As a growing business, we love nurturing upcoming talent, hearing alternative perspectives and showcasing how we work together with our internal partners. In February, we welcomed Sam Rafferty for work experience to gain access to the inner workings of an award-winning specialist financial brokerage.
Sam, who is currently a final year student at Stratford-Upon-Avon college, is doing a level 3 BTEC in business. He was eager to get a real hands-on, behind the scenes insight into all the sales, marketing, customer services and management processes involved at a specialist financial broker while spending time with the different companies within the group. Below, Sam outlines his highlights from each of the businesses.
Finance 4 Business
Providing compliant financial solutions with the best advice to our clients is essential to our processes at Finance 4 Business. Sam spent some time with different members of the team to develop his understanding of how we provide our clients with bespoke financial solutions to suit their individual requirements.
‘On Tuesday, I was with Mike Kelly, who is a Senior Business Development Manager for the Finance 4 Business group. After learning about his role, I attended a meeting with him and some of his clients. The clients had their own company, which they ran as a family and were seeking finance for the construction of a new factory on a piece of land which they owned. They provided Mike with all the information they had about the project and he told them what he thought they should do and what options they could have going forward.
In the second half of the day, I learnt about the importance of compliance with Dave Morrey, the Compliance Manager. In this time, I learnt about how each deal is checked over to make sure it is good to go through, about regulated and non-regulated transactions and about how each person is checked before they are given money.’
Liquidity Club
Sam spent time with our partner, Liquidity Club. They are a consultative broker who works alongside businesses to help them find the right finance package for their plans and aspirations, providing solutions such as asset-based loans.
‘I spent the morning with Will Mason, the Associate Director, who gave me an honest insight into what it is like to work at the Liquidity Club. He helped me learn about the different types of companies that they lend to and provided me with some background information about the importance of their relationships with the lenders.
Cameron Leitelmayer, an Associate, also gave me his views and I supported him in finding out information about potential clients while looking at the financial packages available for their businesses. Overall, it was a very informative and productive day in which I learnt a lot from.’
Caliber Land
Caliber Land are another of our internal partners and they are specialists in providing a complete service for land, development and planning. The business work with a range of developers and builders across multiple sectors.
‘I worked with Caliber Land to create spreadsheets about property developers in Essex and Oxford. I learnt lots about their research methods and how they gather information from the public domain about developers and architects from across the country. I also attended a meeting with Phil Roberts, a Senior Land Manager to discover more about what Caliber Land do and what their plans are for the future.’
Walker Doble
On his last day in the office, Sam spent time with Walker Doble, another of our internal partners. Walker Doble offers clients a detailed portfolio of tailored services covering every stage of the residential development process.
‘I started the day by having a meeting with Rebecca Doble, the Sales & Marketing Director, who gave me some background information about the company and what they specialise in. Following on from this, I was shown some of the company’s latest property projects.
I then worked with the team to conduct competitor research and look at new homes for sales. I also developed my understanding of how Caliber Land, Walker Doble and the other businesses within the Finance 4 Business group can collaborate and cross-refer to provide their clients with a full service.’
The Finance 4 Business Group
‘After spending some time working at Finance 4 Business, it is easy to see why they are such a successful company. They have a very knowledgeable workforce who are very committed to their jobs and they set their standards extremely high.
They also have a fantastic working environment and culture which I really enjoyed working in. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone who works there, and I also enjoyed getting to see how they create business and learning about all the different parts of the company.
My time at Finance 4 Business really helped me understand what I want to do in the future, and I couldn’t be happier that I was given the opportunity to go into the business and learn. I would like to thank Russell for giving me this fantastic opportunity, and I would like to thank everyone at the company for making me feel so welcome.’
Melanie Johnson, Operations Director of Finance 4 Business said:
‘It was a great pleasure to invite Sam Rafferty to the offices, where he could get a real insight into how the Finance 4 Business Group collaborate to provide our clients with financial solutions under one roof.
As a team, we enjoyed having him work with us, where he provided us with alternative perspectives into the business world. We love nurturing up and coming talent and showing future workplace generations how we work. We hope to welcome Sam into our offices again soon.’
Does this sound like the type of business you want to work in?
We are always seeking individuals who have the passion and heart to succeed in the financial services industry. View our current vacancies and email your CV, covering letter/email with the subject line of the job you are applying for to recruitment@finance-4-business.co.uk.