It’s accredited by the MFAA and FBAA, and has more than 6,500 participants
Recognising that they could do more to support brokers to diversify, ANZ launched the Commercial Broker Webinar Series on February 2019 to provide education on 17 various topics which include property, health, professional services and franchise lending.
“Helping brokers diversify is a focus for our ANZ Commercial Broker Team, as customers are increasingly looking to brokers to service their full range of financial needs,” ANZ national head of third-party asset finance and state manager commercial organisation VIC/TAS Trent Jollow told MPA.
Short, sharp, concise
Jollow, who’s also in charge of running the series, added that they are keeping the webinars “short, sharp and to the point” because they know brokers have limited time to spare and to ensure brokers know exactly what to expect once the schedule of each session comes out.
“Brokers are hungry for information and opportunities to learn. If you make the learning experience succinct, informative and convenient, brokers will absolutely see its benefits and participate actively,” he said.
The team tailors the MFAA- and FBAA-accredited webinars, which now have over 6,500 participants, to various levels of experiences. For instance, the series has an introduction session that targets residential-focused brokers looking to diversify and to grow their knowledge base. And for the more experienced brokers, it has sessions on property development and cash flow lending.
“We really try to ensure that these sessions are as valuable as possible for brokers by covering a wide variety of topics in a small time investment,” Jollow said.
According to him, feedback on the webinar series has been “fantastic,” and they’re seeing a “solid broker engagement via the lengthy Q and A at the end of each webinar.”
Striking a balance
Being a national initiative, the series confronts the logistical challenge of accommodating participants. Jollow’s team is still learning how to deal with it. But they hope that by offering a selection of dates and topics and with regular communication, they get to address concerns around timing.
While they frequently receive requests to produce more webinars, the ANZ Commercial Broker Team efforts to strike a balance between creating online series and conducting face-to-face training sessions. The team also actively partners with aggregators that need support with their training programs.
“We’re always open to hearing about how we can further improve our services, so I would invite brokers to contact our commercial broker manager if they have any topic suggestions or insights into ways we can improve,” Jollow said.
