The Progress in Practice Podcast: Episode 5 Ross Jones

Welcome to Progress in Practice, where we explore what it really takes to build and sustain a professional service business. The hard lessons, the smart moves, the uncomfortable truths, because success leaves clues if you're willing to look for them.

I'm Charlie Reading.

Let's dive in. So Ross, welcome to the Progress in Practice podcast. I am really looking forward to chatting to you today and to kick things off so that people can sort of know what you do, who you do it for, who you help. I always like to start with the question of who do you serve, how do you help them, and what makes you different?

Yeah, hi Charlie. Thanks for having me on. Really looking forward to it. So no, yeah, so I suppose who are we and who do we serve? I suppose so, okay, so my name's Ross Jones, as you know. So I run Home Financial and Evolve Commercial Finance. So fundamentally we're mortgage brokers and we serve a range of different clients. I suppose the underpinning thing is we wouldn't necessarily say no to somebody if they weren't our ideal client, obviously. But what I would say is that where we sort of add our value is helping clients where their income, and you know, if you want to put a picture around it, is where somebody's income isn't permanent, and that spans a range of different scenarios. So it could be from, you know, like a limited company director through to contractors. And, and, you know, recently we've, we've developed a real good value to be supporting sports and professionals because naturally, unless you play for certain Premier League clubs where your contracts are particularly long, your income is generally on a fixed-term contract. You know, it could be a 12-month contract, could be a 24-month contract in football or rugby. But if you're, you know, a cyclist or someone like that, or, you know, what we would call minority sports, you probably don't have any stability around your income. So we've sort of really tried to add value in that space, really. And we've had some great, you know, some good success, which then organically grows the business, doesn't it? You know, from once you've got your success stories and your referral opportunities and you, I just feel that's where we added our value. So turning those into yeses really.

Brilliant. And so basically helping people that, you know, it would be difficult for them to go on a, like a, like online and find that lending. So specializing in that area, which I love. I talk a lot about niching down and it sounds like you found your niche, which is brilliant. So what's the story that best explains why you do what you do?

Oh, I mean, how far back do you want to go? I suppose really my, my business was born out of adversity, which I don't think is uncommon, is it? I think there's usually something happens and it makes you think differently, potentially. But my business was born out of adversity. I mean, I was in a very— so before I was a mortgage broker, I was in the military. So I was in the Navy for for just under 10 years. And I came out of the military and I was like, right, what do I want to do? And then somebody gave me an opportunity as a trainee, but it was a very corporate, very corporate environment. So, you know, very, you know, this is what you do, this is how you do it. And I needed that in my working life at that stage of my development. And then I got promoted to be a regional manager, so managing mortgage advisors. Very naively, I thought that gave me the skill sets to run a business because I could manage people. I managed people and I managed relationships with lenders and things like that. So, but my wife got cancer in her eye, and I actually have a little tinge of guilt around this now when I actually recall this story. And the reason being is that I threw myself into a little bit of self-preservation in the fact that, okay, what— when you say the C word, right, you think the worst, don't you? And I just threw myself into a bit of self-preservation around, right, what if this escalates? I need, and I want to put myself in a position where I can still do what I need to do to earn a living but on my own terms. And if I take myself back to that time and that thought process, I can't believe how naive I was because running a business is not— it can be if you, if you do it on purpose, right? But I, but I don't think it is that when you first started out. You've got to be all in. You're, you're almost a bit of a slave to the business, and it's— you've got to build that system, those systems and those people around you that can actually make it a little bit more autonomous. So I suppose going back to like the why I do it, it was because I, I almost got that shot across my bow, which made me think, hang on a minute, I want to, I want to create something. I want to to do it on my own terms and have that autonomy. And we've learned as we've gone from there. And yeah, you're always learning, aren't you, to try and influence things.

I think it's really interesting. You make a very, like, an incredibly valid point that I actually found myself saying at a workshop I was delivering last week, which is people get taught to do what they do inside the business. So being a mortgage broker, you'll have done mortgage exams to learn how to be a mortgage broker and how to do that. That stuff. Very, very few people go out and learn how to run a business. And actually, you have, so you have two roles. You have the founder and you have the mortgage advisor role. Which is more important when you run your own business? Well, it's actually the founder role that's more important than what you do inside the business. Because if you can't run the business well, there's no business to be the mortgage advisor, is there? So I think it's a really valuable point. And but I also like, I love the fact that you got into this to live life by your design, even if it was a negative that drove you to make that decision. Actually, that's the right sort of reason to do it because, you know, it's, it's a huge privilege to be an entrepreneur, isn't it? Because you can, if you want to play golf on a Friday, you play golf on a Friday. You just make it work, don't you?

Yeah, I think, I think you got— I think there's balance there though, isn't there? Like, so yeah, you're absolutely right, is a privilege. And, and sometimes pressure, it's a bit of a cheesy saying, but I like it in the fact that pressure is a privilege.

And Alistair Brownlee's words, I seem to remember.

Yeah, I think, I think it's— I absolutely is. I completely agree. But I would say, especially in the early days, you've got, you've got to earn, you've got to earn that, right? Because I do think there is a little bit of naivety around it. I certainly had it. So it's not like I know everything at all. And I certainly had that naivety of thinking, It's almost like this whole, like, where you get pictures of a laptop by a pool and you're like, I can work from anywhere. Well, I'm like, hang on a minute, I don't want my laptop by the pool. So what, so what's that, you know? So I do think there's balance to it, but I absolutely, I understand what you're saying in terms of, you know, run it with purpose and, and try and create something that can, can sort of serve you. And actually, you know what, there, there's mortgage brokerages and I'm sure other businesses where, you know what, I don't I don't necessarily want to grow beyond me. I actually, I just want to like do my own, that job on my own terms. I want to be a one-man, one-person outfit, and that suits me down to the ground. That's, that's cool. When I get, get behind that, and sometimes that's what ends up happening anyway. But yeah, design, designing the life that I was sort of wanting to lead is a negative did lead to, to the positive, if that makes sense. Yeah.

And so if you could go back to yourself as you're starting this business, but with all of that sort of naivety and, and kind of, but, but like completely fresh coming into this, running your own business, what, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to your younger self?

It's probably a few things, to be honest. I, I'd probably say the first thing that comes to my mind is patience and work with who you, and just like I said, work with who you want to work with. So just think about sort of like, who do you want to work with? And just believe in the fact that that will, that will organically grow. Because I think sometimes we can be guilty, and we've probably, you know, probably spent money in places we should never have spent it. But as soon as I say that and I say be patient, I think you've just got to be prepared to just go make the mistakes. Like, be prepared to make the mistakes. There's a difference between learning from them and going I'm not, I'm not going to do that again, but if I did do that again, I'd do it slightly differently. Just constantly learn. Just go, just go and be brave because you've got to have some bravery. Go and be, go and be brave. Make the mistakes, build the, build the experience bank, but do it as quickly as you can because the quicker you make these mistakes, and we all make them, the, the, the better, the quicker you'll be better. It would probably be the main thing I'd say. And obviously we've made mistakes and we will continue to make them. I suppose you just— we don't want to make them, do we? We've just got to be brave to sort of get that punch in the nose. It's a bit like when we're at school, isn't it, when we're kids? You know, you've got to go through those uncomfortable things that, like, you look back, you cringe on them now. You're like, why did I say that? Or why, why did I ask that girl out? You know, but we, we, we do it, and you've got to. And it's just one of those things, just go and be— go, go be brave and make the mistakes, but just try not to make them as again and again and again. I suppose that's the key.

It's learning from them, isn't it? But also, you're completely right in that, you know, people think that failure is the opposite of success, but actually failure is the stepping, one of the stepping stones towards it, isn't it? So if you can get out there and fail as many times as quickly as possible, you get lots of learning experiences, which is what takes you on the pathway to working out what actually works. So I think that's really good. And if we, If we sort of expand this thought about the wisdom that you've accumulated, but think about it from a much wider point of view. If you could, I don't know whether you've got children, but if you could leave your generation, next generation, no money, but just one piece of advice, what would it be?

You know what? It'd probably be quite closely linked to that last point, I would say. But there is a quote that I do like, and I can't remember who it's from now. You might know, but it's, don't leave crumbs. So it might even be Matthew McConaughey, or it might be—

could be right.

Um, but don't leave crumbs. And that sort of stuck with me in the fact that some— well, we will always have situations where we need to like make difficult decisions, and that doesn't always— people aren't always happy about those decisions that you're making, right? So whether that's like you need to let someone go, or you got to break some bad news, like nobody wants to do those things. And I picked, I did pick this up a lot from the Navy, from the military, you know, in the Navy, and even more so in businesses. Things that you've just got to do. But be able to stand next to someone in the supermarket queue and it not be awkward, I think there's a lot to be said for that, you know. So for example, in 10 years' time, you're, you're sat next to somebody on a train or, or something, and you've gone through a difficult experience with them. To be able to look them in the eye and be like, you know, how are you? And not, not, not to have to avoid them and they'd be awkward. Or, I mean, obviously we're never going to be able to do that 100% of the time, but have that intention to be like, you know what, I didn't leave any crumbs with that situation. I, I think there's a lot to be said for that, and have it, having that in your, as part of your character. And, and like I say, it was probably, you know, there'd be situations in, in everybody's life and career that unfortunately there might be, there might be crumbs, but If we can have the intention of actually, I tried to do the best in that situation, then we'll be all right.

I think that's brilliant advice. And I think, you know, what you tend to find is that, like, for example, financial services, it ends up being a small sector, isn't it? Doesn't it?

Yeah.

And, you know, you trample on somebody one day and guess what? They end up coming, it comes back to bite you later on, doesn't it? So I think that's brilliant advice. And so I suppose the next question I want to ask you is, what's the biggest obstacle that's blocking your success at the moment? Is— what's the one thing that if you could crack this thing, all goals would be hit forevermore?

I laugh, right? Because it's me. 100% is me. Like, it is completely me. I'm, I'm absolutely the bottleneck. And I'm— I ask anyone that knows me, like, I set, I'm wrestling with this all the time. And it's just one of those things where I, I ask, I have to get out my own way. Like, in terms of, I'll hold on to a task because I naively think that I'm the best one, I'm the person that's best suited to do this task, right? And this task could be a very admin, and I, I know the person sat over the desk of me who I employ to do this task is more than capable of doing it, but I just end up doing it because I feel like I just need to do it and I can trust myself to do it. But if I was better at empowering, trusting, upskilling, and being able to go, right, I just need you to do that and take ownership of it and let me know when it's done. And if you've got any problems, let me know. If I was able to do that just a bit better and get 10, 15 hours of my time back, we'd be able to uplift the productivity of everything. And that, you know, that's just me being really honest. Like, I'm, I just, I've got work to do on myself with that. And by that, I guarantee I'm not the only person that it, you know, that can be levelled at, like, especially in our industry, financial services, mortgage brokers. Like, we have this thing, this ego of like, well, I'm the best person suited to do that because nobody does the job as well as me. But obviously they do.

I think that's incredibly honest and I think it's incredibly accurate. And in fact, I think the biggest bottleneck in most businesses is the business owner.

Yeah.

And not, not just like some businesses like you allude to, or like most businesses, the bottleneck is the business owner themself. And I think I actually did a piece which I'll send you. Actually, I did a piece, a seminar called How to Build a Saleable and Scalable Business. Um, and that's one of the most important things to overcome because when the business owner is the bottleneck, you— it usually means you don't have a saleable business or a particularly scalable business.

So I'll show—

I'll, I'll send it to you afterwards and I'll I'll put it in the show notes for anyone else that's listening that wants to pick up on that. So I think that's really astute because actually there's a lot of businesses and business owners that that's the case with, but they don't recognize that that's the case. So I think identifying it is really important. Now, I'm a big one for, I love reading books, watching documentaries, learning kind of from different things as on different sources as to how we can do things better. So what book or framework or other resource like podcast have you found yourself returning to and that's helped you on your journey and how is it visible in your business today?

There's one that jumps to my mind straight away, but I'm gonna mention two if that's all right.

Yeah, please do.

So the first one's Legacy and that's by James Kerr. It's about the All Blacks and their philosophies and stuff. And although, you know, naturally we're not a, not a rugby team, right? But we're very values-led as a business. I have values that have always been part of our DNA, but I haven't decided what they are. Our team and the people within the business have come up with those values. They're not designed by me. I mean, I agree with them, but we collectively came up with them. It wasn't where I've gone, right, these are our values, guys. This is what you want you to behave by. Is sort of owned by the, owned by the team. I think there's a key difference. I think that's important. I completely agree.

I think it's absolutely brilliant when you do that. So yeah, congratulations. That's awesome.

And then when you're making decisions there that are difficult, you know, when you were talking about not leaving crumbs, if you make those decisions that are led by the values, you don't leave crumbs. So there's a link. So I think Legacy is a great book if you've not, if, you know, people that listen haven't read it or listened to it these days. Go for it because it's a good use of time. And there's one value in there that, if I'm allowed to swear, the no dickhead rule.

I was thinking, I knew that was coming as soon as you mentioned the swearing. That and Sweep the Sheds are the two values that stand out to me for just, yeah, brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Yeah, I agree. Really good book.

And then there's one that slots in there as well, which sort of dovetails with it. It's by Daniel Priestley, 24 Assets. Yes, but I think the most common one that people generally read are either is Oversubscribed or a Key Person of Influence, which are both great books, by the way. But the 24 Assets one made me reframe how we market and how we— and how I've sort of designed the business in the fact that if you focus on leads and inquiries coming into the business, it's quite a shallow way of marketing. Whereas actually, if you think about creating assets within your business, you won't need to worry about leads. So for example, we, we sponsor Warrington Wolves. So Warrington Wolves are our local rugby league team there in the Super League. You'll see there as a Warrington Wolves. So Warrington Wolves, and we sponsor them. All of a sudden, that's— yes, you could say what's a lead generating activity, but it's not. It's an asset. It's an asset that then we utilize to, to become part of our fabric and, and something we can then leverage moving forward. Which then hopefully will organically develop leads. But then even things like, okay, well, how we do things and our values, they're an asset. But that, that might attract good people to our business because they want to be part of it. That's an asset. And then that creates leads and relationships, and it just develops out. And the more you get into that as a way of thinking, I think it's quite powerful. I think it's just a slightly different way of looking at things. So I, I, you know, I highly recommend that book as well.

I completely agree. I think they're two brilliant recommendations. And for those people that are listening, if you haven't listened to those books or read them, I definitely think that they're worthwhile. And I think that you're right, they both reframe your thinking on those topics. And I think they're, yeah, brilliant, brilliant recommendations. Thank you. So where's the best place for people to find out more about you, find out more about Home Financial? Where can people find you?

Yeah, so generally I say just connect with me on LinkedIn, probably a great place to start. I think LinkedIn's, you know, a good place for that. And by all means, drop me a connection request. And like I say, the business is, you know, generally speaking, it's just online, www.homefinancialnw.co.uk. But yeah, no, happy to connect with people, happy to accept messages, and, you know, always open to coffees and conversations.

Fantastic, Ross. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. I think there's loads of great wisdom in there, great recommendations, great lessons. We'll put the links in the show notes. So a huge thank you for, for being a part of this. And for, for all the listeners out there, as a reminder, this podcast is brought to you by the trusted team that helps business owners build a saleable and scalable business. So, uh, thank you, Ross, and I wish you every success success in the future.

Thanks, Charlie. It's been a great— come on, thank you.

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