The Successful Adviser's James McCracken shares strategic tips on how to expand your brokerage the right way.
James McCracken is the founder of The Sucessful Adviser and teaches mortgage brokers how to attract more clients, settle more loans and be seen as the preeminent adviser to their clients.
Many years ago, I suffered the same ill-fated curse that’s been thrust upon high performing salespeople for generations. Promotion.
Someone thought that because I could sell, I should now be leading people. To start with, my new role was strange, unfamiliar and mostly disappointing.
You see, as a sales person, you’re only responsible for you. Hopefully, you’ve got a good manager. Someone who’ll got in and ‘bat’ for you if need be, encourage you and coach you.
But even if you don’t, you probably won’t let it affect your results, as you’re already a self-starter. You don’t need to be motivated. That already comes from within. And then somehow, you find yourself managing a team. Sure, it can be a rewarding experience, but it doesn’t come without it’s unique challenges.
Suddenly, you notice how many sick days people are having. Who comes in early, who stays late, who just wants a pay cheque and who wants to perform. And here’s the thing. You may have moved out of a corporate gig to run your own show and you swore you’d never hire people again.
And now you’re faced with a dilemma. Do you bring on new team members and grow the business so you can over time create more personal freedom – or do you run it lean & mean and just keep plugging away on the tools?
Many a broker in their endeavors to grow their business and their personal freedom will bring on more loan-writers.
The idea sounds good in theory, right. You get a clip of their results. If you bring on enough brokers and they write strong volumes just like you’ve been doing, you can probably get the same income without writing as many loans. Well, at least that’s how it’s meant to work.
Actually, it’s a great business idea, and it’s definitely worth striving for. The challenge comes with the execution. With more resources comes a greater need to systemise things – both people processes, marketing and lead generation and your back end operations. Of course, you’ll also have higher operating expenses, particularly if your loan writers are PAYG.
And in the scheme of things, you never really envisaged yourself being a ‘leader of people’. All you wanted to do when you opened up shop is to write loans and now you found yourself responsible for ensuring your team members get paid – and usually, that means getting paid before you.
So what to do? Do you downsize the operation and go back to having a personal assistant or two – or do you find a way to work through the problems and ensure everyone is on board with the new direction?
If you choose the latter, here are some things you’ll want to consider:
Culture
Yes, it sounds like a fluffy word that doesn’t really belong in a mortgage broking practice – but the truth is, you already have a culture – it really just a question of whether your culture is contributing to individual and group success – or whether it’s detracting from performance.
If the culture – and the results aren’t how you want them to be – look at the factors that influence them. One of the key ones is:
Staff Competencies
This section alone could be a training program unto itself. You’ll either have systems and processes you want your loan writers to follow – or you’ll encourage them to find their own.
The benefit of having existing processes is it minimises the room for error or interpretation and should increase business efficiency and effectiveness. Naturally, this doesn’t include loan-scenarios, it’s about what you do pre-appointment, how you conduct the appointment, package the deal and then submit
Some brokers will have newer team members sit in on literally dozens of client appointments so the new person builds their competency around how to deliver the advice and achieve the best outcome.
While it might seem tedious to have a team member sit in on so many appointments, it should minimise potential learning gaps and enable the loan writer to perform at a higher level. These ‘sit in’ sessions are by no means exclusive to new-to-industry advisers. If you have a particular way of operating, it may well save you time in the long run – and deliver better results for you, your broker and the clients.
Loan Processing
If you’re putting team members on board, chances are you already have some in-house help around loan processing. In fact, you might even have your new broker package up some deals so they understand how things work about it before they start seeing new clients.
Either way, whether you bring the expertise in-house or whether you outsource to a loan processing company, you’ll need to consider a few variables and systemise your process so that it becomes part of the Standard Operating Procedure.
While it’s convenient to have a loan processing outfit help you when it’s just yourself, the bigger the operation gets, the more the skills tend to be brought in-house. By this time, the loan processor or processors should have sufficient volume of deals on their desk to keep them busy and justify the full-time cost of this resource.
Standards and Expectations
While it might be easy to go in batting for a client, when it comes to having a potentially awkward or uncomfortable conversation with a staff member – well, that’s a completely different kettle of fish. By establishing expectations with your team members, you give them an understanding of what ‘success’ looks like in their role – and then provide them the opportunity to succeed.
If they are full-time team members operating under your ABN, you have more control over what their performance should look like. It also means that as the business leader, you should take a more active role in supporting their success through coaching, mentoring or training.
If, after your training or mentoring they aren’t showing signs of progress, it might mean they aren’t the right person for the role. As much as this is the bane of an employer’s existence, you’ll need to do something about it, because left alone, their poor results could be sending signals to others team members that underperformance is tolerated.
So, awkward as it may seem, you’ll need to mange their performance, influence their attitude and support them to perform better – or help them realise the role may not be the right fit for them.
While it’s costly to replace a team member, it’s more costly to the business keeping a poor performer on board that may damage your brand and deliver a sub-standard level of advice or service to clients.
As the adage goes, be slow to hire and quick to fire.
When you have built the right people processes and you have a high performance culture, your business can be used a vehicle for doing lots of good – for you, for your team members, and for the many clients whom you serve.
James McCracken helps mortgage brokers put the processes in place to maximise lead volume and get the most from your people. To get a clear and concise guide that outlines the 6 Key Stages of mortgage broking success, visit www.thesuccessfuladviser.com/roadmap
Many years ago, I suffered the same ill-fated curse that’s been thrust upon high performing salespeople for generations. Promotion.
Someone thought that because I could sell, I should now be leading people. To start with, my new role was strange, unfamiliar and mostly disappointing.
You see, as a sales person, you’re only responsible for you. Hopefully, you’ve got a good manager. Someone who’ll got in and ‘bat’ for you if need be, encourage you and coach you.
But even if you don’t, you probably won’t let it affect your results, as you’re already a self-starter. You don’t need to be motivated. That already comes from within. And then somehow, you find yourself managing a team. Sure, it can be a rewarding experience, but it doesn’t come without it’s unique challenges.
Suddenly, you notice how many sick days people are having. Who comes in early, who stays late, who just wants a pay cheque and who wants to perform. And here’s the thing. You may have moved out of a corporate gig to run your own show and you swore you’d never hire people again.
And now you’re faced with a dilemma. Do you bring on new team members and grow the business so you can over time create more personal freedom – or do you run it lean & mean and just keep plugging away on the tools?
Many a broker in their endeavors to grow their business and their personal freedom will bring on more loan-writers.
The idea sounds good in theory, right. You get a clip of their results. If you bring on enough brokers and they write strong volumes just like you’ve been doing, you can probably get the same income without writing as many loans. Well, at least that’s how it’s meant to work.
Actually, it’s a great business idea, and it’s definitely worth striving for. The challenge comes with the execution. With more resources comes a greater need to systemise things – both people processes, marketing and lead generation and your back end operations. Of course, you’ll also have higher operating expenses, particularly if your loan writers are PAYG.
And in the scheme of things, you never really envisaged yourself being a ‘leader of people’. All you wanted to do when you opened up shop is to write loans and now you found yourself responsible for ensuring your team members get paid – and usually, that means getting paid before you.
So what to do? Do you downsize the operation and go back to having a personal assistant or two – or do you find a way to work through the problems and ensure everyone is on board with the new direction?
If you choose the latter, here are some things you’ll want to consider:
Culture
Yes, it sounds like a fluffy word that doesn’t really belong in a mortgage broking practice – but the truth is, you already have a culture – it really just a question of whether your culture is contributing to individual and group success – or whether it’s detracting from performance.
If the culture – and the results aren’t how you want them to be – look at the factors that influence them. One of the key ones is:
Staff Competencies
This section alone could be a training program unto itself. You’ll either have systems and processes you want your loan writers to follow – or you’ll encourage them to find their own.
The benefit of having existing processes is it minimises the room for error or interpretation and should increase business efficiency and effectiveness. Naturally, this doesn’t include loan-scenarios, it’s about what you do pre-appointment, how you conduct the appointment, package the deal and then submit
Some brokers will have newer team members sit in on literally dozens of client appointments so the new person builds their competency around how to deliver the advice and achieve the best outcome.
While it might seem tedious to have a team member sit in on so many appointments, it should minimise potential learning gaps and enable the loan writer to perform at a higher level. These ‘sit in’ sessions are by no means exclusive to new-to-industry advisers. If you have a particular way of operating, it may well save you time in the long run – and deliver better results for you, your broker and the clients.
Loan Processing
If you’re putting team members on board, chances are you already have some in-house help around loan processing. In fact, you might even have your new broker package up some deals so they understand how things work about it before they start seeing new clients.
Either way, whether you bring the expertise in-house or whether you outsource to a loan processing company, you’ll need to consider a few variables and systemise your process so that it becomes part of the Standard Operating Procedure.
While it’s convenient to have a loan processing outfit help you when it’s just yourself, the bigger the operation gets, the more the skills tend to be brought in-house. By this time, the loan processor or processors should have sufficient volume of deals on their desk to keep them busy and justify the full-time cost of this resource.
Standards and Expectations
While it might be easy to go in batting for a client, when it comes to having a potentially awkward or uncomfortable conversation with a staff member – well, that’s a completely different kettle of fish. By establishing expectations with your team members, you give them an understanding of what ‘success’ looks like in their role – and then provide them the opportunity to succeed.
If they are full-time team members operating under your ABN, you have more control over what their performance should look like. It also means that as the business leader, you should take a more active role in supporting their success through coaching, mentoring or training.
If, after your training or mentoring they aren’t showing signs of progress, it might mean they aren’t the right person for the role. As much as this is the bane of an employer’s existence, you’ll need to do something about it, because left alone, their poor results could be sending signals to others team members that underperformance is tolerated.
So, awkward as it may seem, you’ll need to mange their performance, influence their attitude and support them to perform better – or help them realise the role may not be the right fit for them.
While it’s costly to replace a team member, it’s more costly to the business keeping a poor performer on board that may damage your brand and deliver a sub-standard level of advice or service to clients.
As the adage goes, be slow to hire and quick to fire.
When you have built the right people processes and you have a high performance culture, your business can be used a vehicle for doing lots of good – for you, for your team members, and for the many clients whom you serve.
James McCracken helps mortgage brokers put the processes in place to maximise lead volume and get the most from your people. To get a clear and concise guide that outlines the 6 Key Stages of mortgage broking success, visit www.thesuccessfuladviser.com/roadmap
