedback and you're going to get the course correction that we've talked about as well, which is important because then if you're on the wrong path, you can't continue on that trajectory. Then you're going to be way off where you wanted to go, whereas getting the right feedback and adapt and giving that sort of adapting your course and adapting so the path you're going down to make sure you're on track to achieve what you're wanting to achieve. A mentor will do that as well, and they're there for encouragement and support. That's what a coach that is. What is a mentor there to do is sort of helping you build that successful mortgage broker business and giving you that encouraging support to do that. So that would say you've got self-accountability, you've got within that accountability partnerships. You've then got also got working with a mentor and, as I said, you need to find the right one that works for you, whether and go down, explore the different options and find the right, whether it's for you, whether that's self-accountability, partnerships or working for a mentor, work out what works for you.
Speaker 1:So we yeah, that was quarter one of the podcast um, habits reviewing accountability, and so take this time now to make sure that you are reviewing quarter one, do that first, then look at plans and actions for quarter two, giving yourself that self-accountability and, yeah, um, thank you, and use that.
Speaker 1:Use your time wisely now to invest in yourself and invest in you and invest in your business. So, absolutely so. Thank you for listening. Um, any thoughts, feedback, comments on the podcast? Um, or you want to share anything that's gone on over the last quarter for you, the first quarter of the year, then please do so. I'm okay with direct messages to me as well. If you want to feel that you want to reach out in that way, absolutely fine. Thoughts comments leave on whichever platform you listen to the podcast. As always, thank you for listening. Thank you for listening subscribing, thank you for the amazing feedback and comments I've had over the past three years from brokers who have started out on their journey or help them enhance their journey even further. So, thank you so much and, as always, don't forget to run your own race.