What influenced younger family members to join the business?
Grace reflects that how her mum spoke about the industry, as well as visiting her at work and seeing her help people with the mortgage process, was what made her realise it was a career that she herself would be interested in.
"So when I did join, I did admin first, and then I started to do the social media and marketing side of stuff, and I really enjoy that," Grace says. "You've got to start somewhere, and the admin is really important in the mortgage process. If you're training in admin, you get to know [the process] start to finish, so because I know all of that and the criteria for certain lenders, it's easier to do the marketing and social media side."
Similarly, Neal notes that "it was inevitable that I would become involved in the family business, although my first ambition was to be a professional footballer."
However, Vic points out that for Dale and Neal, "it was not simply a case of wanting to follow in family footsteps. My career began more than 50 years ago, and Dale and Neal both found their own routes into the sector."
Neal says his route was "through IT, and my knowledge helped build the system that eventually became OMS." Meanwhile, Vic says that Dale "did not originally plan” to follow him into the industry at all.
"His interest in mortgages grew from seeing clients visit the family home, but his own career began at Legal & General before he moved into broking," Vic explains.
Victoria also notes that "although financial services wasn’t my first calling, when a family business has so much passion and care, it is hard not to be influenced by this and to want to be part of it. Then, being within the business and growing and developing it together becomes a really inspiring place to be.
"My husband also runs his own AR firm with my sister, and my sister’s husband is also an adviser there. You can’t get more influenced by family than that."
Amanda reinforces that seeing "the love and passion" that she and Martin put into their work in the sector was an influential factor for their children to join TRM.
"They’ve seen first-hand the rewards of the work and the impact it has on clients, which has helped draw them in."
Katherine explains that her younger daughter, Millie, who will be joining Stagg Mortgage Services in June 2026, also had an experience similar to this. While she initially wanted "to do her own thing", after trying out a different career path, Millie decided to join her mother and sister at the family business.
"All of a sudden, this particular day, she was like, 'I want to come and work with you, Mum. I want to be a mortgage adviser,'" Katherine recalls.
