Building a broker business - the Watts journey

By Phil Gray, managing director, Watts Commercial Finance

Watts Commercial Finance Ltd set out in 2006 with a goal to be a truly bespoke commercial finance brokerage, adding massive value to both our clients and our lenders.

Our model is based around the traditional values that customers now miss, following the restructuring of high street banks.

We offer our clients a personal, bespoke, face-to-face relationship. We spend time with them to fully understand their needs, plans and goals for their businesses.

We were quickly hit by the credit crunch, but three things stood us in good stead, allowing us to trade successfully through those traumatic years. They are still at the heart of what we do today:

1. We offer honest advice – put simply, if we can do it we tell the client, and if we cannot do it, we also tell them.
2. We have never charged an upfront fee, meaning clients use us safe in the knowledge that they will only ever have to pay for our services if we deliver the funding that they require.
3. We do not cherry pick – if a client wants £10,000 or £10m, we will assist and offer the same levels of service, irrespective of the amount.

We have, over the past decade, worked extremely hard to forge amazing relationships with our lender panel, and this is something vital to run a successful brokerage. It could be likened to a golfer and their golf clubs – you need a club for every shot and you need quality in your bag. Never underestimate the power of amazing relationships with your lenders, as this will be a key factor in any broker’s success.

That brings me on to people: the heartbeat and engine room of our business. Any business is only as good as its people, and again we have worked tirelessly to build an amazing team of passionate industry experts with outstanding knowledge, amazing attention to customer care and a drive to be the best, putting the client at the heart of everything they do.

Next are our partners who we work with daily, assisting their clients and providing the lifeblood of our business – introductions. We have worked for over 12 years to build a fantastic network of trusted, influential, high-quality partners across the UK who we transact business with daily, for the benefit of all.

Then, finally, our customers. We work with clients of all shapes and sizes from small sole traders to large limited companies, and we have worked extremely hard on our FCA authorisation for credit broking so we can assist all clients with their business funding needs. The client, as I have said before, is at the heart of everything we do. Our passion is to truly embrace treating customers fairly, and everything else within the business spins off from this. We pride ourselves on outstanding customer service and, to quote a well-used word here at Watts, a service which is bespoke to the client’s needs.

I hope that the above gives a flavour of how Watts Commercial Finance Ltd has approached the past 12 years and grown from one to 27 staff. We have grown and evolved into a large, bespoke commercial finance brokerage, proud to take its place among the industry’s elite.