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The KW Lending Solutions director underscored the importance of mentorship for brokers, and highlighted the challenges of choosing the most suitable mentor.
Having entered the broking industry around three years ago, Victorian-based broker and KW Lending Solutions director Karen Wright said that the most significant challenge she faced was that she did not have any mortgage broking knowledge or background, nor any experience in operating her own business.
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Speaking to The Adviser’s Elite Broker podcast, Ms Wright said: “It’s just one of those things that you’ve got to make mistakes to actually learn the lessons.
“I think once you learn those lessons, they become embedded in your thought process. It’s just a matter of asking questions, talking to people, finding out what people did when they hit this challenge or this snag.”
Ms Wright has recommended that brokers who are new to the industry should find a suitable mentor, especially in the initial stages.
“Unfortunately, my experience didn’t start off the way that it should have. I guess I learned who not to go with, if that makes sense.”
Ms Wright explained that she entered mortgage broking through a financial adviser and mortgage broker, for whom she undertook some paraplanning work.
When the adviser asked if this was an area she would be interested in pursuing, Ms Wright warmed up to the idea, and completed her Diploma in Financial Planning, and Diploma in Finance and Mortgage Broking.
However, after being mentored by the adviser for eight months, Ms Wright said that “unfortunately, our working relationship didn’t end up in the best space, so I cut my ties with him … a couple of years ago”.
Ms Wright decided to search for mentors on the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) website and found a mentor with whom she completed her mentorship in around March 2019.
Following this, Ms Wright said that she met a PLAN mortgage broker, who she said has played a significant role in providing her with direction and career progress through her guidance and advice.
She said that her past experiences taught her to conduct thorough research before choosing her mentor.
“When I was researching who I wanted to go through, I was a lot more particular, a lot more fussier in that space because I needed to make sure that we worked really well together, [and] that they were going to give me the information, the tools and the understanding of what I really needed to do to start out as a mortgage broker,” Ms Wright said.
“The challenge that I had at the time was not only did I need a mentor, but I needed to be working under a business.”
She continued: “I had two challenges because without having a mentor, I couldn’t obviously become a mortgage broker because you’ve got to have a mentor.
“But then I had the second issue where I needed to be working under someone’s business because I had no clients. So, that made it really quite challenging in that respect.”
To ensure that she chose the most suitable mentor for her, Ms Wright said that she met with different mentors and held discussions around what they do, how they mentor, and the costs involved, Ms Wright said.
To listen to Elite Broker’s full podcast with Karen Wright, click here:
[Related: How Karen Wright is providing financial literacy to the deaf community]
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