The Interview
Jack of all trades
Openwork’s Paul Shearman may be a jack of all trades but he doesn’t fall into the master of none category. Sarah Davidson finds out why
Paul Shearman is a man with a title. Not a landed title, more of a mouthful of a title. Atop his desk sits the following: Paul Shearman, mortgage, protection and General Insurance proposition director, Openwork.
Usually a long title is unnecessary but in the case of Shearman it might just be worthwhile. It doesn’t just describe what he does at the national network, it describes the culture he is trying to embed in every Openwork appointed representative. It’s not a new concept but good ideas usually aren’t: for Shearman, being an intermediary has to be about more than just mortgages. It’s about advice. Flip the coin and being a network isn’t just about mortgages either. It’s about giving ARs access and opportunity to deliver advice.
While “holistic advice” has been in vogue since mortgage lending fell off a cliff, it’s been par for the course at Openwork from the start partly driven by Shearman’s own experience and background.
“I was working at Eagle Star, a GI
provider, helping building societies to develop their GI penetration when Zurich bought the company,” he explains. “They then asked me to take on their mortgage business and Openwork was subsequently formed in 2005.” The business now recognised as Openwork is a separate legal entity, though Zurich still retains 25% of the ordinary shares. Owner-advisers and
44 mortgage introducer APRIL 2011
staff own the remaining 67.5% and 7.5% of the business respectively, making it a partnership model something akin to John Lewis: “a partnership of entrepreneurs,” says Shearman.
“The business has evolved enormously over the past five and half years from being a single tied proposition where the vast majority of our sales came through Zurich to a multi-tied proposition with major brands across pretty much every product area now,” he says. “We’ve always had a mortgage panel because Zurich wasn’t a provider but we’ve launched GI, protection and pensions and annuities panels over the past two years.” Having a broad range of providers and
product areas available for brokers is key for Openwork.
“A lot of our advisers have been
around for a long time, have considerable experience and have run successful businesses,” Shearman explains. “They’ve managed to get through the last two or three years because of that and Openwork has seen virtually no enterprises go bust since the crisis hit. “Most of our firms were 50% to 60% dependent on mortgages at the height of the market and because they’ve always sold GI and protection they’ve been able to kick that in easily since. Some have trained to advise on pensions and investments as well. They’ve weathered the storm well.” This adaptability is something Shearman says he can identify in every member.
“All our firms are entrepreneurial businesses, owner managed by a single individual or small number of practice principals,” says Shearman. “They have enthusiasm to drive their businesses forwards. Our job is to harness that entrepreneurial spirit to help them become as successful as they can be.” Openwork’s aim is to provide its advisers with the tools to succeed. In Shearman’s view, those tools include as strong a set of products as possible, the IT infrastructure to manage customers properly and to sell safely, marketing and training development as well as the sales skills needed to help identify opportunities, deal with clients and thrive in different segments of the market place. “Unlike a lot of other networks we have 70 to 80 people in the field seeing our
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