Director of brokerage Lending Specialists and PLAN's longest-serving member, offers lessons learned in his nearly two decades in broking
- Persevere
I started out in broking in 1999 when I set up my business, Lending Specialists and became the first member of PLAN Australia, of which I am still a proud member today.
I was 49 years old, made redundant from a major bank after over 20 years’ service and had no idea what I was going to do. Broking was a whole new industry and not as evolved as it is now. However there were many people coming up with great ideas. I had a drive to succeed and wanted to be part of all that action.
After a few years of running my own business, I could see the potential for growth in the industry so in 2005 I set up Loans Actually, a sub-aggregation business, which now has 38 brokers under its umbrella. My vision for this business was to bring in new blood, as well as train and mentor people.
Safe to say, I have seen a few full cycles in this industry and it hasn’t always been a particularly smooth ride – especially with the advent of the GFC a decade into starting my business. Incomes fell by 35% and it was a difficult time for everyone.
I feel a great responsibility for my employees and their families and am proud to say we persevered and have gone on to grow bigger and better than ever.
- Look before you jump
If you are a new-to-industry broker or someone who is considering broking as a profession, my advice is to test the water first.
To be a successful broker you need to have a degree of salesmanship – to be able to talk to people and bring in new business. If you haven’t got the right networking and negotiating skills, you might as well take a step back and think twice.
A good way to check if you have the right skillset is to stay in your job and have a go at referring business for a few months or get on board with a broker at the back end to see how the business works.
When brokers want to join us, we ask them to put together an initial business and marketing plan and if it doesn’t stack up, we ask them to take another look at it. You need to have those fundamentals in place so you don’t struggle in the first few years.
- Share your knowledge
Over the years I have mentored hundreds of brokers within the PLAN Australia network and I believe sharing knowledge is highly rewarding. I love to see people grow and have never been scared to take people under my wing. I hope my legacy in this industry will be that I have helped a lot of people.
Broking can be a lonely business – sitting at home on your own, mainly having contact with other people over the phone and visiting clients at unsociable hours.
That is why I encourage the brokers I work with to come into the office when they can – to be part of a team and bounce ideas off each other. There’s rarely a day goes by where something doesn’t change and I’m sure technology will continue to improve the way we communicate with both lenders and clients as we strive for quicker, more efficient application processing and conversions to settlement.
One of my biggest challenges is keeping up with all these changes and that’s why it’s so important to be part of a great team. I’m lucky that both my staff at Lending Specialists and my sub Aggregation team at Loans Actually are all very experienced and their support is invaluable. I also rely heavily on my aggregator (PLAN Australia) and licensee (BLSSA) for their updates and training to keep me abreast with industry changes and my compliance spot on.
Over the years I have also attended a number of aggregator and industry conferences, meetings and events and I try to participate in these wherever possible. I find them helpful to myself and my business and a wonderful way to keep up to date with what is happening in the industry, and also a forum to add my thoughts and suggestions towards our future.
- Innovate
Being prepared to try something new is key in this industry. Broking is changing at a rapid pace and I believe you need to innovate to keep up.
My business, Lending Specialists, was one of the first broking businesses to come up with an app and I love playing around with the Podium software that our aggregator, PLAN Australia, provides to tailor it to the needs of our business. We have also hired a marketing specialist to execute our social media strategy – sharing articles of interest and engaging with our followers on Facebook.
At the moment I am trialling a fintech platform which offers an online marketplace for home loans. My advice would be, always be prepared to try something new and if it doesn’t work, try something else.
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arry Oxley has been in mortgage broking for almost two decades, after a long career in banking. He was the first member of PLAN Australia in Victoria and has recently won the CEO Achievement Award from PLAN Australia CEO Anja Pannek for his contribution to the aggregator, the industry and the community.
