Top broker Jeremy Fisher shares the tips he’s learnt that allow him to run a successful brokerage, spend time with his young family – and still find time for a break.
Jeremy Fisher returned to work yesterday from a two-week holiday – and says it’s the first time in 12 years he’s felt “normal”.
The director and founder of 1st Street Home Loans says he usually manages to take a vacation once per year, but this is the first time he’s come back to work feeling truly rested.
Recently inspired by another top broker to tip his “non-existent” work-life balance a little further towards the 'life' side of the scale, for the first time ever Fisher took the “brave act” of diverting all of his calls and emails to his office assistant while on holiday.
“It just makes you feel normal for a moment, that’s all. Being a small business owner it’s really difficult to let go; I’ve never let go before. When you’re an owner and you’re doing everything yourself, it’s so hard to get away.”
A new study by software company Pertino found the prevalence of mobile devices is causing workers to feel anxious if they are disconnected from the office, and as such more than half of workers are working while on holiday.
This anxiety is intensified in the broking industry, says Fisher, both because of the large number of small and sole-broker businesses, and because of the deadlines involved with broking.
“In what we do, everything needs to be done on a timely basis. It’s not a matter of saying to someone ‘I’ll get back to you in two weeks’, because if they’ve got a settlement happening in four weeks, they can’t wait. That’s the difference between this industry and others that don’t have an actual deadline. Even though they may not want to wait, they can.”
During his holiday, Fisher set up a system whereby his office assistant replied to any queries that she could, distributed other tasks between 1st Street’s other eight brokers and forwarded only urgent messages to Fisher.
“I felt better coming back to work this time, knowing that anything that had to be done was done in my absence. Normally it would be a dreadful return to come back and know you’ve got to do all this stuff, because you didn’t want to give anyone in the office any extra duties so you’ve done it all yourself or you’ve delayed it.”
Fisher says he couldn’t be happier that he took the chance to “switch-off” from the office, and would encourage any other broker to do the same.
“You have to do it and you have to realise that business goes on without you. Maybe one or two clients don’t want to wait for you and don’t want to deal with anyone else, and there’s nothing you can do about that, but the majority of my clients, if they needed something done while I was away, the other brokers managed it and everyone was happy.”
In the case of “one-man-shows”, says Fisher, getting away can be harder, but not impossible.
“I’ve got a friend who’s a one-man-show and once a year when he goes away he likes to direct his phone to me. I don’t have to submit loans for him, but I just assist with taking calls and redirecting whatever is needed, and he’s on email. One-man-shows are going to find it more difficult, no question, but in fact as long as you know someone else in the industry that is capable you can just set up those relationships.”
After his most recent trip, Fisher now feels he could double his usual amount of annual leave to four weeks without a huge impact on the business.
He’s also begun extending his new philosophy of work-life balance into his day-to-day broking.
With his loan volumes in excess of $125m last year, Fisher was often leaving home at 7am and not returning until 10pm every weekday, which seriously impacted the time he could spend with his three young children.
He now blocks out three nights a fortnight in his diary, to ensure he leaves the office at 5pm on these days to see his wife and kids.
“As much as I was a disbeliever of it, it really is just a matter of making it work for yourself, and clients will fit around you if they want to see you.
“I have to block it out in my calendar so that if a client rang I could say ‘Look, I can’t do it on Monday night’. They don’t need to know that you’re going home, just that you can’t do it.”
Fisher says work-life balance was always something he knew he needed to improve on, but until recently didn’t feel there was anything he could do without impacting negatively on his business.
“I know a lot of other brokers and I would have to think that my work-life balance was probably one of the worst cases of anyone I know in terms of the hours I was working, the sacrifices I was making in terms of never being home, and I thought there was no alternative.
“It’s been a real learning curve, but I’ve discovered that solutions are always there, it’s just a matter of wanting to make the changes.”
Jeremy Fisher's top tips for a balanced broker:
- Have an 'asssistant'. Whether or not you have an actual assistant in your office, find someone that you trust to filter your messages while on holiday, so that only truly urgent ones are left for you when you get back.
- Trust the experience in your office. Have a level of comraderie amongst your staff and have confidence that your employees can treat your clients with the same care you can.
- Block out time in your diary not to work. And stick to it. Treat it with the same importance you would a meeting with a client.
- Try and schedule meetings during the day. Do this as often as possible so that one or two nights a week, you can go home on time.
Pertino survey results:
- 59% of the workforce work while on vacation. 36% at least once per day.
- 64% of men saying they work on vacation compared to 57% of women.
- 36% work while on the beach, and 31% in bathroom stalls. Other strange places to take work include cruise ships, the Sahara, sci-fi conventions and zoos.
- 52% use personal computers, 51% use smartphones and 30% use tablets.
- 35% take their work computers and all important business files on vacation.
