Monday
I am in the London office for an important early meeting with a contact we have been engaging with for two years.
The person in question wants to revolutionise the way the industry approaches protection, something that has been ripe for disruption for a while. We plan to give them a sandbox to develop their ideas and we are close now to agreeing terms on a joint venture.
The afternoon is taken up by administration tasks for what looks to be a busy week ahead. I ensure I squeeze in a visit to the gym on the way home as I will be in the land of beer, chips and gravy for the next two days and, at my age, I no longer have the luxury of metabolism on my side.
Tuesday
I am on the 6am train heading into London. Not as early a start as that of my business partner who leaves his house at 4am to drive to London – what commitment.
I have a one-hour conference call with our lawyer to finalise our shareholders' agreement for the wider group, which leaves us frazzled and thankful we were both not clever enough for higher education.
We meet with a great prospect for our City Money brand which needs a motivated, forward thinker at the helm. The signs are good for another joint venture but it is a slow burn, which is fine as we prefer to play the long game.
Wednesday
There is no time to stop. After that breakfast of beer, chips and gravy we are in the South Yorkshire Money office by 7.30am for a meeting with our colleague who runs that office.
He was giving 70 per cent of his income away last year; today he is earning 70 per cent of his income and building a great business in the process.
He kindly gives me a lift to the station and, after a wrong turn and three times around the roundabout, I manage to miss my train to Manchester to meet a colleague over at Manchester Money, another of our offices.
Not to worry, I get the next train and arrive in time for back-to-back interviews in a city that is giving London a run for its money. The buzz there is phenomenal and a colleague who is in charge in Manchester is nicely positioned to take advantage of it.
Thursday
Back in the London office, this time for a day of lender and client meetings. I say to brokers that they should never lose the skill of speaking with clients and I ensure that I still advise more people than anyone in the team so that I will always be able to do the day job.
Today it is a mixture of second charges and remortgages. The purchase market in London is far from healthy; Brexit has now reached the suburbs of middle England and it is beginning to create real uncertainty and is damaging confidence.
I wish someone would get hold of this country, but a cursory glance of the news in the evening tells me politics in the UK is a dead man walking and we need something new and different to break this malaise.
Friday
Thankfully I have a day at home which gives me time to get a much needed haircut as I am beginning to resemble Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber. It also gives me the opportunity to catch up on emails and with clients, and assess how the group is moving forward as a whole.
When we set out we wanted to achieve the Holy Trinity of creating a national brand while delivering scale and profit. All are a work in progress, but checking the figures today, we broke through £50,000 net profit for the month of September.
I think I need to raise the bar and aim for £100,000 each month and then people may start to take us seriously.
I end the week with the school run, a gin and tonic, and anticipating a weekend of aquariums, football and winding people up on Twitter.
Martin Stewart is founder and director of London Money Group
If you would like to contribute a diary please contact Melanie Tringham on melanie.tringham@ft.com
