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ISCOVER
The Adviser speaks to Bluestone Mortgages national manager of sales, marketing and distribution Royden D’Vaz about how this specialist lender is going above and beyond for its broker partners.
What is Bluestone’s key point of difference?
At Bluestone, our priority has always been to help our brokers help their customers. Being innovative and responding to what our brokers need in the way of product and process has been a key plank in our strategy.
Recently, we have seen a big opportunity in the self-employed space (SMEs) and developed products to help our brokers take advantage of and seize that opportunity.
Our brokers have access to products for their customers who haven’t completed their tax returns, to provide other forms of verification of income, with ABNs from three months old to 24 months.
Our Business Easy product is aimed at self-employed borrowers who have recently started a business and are looking for capital to expand or need to consolidate expensive business debts in order to improve cash flow.
How can brokers improve their business by partnering with Bluestone?
Many brokers shy away from using specialist lenders, but having the ability to future-proof their income streams by diversification is one of the major reasons why they should consider this part of the market.
In addition to helping clients who would otherwise find themselves without a solution, specialist solutions can help brokers create stickier clients.
It could even be viewed like an annuity type of income where you can put your customer into a specialist loan, and then rewrite them in 18 months to two years after their credit has improved.
It should definitely be viewed as a two-fold revenue stream.
To make it happen:
1. Ensure you provide your clients with options before recommending a solution.
2. Manage your clients’ expectations and provide them with a plan so they thoroughly understand what is happening and what the next steps are.
3. Don’t prejudge the client or pre-empt any responses and always allow them to make any decisions for themselves.
What is Bluestone’s biggest focus in the next 12 months?
In 2016, we will continue to build on the platform we’ve created as a leading specialist lender in the Australian lending market. We are busy re-establishing past and new contacts with aggregators and brokers, and have been overwhelmed by the goodwill that still exists for the Bluestone Mortgages brand and its products.
To assist with this growth, we will be exploring innovative ways we can expand our product range and service niche groups that may otherwise by unable to secure finance. To facilitate this, our sales team will continue to expand with planned hiring of new BDMs.
Providing market intel and tools to assist brokers grow their own business is one of our goals, and our BDMs across the country will be tasked with this as part of their roles. We have always had strong relationships with our brokers and this is something we want to leverage, creating a win-win-win for Bluestone, brokers and their clients.
Our goal is to provide a solution so more consumers can secure finance and realise the dream of home ownership, facilitate a business opportunity or restructure their existing finances when others won’t help and continue to say no.
