Work smarter, not harder during this busy period

The Bank of England says that net mortgage borrowing hit £11.8bn in March – the highest level on record and, if current enquiry levels are anything to go by, that record will be broken again before the year is out.

Realistically, however, this booming market is not going to last for ever. Markets don’t break records month after month indefinitely and at some point, it will go off the boil. We all hope that it fizzles down to a healthy sustainable level, rather than crashing out from its current peak but whatever the outcome of this particular the boom, we all want to make the most of the plentiful opportunities that are currently available.

So, what’s the best way of doing that? You could work longer hours, wave goodbye to weekends and get your head down working on every lead that passes your desk. But there are only so many hours in a day and for every case you try to pack into an already packed schedule, the service you are able to provide to your existing clients inevitably suffers a little. These clients will remain with you whatever stage of the cycle, so it’s important you give them the service they deserve.

An alternative to working harder is to work smarter. If you have more cases than you know what to do with, concentrate on what you do best and focus on those. On cases where you are slightly less comfortable – such as an application for someone with adverse credit for example, or a second charge mortgage, or a bridging enquiry – think about referring the case to an expert in that sector for a percentage of the fee. This will free up your time to work on the cases you are able to process more effectively and efficiently and will earn you an income even though someone else is providing the advice and placing the case.

If you choose to partner with a respected specialist distributor for referrals on cases outside of your core expertise, you can rest assured that your clients will

be receiving the best advice from sector experts and that they will remain your clients in the future. When you refer a case, it’s the case you refer, not the client. This means a specialist distributor won’t approach the client directly in the future.

So, if you want to make the most of the current boom, don’t think about working harder, think about working smarter.