The founder of The Successful Adviser shares his tips on challenges new to industry advisers face and how they can build business faster.
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.
Being a parent of two beautiful young children, I’ve noticed that in some regards, life imitates business – or maybe it’s that business imitates life.
What do I mean?
At the time of writing, my children are 3 and 7. They do what I think all children at that age should be doing – living for the moment, going hour-by-hour, day-by-day.
They haven’t yet mapped out any grand plans or thought in great detail about what the future holds (admittedly my son was aspiring at one point to be a ‘binman’). For the most part, they are continually reacting to the world around them and doing their best to get by.
And that’s all good – and I love them for it.
In some regards, this is not dissimilar to the experience a new broker has when entering the industry. Their progress, for the most part, is often slower than they expect. They are reactive to their world, often don’t have a clearly defined plan, nor a system or structure for creating the results they want.
Having the good fortune of interviewing more than 97 of Australia’s leading professional service providers, I’ve noticed there are patterns as to why some people achieve more than others.
One thing is for sure. ‘Success’ in operating your business is often harder than some make out, and requires a multitude of personal and professional skills to achieve the results you want.
If you are fairly new in your journey, chances are you’ll have across some of the following experiences or thoughts:
• Not enough leads: getting more leads in the door is like the oxygen that fuels your business. Without them, you’ll perish, though creating consistency and predictability around this can be tough
• Overwhelm: the moment things go from too much time and not enough money to short-on-time and getting good money can be tough. You need to write a bunch of deals, you want to control the process, you want settlements to go smoothly – and, for your pipeline to remain full, because chances are when you’re busy writing deals, you’re not prospecting that same as you otherwise would
• Job seeking: maybe you’ve been in the game for between 6 to 12 months and you’re questioning whether it’s all worth it. Your cash-flow isn’t yet where you want it to be – and you’ve scoured a job-site or two just to hedge your bets - thinking the PAYG job would make life so much easier and provide you a steady, predictable income
• Questioning yourself? It might seem like everyone else is ‘smashing it’ in terms of results, which causes some people to think “what’s wrong with me?”
If any of the above sound familiar, you are not alone. ALL of the advisers whom I’ve interviewed experienced challenges along their journey. Little did they know the challenges would be their opportunity to prove to themselves they are good enough – and can they can persist in the face of adversity.
That’s not to say they didn’t experience setbacks. They did. What defined them wasn’t the experience of the setback, but the decisions they made – and they actions they took to get through these moments.
With the focus on getting more leads and writing more deals, it can often be easy to get distracted by the next shiny object or forget some timeless principles that can help you succeed in your broking business:
1. Think long-term.
Build yourself a clear plan of where you aspire to go – and then start the process of implementation. Break ‘big things’ up into ‘projects’ and ‘tasks’ so that they become manageable. You won’t achieve your entire plan within a couple of months, so start identifying specific projects and break them down into tasks you can implement day-by-day and week-by-week
2. Effective sales and marketing.
Most times, it’s ineffective marketing that causes a lack of sales. One key element of success is building an effective team of referral partners. When meeting with potential referral partners, aim to meet or communicate on a regular basis so you can create opportunities and open doors for each other. The more consistent your communication and they more they understand your business and trust you, the more opportunities you will receive
3. Relationships, relationships, relationships.
Yes, you need to ‘transact’ on a regular basis to achieve your profit goals, though think about the lifetime value of your clients, not just the one off deal. The more relationships you have – and the deeper those relationships, you’ll naturally attract more opportunities and be front of mind more often. Relationships also extend to your banker BDMs, as they can work hard to help you get some of your deals over the line
4. Action.
Simple as it sounds, trying to solve problems from the comfort of the lounge room sofa just doesn’t work. You’re better off making new connections and having more conversations. Some people ‘wait for confidence to arrive’ before ‘getting out there’, but the reality is we’re hardwired to ‘play it safe’, and confidence only arrives after you start doing something
5. Structure.
Have a clear plan about not just about how you plan to structure your day, but how you plan to structure your company. What role will you take, what responsibilities will you assume – and what tasks or roles will you delegate to others? While you might be doing everything to start with, the better your ability to build a quality team (outsourced or otherwise) around you will free you up and enhance your results. Peter Gomm from PLAN Australia was clear on his responsibilities before he’d written his first deal. He’d already hired a PA and knew she would handle the loan processing – so he had to hunt for deals, do the ‘strategy piece’ – and then hand it over for his PA to submit. The clearer you are about what you’ll do – and what you expect others to do – and you back yourself in to make it happen, the easier it becomes to focus on fewer things and do them well
When you commit yourself to implementing and abiding by these principles as core pillars of your business, it creates far more month to month consistency, you’ll enjoy what you do far more and you’ll have a meaningful and measurable impact on your business results while being of great service to more clients.
James McCracken is the founder of The Sucessful Adviser and teaches mortgage brokers a structure and process to attract more clients, settle more loans and be seen as the preeminent adviser to their clients. To find out more, visit http://thesuccessfuladviser.com/roadmap
Being a parent of two beautiful young children, I’ve noticed that in some regards, life imitates business – or maybe it’s that business imitates life.
What do I mean?
At the time of writing, my children are 3 and 7. They do what I think all children at that age should be doing – living for the moment, going hour-by-hour, day-by-day.
They haven’t yet mapped out any grand plans or thought in great detail about what the future holds (admittedly my son was aspiring at one point to be a ‘binman’). For the most part, they are continually reacting to the world around them and doing their best to get by.
And that’s all good – and I love them for it.
In some regards, this is not dissimilar to the experience a new broker has when entering the industry. Their progress, for the most part, is often slower than they expect. They are reactive to their world, often don’t have a clearly defined plan, nor a system or structure for creating the results they want.
Having the good fortune of interviewing more than 97 of Australia’s leading professional service providers, I’ve noticed there are patterns as to why some people achieve more than others.
One thing is for sure. ‘Success’ in operating your business is often harder than some make out, and requires a multitude of personal and professional skills to achieve the results you want.
If you are fairly new in your journey, chances are you’ll have across some of the following experiences or thoughts:
• Not enough leads: getting more leads in the door is like the oxygen that fuels your business. Without them, you’ll perish, though creating consistency and predictability around this can be tough
• Overwhelm: the moment things go from too much time and not enough money to short-on-time and getting good money can be tough. You need to write a bunch of deals, you want to control the process, you want settlements to go smoothly – and, for your pipeline to remain full, because chances are when you’re busy writing deals, you’re not prospecting that same as you otherwise would
• Job seeking: maybe you’ve been in the game for between 6 to 12 months and you’re questioning whether it’s all worth it. Your cash-flow isn’t yet where you want it to be – and you’ve scoured a job-site or two just to hedge your bets - thinking the PAYG job would make life so much easier and provide you a steady, predictable income
• Questioning yourself? It might seem like everyone else is ‘smashing it’ in terms of results, which causes some people to think “what’s wrong with me?”
If any of the above sound familiar, you are not alone. ALL of the advisers whom I’ve interviewed experienced challenges along their journey. Little did they know the challenges would be their opportunity to prove to themselves they are good enough – and can they can persist in the face of adversity.
That’s not to say they didn’t experience setbacks. They did. What defined them wasn’t the experience of the setback, but the decisions they made – and they actions they took to get through these moments.
With the focus on getting more leads and writing more deals, it can often be easy to get distracted by the next shiny object or forget some timeless principles that can help you succeed in your broking business:
1. Think long-term.
Build yourself a clear plan of where you aspire to go – and then start the process of implementation. Break ‘big things’ up into ‘projects’ and ‘tasks’ so that they become manageable. You won’t achieve your entire plan within a couple of months, so start identifying specific projects and break them down into tasks you can implement day-by-day and week-by-week
2. Effective sales and marketing.
Most times, it’s ineffective marketing that causes a lack of sales. One key element of success is building an effective team of referral partners. When meeting with potential referral partners, aim to meet or communicate on a regular basis so you can create opportunities and open doors for each other. The more consistent your communication and they more they understand your business and trust you, the more opportunities you will receive
3. Relationships, relationships, relationships.
Yes, you need to ‘transact’ on a regular basis to achieve your profit goals, though think about the lifetime value of your clients, not just the one off deal. The more relationships you have – and the deeper those relationships, you’ll naturally attract more opportunities and be front of mind more often. Relationships also extend to your banker BDMs, as they can work hard to help you get some of your deals over the line
4. Action.
Simple as it sounds, trying to solve problems from the comfort of the lounge room sofa just doesn’t work. You’re better off making new connections and having more conversations. Some people ‘wait for confidence to arrive’ before ‘getting out there’, but the reality is we’re hardwired to ‘play it safe’, and confidence only arrives after you start doing something
5. Structure.
Have a clear plan about not just about how you plan to structure your day, but how you plan to structure your company. What role will you take, what responsibilities will you assume – and what tasks or roles will you delegate to others? While you might be doing everything to start with, the better your ability to build a quality team (outsourced or otherwise) around you will free you up and enhance your results. Peter Gomm from PLAN Australia was clear on his responsibilities before he’d written his first deal. He’d already hired a PA and knew she would handle the loan processing – so he had to hunt for deals, do the ‘strategy piece’ – and then hand it over for his PA to submit. The clearer you are about what you’ll do – and what you expect others to do – and you back yourself in to make it happen, the easier it becomes to focus on fewer things and do them well
When you commit yourself to implementing and abiding by these principles as core pillars of your business, it creates far more month to month consistency, you’ll enjoy what you do far more and you’ll have a meaningful and measurable impact on your business results while being of great service to more clients.
James McCracken is the founder of The Sucessful Adviser and teaches mortgage brokers a structure and process to attract more clients, settle more loans and be seen as the preeminent adviser to their clients. To find out more, visit http://thesuccessfuladviser.com/roadmap
