In his final chapter, Anthony Hong looks back on why a career change into broking has been the right choice
It has been roughly 10 weeks since I started ‘Banker to Broker’ and I have to thank MPA for the opportunity to write such an extensive and personal mini-series of my story and leap of faith.
No doubt it has been a very tough journey but making this move has been the best decision I have ever made. Why didn’t I make it earlier? My objective is to become a successful well-rounded broker. I found what makes a broker successful is consistency, a 1:1 quality/quantity ratio and what makes a broker well-rounded are new learnings.
For anyone that is looking at making the same move as I did, I think it is safe to say that the biggest concern people will have is the risk of loss in income. So I estimated that I needed to settle approximately $1million a month to be on par with where I came from. The average loan size in Melbourne is about $400,000 and as a banker I settled about 95% of applications that I got approved. I also recalled that I approved about 80% of applications I lodged and I converted about four out of five leads.
The bottom line is to find more than five leads a month, the aim is to double or triple that by building a large client base and the challenge is to do it without compromising quality submissions (which is time needed to process an application and basically a full time job on its own). It is no part time gig, balancing all this is what makes or breaks a new broker.
Now that I have some runs on the board, my pipeline is healthy and my customer base is growing, I can say it is as easy or as hard as you make it. Simplify the numbers I had above, reverse engineer it, get down to the bottom denominator and work on that. It should be no secret that broking is a referral based business so forget building up a brand and just know you are a walking, talking brand. Each day I stay motivated and remind myself the process takes time, the numbers will add up, trust the system and trust yourself.
Statistically, the number of new brokers are growing at a similar pace to ‘new residential home loans’, so there is no shortage of business. My top three pieces of advice are be proactive, stay hungry and search for new learnings.
With over 10 years’ experience in the banking and financial services industry, PMM Australia broker Anthony Hong identifies that the key to building and maintaining client relationships is primarily down to a meticulous level of customer service as well as continually educating clients about ever-changing products and services available in the market.
No doubt it has been a very tough journey but making this move has been the best decision I have ever made. Why didn’t I make it earlier? My objective is to become a successful well-rounded broker. I found what makes a broker successful is consistency, a 1:1 quality/quantity ratio and what makes a broker well-rounded are new learnings.
For anyone that is looking at making the same move as I did, I think it is safe to say that the biggest concern people will have is the risk of loss in income. So I estimated that I needed to settle approximately $1million a month to be on par with where I came from. The average loan size in Melbourne is about $400,000 and as a banker I settled about 95% of applications that I got approved. I also recalled that I approved about 80% of applications I lodged and I converted about four out of five leads.
The bottom line is to find more than five leads a month, the aim is to double or triple that by building a large client base and the challenge is to do it without compromising quality submissions (which is time needed to process an application and basically a full time job on its own). It is no part time gig, balancing all this is what makes or breaks a new broker.
Now that I have some runs on the board, my pipeline is healthy and my customer base is growing, I can say it is as easy or as hard as you make it. Simplify the numbers I had above, reverse engineer it, get down to the bottom denominator and work on that. It should be no secret that broking is a referral based business so forget building up a brand and just know you are a walking, talking brand. Each day I stay motivated and remind myself the process takes time, the numbers will add up, trust the system and trust yourself.
Statistically, the number of new brokers are growing at a similar pace to ‘new residential home loans’, so there is no shortage of business. My top three pieces of advice are be proactive, stay hungry and search for new learnings.
With over 10 years’ experience in the banking and financial services industry, PMM Australia broker Anthony Hong identifies that the key to building and maintaining client relationships is primarily down to a meticulous level of customer service as well as continually educating clients about ever-changing products and services available in the market.
