Don't blag it in this industry, says broker, honesty pays…

While Som Emadi (pictured) used to serve up culinary dishes in the eatery he owned, today he serves up mortgage solutions, and they’re delivered with the same entrepreneurial spirit he honed in the restaurant business.
“I did it for about 12 years,” Emadi told Mortgage introducer. “But I never really enjoyed it. It wasn't natural to me. I'm an early bird, I like to get up early, and it's the opposite of what restaurants do, where you're hanging around all day, just to go to work.”
His detour into the food world, before he found his true calling in finance, was perhaps not unexpected. As a youngster, he had worked in his Iranian father’s restaurant, so opening one with his brother in 2008, seemed an obvious move.
“It's the only thing I knew,” he explained. “I'm an entrepreneur at heart and I just wanted to get rolling on something. So, I just jumped into that. It was a healthy food restaurant and then we realised, even in the middle of Manchester, there wasn't the demand there for healthy food at the time. My heart wasn't in it.”
Emadi had previously completed a degree in finance investment. So, when a friend suggested he take up work in a brokerage, he was intrigued, and embarked on his CeMAP training.
“Th work was commission-based but because my restaurant was bringing in a bit of income, it was okay to take that chance,” he explained. “I did about two weeks’ work there and I decided that regulated mortgages wasn’t something that I was really going to get my teeth into. I wanted to work closely with clients and be more creative. I decided to open my own commercial brokerage in 2019.”
Emadi’s business, Unicorn Commercial Finance, provides loans up to £25m across bridging, development, BTL & commercial mortgages.
“I didn’t have any experience in the industry, I didn’t have any clients and no lender contacts,” he reflects, thinking back to the start of his venture. “To be honest, in the first year after starting my own business, I made about £200 commission. It was a year of learning, just calling lenders up randomly and asking them what their criteria was, probably using completely the wrong terminology.
“But, I knew I could learn, I knew I could absorb a lot of information quickly.
I've got a pretty high IQ and I did well at university, and I knew I could do it if I tried hard enough. I learned on the job and I didn't take any risks.”
He continued: “One real valuable lesson that I learned was, I didn't try to blag an answer. If anyone asked me a question I didn't know the answer to, I told them I'd come back to them and I'd go to work out what the answer was and what the solution was because you lose credibility, you can lose your reputational capital really quickly, especially in the industry in which we're working.”
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What makes a good broker?
Emadi completed 120 transactions in 2024, and his workload increases year on year. What, then, in his view, are the qualities of a good broker?
“Hard work, responsiveness, honesty and integrity,” he offered. “As long as you look after the best interests of your clients, you're honest with them, you work hard and you communicate, I think you're going to do well. In the restaurant world, I could work 100 hours a week and I couldn't make a penny. If you work hard in this industry, the more money you make.”
Emadi sounded caution about the year ahead though.
“You should look to collaborate with more people this year because I think it will be harder,” he said. “Align with people who have your ethics and who are going to work with you to achieve.”
Furthermore, Emadi defined a key business lesson that he’s learned in his career so far.
“Try to only do businesses which align with your natural talents,” he said, perhaps reflecting on his earlier career. “Take pleasure in your work, which will make you better at it, and enjoy your life – it’s important.”