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
From Data To Decisions: A Year Review That Fuels 2026
Ready to finish 2025 strong and start 2026 even stronger? We dive into a calm, step-by-step year-end reflection that turns data, feedback, and honest self-assessment into momentum you can feel. Instead of rehashing regrets, we map a practical review you can run in a single sitting: gather KPIs and P&L, connect them to client feedback, and ask what each number truly represents in behavior, channels, and offers. The goal is simple—spot what worked, retire what didn’t, and make smarter bets next year.
We also get real about the emotional side of performance. Celebration fuels consistency, so we call out how to recognize wins, share them with your team or family, and build loyalty with genuine appreciation. On the other side of the ledger, we reframe mistakes as data: identify assumptions that failed, document what happened, and outline how you’ll handle a similar situation differently. You’ll hear clear tactics for mental health during the year-end crunch—micro breaks, right-sized daily goals, time blocking, and asking for help when overwhelm hits.
Finally, we turn insight into action with SMART micro goals for 2026. If admin crowds strategy, we show you how to delegate and protect deep work. If you underestimate timelines, we add buffers and reduce parallel projects. If procrastination lingers, we front-load tough tasks and track streaks. By the end, you’ll have a focused action list: run your year-end review, write three daily gratitudes this week, journal one key mistake into a playbook, and schedule a feedback session with your team or mentor. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs clarity before January, and leave a quick review to tell us the one metric you’ll track weekly next year.
I help employed mortgage brokers go self-employed with clarity, confidence and one-to-one mentoring. Find out how Pathways or Coaching works at craigskelton.co.uk
The Broker Foundry – Where Mortgage Brokers Become Business Owners Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBrokerFoundry
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Hi and welcome back to our set yourself up for 2026 miniseries. I'm your host, Craig Skelton. Last week we talked about defining a clear vision and then aligning it with your values. This week we're sort of turning our focus, shall we say, inward and backward. Before we can plan for 2026, we need to extract every lesson from 2025. Reflection isn't about dwelling on the past, it's about learning from it by looking at what has worked and what didn't. We strengthen our resilience, celebrate our growth, and prepare to do better. Think of this episode as like a mental year-end review without the dread, shall we say? We'll talk about how to review your numbers, recognize your wins, face your mistakes, and cultivate gratitude too, all while maintaining a calm. So why is reflection essential? Well, in business and it's fair to say in life too, it's easy to stay busy without ever stopping to evaluate what's working. Yet every high-performing firm, every high-performing business takes time at year end to review performance data and get honest about what needs improving. Analysing KPIs, key performance indicators, PLs, marketing analytics too, and customer feedback is essential. It's also important to collect feedback from your team as well, if you've got a team and manager team, and evaluate whether you you met the goals you set at the beginning of the year. This level of scrutiny isn't about beating yourself up, which can often be seen as the why you review, but it's not about beating yourself up, it's about understanding which strategies delivered the results this year and which ones drained your energy. And reflection also has a mindset benefit too. Taking time to pause and review lets your brain make sense of the experiences that have happened. It allows you to separate facts from feelings and then avoid those knee-jerk reactions that we can all make. When you reflect deliberately, you're less likely to rush into or out of opportunities. You give yourself space to respond rather than just react. So you start your review by looking at your data, get together your revenue, profit figures, conversion rates, average case size, marketing spend, and return on that investment too. And then look at what channels produced the highest return on your investment, which partnerships or lead sources were most effective. But don't stop at like just a spreadsheet. Then ask yourself what each number represents. Combine numbers with client feedback. So where did that lead come from? Why did that client reach out to you? The more you'll understand about why a campaign resonated or a service that fell flat. You also need to review any personal or professional development goals you set yourself for as well. Did you complete a new qualification or did you introduce new products into your business or into your proposition? Did you plan business development and want to focus on that? Reflect on the time you've invested in your own growth and whether it paid dividends. And if you work with a team or outsource tasks too, schedule review sessions with those people as well. Gather feedback on accomplishments and challenges, identify training needs or leadership opportunities for the coming year. Reflection isn't just about looking for weaknesses, it's equally about recognizing what one will and building from that. Celebrate successes to build momentum and build morale. What achievements made you proud this year? Did you hit a revenue target or help a record number of certain types of clients or receive a number of reviews that you set yourself as a goal? Acknowledge these wins, share them with your team if you've got one, or with your family, or with your peers. It doesn't really matter, but share those successes. And if you employ or collaborate with others, express appreciation, like gifts, or just simply a heartfelt thank you go such a long way. Gratitude creates loyalty and a positive energy that will that will carry into 2026. And alongside celebrating the wins, be honest about what didn't work. What were there marketing strategies that just completely flopped or partnerships that didn't deliver this year? Did you miss a target because you didn't allocate enough time to it or resources to it? Document these missteps without judging yourself, which is so important. Ask yourself what underlying assumptions led to these results? What could you do differently? This approach turns mistakes into data. Remember to release regrets. We're all learners and mistakes are inevitable, especially when we're brokers, business owners, we're gonna have regrets. What matters is using them to make better decisions next time. And year end can be hectic. Taking care of your mental health as just as important as analysing your business. Set manageable goals each day and divide big projects into smaller tasks. Take breaks, ask for help when needed, and give yourself small rewards to stay motivated. They do really work. During your reflection process, pause regularly to breathe, go for a walk, just get some time away from your desk. These sort of micro breaks reduce stress and improve focus. And remember to communicate with colleagues and loved ones when you're feeling overwhelmed. Seeking support is a sign of strength. And finally, give yourself some grace. Nobody's perfect. Reflection is about growth, not self-criticism. And then as you review the year, look for patterns. Are you consistently underestimating how long certain tasks takes, or did you say yes to every single opportunity and then feel overwhelmed? Are you spending too much time on administrative work and admin tasks and too little time on strategic planning for your business? Recognizing patterns help you make specific changes. And if you keep missing personal deadlines, consider like time blocking or outsourcing. And if you notice yourself procrastinating all the time on tasks you dislike, schedule them earlier in the day, schedule early in the week. Use your reflection to create micro goals for 2026. When setting these goals, follow the SMART framework that I've always talked about. Writing down your goals and assigning deadlines, make them real and trackable. So to make the most of this episode, try to try the following tasks. The first one is conduct a year-end review, get your data together, PLs, KPIs, marketing analytics, and client feedback. Write down what's worked well and why. Identify at least three successes and then three areas for improvement too. And then celebrate and appreciate. List your proudest achievements of 2025. Share them with your team or your family. If you've got collaborators or contractors that you work with, thank them personally for their contributions to your business in 2025. And then one thing that I've found does really work and does really help was journal about a mistake too. Choose one mistake or disappointment. Write down the facts of what happened, how you felt at the time, and what you learned. Then write a short plan of how you would handle a similar situation differently in the future. And then express gratitude. Each day this week, just write down three things you're grateful for in your business or in your life. Gratitude shifts your focus from scarcity to abundance. And also schedule a review session. If you've got a team or a mentor that you have as well, set up a meeting to review the year together. Use the conversation to gather feedback and generate ideas for improvement in 2026. Reflection isn't an end itself, it's the bridge to planning for 2026 and with a bridge to planning for next year. So in the next episode, we'll get into building habits, time blocking for a high performance and a successful 2026. We'll explore how to carve out time for things that matter and turn your insights from this reflection into daily practices. But for now, just take the time to look back and learn. This mini-series is designed to help you finish the 2025 strong and start 2026 even stronger. So thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. As always, this was the second episode in the series of Setting Yourself Up for 2026. We've covered why reflection is essential, how to analyze your year, celebrate your wins, learn from your mistakes, and cultivate gratitude and identify patterns for improvement. I encourage you to do the exercise that I talked about and give yourself credit for the progress that you've made this year. And then, like I said, next week when we're going to be focusing on habits and time blocking. But then until then, just take care of yourself. Have an amazing week. Trust your journey and remember, as always, to run your own race.