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Leteisha Pileggi has only been in the industry for five years but is already one to watch. She tells The Adviser how she got here, and where she’s going
LETEISHA PILEGGI, one of the industry’s most successful young brokers, entered the third party distribution channel by chance.
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The owner and manager of Mortgage Choice, Cannington, Western Australia was finishing a social work degree when she realised she didn’t want to move into the field.
“I decided to get a full-time job,” she says. “I was going to take anything, but I happened to get a job in banking.”
Ms Pileggi worked in credit and was then offered a job by another broker.
That chain of events has worked out well for Ms Pileggi, who went out on her own in June 2011.
Recently, and with less than five years in the industry, she placed fifth in The Adviser’s inaugural Young Broker of the Year ranking.
Her mortgage volumes in 2011/2012 were over $55 million and she had 187 settlements.
Ms Pileggi says she loves her job and could never have expected to do so well in her first year out on her own.
“My degree was in social work. I couldn’t imagine going back to that now – although there are times when I feel like I’m using it in my job,” she laughs.
YOUNG GUN
Ms Pileggi remained with Mortgage Choice for three years, managing another broker’s franchise, but she had always wanted to go it alone.
“I think I actually told my old boss that was always my long-term goal,” she says. “It was always the plan and I like the independence.”
In July 2011, Ms Pileggi seized her chance to purchase an existing loan book.
“Mortgage Choice made the process a lot easier, but obviously being young and relatively inexperienced, it was definitely a bit of a stress,” she recalls.
“I wasn’t worried about whether or not I was doing the right thing; it was more about the process and not really knowing how it all worked.”
Despite that stress, Ms Pileggi was sure it would all work out.
“I was pretty confident,” she says. “I was doing higher figures previously where I was working. Generating leads and all that stuff was never really a concern because I’d already handled that stress in the first one or two years of working for someone else.”
The biggest challenge, she believes, is remuneration. Many young people have high rents and other financial commitments and can’t manage easily on the kind of income many brokers see in their first year of operation.
“I think the hardest part for young people is that you almost need a full year’s wages before you go into it to feel comfortable,” she says.
“The lack of young people in the industry definitely has a lot to do with the lack of income in the first year.”
Ms Pileggi has, nevertheless, thrived in her first solo year, with only the assistance of a part-time administration assistant.
She concedes that the long hours are the hardest part of what she does. “You can manage your job around your life though,” she says. “The flexibility is one of the best things about my job.”
THE FUTURE: GROWTH AND SUCCESS
Ms Pileggi had to spend most of 2012 consolidating her new business and could really only focus on mortgages. This year, she wants to focus on growing the business through diversification.
“With Mortgage Choice bringing out a financial planning arm, it’s the perfect time to diversify,” she says, adding that she is keen to look at bringing a financial planner on board in the future.
“It’s about offering your customer a full range of services,” she says. “You have to give customers everything they need and then they’ll come back to you rather than reverting to the branch.”
While Ms Pileggi has a referral arrangement with a financial planner and two real estate agents, her best referrers are by far her own customers.
This gives her an excellent conversion rate, she explains, because referrals from customers are good quality leads.
“Some financial planners will send you referrals where people are in trouble already and you can’t really help them out,” she says.
“Some people go to financial planners when they’re already in arrears and refinancing them to a higher rate with a non-conforming lender really isn’t helping them at all that far down the track.
“The conversion with existing customer referrals is definitely better.”
So, at only 28 years old and with an expanding business, Ms Pileggi could well be on track to take out this year’s Young Broker of the Year award – which would be no mean feat, given that she was planning to be a social worker.
ALL THE ANSWERS
Ms Pileggi says she has often thought about what she’d do if she wasn’t in broking. “I have actually given it a lot of thought, but I’ve never come up with an answer,” she says.
Aside from that one question though, it seems she always has the answers.
“Leteisha was fantastic, nothing was too hard and no questions went unanswered,” raves one customer on her website.
So long as Ms Pileggi never finds the answer to what she’d do if she wasn’t in broking, it seems that clients and the industry alike will benefit.
