Meet Andrew Dillon

I grew up in Gourock and have lived in Inverclyde all my life. I worked in retail for many years and within the pharmaceutical industry. Since 2006 I have been working in the financial services industry and in 2017 became a self-employed mortgage & protection broker. Along with my wife and business partner we formed Dillon Mortgages Ltd in September 2020. We worked initially with Mortgage Advice Bureau and following that with Secure Financial Management but decided to become a fully directly authorised firm with the FCA in September 2021 and formed Contemporary Financial Solutions Ltd in anticipation of this. We were given our authorisation in September 2022 and at that time also added a third mortgage & Protection broker to Dillon Mortgages – our daughter Katie Dillon.

I started my career client facing but then spent most of my career business to business and was looking for a change to get back to dealing with clients and the mortgage market appealed to me – using all my skills and experience helping people achieve their  first home and managing their re-mortgage requirements. When I began to increase my client numbers I discovered there was a great need for advice and assistance for clients with mortgages later in life including retirement mortgages and lifetime mortgages. I then added to my qualifications and became an Equity release adviser and added a qualification to advise on Will writing, trusts and Power of Attorney.

The main challenges in my professional life were the feeling of not being in control of my career and travelling all over the UK meant I sometimes missed important family events. Becoming self-employed allowed me to take much more control of my time and is helping build a better future for the family.

A typical day would be nice! We find that every day is different as we are always dealing with new clients some of whom have challenging circumstances which we need to resolve for them in a constantly changing mortgage market – the Key to this is constant continuing professional development to keep ourselves educated on the current regulations in the market to allow us to match our clients with he most cost effective mortgage and protection solution.

Our interaction with our clients is probably the biggest and most important financial decision they will ever make so we constantly review our procedures to make sure we are always delivering the absolute best client experience we can. It is likely to be stressful for the client but we try our very best to minimise the stress levels and keep the client fully informed about the progress of their application and a great part of our service is to manage the house buying process as much as we can and keep everything ‘on track’. We are regularly liaising not only with the mortgage lender but also the Estate Agent, the solicitor, the surveyor and the insurance provider(s) to make sure there are no last-minute hitches – we can even assist with utilities (energy, broadband etc.)

Setting up and growing a local mortgage business with a high street presence and building a reputation as trustworthy advisers and having our services recommended to friends and family of happy clients. There are no short cuts to this, you have to do the job right every time to the best of your ability and never let the standards drop to achieve the correct reputation and the repeat business and referrals are a testament to that philosophy.

There is no better feeling than making that call to a client to advise the mortgage has been approved and they can now complete the purchase of their dream home.

The key focus for us is to grow the Network we started (Contemporary Financial Solutions) We are in the very fortunate position to be able to offer network services to self-employed mortgage brokers who have their own business strategies and we are able to shape the proposition to them based on what (ideally) we would want from a Network. The Brokers who have joined us so far have been happy with how we deliver the services to them and we all have a similar philosophy when it comes to looking after our clients so there is synergy between all the businesses although our client bases are different and we are not in the same geographical location. The ambition is to add to the number of brokers we look after but we are very keen to stick to our recruitment process in only taking on brokers who have similar attitudes to delivering excellence as a minimum when dealing with their clients. We are happy to talk to broker firms of any size and whether that is part-time or full time, working around childcare or complex family situations, working from home or from an office with multiple employees we feel confident we can deliver the service you need from a Network while allowing you to grow your business in your own way. We have a suite of offerings to suit all types of business where we not only offer the compliance support but (if required) assistance with marketing, business growth, and long-term business planning. On the other hand, some of our brokers are happy to take only the service option allowing them to pursue their own goals for developing their business. All these plans are flexible and are interchangeable depending on their own business strategy.

My philosophy has not changed since my very first job at 18 years old in a retail environment. Deliver the very best service you can, keep your promises, ensure any advice or recommendations are the correct solution for the client – not revenue, and follow up to make sure all is working well and if not, fix issues as soon as possible. Ask for repeat business and referral business.

Helping both my daughters achieve home ownership at a young age to give them the independence they needed but they would have been unaware this was a realistic achievement until advised by me.

CPD is vitally important and we use subscriptions to relevant industry publications, regular contact with lenders and insurance providers, seminars and larger CPD events are attended (sometimes face-to face sometimes online) and general understanding of mortgage markets via all online sources keep us up to date and ready to provide the correct advice at the correct time for the client.

Look after your clients – they will look after your future business.

Before COVID-19 clients (and brokers) usually fell into 2 categories (face-to-face or telephone) and mostly stuck to ‘their lanes’ During COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions a large amount of advice was either telephone based or some form of screen-sharing Zoom/teams etc. Being completely flexible in our approach has allowed us to access all markets. We can offer advice by telephone, screen sharing, office based or in the client’s home (or place of business) and also offer out of hours appointments as standard including bank holidays and weekends.

There is always a drive towards more technology (if it actually helps rather than hinders the process) such as client portals, apps etc. to make the client journey smoother when providing documents and/or ID etc. and these are tools we routinely use, however, our experience is that our client base (especially the younger clients) are still demanding face-to-face individual advice rather than any form of robo-advice or web based AI advice. While some of the potential clients will be actively seeking this type of approach there are simply too many variables to completely dismiss the value of tailored advice to suit all the client’s needs and the Consumer Duty Rules in place from July 2023 are very much focused on providing a positive outcome for all clients and minimising risk. This is much more easily achieved via human interaction.

This is perhaps the most difficult part of the job particularly as we offer out of hours advice and also regularly attend to admin out of standard office hours. It is difficult to leave that ‘at the office’ as we are mobile with a laptop and a phone all the tools we need so can work from home (or a holiday home) as needed. We try to make sure there is always a trip planned to look forward to where we can relax and recharge the batteries for a while. As the business grows we are keen to ensure that we delegate where we can and share some of the responsibilities to allow us to actually be switched off when not in the business.