What the Best Brokers do... at the start.

Over the past two decades I have worked with some of the best brokers in the industry. Two of my recruits who entered the mortgage broking industry without any prior lending or broking experience went on to win Broker of the Year at the prestigious MPA Australian Mortgage Awards. I even managed to smash out over 150 mortgages myself in my first of two years loan writing in 1994, however to be fair there wasn't as much high quality competition in those days.

I am often asked what the best brokers do and in fact many of the high performers I have worked with are the ones who have asked this question at the start of their careers. I can usually pick a future superstar and I can usually identify a likely non-performer, however this probably comprises  less than 20% of the aspiring brokers I have met.

The obvious superstars stand out. They are confident yet humble (but not always), they are sincere (or can fake it), they expect to succeed and they do. They absolutely know what they want to achieve. And they achieve it.

So obvious superstars and non-performers aside we have around 4 in 5 who could become better than average or even a Superstar, if they do what the best brokers do.

Some of the biggest indicators of success I have seen amongst new brokers, are those who get through the start up and accreditation process quickly, the brokers with the shortest gap between starting and settling their first five or so deals (they usually have a couple to write on week one), brokers who have an action plan and the big one brokers who establish a significant number of referral partnerships quickly. There are a myriad of other success factors of course including hard work and perseverance, but these four for me are big ticket early indicators of future success.

It all starts with a plan

Some of the best plans have been written on the back of a napkin. What do I want to achieve? How am I going to achieve it? Simple!

And I am a big believer in keeping it simple.

1. How much upfront commission do I want to make? (Treat trail as bonus profit) e.g. $100,000.
2. How much volume do I need to write? Divide 1 by your average upfront percentage e.g. $100,000 / 0.54% (say 0.60% x 90%) = $18.518,518 p.a.
3. How many mortgages do I need to settle? Divide 2 by your average mortgage size e.g. $18,518,518 / $350,000 = 53 a year.
4. How many leads do I need to generate? If you don't know your lead to settled ratio multiply 3 by 4 (a 25% conversion) e.g. 53 x 4 = 212 a year (4.07 per week).

I recently read a great article written by superstar broker Jayden Vecchio titled 90 Day plan to double your settlements. In this article Jayden succinctly outlines the key to every good "Action Plan". Vision, Goals, Constant Improvement and most importantly Action. He also shares his own 90 Day Plan templates and I encourage you to spend some time doing your own 90 day plan. 19 out of 20 of your competitors who read this won't, so you will already ahead of 95% of your competition if you do.

Focus on the high dollar producing activities

The world has changed and there are brokers out there writing big numbers without ever meeting their customers. They are usually in roles where most of the leads are generated for them. If you have positioned yourself as a lead self generating face to face broker it is critically important to focus on the high dollar producing activities every day, every week. Examples of activities a broker could focus on are:-

• conduct two face to face meetings with prospective referrers every week.
• visit Rainmakers (top 5 referrers) a minimum of every two weeks.
• get face to face with 80% of customers referred.
• spend three hours calling existing customers every week.
• cross sell other financial services products on every deal. (go deep e.g. specialist, asset finance, commercial finance and go broad e.g. risk and general insurance)
• follow up pre-approved borrowers a minimum of every two weeks.
• visit 5 open houses every Saturday to check out properties that may be of interest to your pre-approved borrowers.

The list is plentiful. Action is the key. Get in front of borrowers and referrers; the two big dollar making activities.

All this stuff is obvious of course and the only thing that prevents any broker from achieving their target is "doing it".