Less haste more speed

Peter Welch is head of sales and distribution at Bridgewater Equity Release

It will be no surprise to advisers who've worked with me that the number one priority on the adviser wish list is always, “More leads, please”.

Looking at this more strategically what advisers are saying is, “I'm not making enough money and I'd like to make more.” This is all well and good and the natural response if you're in business.

My observation though is that the emphasis tends to be on volume and not quality.  It seems that many advisers are happy to put up with writing higher volumes of lower quality business rather than address something that is more directly in their control i.e. the ability to work on improving the success rate of every application. 

Let us take a leaf out of the manufacturing industry's book.  Profitability can be improved by using more efficient processes not just by making and selling more ‘stuff’.  The concept of continual improvement, or kaisen as it is known in Japan, is embedded in all serious manufacturing businesses.  Basically these producers constantly ask themselves, ‘How can we continually learn from what we do to make constant changes (some maybe tiny) to improve the quality of our output?’

So, what has this got to do with equity release?  Well any adviser will tell you that the number of clients who make applications that do not proceed to completion is high relative to the rest of the mortgage market.  At Bridgewater we recognise this and continually analyse areas for improvement that will help increase the ratio of applications to completion, identify areas for improvement and make changes.

Recently the part of the process we have focused on is between offer and completion.  We know that customers who are prepared and guided through the legal process have a higher completion ratio.  And in order to help advisers and their clients we've produced a client checklist which the adviser can use to help speed up the process and avoid any surprises.

Now to help the client in this way may take more time or even an additional client meeting, but every additional case that completes could mean (depending on your business model) ten less leads to buy. 

I'd like to challenge advisers on the need for more leads.  In their haste to get them are they overlooking a means of making more from what they're already writing?  In this case a bit of extra work may lead to more productivity which equals higher profits.  And that, after all, is what we're all in business for.