The CEOs of three high performing brokerages share award-winning strategies for growth
According to Home Loans Expert CEO Alan Hemmings, knowing who your customers are is a crucial element for driving growth at a brokerage, no matter how big or small.
He was joined by Shore Financial CEO Theo Chambers and Smartmove Professional Mortgage Advisors CEO Darren Little in the CBA Brokerage of the Year (>20 staff) panel discussion at the 2020 Australian Mortgage Awards.
The panel was moderated by CBA’s NSW state manager of third-party banking Michael Piper and tackled a range of business strategy topics, such as:
- Using process and procedure to capture customer data
- Translating data to create an amazing customer experience
- Implementing compliance to make sure processes are robust
- How to achieve team buy-in to any new processes and procedures
- Approaching one-touch credit assessment when trying to deliver the perfect experience for customers
The panellists also outlined some of their award-winning strategies for growth.
According to Theo Chambers, hiring the right people in order to set a uniform culture is essential.
Read more: Create the right cultural expectations to get the most out of your team
He said aligning the business with the support of both aggregator and partners is also key, while technology plays a big part in the daily running of the business. The CRM used at Shore Financial automates much of the process for brokers and frees up their time by taking away about 30% of their administrative tasks.
Alan Hemmings agreed with Chambers on the importance of having the right structure and team in place, adding that consistency is key.
“Be really clear about what your strategy is and make sure everyone’s working in the same direction,” he said. “Be very slow to hire and very quick to move on.”
He said no matter what size the business is, having a clear understanding of where customers come from and who they are is crucial.
“Being really clear about your customer acquisition strategy is really important,” he noted.
Read next: The power of a good business plan
Darren Little said there were three things that Smartmove focused on consistently when looking at process: sustainability, productivity and profitability.
He said they measure these three things when making any decisions around the business – something that brokerages of all shapes and sizes could benefit from.
They also do a Kaizen workshop every year in order to strip back processes, taking a customer focused approach in order to deliver better outcomes.
For further insights into growing a brokerage and delivering better processes, watch the Commonwealth Bank of Australia Brokerage of the Year - (>20 staff) AMA panel.
