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Some of Australia’s elite brokers have revealed the benefits of mentorship and education in the broking industry, and why they believe more businesses can gain from implementing an educational approach in the workplace.
Speaking to The Adviser for the weekly Elite Broker podcast series, some of the country’s most prolific brokers have shared insights into their thoughts on the value in supporting education and mentorship in the industry.
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Aussie’s Ross Le Quesne outlined that current industry trends and changes often affect how brokers service their clients as well as the overall possibilities for clients’ borrowing capacities.
On cultivating awareness amongst his team with regard to industry updates, he commented: “Brokers and support staff need to know what is going on at all times as one small change can make or break a deal.
“We like to discuss learnings, wins, successes, sales targets, industry trends/changes and the bigger picture for the business,” Mr Le Quesne said, adding that “this helps to unify the team and builds the ‘all for one and one for all’ [sentiment]”.
Matt Mannaert from Acceptance Finance also agreed that fostering an environment that cultivates awareness is “key to business success”.
“As a business we are constantly workshopping what others are doing – the do’s and don’ts and benchmarking ourselves against our peers,” he said.
Likewise, Michael Karp from Smartline said: “Keeping my team abreast of industry trends is vital. It’s my view that being dynamic in every aspect of my business is critical if we’re going to grow.
“Our industry is entering a phase of change and will evolve faster than before… so my team needs to be knowledgeable and on the front foot with me at all times.”
Mr Karp noted that while there was “nothing new” about talking to his team about activity and targets, it was still a critical aspect that needed to be practised continuously to “maintain momentum and growth”.
Other brokers said that they often involve professionals from businesses linked to broking to discuss the specifics of each role.
Deslie Taylor from Mortgage Choice Ormeau said that this is beneficial because “they are able to update us [o]n changes to their industry” and is “great to maintain the ongoing relationships”.
“I also have an educational program with my staff to ensure they set personal development goals and fulfil these annually,” she added, noting that she also works with an experienced HR manager who assists with training.
Meanwhile, Josh Bartlett recently told Elite Broker that his business had a “holistic view”.
He explained: “We do real estate agent education every week. We have real estate agent officers come into our office and I’ll explain what bridging finance means, and how that can help a vendor, [then] I’ll explain how each bank does things a little bit different as to how to help a buyer.”
Young Broker of the Year 2016 winner, George Samios from MADD Loans, also has a similar approach, “because the more knowledge we have, the more knowledge our clients have”.
“We have an accountant come in one month, a financial planner the next month, a real estate agent the month after that and they all sit in on our meetings and give us a bit of a rundown on what’s going on”, Mr Samios explained.
Crucially, however, all brokers agreed that the leading tool for education and advancement came through mentoring.
Mr Karp and Mr Samios have both mentored their staff and brokers, with the Young Broker of the Year stating: “I see [my staff] one-on-one every month to set action plans for one-, two-, three- and five-year plans to see where they want to be and who they want to become, and we actively review that… and do the relevant training for them to be mortgage brokers.”
On a personal perspective, Mr Mannaert told Elite Broker that a key factor to his success in the early days of his career was that he had “a very good mentor.”
“Basically he took me all the way through learning all the nitty-gritty of not only the products, but also how he does sales within finance because it’s… different with every industry.”
Mr Samios concluded: “I’m putting a lot of my time and effort and knowledge into my staff and they appreciate it. Every month we have meetings – we want to see how they’re going [and] what their action plan is.
“I’m training my current staff with the intention of making them mortgage brokers. I’m training them my way, which is the correct way of doing it, which is customer satisfaction.”
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