The founder of the UK's largest adviser training community on lead generation, the protection gap, and why health has to come first
Terry Blackburn (pictured top) was a joiner before he walked into financial services at 19. By his mid-thirties, he had built and sold two adviser firms. He is 37 now, and what he has built since – The Wealthy Advisers Club – already counts more than 2,300 members.
"When I sold the last business, I was very much like, I'm out of the industry, I'm done," he told Mortgage Introducer. "It was about two weeks, and I was like, oh God, what have I done? I love the industry. I want to be back in it."
A non-compete agreement ruled out launching a third firm, so Blackburn began working with other businesses on a one-to-one coaching basis. The model felt too limited. "I knew I could make a bigger impact to the industry and help more people by doing one-to-many as opposed to one-to-one, so that's kind of where it came from."
The Wealthy Advisers Club, which Blackburn describes as the largest protection and mortgage adviser training community in the UK, launched 17 months ago. Its growth has been built on what he calls a multi-pronged approach – organic social media, paid advertising, testimonials, and collaborations with networks and lenders. It is, he says, a case of practising what he preaches.
"I teach advisers you should have a multi-pronged lead generation approach. I'm not just relying on word of mouth or testimonials. I'm not just relying on organic social media. I'm not just relying on ads. I'm doing all of it, and that's how I've grown it so quickly."
What does a modern lead strategy actually look like?
Lead generation sits at the heart of Blackburn's work with members. Research published by The Wealthy Advisers Club found that 91.7% of advisers believe generating more leads is vital for them in 2026, yet the problem stubbornly persists. His diagnosis is cultural as much as practical.
"They focus on getting good at the thing, and the thing is giving advice. But if you've got nobody to give advice to, it doesn't matter how good you are."
His framework for a modern adviser is comprehensive – referrals, multiple introducers, a strong organic social presence, a current website loaded with Google reviews, email marketing to the back book, networking, and paid advertising across pay-per-click and Meta platforms. Over-reliance on a single source – an estate agent who might be bought out or bring mortgages in-house – is where firms become fragile. The Financial Conduct Authority's register of regulated mortgage advisers illustrates just how competitive the market in which those advisers operate has become.
"Having a multi-pronged attack de-risks the business. It helps you be able to forecast and scale as well because you're not over-reliant on anything."
Adviser or broker – does the word matter?
Blackburn prefers the word "adviser" to "broker," a preference he traces to a conversation with James Tucker, chief executive of Twenty7tec, on his The Financial Services Show podcast. The distinction is not merely semantic, it signals something about where the profession is heading as AI encroaches on transactional activity.
"Broker sounds more transactional. An adviser advises the client on multiple things. If you’re just doing a transactional thing – here's your residential mortgage, see you in two years – I believe that's so risky. There's going to come a time where they can just go and get the rate online."
Protection and specialist lending are, in his view, relatively insulated from that threat. Vanilla residential mortgages are not. The answer is to build the client relationship now, before the disruption arrives.
Closing the protection gap
The protection gap is where Blackburn becomes most emphatic. An FCA interim market study into pure protection published in April found that over half of UK adults have no protection cover at all. Mortgage advisers, he argues, are failing clients on this front.
"100% of us are going to die, unfortunately, and 50% of us are going to get cancer. There's a huge need, so if there's a huge need and almost everybody needs it, then why isn't it being sold? It just doesn't make any sense."
The case, he argues, is not purely ethical. Advisers who sell more protection earn more. Their clients are better covered. Even the banks benefit when a life policy pays out a mortgage rather than forcing a lender to pursue possession. "Everybody wins," he said – a phrase that recurs throughout the conversation as a genuine organising principle rather than a slogan.
Why high performance starts with health
The Wealthy Advisers Club's October conference – taking place at the Kensington Conference and Events Centre – features former special forces soldier Ant Middleton and Damian Hughes, a professor and co-host of the High Performance Podcast whose life's work centres on elite performance across sport, business, and the military. Previous events have featured ex-Dragons' Den investors Piers Linney and Sarah Willingham. Bringing voices from outside financial services is deliberate.
"If you just hear from people in the industry all of the time, it gets repetitive. And sometimes when you're in a box, you can't see a fresh set of eyes from a different viewpoint."
The same thinking informs the club's wellbeing strand. Blackburn donated a place at The Wealthy Advisers Club's inaugural digital detox retreat – a residential event in the Peak District featuring yoga, breathwork, meditation, and cold-water swimming – to the Mortgage Industry Mental Health Charter (MIMHC) and donated a further place to the Women in Mortgages Facebook group. International retreats are also planned, with Rome on the calendar for 2027 after members visited Barcelona this year.
His own philosophy is health first, family second, work third. He arrived at it early, having noticed around the age of 21 that his performance dipped whenever he let the gym, his family, or his social life slide.
"I've always had so much energy. It's because I put health number one, and I just think so many people have got this wrong. It shouldn't be money or health. It can be all of it."
Beyond events, Blackburn’s output includes The Life Insurance Playbook and a 90-day performance planner, as well as a free sales performance tracking app. A third book is due in October. His membership target is 5,000 by the end of next year, with tech tools to follow that give members everything they need alongside the training.
"I want to make The Wealthy Advisers Club the household name – the only place to go if you want to generate more leads, make more sales, help more clients and families," he said. "I just want to give it all back because I know deep down that if I give it all back and I help as many people as possible, that's going to help loads of clients."
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