Don't translate 'Brexit unknowables' into your business

"Instead you can set up your business to ensure it prevails whatever the wider implications and impacts."

Certainly, there are big over-arching ‘narratives’ that have tended to dominate all our landscapes. The fact that March ended with the invoking of Article 50 for the UK to leave the EU, and we now embark on (at least) two years of negotiations to extricate ourselves from it, is clearly a big deal and will no doubt determine a lot of what happens next from a UK economy point of view.

However this big picture ‘stuff’ doesn’t really tell the whole story, particularly – especially – for mortgage advisers whose business seems far more affected by national rather than international factors. It’s a truism that the UK housing and mortgage markets are particularly unique, and while EU-generated regulation has undoubtedly had a major impact on the processes advisers have to use when delivering advice, I’m not so sure that European influences are particularly large in terms of activity and business levels.

That being the case a somewhat more ‘isolationist’ UK seems to fit in with our mortgage advice market, although we might expect less foreign banks and lenders to be pitching up looking for UK mortgage business in the future. Indeed, we might see those already here decide that a UK outside the EU doesn’t fit their lending appetites in the future. Again, it’s a question of wait and see.

In all of this though we still have something of a closeted mortgage advice market in the UK – for instance, can you name more than a handful of firms that operate overseas in any notable way. I doubt it. That’s because passporting into other countries with your advice proposition sounds achievable but, when push comes to shove, I doubt most advice entrepreneurs want to take the risk.

Which is why we tend to stick to our knitting and to offer a one-nation, dare I say it, one-region advice proposition. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, as long as you are making the most of your competitive advantage in your locale and you’re ensuring that you cover off as many of the client’s needs as possible. It’s an old argument, but one that is still as relevant today as it ever was – and it will be just as relevant after the UK has left the EU as it is right now.

The great unknowables of what the UK’s general economy might be like post-Brexit do not have to be translated into your own business. Far from it. Instead you can set up your business to ensure it prevails whatever the wider implications and impacts. There is a greater degree of uncertainty about the UK mortgage market at present, however there are also a number of positives to latch onto, not least the greater demand for advice and a consumer community far more willing to seek it out and to be open to the advice presented to them. That’s not just the case for the mortgage; it’s just as true for protection or general insurance or conveyancing or retirement provision, the list goes on. If you’re looking for mortgage advice, why wouldn’t you have a conversation about your other personal finance/legal needs.

So for those who have had a strong start to the year, the motivation is to do even better in the next three/six/nine months. It’s the opportunity to look at other opportunities, to ensure you’re making the most of every single client that comes through your door, or picks up the phone, or writes an email to you. To make sure they are provided for through across a vast range of products and needs, not just the mortgage. This will be the case whatever the political situation in the country is now, pre-EU and when those negotiations are finally over.