Your IndustryMay 18 2016

Diary of an adviser: Pete Mugleston

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Monday

I played around with my to-do list priorities first thing, and then ignored them completely to spend the day fixing issues with Online Mortgage Advisor’s Salesforce integration – a brilliant customer relationship managment, but like anything to do with IT, has a mouthful of teething problems.

Tuesday

I spend the day on recruitment at our brokerage Create Finance, and Online Mortgage Advisor with our telecoms technician, getting our heads around VoIP and pretending to understand how my back-office SQL links in with my IPPX. Later, I payed guitar in my friend’s band, Lacey, supporting an American band that loves a drink that gives me an almost overwhelming patriotic urge to go toe-to-toe. I felt the need to represent the UK and challenge them, but with a big day tomorrow boring common sense prevailed.

Wednesday

I spend a day on a spreadsheet at Create Finance, trying to unpick our commission run figures and pay people properly – a task that is no less treacherous than it is laborious – and one I pray our accountant will be far more equipped to complete when their Xero software is online. One of the guys picked up my lunch so I could work through. Lovely people, our brokers.

Thursday

I am up early so I could cook my business partner, Dave, breakfast (a rarity) and plan the day ahead, which involve delivering walk-throughs of the system to various brokers across the Midlands. We started in Derby at OMA HQ, and then head over to Grantham for a second round, thankfully finding time for a quick steak in between, which is becoming a welcomed tradition whenever we head that way. Dave had a beer, I had a coffee, neither of which enhanced or hindered performance as best we could tell. More testing is required to establish optimum pre-event nutrition.

Friday

It becomes ever more apparent that with only 12 per cent of my to-do list tackled, another working weekend is required.

Saturday

I get up at 6am to get things done before watching football with Geoff and the boys – Geoff Stelling and other pundits on Soccer Saturday on Sky News at 3pm. It is amazing how productive one can be with an important deadline. I turn my phone off and get through about 80 per cent. Parkinson’s Law – work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion – in action.

Pete Muglestone is director of Online Mortgage Advisor, based on Derby