Do you really listen as a mortgage broker?

Working in a beauty salon may not be the usual grounding for a mortgage career, but Amar Dhanota’s years as a beautician in her own business gave her skills which stood her in good stead for the success she’s since enjoyed as a broker, and co-founder of London-FS.

“I was always interested in beauty, I absolutely loved it,” Dhanota (pictured) told Mortgage Introducer. “I think it was the interaction. You're meeting all these different kinds of people and the skill that I learned, which I carry through now as well, is actually learning to listen.

“I see people all the time and they just don't know how to listen. It was the most amazing thing in the world because you were getting to know everyone’s secrets, and there was this whole thing about confidentiality.”

Dhanota originally wanted to be a barrister, but she explained that Sikh girls weren’t encouraged to explore further education when she was growing up in the 80s.  An opportunity at Barclays came up when she left school.

“There must have been about 30 of us 16-year-olds there,” she recalled. “It was like a school playground. My dad said, ‘you have got the job anyone would want – it can't get better than this’.”

Working in Barclays’ Life business as a pension administrator, Dhanota attained her Financial Planning Certificate, but married at 20 and a mother at 21, she eventually left the bank and took on a local beauty salon. Her entrepreneurial spirit shone through and she expanded the business, taking the venture into the Fitness First gym. But with the breakdown of her marriage, she finally made a decision to return to her roots in financial services.

Qualifying as a mortgage broker, she took up a role in an upmarket estate agent’s, in London’s Canary Wharf, and then with a specialist broker, before co-founding London-FS with a former colleague, Amar Vig, in 2010. An independent finance specialist, it arranges funding of up to £3 million for medium/high income earners, across residential mortgages, commercial purchases, remortgages and development finance.

Read more: What do mortgage clients want from brokers?

The rewards of working for yourself

Dhanota evidently values being her own boss.

“I don't want to have to answer to somebody,” she explained. “I like to do my own thing when I need to do it, and I love the flexibility. When you're working for yourself, obviously it's very difficult and it’s tiring. However, the rewards are that you don't mind doing late nights, you don't mind doing weekends, but you know you are doing it for yourself.”

Some of her clients are high-earning surgeons and doctors with complex income structures, and Dhanota appreciates the challenge. “I feel like these are people that actually really need a broker and will value the advice that you're giving them,” she said.

Her experience has taught her how to navigate the ups and the downs of a volatile market.

“This journey has taught me to deal with the good times, but also to understand what you do in the bad times,” she said. “The mortgage market has been all over the place for a good few years now. It's about being able to manage and sustain your business.

“I see a lot of people who are always saying, ‘Oh my God, we're so busy. We're doing this, we're doing that and I'm not that person. If I'm not busy, if it's quiet, I would just say, ‘yeah, it's quiet, there's nothing going on’. We're trying to keep it real.”

And how is business currently?

“For us, business is steady,” Dhanota said. “My phone's ringing, I've got emails, I've still got enquiries - that's a good sign. It's going to take a good few years to get back up to pre-COVID levels, but we're steady and it's given me time now to actually start networking.”

Being approachable for clients is key to succeeding as a mortgage broker, in Dhanota view.

“Listening to what they want, having a bit of patience, understanding them,” she observed. “I never just start going into the numbers, into the mortgage side. I will have a chat with them, find out about them, and who they are. It's building that whole rapport and confidence. I want it to be a long term relationship, which thankfully – touch wood -  I have with loads of my clients. They come back again and again and again, because every moment in their life, things change. It shouldn't just be transactional.”

Dhanota identifies the light and shade in her role.

“I think being a broker is the most rewarding thing that you can do,” she reflected.. “You're seeing people buying their first homes, you're seeing them moving forwards, starting a family. It's the most rewarding thing in the world, but it's also probably one of the most stressful things to do as well, because you're taking on other people's stress, you've become a counsellor.

“It's so easy to actually get yourself involved, because you've got such a good relationship with your client, but it's understanding when to step back as well. So for me, even if I'm having a stressful day, I will literally stop, go for a walk, step away from the situation, then come back and look at it again. Normally, it's then so easy and so clear.”

And this far into her mortgage career, does Dhanota wonder how life would have been as a barrister?

“I do wonder,” she said, “but I'm one of those people who just accepts the journey that I was meant to be on - and this was just fate.