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Commercial mortgage advising should not be pigeon-holed, according to Adrian Dadds, an IFA for Blacktower Financial Advisers.

As winner of the Commercial Mortgage IFA of the Year category, the married dad-of-three believes there is more to meets the eye in the commercial mortgages sector.

He said: "This is a fast growing and exciting market which is very young and there are various possibilities to make a difference to people. We should not pigeon-hole ourselves as the market changes fundamentally."

Mr Dadds - who specialises in developing funding, property development, residential property development at the Surrey-based firm, which was established in 1998 - spent 14 years working for Barclays Bank and four years at Birmingham Midshires before he became an IFA in 2004.

With this background in banking, Mr Dadds explained that he knew what he was letting himself in for. He said: "The growth in business has been phenomenal. It is about understanding the people, being analytical and the excitement of doing great business. These are rewards in itself.

"We deal with 40 to 50 different lenders. There are not many firms doing what we do on the commercial side. There a quite few opportunities for us. As long as we maintain our good relationships, that is always our driving force. From a business perspective, it should be a very important time for us."

As a high achiever - having climbed Morocco's Atlas mountain range for charity - Mr Dadds remains consciously open-minded about the impact of challenges such as the credit crunch.

He said: "Pricing has gone up in a short space of time, which is quite hard for clients to grasp. Pricing will also be a big issue and with the credit crunch upon us it will be harder to get the deals. We have lost that certainty."