A Year Since Lockdown - Christopher Blackwell

Today it's the turn of Christopher Blackwell, co-director of Wiltshire-based TED Mortgages which offers mortgage and protection Advice.

March 23 marks a year since lockdown began and the reality of the pandemic hit the UK. What are your memories of that day? 

Disbelief that it had all become this serious. I never thought in my lifetime I would see something that meant you were told that legally you had to stay at home, your children couldn’t go to school and the whole world seemed to stop!

Thinking back, how did you anticipate the way forward for your business over those first few days?

The initial outlook was awful. Properties couldn’t be surveyed and there was confusion over whether people could still move home so looked as if the market would grind to a halt. 

Mortgage lenders started to withdraw products with smaller deposits and the last time that happened was the 08/09 financial crisis! The politest way I could phrase it is that we were bricking it!

What actions did you take to save/change/pivot/support your business? 

Being honest the biggest step was outside of our control and was the government allowing the housing market to operate without this it wouldn’t have mattered what we did. 

Following this we made sure that all of our existing business was still moving forward and increased our social media activity to drum up new business. 

We also offered a temporary increase on the incentive fee we pay to our introducers to encourage them to create business for us. We moved all of our meetings to telephone and online as well so that we could continue as normal.

Name positive outcomes of the last year for your business? 

1. Achieving the level of business results that we thought would take us another two to three years to achieve.

2. Taking on our first additional adviser a year ahead of schedule.

3. Making it through the pandemic and thriving.

Name any positive outcomes for you personally over the last year?

Seeing my children more at home with home schooling.

What do you most look forward to doing IN BUSINESS as we slowly move out of lockdown? 

1. Helping the people we couldn’t help during the pandemic so far – due to circumstances some furloughed/self employed applicants were not able to proceed. It will be great to see things move forward for them having had to wait so long.

2. Growing our team further – another new adviser to join us this month going into April

What do you most look forward to doing IN YOUR PERSONAL LIFE as we slowly move out of lockdown?

1. Taking my wife and children on holiday again.

2. Next Christmas when my whole family can be together with hopefully no restrictions.

What are your predictions for your business in 2021 into 2022? 

We will continue to grow and build our profile not only in Swindon but out of Swindon with any future adviser recruits to be out of Swindon e.g. Bath, Bristol etc.

Name one person who has been a lockdown hero for you over the last year? 

Tom by business partner. We have both had to keep each other going throughout the pandemic. To begin with that was staying positive when things looked bleak and then when things got busy they got really busy so we have helped each other cope with the stress and workload.

Name one business which has been heroic for you or your community over the last year? 

Ewe Move – an estate agent we work with in Swindon & Cirencester. They have taken there business to a different level. We started working together when we were all very new and at early stages. I think both of our businesses flourishing has inspired each other and we continue to work together very closely. 

For more information about Chris and the team visit www.tedmortgages.co.uk