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
Elevate Your Mortgage Clients' Experience with Utility Cost Savings
Unlock the potential of your mortgage advising business with the insights from Heather Cocks of Utility Warehouse, who joined us to share her expertise on thriving during economic downturns. Our conversation peeled back the layers on how Heather's partnership with UW has empowered newly self-employed mortgage advisors, sparking an increase in leads and business growth. By merging utility cost savings with mortgage advice, Heather has carved out a unique niche that not only benefits clients but also creates lucrative, new revenue streams for advisors.
Are you a mortgage advisor looking to expand your portfolio and offer more to your clients? Our latest episode delves into the adaptability of UW's business model, highlighting its appeal to advisors at various stages of their careers. We discuss how utility service integration can transform the mortgage process, providing clients with a seamless experience and advisors with an edge in a competitive market. Heather and I also explore practical financial strategies that can lead to significant savings and discuss the innovative promotional draw that could see your clients having their mortgage paid for two years.
To all the go-getters in the mortgage industry, get ready for a masterclass in maximizing your earning potential. This episode is packed with actionable advice, from leveraging social media to capitalize on bill reviews to understanding how cashback cards can be a game-changer for your clients' financial management. We also provide a roadmap for new brokers, detailing the comprehensive training and mentorship available, and the opportunity to earn while getting your feet wet. Tune in to discover how you can transform your business approach, elevate client satisfaction, and sail to new heights of success with the strategies we discuss. Heather's success story is not just inspiring, but it could also be your future—so why wait? Join us and start charting your own course today!
The Mortgage Broker Broadcast on
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxXEaYQYmRFg4as3o6uafzq6WP3-omp4N
Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/mortgage-broker-broadcast/id1560964722
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/3xmMdDcgmYh4A74wxeXnCV?si=cbc8f8b024fc4c98
Looking for one to one mentoring, visit my website to see how it works craigskelton.co.uk
#mortgagebroker #mortgagebrokers #mortgagebrokeruk #mortgagebrokercoaching #coaching #mortgagebrokerage #mortgagebrokerbusiness #mortgagebrokermarketing ...
Hi and welcome to this week's Mortgage Broker Broadcast. My guest this week is Heather Cox from Utility Warehouse, or otherwise known as UW, and the reason why I wanted to get Heather onto the podcast is that she has got some been wanting to get on for a while and she's got some great ideas in terms of working with mortgage advisors. She's worked with mortgage advisors mortgage brokers for quite some time now in terms of referrals to utility warehouse, but she's got some good ideas in terms of generating income, offering a better service for the clients, and I just thought it'd be good to get her on and just for her to share those experiences or thoughts from and from other brokers that she's working with in terms of their stories. So, yeah, I wanted to get Heather onto the podcast first of all, before before we do that, as always, here's Lee Rowland with this week's Mortgage Broker Bulletin.
Speaker 2:Thank you, craig, and welcome to the 10th edition of the Mortgage Broker Bulletin. Coventry have introduced some products for first-time buyers Two-year fixed, 65% loan-to-value, 5.17%, no fees and £500 cash back. They've also got a five-year fixed, 4.7%, 75% loan to value, no fee, £500 cash back. They've also got a three-year in there as well. To have a look at, santander have increased their loan-to-values on their high-end loans. So 1 to 2 million has gone up to 85% loan-to-value. 2 to 3 million has gone up to 75% loan-to-value. According to Nationwide, the UK's average house price is now £260,000. House prices have fallen a little bit 0.2% in March, but overall they're up by 1.6%. So we can see that there's still interest in the market and the market is picking up.
Speaker 2:Still very tough for first-time, first time buyers. I mean nearly impossible, isn't it? Let's be fair, that's why we got these, need these innovative products to come out quick. One on check my file uh, they contacted us this week and then they stopped our payments. I know a lot of you have already got back to them, but we got back to them pretty quickly and check my file. Then uh said they're going to start our payments again, which was nice. They're wondering why our clients might have been cancelling too early. If you're going to offer a free trial, cancel any time. You can't then have a crack of people for then cancelling Onwards, upwards and forwards. Have a great week and I'll speak to you soon.
Speaker 1:Thanks for that, that lee, thanks for the input again on this week's mortgage broker bulletin. And now is get heather onto the podcast. So welcome onto the podcast, heather. How are you?
Speaker 3:good morning. Thank you for inviting me, craig.
Speaker 1:It's very exciting I'm I'm excited to uh get you onto the podcast finally. I know we've been talking about it for a while, so finally get you onto the podcast, which is uh good. And I'm excited to uh get you onto the podcast finally. I know we've been talking about it for a while, so finally get you onto the podcast, which is uh good. And I'm looking forward to having a a chat about you and uw and everything else.
Speaker 3:So, um yeah, I'm looking forward to recording oh, brilliant, yeah, no, it's an exciting time for uw as well, particularly with working with mortgage advisors, so it's an area that UW really want to focus on, and so, yeah, to have a chat about that would be brilliant.
Speaker 1:Excellent. So first of all, before we get into the non, you're trusting me with no agenda and things like that. So I've got a few questions, but we'll see where as always where the conversation goes. But first of all, do you want to do a brief introduction about who you are and what you do?
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, so I'm Heather Cox. I live down in Cornwall I'd like to say sunny Cornwall, but we've had a lot of rain lately and I've been partnered with UW for five years and I was approached about it many, many times before and thought that it was something that that wasn't for me really. My background's teaching, and so I came out of teaching and I got involved with UW and then, during lockdown, I've got cystic fibrosis. So I was locked down for two years before everybody else was locked down and I was allowed out a lot later than everybody else and I'm a busy person. So all of a sudden, my life came to a bit of a halt, and so I looked at how I could use my UW business online and I went and did lots of LinkedIn courses and I got approached by quite a few mortgage advisors and directors that said, could this help newly self-employed advisors that have taken the leap from a corporate role into self-employed? And now the world's come to a standstill and they've got no money? And so I said yeah, absolutely, because for us it was a busy time. You know, when the world stood still, that's when everybody opened their drawers, dug out their bills, went through their bank accounts and that's where they actually had the time to come off the hamster wheel of life and stop and look at all of their bills that were going out all the time, and so we were busy.
Speaker 3:So then I started working with lots of mortgage advisors that were self-employed, with nothing going on, and they started helping friends and family, and the knock on effect from that was they generated lots and lots of new mortgage leads, because once they reviewed their bills, they were then able to say, well, actually, I'm newly self-employed bills. They were then able to say, well, actually I'm, you know, I'm newly self employed. Would you like me to book you in for a mortgage review? So the knock on of that was lots and lots of advisors were growing UW businesses, but growing their mortgage business off the back of it. So that's where I focused then, because instead of going back to normal life, I just stayed working with mortgage advisors.
Speaker 3:We train lots of mortgage advisors and estate agents actually because it's a it's a key area. You know the fact finds are something that you will study, that's you know you're looking at that. You're trying to do the best for your, for your client. You can see their direct debits are all over the place and sometimes the client doesn't know what they're paying for um.
Speaker 1:So it's an easy, easy thing to talk about yeah, definitely and, like I say, it's very it's an important part of the process and we'll talk about the process a little bit from a mortgage broker point of view, mortgage advisor point of view and also, like saying, estate agent as well, and not thought about it from the estate agency point of view. But also, something else you talked about there which I'll ask you a little bit more about is thinking about it from the flip side of where, with UW, that you are talking to potential clients and then doing a bit of a mini fact find in terms of their incomings, outgoings and things like that, and then having that opportunity to promote that, to get potential mortgage leads as well, rather than thinking that UW as an add on is something you could do. Actually, it could be more of a proactive way of getting leads rather than a reactive way of generating more income and benefiting from a service from a client's point of view.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely so. That's how it all started in lockdown. It was the reverse. So that's where you can see the real power of it all and the services they do dovetail together, because an advisor can cherry pick the bits that they don't currently do themselves and offer that to clients, and then you end up with a complete package. So I mean I can tell you a little bit more about the services and how it works, but you know there's lots of ways of merging them. So the end result is better for the client but also for the advisor.
Speaker 1:So we've gone straight in, as we always do. But there was something I wanted to come. All I know we were talking here talking about uw, but you are very fortunate in terms of the part of the world that you live and even now, as soon as I mentioned the word cornwall, you're smiling and I was. I was fortunate enough to be um. We talked about this a while ago about um. I was fortunate that my grandparents lived in Cornwall, so quite a bit of my childhood was down there. And then I didn't realise are you actually from?
Speaker 1:Because one of my favourite beers is brewed in your hometown. So I love a Corev lager. I absolutely love it. You cannot get Corev in any beer in any pub or any sort of establishment like that. I can get in the bottles and the cans, but I can't. So when I was I was, I was fortunate that I was down in farway. Uh, just after christmas, between christmas and new year, I spent four days in farway, which I know is not so. That was great, because then every single pub I went in had corey von draft. So that was a different world to me. So that was. That was amazing. So you're very looking, you're very lucky, that's why I grew up, craig.
Speaker 3:I grew up in foy, so, yeah, yeah, that's where I grew up. So I lived in a little cottage that was 400 years old and um had beams on the ceiling and I had to duck down and go under each beam in the front room. Um, yeah, it's lovely right the end of the street um in the main town, so a beautiful place to grow up.
Speaker 1:I had my own little boat on the river, so yeah, you are even more lucky than I first thought then, because it is a very nice place.
Speaker 3:And talking about the pubs, my mum and dad were a landlord in the pub in Foy. They had the Galleon which was right on the riverfront. They had that for years. So for you, they had the galleon which was right on the riverfront. They had that for years so uh, wow so yeah, small world, isn't it?
Speaker 1:absolutely, it is a small world, but for that's what my uncle was um landlord of. Uh, he so he lived mogan poth, which is where my grandparents lived. My uncle owned, was the landlord, owned a pub in mogan poth, so so, and which is still there now. So, uh, yeah, so I visited that. So yeah, very nice part of the world, very nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. I'm more of um a rattler drinker, so I like um. In the summer, I like a nice glass of rattler, so uh is that strong stuff?
Speaker 1:is that rattler? Is that not like? So quite, quite a decent percentage.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they do different flavoured ones which are obviously lower. But if you have the Rattler then normally after four or five you're rattled, so that's why it's called Rattler.
Speaker 1:See, I wouldn't like to say match up. I'm fortunate enough that because I'm not a massive cider drinker, but I did sort of when my uncle owned the pub and obviously I wasn't old enough to go into the pub but and he had scrum and he used to give me scrumpy as sort of 14, 15 year old and I can remember that's the scrumpy.
Speaker 1:It was just yeah like very cloudy jack oh yeah, I think you used to get all sorts of like rats, like it used to be like quite a thing, where you used to get quite odd things in uh, traditional scrumpy down there, but whether it was just telling me tales as a youngster in terms of to put me off drinking scrumpy for the rest of my life there was local people that used to go off with um.
Speaker 3:They used to have great big um, you know, like the plastic containers that you have like five liters of vinegar in that. They would rinse them out and they'd go to places where they would just pour it off of these like casks and it would be thick with gunk and everything and they're like, oh, it's the best scrumpy you can have. It's like not so sure, but yeah, yeah, I don't think there was any tales. I think that was true. It's pretty rough stuff, craig.
Speaker 1:So he wasn't lying to me. I've not been scarred for life so I still will take an odd side now and again, but I've never had Rattler, so I think next time I'm down I will give it a go. I will sort of get off the car for one drink and get on their back yeah, that's good stuff.
Speaker 3:It's good stuff, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:So I knew we were going to go off on a tangent, but I didn't realize that we're going to be so much so that we're going to be talking about alcoholic drinks and their pub landlords and things like that. So but yeah, a beautiful part of the world, you're living very lucky. So you sort of said that, like when you going back to when you obviously started working at UW and then did you realize quite quickly in terms of niching with mortgage brokers, mortgage advisors, that something that you sort of thought you were going to do from the start. Is that something you fell into, or?
Speaker 3:um, I met a few people that were doing this um straight away and they were saying how good it was for their business. But then I didn't realize that I would be able to do it because I'm not a mortgage advisor. So I kind of didn't focus too much on that at the time. Um, but it was only when people came to me during lockdown and said, could I help? That I was like, well, of course I'd love to help, and so that's how I then started working with advisors.
Speaker 3:And UW is so flexible in that you can refer, you can do it like as your own business, you can do it together. There's so many different options so it can fit around any scale of business. You know I was talking to directors with lots of advisors. I was talking with newly self-employed advisors, established advisors. So, and it's about finding what works for that person because, you know, depending on how many mortgages you put through, you know, some people do a lot less clients but do a lot more services. Some people want to have lots of clients and they have an admin. So again, it's about finding. You know, I would talk to them and find out what does their business look like and how can we make UW fit them.
Speaker 1:Which is a great. To be fair, heather, that's a really good way of looking at it, because every business is different, every sole trader is different to the, to the directors. They've got maybe one, two, three, four brokers, or the large, the larger ones. I've got quite a lot more than that and I think that's it has to be adaptable. That's the beauty thing. What you sort of said there is. It's adaptable for for you in terms of who you are as a business.
Speaker 1:Because you said there about the one thing that stops self, one thing that the most self-employed mortgage brokers worry about when they're first starting out or taking that leap to go from employed to self-employed it's about leads, it's about income is obviously income is a big thing, but it's about the leads as well. So look at what you said before Going newly self-employed, you can start to clients, potential clients, about the services that UW offer and you directly advising on that as part of your business in terms of generating leads but also generating income when you're first starting out. I think that's a that is a great way to generate income fairly quickly, rather than where it's sort of been, as in traditional mortgage broking, where you sign a client up, they move in and they're moving three or four months later and then you get paid a month after. That kind of thing. It's just, it leads a key and incomes keys. I think uw can really like you can really help with that yeah, and and again.
Speaker 3:I know we're not talking about estate agents essentially, but it's the same thing. You know, a lot of people now are with exp, you know, and they're all starting their own business, but there's a long wait time before you actually see that money coming back into your bank, and so this is a really quick income and it's a real and it's called a quick upfront income and it's a commission that's paid upfront in advance and there's no clawback. So that's the beauty of it as well, and UW have, over the years, seen the companies and the type of people that benefit from the services that we offer, and they've realized that mortgage advisors and UW do work well together. They've got really good examples of that, and there is a video that I can share with you, craig, later that you can pass on to advisors, and it's with one of our top earners in UW who comes from a financial and mortgage background and he's talking about the benefits to mortgage advisors and it's just a little UW story we can share.
Speaker 1:We'll get a link in the show notes, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a really good little summary of how it can benefit. Yes, it's a really good little summary of how it can benefit. And the whole way that the company are looking to work and adapt all the time is always, ever changing, and so currently what we've got as a conversation starter is have mortgage freedom. So what that means is every single person you speak to doesn't have to be a mortgage client. It could be anybody you speak to from you know, friends, family, colleagues they can all enter a free draw and they can win their mortgage paid for two years. So it's a free draw for anyone to enter and the company put that on. They put the prize on as conversation starters. So, again, for a mortgage advisor, the prize on as conversation starters. So, again from mortgage advisor, it's a brilliant conversation starter. They can enter every single person they know into this draw where they can win their mortgage paid.
Speaker 3:And then the questions they need to ask are are you a homeowner, because there's homeowner discounts Would you like to pay less for your energy bills? And are you interested in, like, just saving money in general? So chances are people are going to say yes to at least one or two or maybe three of those. So for a mortgage advisor, they can enter them in the draw. There's no catch. It is just a conversation starter draw. That's what it is. But then from that they can say, oh so, um, you said you wanted to pay less for your bills.
Speaker 3:As part of my mortgage business, I do do bill reviews. Would you be interested to see how much you could start saving from today? If they say they're a homeowner, they say, oh, that's interesting. Did you know I've just started my new business? Or I've got a mortgage business. Would you like me to have a look to see if I could get you a better rate for your mortgage? Or I could book you in for a review when it's coming up, you know time to look at it. So just that one simple form can. You can do a lot with it.
Speaker 1:I think that's like. I say it's a good conversational start, isn't it? It's not like you're not. You keep.
Speaker 1:Brokers struggle with things to like. I was just making a note there because I was gonna, because I made a note about social media as well, because one thing that brokers struggle with is I want to do social media, but I don't know what to put out there. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. And if I was talking to a broker this week and they've incorporated UW now into their social media, so they've got their social media very well organized and it's sort of they've got various videos and various images going on, things like. But what they've done now is they've incorporated uw into their um, their content calendar, and that now the schedule now post based on that, which, again, it just gives them something else to talk about.
Speaker 1:Because it is when you're first starting out, if you can get that quick income, it makes you feel like it gets that momentum going from your mindset point of view, that actually you are generating income, you are doing something and you're not just sat there going I need to find some mortgage clients now and you're doing certain things with that. This is just something else that will help you generate income from the start. You're doing certain things with that. This is just something else that will help you generate income from the start, but also generate conversations and generate content for you.
Speaker 1:Having conversation starters to then just feel as though you actually you're on the right path and doing the right thing, which is key when for a broker especially when you're self-employed as a broker, because you tend to be on your own, sat in your own in a bedroom somewhere and a bedroom at home normally yeah, just sorry, I don't know why I said that, but yeah, just just, you're sat in a bed in one of your bedrooms and it's just a case of am I doing the right thing? Whereas if you are having some conversation with clients, even if it's not mortgage related, having some sort of conversation you will feel better. And then, all of a sudden, you get paid, the commission at the end of the month and the client's giving you good feedback on the service, and then you, that will just help. That just speeds things up in terms of, yes, ultimately you're a mortgage broker and that's what you're there to do to talk about the mortgages and protection, but if you can do this as well. You've got time to do this when you're first starting out.
Speaker 3:What a great way to start yeah, it, and it is about fitting it into your process. That that's the thing it's, you know. Um, what I found is people who are stuck in their ways they've been doing this for 30 years find it hard to add in a new service. Um, so it's like, well, but I've always done it like this and this is what I do in the order that I do. Um, lots of people who are new to building their own business are they're thinking about their processes. So people will find their way where they drop this in.
Speaker 3:So they drop it in as a conversation earlier on and then they book a review date closer to the time on completion where they can then book somebody and say, look, let me take all the stress out of you having to think about all your providers. I, we can go through. It takes a few minutes, I can go through it, get it all set up. The day you complete, we click submit and everything's in place. So it's a stress-free service and that's what gives good feedback and lots and lots of reviews, because it's like crikey.
Speaker 3:You know, craig didn't just help me with my mortgage, he helped with everything and it was just so simple. And UW pay for referrals. So when somebody's just moved into a house, they've just had a great service they're talking about, about how that worked for them, and they can recommend to friends and family members, and uw will give them 50 pound off their bill for every referral they make who decide to switch um. So maybe explaining a little bit about the services, um, maybe that's something we should touch on, really, um yeah, I was just going to make a point in terms of what you sort of said.
Speaker 1:Then we'll come on to absolutely. Come on to the services group. It was funny I was talking to a broker this like he niches in some of that work with. He niches in first-time buyers. So he's very, very focused on first-time buyers and he has good times, bad times and obviously depending on the markets with first time buyers and things like, but he builds it as part of his process very quickly that he's there negotiating with this stage on their behalf. It deals with everything from start to finish and he's got it absolutely nailed in his process of like right, your mortgage offer.
Speaker 1:He talks about it, but first of all with the client. I'm going to help you with your mortgage. I'm going to help negotiate on the the house. I'm going to do this and then, once we've got your mortgage offer, then we'll be talking about the protection side of things and also, as well, making sure that everything's ready for when you move in. All you've got to worry about is unpacking those boxes. That's literally everything will be set up in terms of, and he talks about holding the client's hand from start to finish as his first-time buyer service that he offers. But he's just got that part of the process with the referrals to UW to go like.
Speaker 1:Well, that's part of what he does, so he's he promotes that as a benefit. It's part of his first-time buyer guide that he's got on his website and it's all very much. This is going to happen for you as a, and this is what will happen is as you for my, because you're my client. So sorry, yeah, I just wanted to get that in there because your process is key absolutely getting the right process, whatever that is, and you've got to be adaptable with your process. Some people aren't adaptable, like you said, but most people are sort of with tweaking it, but it's just getting the process right absolutely. So sorry, are they going go on?
Speaker 3:yeah, no, because I was just going to say about the process, because again, it's about how it fits in. So and what? Some? Just some examples then of, obviously, because we do gas, we do electric, we do broadband, we do mobiles, and the benefits of all of these different things vary per client. But if somebody is having a look at all of that, then we have got a cashback card which, if somebody's moving into a new house, they are going to be spending a lot of money. You know they're going to be redecorating, buying garden furniture, they're going to maybe have a bathroom, new kitchen, they've got to buy TVs, washing machines.
Speaker 3:So our cashback card earns the money back off every single thing that they buy. So when they're budgeting, we have one app, we have one bill, we have one payment goes out straight after payday, so they know that all their bills are paid for the rest of the month. Then they know exactly what they've got left. It really helps with money management. And then they use their cash back card and they earn money off every single thing they spend throughout that month. So for easy figures, say, their bill was 200 pound and it was going out straight after payday at the end of the month um 200 pound, but they've used their cash back card through the month and they've earned 40 or 50 pound. They're budgeted for 200 pound but only 160 pounds going to go out the bank, so it's a really good way to make sure they've always got enough money left over. Um with the cash back card because it's free money. So I I've been on a podcast just on cash back because I get really excited about it because it is literally free money and the card is prepaid.
Speaker 3:So everything that UW do is about debt prevention and, with all the new consumer regulations in, this is kind of like a soft part of that, because we're trying to make sure that everybody has no debt at any time. We've got one bill every single month for tracking so you can see what your bill looks like and are you keeping on top of it. And then the cash back is just something. That's a service that uw provides. They pay out 15 000 pound a day on cash back. So it's not a service that we make money from. We give money back and they also run a quirky little lottery thing where every day, 12 customers who've tapped their card the day before get their full transaction back. So if you've been and bought something in B&Q for £500, literally, you could be a winner the next day and get all that back. Now it's all fun, it's all quirky, but the whole idea of it, which is incredible really, is that UW do all of these things to make sure people look at their app, look at their bill, keep on top of it. So many people never know how to look at their bill. They don't know how to log in, they've never seen it and that's where they accrue thousands of pounds worth of debt because they've never looked at it. Because UW make it more exciting, people are interacting with their, they're more on top of it, more aware of it, and there's lots of bonuses With the cashback.
Speaker 3:What a lot of advisors have been doing as part of their process is when they're looking at all of the costs and looking at everything. One of the key elements of UW is we encourage two names on the account, so you don't have to do that, but we do it for the ease of the client. So, should somebody get poorly, they have a nasty accident, they have a stroke, they can't talk, they're in hospital, really, really sick, the person who's at home, responsible for all the bills, that are living in there with their broadband, with their phones, can call in and speak on that account, because they are also mentioned on that bill. That is something that comes up time and time again, where people say, oh, you know, I couldn't speak about my husband's broadband, he was away working or he was poorly or something awful's happened. So that's a good sort of conversation to have.
Speaker 3:That then leads into the value of protection. So that's why I said it all dovetails. So you talk about why you need protection and then obviously with protection comes a cost. So then that's when you dovetail with UW and say, but that cost? You're going to get money coming back from UW for your everyday shopping. You know you do Amazon deliveries, deliveries. You link your card to amazon. Every time that amazon delivery comes, money is coming off your bill. That chunk of money every month will cover whatever protection you want, so it's not actually costing you anything. So you work the two together.
Speaker 1:So so that's kind of that's a massive point, heather. I think that's sort of the. That's what one of the things on my notes that I wanted to talk to you about. I'm really pleased that you have brought it because it's seeing it from like seeing it from a broker's point of view in terms of my business, and I've got brokers that work with that refer to uw and um what the way that they do it is that they're having that conversation.
Speaker 1:That's why I sort of said about having a conversation about protection and bringing the UW appointment in when the mortgage is offered out, because a lot of brokers that I know will talk about protection throughout the process, but then once the mortgage offer is out, they will get then the protection and have more of a detailed conversation about protection, but they do it with the UW. So then it's a case of okay, I've just forget the cashback because I haven't even thought about the cashback. So you've just mentioned there about the cashback, which is even better. But the way that we look at it is okay, I've just said so you have the protection conversation, you have the UW conversation, you're saving them £30 a month on their gas, electric, broadband or mobile or whatever, and then that protection policy to make sure they're fully covered. It's their choice to leave, not anybody else, and that and then that's costing them 30 pounds a month. It's not costing anything because you've just saved them 30.
Speaker 1:So from a protection point of view, it's more likely to happen and be put in place. It's more likely to get on risk. And it's more likely to happen and be put in place. It's more likely to get on risk and it's more likely to stick because actually you're going within there. It's not costing them anymore, they're actually getting the benefit.
Speaker 1:And I haven't thought about the cashback because, like you say, I like the cashback because, like you said there about the, it's pre-loaded. So if you know that all you use it for is your weekly shopping, let's just go very basic and think right, I budgeted for 200 pounds a month on my weekly shopping. Okay, just then, just all you do is put your 200 pounds on your cashback card and use it for that, and that I know you'll have a far more elaborate way of talking about it in more detail, but that for me is just a well, that's that. Do you just know you've got 200 pounds to like 50 pounds a week to spend on your, your weekly budget, your for your food shopping. So that's, do you know? I mean it helps on that way because it's pre-loaded and you can't go over that what's on the card, kind of thing.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and you can set your cashback card up in different ways so you can put it that you schedule a monthly payment, you schedule a weekly payment, you can top up on your app as you go. Um, for myself, I do have mine on an auto top, so I've set mine up that I don't need to keep looking at it. But every time my balance drops below 200 pounds, mine automatically tops up. So my bank account is very, very clear for me on a budgeting view. I can see how many times because I've just got the same amount topping it up, I've got.
Speaker 3:You know, not like my bank account used to be like full of loads of tiny, tiny transactions and that's where you lose sight of what you're paying and you forget that all of these direct debits are happening because it's filled with all your shopping and everything else. So my bank account now is literally just a handful of transactions because I've got my top ups and then I've got very clearly what my bill is and then anything else that's a bill. I'm able to manage all of that because there's hardly any transactions on my bank account anymore, because all the little everyday bits are going on the cashback and it's again something you can use abroad. So it's free to use free foreign exchange. But it's also a second layer of security because when you're paying for things online or you're using this day-to-day everywhere, um, if anything happens, your app pings you when that transaction's been made. So if you ever see something that you you don't know that that's a familiar transaction, you can block it instantly in your app. But you still got your bank card untouched, that's not the details that you're putting out there.
Speaker 3:It's the cashback card. So there's lots of benefits to the card. That's why I could talk all day about the cashback card, craig, because it's so good For me. I'm a big family and it's all relative. If you're a single person with one card, your bills are going to be so much smaller, but so is your spend. It's all relative. I've got a big house, big family, big bills. I've got big cash back, so I save about a thousand pound a year just from tapping that card. So over five years.
Speaker 3:There's five thousand pound there that I've saved from using an alternative card, so you know that we're talking a lot of money really that's a lot of rattler yes, a lot of money. Really. That's a lot of rattler. Yeah, it's a lot of rattler and a lot of benefits. You know that's a family holiday just from using an alternative card.
Speaker 1:No, like you said, that is a lot of and it's just a great way of managing things, like you clearly are living, breathing the UW way of doing things, and that's why you get so passionate about it and I understand why you get. I understand why you got so passionate with me, first of all, about the cashback call when we first spoke about the benefits of that, because it does have a big impact on people when they're trying to budget, trying to look at and getting that. Everybody loves free money, so when you're getting that money back at the end like when you get that back, the cash back back then it's just sort of like a it's a pleasant surprise and then you sort of it makes you then want to use it more and obviously then you start using for everything day to day, like you are so yeah, and as well.
Speaker 3:The other benefit is because you can top it up from multiple bank accounts. So, um, a lot of people now don't have joint bank accounts and they'll say, oh, we're going to make a joint bank account for the utilities. Well, they can use this as a joint bank account so they can keep all their separate bank accounts and they can both top up the cash back card. So it becomes a joint pot of money. But it means they've got a joint bank account without actually having a joint bank account. So there's lots of benefits to it joint bank account.
Speaker 1:So, um, there's lots of benefits to it. That's definitely so. Let's go. So you talked before. Let's just look at the different types of businesses you work with, as with mortgage brokers, because we've got people that listen to podcasts, that are sole traders, ones that I've got one or two advisors with them and ones that are sort of slightly larger than that. So, if you are, if I'm a sole trader starting out or got an established, I'm literally a one-man band kind of thing do you tend to find that those kind of brokers just do this themselves? This is part of what they do day to day with their clients yeah.
Speaker 3:So if it's just like one person starting out, this is an easy thing to start with because, like we talked about, you can build it into your process and you don't need to find mortgage clients to start earning money because all your friends and family have all got electric. So I think what a lot of people think initially is it's a sales. So for me it's mindset, because in my head I'm not selling anything at all. Every single person I talk to has got electricity and broadband and a mobile, so they've got all of those services already. All we're doing is showing them that they could do it in a more simple fashion and save money. So once you get over that barrier, and what that person decides to do at the end of it is up to them, um, but it's a bit of a show in a business really, because they've already got it. We're not trying to convince them they need electric. They've got it. We can just do it cheaper and someone starting out can just do this with friends and family.
Speaker 3:Um, and their first six appointments. For the training side, all the training is free and there's no overheads. There's's no huge outlay. It's £10 to register. You get a team of mentors and they will support you to give you the best start. So your first six appointments you don't even need to speak. If you didn't want to, you can sit there with a notepad, take as many notes as you like, listen in to the call, and it's just a practice. It's very, very likely at the end of that practice that that person's going to say well, I know it's a practice, but can I sign up Because I'm saving £80 a month here?
Speaker 3:And then they sign up and the advisor gets paid 100%, even though they haven't had to speak on that call, because the company are very, very passionate about people learning and earning at the same time. So they don't have to do all these practice calls or have somebody with them and they don't get the full amount of money. They get 100%. And if they do it speedily so if they're keen and they get six appointments in the first 30 days, they get first 500 pound bonus. So the idea of that is to get everybody up and running quick, to see how quick and easy it is to get an income coming back in the bank. So six customers, six homeowners in 30 days is essentially 2000 pound. So for any mortgage advisor or an estate agent, you know starting out, that's a good income. So for any mortgage advisor or an estate agent, you know starting out that's a good income and there's nothing to stop you earning a lot more than that. But that's like what you can do very easily from day one.
Speaker 1:So if I've gone through the, I'm a sole trader, I've got my mortgage, I'm now established a little bit and got my mortgage clients.
Speaker 1:How long would an appointment take with a client? So I'm looking at, I've got all these appointments with my first appointment client, I've got to sign them up. I talk about protection. I've got to put into uw a conversation with the client, bearing in mind that a lot of the fact you've done the fact find already, because as a mortgage broker you'll have already done most of the work already in terms of knowing addresses, how long they've been there, what the bills are, what they're paying out, who the providers are. They've got the bank statements. They've got pretty much every document already what they need as an established mortgage broker that I'm already working with UW and I've done quite a few appointments. Now how long does the process take from starting the conversation, going through the presentation to signing the client up? What sort of times, as in with the client facing? How long does that take? Is it 45 minutes, an hour, half an hour? How long is that?
Speaker 3:Okay. So again, this can be done differently. Everything we do can be adapted to you really depending on how busy you are and how much time you want to take. So we've got a little presentation. The presentation takes 17 minutes to go through. Um, if you want to sit and go through that, then you can. You can explain the services. We can give 400 pound to buy out of existing contracts.
Speaker 3:We can talk about all of our guarantees, all the awards that we win, because currently we win more awards than any other provider. So sometimes it's quite nice to mention that to your clients so that they know they're going to get a top rated service. We've just been rated as the top company through which, independently of all providers, and excellent on Trustpilot just last week. So you know this is all current awards that we're really at the top of our game. So sometimes it's good to mention that to customers because if they've never heard of us, that's reinforcing it really.
Speaker 3:And you can do that in two ways by sitting and talking through this 17 minute presentation, or you have your own personal link so you can send that out before.
Speaker 3:So you can say to them if I send you this link, do you want to have a little look through, have a look at the presentation yourself, write down any questions that you've got and then come back to me and we'll run a quote and then the quote page. You can just literally go straight in and the quote can take 10 minutes. So for a busy advisor, if they haven't got the time, you send out that link, show the presentation and when they come back you can still reiterate the key points because you know what's in it. So when you go to do the broadband quote you can say well, you do know, we've got a witch award for our broadband routers and everything. Then when you get onto the sim you say, oh, you know, we are on the e-network, all emergency services are on. That's brilliant coverage, and we do. You know great prices for our unlimited data. So you can, you can extract the bits from the presentation without showing it and and talk about it on the quote and you can do that.
Speaker 1:Probably 10 to 15 minutes on a quote, wow and I think I'm thinking here thinking that the brokers that are using think like a lot of brokers use um online diaries. So calendly bookings, whichever one you use, and you can automate messages going out. So, like you've got a message yesterday coming you booked on the podcast. You've got a message yesterday saying, look, whatever the message was uh, that you're. So if you are a broker, you can automate a lot of these things. So if you, you can have a calendly service or a booking service set up on an automated calendar, somebody books on that link, then the automated emails can then start so they can get the presentation through. You know that you're booking a 30 minute slot in your diary because that's all that. You need maximum sending out all this, all the information before. So when you get onto their call, the stuff in the background has been done already. You're going straight in on a quote and hopefully I'm more likely signing them up. So it's another great benefit as well yeah.
Speaker 3:So 250 pound for 30 minutes work is is pretty good payments, to be fair. And it doesn't stop there because when you sign up a client, that's your commission in advance. But what is really really um, amazing, I have to say it's amazing because I didn't believe it in the beginning and I didn't buy into it. And people talk about the residual income from UW and I was like is that really a thing? You know how does that work? So basically, when you sign a customer up, you get your upfront commission. You don't get anything. If they've taken three services, you don't get anything more for five years. But UW have the lowest churn rate of clients than any other company because we've made it simple, we've made it cheaper, we've got good customer service. What's there to leave for? So people stay At the end of that five years you get paid a percentage of their bill and all I can describe that is the same as if you're a jewellery maker and you sold somebody a beautiful necklace. It's like being paid every time they wear it. So we get paid every time somebody switches on the kettle or the lights and that residual income builds up.
Speaker 3:Now my background is teaching and I've got cystic fibrosis, so I opted out of my teaching pension because I was told I'd never live to be a pensionable age. So I was like crikey I don't want to put money away that I'm never going to spend. I want to spend it and enjoy it, which is what I do, do a lot of enjoy my life. But when I started UW and they talked about this residual income, I thought, well, I don't really understand it. But I've been in the business over five years now, so all of my clients I did five years ago are all dropping into my bank. My residual income that I've built in five years is a pension pot that far exceeds my husband's 35-year engineering pension. So for anybody self-employed if they're worried about their pension at a later date when they stop advising, they've got this massive pension pot there from all of the clients they've dealt with over the years. They still get paid month after month, year after year. So that is something that I don't think a lot of people really realise or understand.
Speaker 1:No, and they won't as brokers do. We'll look at the front end Financial advisors look at residual and look at the lifetime of the client and then and those kind of things. But from a broker point of view it's very transactional, whereas this is very different because I say you're going to get the residual value as well, not just the the front end stuff. So it's a good point. So you've obviously explained about self-employed. I'm just conscious of time in terms of the podcast. I knew we would not be sure. I knew we would be sure. I know we'll be short of things to talk about. They're definitely not so. So, traders, you work with directors you talked there about. You've done a presentation. So if I'm a director of a, a large mortgage broker business, then adding this in as part of your business is good, is key as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so again it depends on if the director wants to take responsibility for the uw side and they've got an admin. They can put an admin onto their account. The admin can take all the leads from all of the advisors within the company and they can just do utility appointments. You know they'll be earning essentially the company 250250 every 30 minutes, so that's a good income. And then they can give a referral fee back to the advisor that sent it across. And again, there is another quirk to that as well, because a referral fee that the company pays is £50. So if that advisor doesn't want to actually do the appointments but they're happy to send the leads across, then they can just have a £50 credit off their own bill if they wanted to.
Speaker 3:So it's a tax free £50 on their energy as opposed to a payment into their bank which they don't have to pay the tax on. So there's lots of little workarounds, which is quite good. And you can any self-employed person can have a named person on their account. So even if they were just a sole trader, they might have their husband, wife or just a VA or an admin and they can talk to their clients and say you know, my husband specializes in this or my wife does, and then it's all on their account. But they can deal with the you know the utility side. So that can ease the workload when people get busy. So even if you're registered to do it yourself and just you're inundated with clients and you know it all gets in the way, you can revert to just doing referrals yourself. So it's always flexible. It doesn't matter what level you're at, how big your business is, how small your business is, whether you're busy or you're quiet. You can make this adapt and make it make it worthwhile for you heather.
Speaker 1:We're going to leave on that very, very poignant point to them because that's a great. It is a great thing to leave it on that in terms of how adaptable it is, and so if I'm a broker business owner, whatever thinking about, I wanted to know more about this. Just contact you via linkedin. I'll put links into the to the show notes as well and you'll send me the video about from a the broker's experience and that mortgage advisor experience as well. We'll get that in the show notes as well. Best thing to do is just reach out and just answer any questions they've got and then get them signed up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it'd be great just to chat through and you know I'd be more than happy to give lots of different scenarios, find out about them and their business, and then we can work together on how this will fit. So you know it is different, it's very individualized and a lot of people have reservations because they don't really understand. So I'm more than happy to to work through it and and go through all of that definitely, definitely, heather.
Speaker 1:Hopefully it's been beneficial. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for dragging yourself away from that rattle of this on on the area. I'm joking, obviously, but thank you so much for your time. Thank you, but thanks for coming on to the podcast finally and being very open, honest and trusting me, with no agenda and just having a chat about uw, and it's been really good, thank you oh, thanks for having me on the call, craig.
Speaker 3:It's good to talk to you and uh look forward to speaking to you again soon bill.
Speaker 1:Thanks a lot, heather.
Speaker 1:Thank you bye-bye really appreciate Heather coming on the podcast and I'm sure you agree there's some good ideas there in terms of mortgage brokers, in terms of looking at referrals and looking at the service for clients and looking at how to to generate leads as well and not just seeing it as, yes, uw is a bolt-on to a lot of broker services and, yes, there is sort of things and benefits from a broker's point of view, but it's just part getting it part of your process and getting it part of your virtual process to making sure that you are benefiting from uw and your clients are benefiting from it as well.
Speaker 1:When I can get my words out, your clients are benefiting from uw as well because, as heather talked about, in terms of protection, sales, service, sales and all the things that um uw helped with with regards to conversation with clients. So, yeah, great podcast to record with ever and I really enjoyed talking heather onto the podcast, as always. Any thoughts, suggestions, comments on the podcast? Leave them in the normal platform, wherever you listen to them or watch the podcast on, and as, if any you want to reach out in the links in the normal platform, wherever you listen to them or watch the podcast on and if any of you want to reach out. In the links in the description there's links to register with UW, there's links to Heather and there's the link to the video as well that she's got as an experience of a mortgage broker that she's working with. So, yeah, plenty of reasons and plenty of um easiness to to reach out to heather and get yourself registered with uw and, as always, don't forget to run your own race.