He spent three decades in various jobs before taking his title
Ian Hewett (pictured) worked in the retail, sales, and service industries for 30 years before becoming a mortgage broker at the age of 46. Today, he continues to build his personal brand – The Bearded Mortgage Broker – and plans to move into specialising in professional sports mortgages due to his prior involvement in events.
“My first job was as a meat cutter for a supermarket, moving on to roles in DIY, sports and leisure, health and beauty, men’s fashion, storage, pawnbroking, and finally charity,” Hewett related. “For most of this time, I was a manager or an area manager, with small and large teams to support.
“I also had to do a lot of travelling and this, coupled with some lovely retail hours, meant I was not home as much as I would like. At this point, my wife and I decided to have a baby, and we also decided to move home. So, what better way to minimise pressure and stress than to start training for a new career.”
Ian Hewett AKA ' The Bearded Mortgage Broker' collecting the award for best mortgage broker at the Proper Awards.
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Hewett’s wife then broke the fantastic news that they were going to become parents, so he left his job and took up an employed retail position nearer home.
“The original plan was to train in mortgage advice in my spare time,” he continued. “However, the company I had joined was so bad at that time, I had to leave for my own sanity. I then started training as an end point assessor in retail and customer services.
“While also training as a mortgage broker, trying the home learning style, I got my assessing qualification and started undertaking this role. I quickly realised that home learning was not for me as I needed people around me to flourish. I have always been part of a team, and just sitting and reading was not good for me.”
Hewett then found a company called FutureTrend based in Enfield, and signed up for their course in CeMAP, which helped him get through the exams. But when he was finally “fully CeMAPped”, he said he had no idea where to go to next.
“I had several interviews with lots of networks and estate agents, and I spotted very quickly that I would never be welcome in the estate agency field as my look and my background was not the right fit at all,” he said.
After getting this reality check, he realised that he could go self-employed, with his earnings from assessing supporting him while he tried to get going. He then went and spoke to his mortgage broker, who was an independent financial adviser (IFA) and a director of the company.
“While sitting with him and just chatting, I pulled out my CeMAP and asked if he knew where I could go with it, as he had over 20 years in this area,” Hewett recalled. “He then invited me to work with him. So I did, and once I got through the network checks, I started as a broker in November 2018.
“While I started and watched and learned, I did my CPD, and went through more training and coaching to get CAS.”
Hewett said that he did not push himself forward with marketing until he felt he was ready.
“I was networking in this new area and found lots of connections on LinkedIn. I was soon speaking to people that have really helped me out, like Michael O’Brien, Ash Borland, David Miles, Alex Curtis, Chris Targett, Gary Das, and Craig Skelton, to name a few,” he said.
“It was then that I realised that to stand out from the crowd, I needed a brand – something that made me a bit different. Being middle aged, white, overweight, bald, and wearing glasses is still not distinctive enough! Then I realised, it is staring me right in the face, that I have a beard! Why not the bearded mortgage broker?”
After deciding on the brand name, he did his research and started to develop his personal brand.
“I researched the name, the website was available, no-one else had it on LinkedIn,” Hewett said. “I found a couple of people that had done something similar, there was the tattooed broker and an estate agent called Ben, the one with a beard.”
“I then made some designs using the Canva skills that I picked up from a training session with Chris. I used the IFA company branding as part of my design, so it links in nicely and shows that I work under their umbrella. Then I pushed the brand, set up social media accounts, and that was about 32 months ago.
“Now, I get recognised as the bearded mortgage broker, having won the ‘best beard in financial services’ two years in a row via The Money Group awards.”
He was also named the best mortgage broker in the 2021 Proper Awards.
In just 32 months, Hewett’s The Bearded Mortgage Broker brand has already made its mark in the industry, and he does not intend to stop building what he has started anytime soon.
“I am sure there are lots more interesting things to come,” he said.
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