This broker reveals why he made the move from aggregator BDM to broker and his process for getting a loan settled.
How and why did you become a broker?
My journey started nine years ago in the aggregation space. I worked as an aggregator BDM [and then as] head of partnerships. I got to learn both sides of the fence, on the lending side as well as the importance of finance for our clients and trying to feed our broking network with opportunities.
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I always had [a] dream of having my own brand. I got a little bit of a nudge from a fellow mortgage broker Fabio De Castro at Simplify Finance. I was really passionate about having my own brand and flying the flag.
What kind of loans are you writing?
Asset finance and a lot of them at the moment are cars. That is a big element of what we do.
Typical loan sizes are around that, $45,000–$55,000. We do cars, caravans, and a bit of debt consolidation, too.
But each month there’s nearly always a chunkier type of application, whether it’s a $500,000 Scania or a $1 million boat. There’s always an element of something large that comes through our pipeline each month, which we’re pretty lucky to have come across our desktop.
How do you find new business?
Even though I was fortunate enough to have been in the industry for so long and have a lot of relationships with people, it definitely didn’t come easy.
New business for us is about getting out there, talking to people, understanding the journey of our clients, and what their next transaction looks like [to] hopefully [get] a referral from that.
Or it’s going out and meeting brokers or accountants and setting up relationships that way. It’s just getting out there, picking up the phone, and talking to people.
How do you take a client all the way through to settlement?
We get in contact with the client as quick[ly] as we can. We set ourselves an SLA for five minutes to get in contact with our client as that inquiry comes through. You’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot!
We’re different to most brokers. A lot of brokers send customers an app to an online portal. We hold their hand, we do the application over the phone then and there. We then request some documentation on every single client.
We run a soft credit check. I think that’s really important. It’s really interesting that brokers don’t do soft credit checks on their clients. For the times that we haven’t, it has bit us in the bum so it’s definitely a really important part of what we do!
What tech do you use to make your job more efficient?
We use time-based tasks out of our CRM that plug into our calendar so that we’re having really timely conversations with our clients [to] make sure [we’re] not forgetting anything.
Outside of that, we use a platform called ActivePipe from a marketing point of view and that plugs straight into our Salestrekker platform. Outside of that, my phone! That is the most valuable part of what we do.
What are your top tips for new brokers?
Find the right mentor. [Find] somebody that wants to work with you and wants to be there and somebody you gel with.
There’s nothing more important than getting on the phone, talking to your clients, understanding their journey, and how you can be part of it. Don’t hide behind emails, don’t hide behind text messages. If somebody calls you, call them back as quickly as you can. That’s something that was instilled in me at a very young age and people really appreciate being spoken to. It’s a great way to build your relationships with your clients.
Find out more about James Cerolini and how he set up two businesses at once on the New Broker podcast episode: Making the move from aggregator BDM to broker
[Related: New Broker: Making the move from aggregator BDM to broker]
