Jayden Vecchio : Charging Ahead

Joshua Vecchio settled more than $60m in loans in his first nine months as a mortgage broker. Now 16 months into his new career, MPA finds out how he’s become so successful so quickly

Discovery Finance’s Joshua Vecchio first came to MPA’s attention when he was put forward to take part in this year’s Young Guns feature. During the course of our conversation he revealed that he’d managed to settle more than $60m in loans in his first nine months as a broker. A few months down the line, and with that impressive achievement still fresh in our minds, we tracked Joshua down to delve further into how he has managed to build up such a successful business so quickly.

It may come as little surprise that one of the key drivers of Vecchio’s early success has been a solid grounding in the lending business, thanks to several years spent working in the banking industry.

He worked at two of the country’s non-majors, Bankwest and Macquarie, for three to four years each, and he believes the experience he picked up while working at the banks has been invaluable in helping him set up his own brokerage.

“I think they’re a good breeding ground for brokers and people coming into the industry, because they do teach you a lot of the right ways of doing things, and even some of the complexities and intricacies of financials and complicated deals,” Vecchio says.

He adds that he received good in-house training during his time with the banks, and is now making the most of the broker-specific training that lenders offer up to the broking community.

“The banks usually have regular training monthly, and even offsite days, which is something that’s obviously discretionary for brokers, but it’s something that they really believe in, and I believe in as well,” he says.

SETTING THE TONE

Vecchio’s disciplined approach to work has helped him hit the ground running. He explains that making sure he had the right structure in place was key to preparing for his initial client meetings as a broker, to set the tone for the months ahead.

And 16 months into the job he’s now in the process of drilling the correct procedures into a new recruit that he’s brought into the business.

“We’ve done some role playing,” he explains. “It’s just getting the simple things right, being detailed and making sure you get everything the first time.”

To that end, he says it’s standard practice to send the client an email outlining the documents and information that will be required before the first meeting.

“Usually we pretty heavily prequalify people to make sure no one’s wasting anyone’s time,” he says. Of course, it’s all well and good having a rocksolid client process in place, but if the leads aren’t coming in, then it won’t be used to its full potential.

So, as a new broker, how did Vecchio manage to build up a solid client base off the bat? Once again,his banking background came to the fore.

“I think I was fortunate in that when I was at Bankwest they didn’t really give us leads at the time in the mobile lending channel,” he explains. “So I got to understand what works and what didn’t work, and that gives you a different perspective.”

This different perspective saw Vecchio decide to specialise in construction and development finance and seek out referral sources in that area.

“I’m a big believer in having a niche,” he explains. “I’ve done a fair bit with development clients and working with professionals that are specific to that industry and then generating referrals that way.”

Vecchio cites relationships with developers as a good source of referrals, but he’s also embraced the digital age and looks to provide meaningful content via his website, blogs and social media to build up a following.

“I’ve just had an article published on [property industry commentator] Michael Matusik’s blog,” he says. “So it’s stuff like that, and my own blog, website and Facebook.”

Of the various digital avenues he follows to promote his business, Vecchio says the most important is his website, which he updates every second day to make sure the content is fresh.

“Make sure that you’re giving value, and it’s not just a landing page,” he recommends.

FINDING A NICHE

Impressive settlement figures don’t come without a lot of hard work, but Vecchio does explain that working on high-value deals helps to keep volumes healthy without having to do too much running around. Combine that with a solid process, and you begin to see how he hit that $60m-in-nine-months figure.

“My average deal size is about $2m, and some of the deals I’ve done are $10–$12m commercial deals,” he says.

“And then it’s just doing the small things like having everything up front; not submitting it till it’s finished; having a checklist and process in place so you’re not doubling back and doubling up the work.”

And the large deal sizes certainly help when it comes to maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

“It’s about managing the work, and not letting the work manage you,” he says. “It’s something I learnt at Bankwest: to work smarter and not harder. And that’s why I do bigger deal sizes, because it’s the same amount of work but more return.”

Vecchio believes that, while he was fortunate to have a grounding in commercial lending from his Bankwest days, the potential the commercial sector can offer brokers who are willing to specialise is often overlooked.

“I think it’s about having a specialty, sticking with that, and then people recognise you in that space,” he says. “You’ll pick up more business that way, rather than being a generalist and trying to pick up everything.

“For example, if I was doing a 95% loan it would probably take me more time to work out how to place that and do it, as opposed to a commercial deal for $10m. Because I know who to speak to, who the contacts are, what’s required and how to get it done.”

When it comes to the process of getting commercial deals over the line, Vecchio stresses that it’s important to be transparent when setting client expectations.

For example, he’ll admit that there’s only so much within his control, but when he says he’ll give a client an update by close of business the following day, he follows up on that pledge.

“It’s important setting transparency so people have confidence and know that everything’s going fine and it’s all happening in the background,” he explains.

“Every deal has its complexities, and it’s just a matter of identifying them up front and mitigating them,” he adds.

MOVING ON

Vecchio estimates that residential deals only account for around 10–20% of his business, and that he’s referred potential clients to residential specialists in the past in order to make sure they get the best value out of contacting him. But his new recruit is all set to focus on Discovery Finance’s residential arm.

In an interesting twist of fate, Vecchio reveals that his new broker actually got in touch with him having seen his profile in this year’s MPA Young Guns feature.

“He contacted me off the back of that,” Vecchio explains. “He’s a young guy just wanting to work with people that are young, vibrant and want to get the most out of the industry.”

At the moment Vecchio’s new charge is busily building up a residential client base through “persistence, lots of phone calls and doing the work that others won’t to get the deal”.

This feature is lifted from Mortgage Professional's July 2014 issue. Download to read more!