At Skipton, both the field-based and office-based BDMs perform the same role with the same responsibilities of managing a patch, albeit the field team are out on the road and telephone team host their meetings with brokers remotely by video call or phone. Those in the field live and work in their respective patches, whereas those of us in the office, like myself, may cover a national account such as Countrywide Mortgage Services, or cover multiple geographic areas where there is no field based support.
The amazing thing about my role is that I get to visit so many parts of the UK every week without leaving Skipton’s Head Office in North Yorkshire. For example, in a typical day I could be in London, followed by Glasgow and then Exeter all before finishing for the day. My carbon footprint is minimised by the fact that I'm not travelling across the country. And, more time to spend helping my brokers!
Flexible working to suit the individual is very much part of Skipton’s ethos, and this carries over into how we all manage our respective accounts. Each BDM has the opportunity to shape their working style around what is best for driving business from their patch.
What a typical day for me looks like:
7.45am
I’ve always been an early bird and home working doesn’t agree with me so I’m in the office 5 days a week before 8am. If you speak with other BDMs, I’m sure they’ll admit that the first job of the day is to see how the business performed for the previous working day – I’m no different! My attention then quickly focuses to working through the emails that have come in overnight and preparing for the day’s broker meetings - this is my most productive “admin” time of the day when all is quiet both in our office and in the wider market!
9am
The phone is now starting to warm up with calls being returned and received, and a couple of other BDMs have joined me in the office. We will usually swap notes on what we are seeing in our respective parts of the market, or we discuss the latest quirky case that we love to see here at Skipton – there is always something new!
9.30am
It’s time for all the teams within Skipton’s Home Financing business to come together for the bi-weekly update on recent trading activities and where we learn what direction we might be heading in next. This is a vital touchpoint with different teams such as Products and Underwriting, to name a couple, where feedback from the market can be shared.
10am-1pm
Now that the day is in full flow, I will jump into a few meetings with brokers, both old and new to either introduce them to Skipton or share the updates to our policies. It is always intriguing to understand what the adviser’s business mix looks like and explore how Skipton can fit into that to grow our businesses together. It is fascinating to hear from brokers on how the housing market is performing in their area – this can vary significantly across the UK!
1pm
The most important part of the day has arrived - lunchtime! A quick 10-minute walk and a bite to eat before I’m back at it.
1.30pm onwards
This is probably the most varied part of my day, and sometimes the busiest too! Depending on the diary for the day, I may be in meetings with brokers for the remainder of the day, arranging catch-ups with brokers for the upcoming fortnight. Or it might be that I’m catching up on missed calls and emails to help my brokers to move forwards with their clients’ cases before the end of the day.
Something about the beauty of being desk based is having the availability to answer calls and e-mails to help get these cases through. (I may even find the time to write up the occasional article here too!)
The working day for me finishes at 4pm, or as close to leaving on time as I can make it, depending on how busy the day has been! Once I’ve left the office for the day, you’ll usually find me either on the tennis court, or at home working in the garden or out on the farm.