Young entrepreneur 'flew under the radar' starting out, but now understands the value of being seen
He’s been in the mortgage industry for less than a decade, and already heads up his own broker firm at the age of just 29, but how is Luther Yeates (pictured) successfully growing his business?
Yeates has established a successful and growing whole of market business, Orton Financial, based in Bristol, that provides specialist financial advice for land and property in the UK, with clients including expats and foreign nationals. He operates as its head of mortgages. Having, in his words, ‘flown under the radar’ earlier in his career, he’s now more actively networking, particularly – he acknowledges – since so much of business today is done at a distance. This has helped drive opportunities for the firm.
“It's about the wider engagement,” Yeates explained. “Since we've started, I have shifted. I always say to myself and others here, it's worth us actually attending more social networking events. The worst case scenario is you've lost a few hours. The best case scenario is you met someone new, who’s a great contact. And I can probably think back through most events I have been to, as Orton now, and I have genuinely left with a new contact or a new client or a new relationship, something that’s worthwhile, and that’s probably more important now because we’re all so remote. It’s really about leaning on those relationships, because I was probably not very public until starting at Orton, which then wouldn’t have helped me as well, going into the company.”
Yeates is certainly more public-facing now, it seems – which helps shapes his future business plans. “We've got some partnerships we're looking at in Saudi, for example, where there's a lot of expats out there and actually we're looking at flying out, probably for a week, where we can sit down with people, show our face and actually help build a relationship and build trust,” he said.
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Yeates came into the financial services business back in 2017, after achieving a First Class banking and finance degree. Observing how people struggled to make financial decisions, he wanted an advisory role and cut his teeth at Clifton Private Finance. Clearly ambitious, he established Orton Financial in 2022. The entrepreneurial streak that guided someone so young to set up on their own, dates back to his teens in Cornwall, when he would book several buses at a time to offer his contemporaries a transport service to their local club. When the venue said it was discontinuing its club nights, the teenage Yeates wanted to take on that venture too. Savvy though he is about business, he prioritises the advice his firm gives over any sale it might make.
“I'd rather sit down with someone who’s doing average numbers, but providing really good advice, than someone who is killing it in terms of fees, but actually the advice isn't very good or could be improved,” Yeates explained. “A good broker is someone who has a genuine interest in financial advice and doesn't view it as a sales role. It's purely based around you actually wanting to advise someone to give them the best outcome. If I have someone that comes in and they think we're selling something, then they wouldn't be the right fit for us.” He continued: “I find the advice really sells itself, so we don't actually have a set sales structure or pitch. You find the right product for the client, you explain why it's the right product for them, why it's the right lender, and if they want to go ahead, great, that's it.”
Is money at all important for Yeates though? “Obviously I've got aspirations in terms of where I want to be in life,” he said. “When I left Clifton, I left on over one hundred thousand, but It's not actually a driving motivation for me at all. My main motivation is actually purely based around I want to help as many people as I can, and actually, the more mortgages I do, great, the more money I make, but then actually I'm quite happy to reinvest that and grow the company. It's not a core priority for me at all, and that's why really I work as I do on the advice side.”
Establishing a business isn’t easy, establishing it when you’re younger may be harder still, but for Yeates it isn’t an issue. “I went to a private bank meeting on my own, probably when I was 22,” he recalled. “You kind of turn up fresh faced and you are conscious of your age in that world especially. I'm very confident in what we do now and the knowledge, so it's something that doesn't really concern me either way. I do ultimately have a young team as well, so if someone was looking for what they'd see as your kind of typical adviser, kind of older, a few grey hairs, they're not going to find them here, but I'd say we've managed to build up enough trust now.”
