Hard-work and perseverance can get you a long way in life. I was certainly reminded of this while watching the World Snooker Championship and saw, what some might describe as a 38-year old ‘journeyman’, Stuart Bingham, picking up the trophy for the very first time. He had spent the best part of 20 years attempting to do just that and there was clearly an incredible amount of warmth for Bingham who, somewhat bizarrely, was the oldest man since 1978 to claim the World crown.
Looking at the scenes of Bingham celebrating his title one couldn’t help think about the years and years of hard-work and practice which had finally paid off. Setting oneself a goal to achieve is one thing however continuing to work towards it day after day, month after month following yearly disappointment is another thing entirely. Hats off to Bingham and all those with the tenacity and will-power to keep going when the balls don’t fall right for you every single time.
In essence, this is life in a nutshell – whether it be personal and/or business. We are all trying to achieve certain goals and ambitions and the reality of life is that they are not always easy to attain. It can often seem like your banging your head against a brick wall however the old adage, ‘Nothing in life worth having comes easy’, is true and the satisfaction of achievement comes with the blood, sweat and tears that is often required to make it across the winning line.
Of course, achieving certain goals is often just followed by a shifting of those goalposts in order to carry on progressing. We certainly feel like that in our business in terms of our work with advisers and intermediaries – the further we get down the path of spreading the ‘conveyancing advice is worth giving’ message, the more we want to keep pushing on.
Certainly, over the last two years or so we have seen an incredible amount of interest in business diversification across the board from advisers – not just conveyancing but also protection, insurance, legal services, etc. The point is that when you are evangelical about a topic and you begin to see people buy in, and prosper, from taking a course of action your main aim becomes getting that message out to more and more people in order to develop their business activity in this area.
We were recently exhibiting up in Leeds at the MBE show – and will be at FSE in Manchester this month – and it was noticeable that, while large numbers of advisers are now offering conveyancing advice and many are using a portal such as ours, not all are. Indeed, some advisers have not even looked at the opportunities such a course of action could provide. However, there was certainly a willingness to listen and learn, and an immediate interest in how this can bolster their overall service proposition, help the client, and hopefully develop them a growing income stream.
However much we feel our message is getting through – and it clearly is judging by adviser registrations and activity on our portal – there is always much more than can be done and therefore the ‘finishing line’ moves on each and every month. We have been both persistent and dedicated to informing brokers about the conveyancing option for many years, and we appear to be seeing real momentum and uptake in this market, but this isn’t enough. There is always more than can be done and new goals and ambitions to be reached.
For us, this business is all about winning multiple ‘World Championships’ – it’s about pushing the message home, hopefully securing greater buy-in and understanding, and upping our game and proposition to move onto the next level. I suspect this is the drive behind the vast majority of intermediary businesses active in the UK today. This is great news for our sector and ultimately the service we can offer – competition is always with us and therefore the need to grow and improve is also there too. Let’s not forget that as soon as we mark one achievement there are always others to be completed.
Harpal Singh is managing director of BrokerConveyancing.co.uk
