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One leading trainer has claimed that the brokers of tomorrow are the PAs and admin staff of today.
Speaking withThe Adviser, director of Intellitrain Paul Eldridge said too many brokers are looking to recruit a counterpart and not a rookie.
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“What we’ve seen as a successful model is instead of trying to recruit a mortgage broker, actually looking at getting a personal assistant or a file driver type person,” he said.
Mr Eldridge claimed that brokers should ease the recruit into the industry through the PA channel.
“That way you can advertise on Seek for a back-office person, or an admin/PA person, instead of looking for a purely mortgage focused professional,” he said.
Being in front of a client is where brokers should be aiming to spend most of their time, said Mr Eldridge, while back-end processes generally suffer.
“It’s less value for brokers to be entering data and chasing files – so think about the role you want in your business first before hiring," he said.
“The role is probably not another mortgage broker, the role is probably a back-office assistant.”
While Mr Eldridge believes starting out on a salary as a PA is the way to go, 2012 Young Broker of the Year Anthony Alabakov told The Adviser earlier this month that starting straight in a broker position was tough work.
“I struggled for the first two years. I only wrote $6 million. I had to move back home,” he said.
“With new brokers, traditionally the expectation is that they should be writing loans on day one and bringing new business into the office straight away; this is an unrealistic expectation,” he said. “Principals need to be realistic, they need stepping stones for new recruits.”
Either way, Mr Eldridge admited that hiring a staff member is always a stressful process.
“When I hired my first staff member, I was nervous. My first staff member was a PA, and I was thinking this is a $40,000 decision, and it made me nervous. I didn’t want to hire someone and tell them a month later that I couldn’t keep them," he said.
“But then when you sit down and look at it, you can see the obvious benefits.”
