If you were to accuse Lewis Shaw of blowing his own trumpet, he would not just agree with you but also provide a rousing rendition of Elgar’s Trumpet Voluntary.
For this Mansfield-based mortgage adviser has played his trumpet not just across Derbyshire, where he was born and raised, but across the world.
The founder of Shaw Financial Services has not always been a mortgage broker. Until 2015, he played with the Royal Artillery Band and took part in military tattoos worldwide: Rotterdam, Malmo and - even more exotically - Edinburgh.
Shaw says it was an absolute privilege to travel with the Band and perform in British embassies across the world.
He also remembers a performance in Red Square in Moscow - “where I had my collar grabbed for talking in front of Lenin’s tomb”, he says.
If I told someone in 2001 that I had a musical diploma, I wouldn’t have been considered for a job in financial services.Lewis Shaw“I also played in a brass quintet at a fancy dinner at the British Embassy in Algiers once - that was a surreal experience”, he muses.
So what encouraged this straight-talking son of a miner to make those leaps from music to the Army to mortgage advice?
The makings of an adviser
When Shaw was 18, he graduated from a school he had attended for “musically gifted kids” and was not sure where to go. So he joined the Royal Marines in 2001 “just 5 days before 9/11”.
He left the Marines in 2005 and started to read philosophy at the University of London. “After this I entered the world of work - just as the economy was collapsing in 2008. I mean, why not?”
With 2008 proving to be tough, he started to retrain as a teacher of philosophy, ethics and religious education at Sheffield Hallam University, but he only got half-way through.
“Sadly Mum was diagnosed with cancer and Dad was ill himself, so I ended up leaving the course and taking on a caring role.
“It was brilliant when Mum got the all-clear in 2009 but then in November that year my Dad died.
After the first lockdown ended, I figured I had to stand out. I had to swim upstream.Shaw“I realised it was going to be too hard to pick up the postgraduate teaching training so I got in touch with a friend of mine from my school days, and he encouraged me to start playing again.
“I auditioned again for the Army and ended up in the Royal Artillery Band.”
But what made him enter the world of mortgages? “Like other people in this industry - it’s often a result of knowing someone.
"A friend of mine from Uni had become an IFA, and I talked with him about where I should take my career after the Army.
“He said I should do the CeMap [mortgage qualification] and get started.”
The Army paid a resettlement grant back then to help people retrain into civilian life, and in 2015 he studied for the CeMap, finished it within two weeks and then got his first job in mortgages.
Going it alone
“My first employer was Grant Nicholls, the financial services director of Start Mortgages, in London. I lived in Tooting Bec at the time, jumped on the Northern Line and went to the offices which were in Kennington and London Bridge. I loved working there.”
He got experience working as a self-employed broker in 2018, and on April 1 2019 he set up his own mortgage broking business as an appointed representative.
“April 1 - yeah. Make of that what you will”, he says. “But within 10 months from my first day of trading we started to see people panicking about something called Covid.
“February 2020 was bad. March was appalling. I was really nervous. I put lots of savings in to the business and while I still had some cash saved, I was feeling anxious about the future.”
The Army gave me discipline and courage and determination to see things through.Lewis ShawShaw says he worried that all his work and experience would “come crumbling down”.
“I was talking to business development managers and other mortgage gurus and they were mentioning figures of a 15 to 20 per cent house price crash. Everything went into life-support mode. Applications froze up.”
So how did he survive? “I was getting a few deals done online but after the first lockdown ended, I figured I had to stand out. I had to swim upstream.
“So as everyone else was giving up their tenancies or doing hybrid working I rented an office.”
He believes this put him on the map. “I treated meetings seriously, of course - screens and masks and all that - but people were booking appointments and this helped me stand out.”
Wider experience
Shaw says his experience in the Military, as well as his background in philosophy and the time spent caring for his family, have all helped him in his mortgage broking role.
“The Army gave me discipline and courage and determination to see things through”, he says.
“And human contact and understanding the clients is essential to a good adviser-client relationship, while that philosophical background does help me not to get wound up by headlines.”
He wishes more employers would consider hiring people like him - those without a maths degree or relevant industry experience and qualifications.
“In the jobs market generally - and it is prevalent in ours - recruiters do not always understand that people who have done weird and wonderful jobs tend to be a more rounded person.
"Or at least I like to think so", he adds.
Shaw continues: “There may be a misconception among the planning community that you need to have certain degrees or certifications before you’re even considered for an advisory role.
“But there are lots of studies out there with empirical data showing that people who learn a musical instrument have physically different brains.”
He adds: “Look, we have to be dedicated and self-motivated and have the discipline to practice.
“We have to use our analytical skills and mathematical problem-solving skills to break these tasks down into smaller chunks, solve them, and then put all the elements back together.
Genuinely, I love helping people.Lewis Shaw“And then there is the emotional aspect. All these things are needed for financial advice”, Shaw says.
“But if I told someone in 2001 that I had a musical diploma, I wouldn’t have been considered for a job in financial services. I hope all that has changed now. We certainly need to cast our nets more widely to bring new blood into the industry.”
So what keeps him motivated now there are no posh bashes to attend at foreign embassies?
“Genuinely, I love helping people. Especially first-time buyers. I love that. It’s great to find solutions for people.”
simoney.kyriakou@ft.com
