Creating Deal Flow

I hope this article provides inspiration or insights to help your realise your own potential so you too can operate a broking practice that provides you ongoing professional and personal reward.

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Earlier this year I spoke with a couple of high performing brokers.? Both had impressive results, through how they structured their firms and delivered the service were very different.

I’d like to share an overview of both firms, as potentially one might resonate based on where you’re at or what you’re looking to do.

Broker # 1

This woman has been in the game for several years. ? She has trust, reciprocal referral relationships and an established client base, and they refer her like crazy.

So much so, that as is common for brokers like this, the challenge isn’t about “where is my next enquiry coming from”, it’s more to do with continuing to facilitate the service in an efficient, referable manner while also having a proactive approach to conducting repricing and reviews.

For this broker, she has a trusted reputation amongst a large community group which happens to earn her a lot of enquiry.? As she says though, her membership with the group is really about connection to like-minded people, and she would continue to do it regardless of benefits for her firm.

With some contract brokers under her wing, in addition to writing significant volume, she also wants to set them up for success.

When a broker is writing strong volumes without great systems, and then onboarding new brokers, it becomes imperative to develop clear standards around workflow and support, else, the practice owners tends to be putting out fires, which can either be stressful, frustrating or mitigate the progress they want to see for themselves or their new brokers.?

Hence the focus is on optimising her time, refining the workflow and ensuring the structure and support for the contractor enables it to be a win-win for them and for her.

This latter point is particularly poignant, as it somewhat common for me to see a structure setup that favours one party over the other, the net result being that the relationship tends to dissolve in some capacity because it isn’t sustainable.?

Broker # 2.

He's a completely different broker operating in a very difference niche.??He has a wealth of experience in finance & managing money that he accumulated well before he became a broker.

As a broker, he draws upon this depth of knowledge to complement his broking skills.

His clients, for the most part, are more affluent and skewed toward investing or purchasing a forever home with a high sticker price.

Part of his value-add is providing a cash-flow projection to his investor clients.??

The benefit for his sophisticated clients is that instead of just 'transacting the deal', he provides them foresight into where they can expect to be over the next several years – which can be exciting for them, and provide clarity over propose future purchases as part of the lending strategy.

The benefit for him is the opportunity to earn repeat business from these clients whereby he helps them build their property portfolio in line with their goals and objectives.

Further, it distinguishes him as a valuable, trusted advisor and earns him advocacy and referrals.

His overheads are fairly low, certainly by comparison to our earlier example, and his business model is much leaner.

Both brokers have different objectives though.

The former is passionate about mentoring and seeing others progress as much as providing an outstanding service for clients.

The latter loves numbers and helping clients see what’s possible in the future, and give them clarity and confidence to move forward.

It doesn’t make one better or worse, it just means they both have very different approaches to suit them individually.

What's Your Value Proposition?

Is it your years of experience, is it long standing relationships to get things done quicker, is it your knowledge around managing money, is it that you have your own property portfolio so you can speak as an investor and a broker.

?Not having a point of difference isn't business critical.??

Though, I can’t recall a broker who didn’t have better than average results when they had a clear and compelling value proposition they themselves believed in and were able to clearly and confidently articulate to clients and/or referrers alike.

To your success,

James.