Chief executive Paul O’Regan reveals how LJ Hooker Home Loans’ new model is tracking and what brokers who join the group can expect
Chief executive Paul O’Regan tells MPA about how LJ Hooker Home Loans’ new model is tracking and what brokers who join the group can expect.
MPA: How is the recruitment of your franchisee team going? What’s your target number of franchisees?
PAUL O’REGAN: We have a target of 60 franchisees throughout Australia, with expectations that each franchisee will have multiple loan writers to ensure maximisation of the territories. We have ambitious growth plans, however our long-terms goals will only be achieved with the right people, so we’ll grow at the pace we’re comfortable with.
The culture fit is crucial. It ensures all parties work well together and are successful. We are pleased that we have six approved franchises in our pipeline, backed up by a very strong list of quality people we are talking to. We’re talking to a lot of people, but we want the best, growth-minded business owners. To assist people with finding out more about our business model, we recently upgraded our information website: joinus.ljhookerhomeloans.com.au. We are getting a lot of enquiries from the site.
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MPA: How will you help your franchisees concentrate on writing loans rather than admin work?
PO: To run a successful mortgage business you always need to stay focused on sales and marketing. We have a few unique ways that allow our franchisees to concentrate on core business leadership and growth activity. One key area is outsourced loan processing and support. For a fixed fee of $395 per month, a franchisee has unlimited loan processing support. Our outsourced processing system assists with data entry, upfront and CRM, valuation ordering, loan packaging and electronic file storage post-settlement. The support team are quality people, with good experience. We help foster a link between the franchise, so they act as an extension of their business.
Our outsourced team are a dedicated LJ Hooker Home Loans asset managed by us, so we are always looking to extend their support and offer additional services to our network. We’re currently trialling some areas that also involve customer interaction points. Compliance is now a large part of our industry – and so it should be. But it has also added another level of workload onto mortgage professionals. The people on the ground are carrying this burden, so we have a very simple and streamlined support system around compliance.
For example, the outsourced model allows all files to be neatly stored electronically, so a lot of our reviews can be done behind the scenes without us having to disrupt the franchisee’s business. Given the unique basis of our business model of having only 60 franchisees across Australia, we will be able to provide them with the real-time and caring business support a franchisee deserves. This allows our franchisees to concentrate on growth and leadership – and not admin work, which we believe hinders the growth of franchisees.
MPA: How will having large territories benefit your franchisees?
PO: For the right person who wants to grow and build a real business with succession planning ability, they are crucial. Having large territories will benefit in many ways.
An example of this is the ability to grow the business faster to a medium to large size business. There is also the ability to have retention and succession plans for loan writers, ie the business can grow greater sales and support teams and offer leadership roles. Staff retention rates can increase as more opportunities are created.
Our local digital SEM marketing system allows our franchisees to manage and extend their brand reach and profile throughout the larger areas, and the best part is our package is turnkey, profiling our brand and the business owner. We localise the message and this allows us to target the right area demographics, and be nimble with updates. The larger territories allow our digital SEO and SEM programs to gain greater traction via a wide range of digital mediums and radio. By raising the profile of our home-loans franchisees, it also helps build greater comfort levels within our real estate teams to partner and refer customers. We are always looking at how we can leverage off digital opportunities and how the market is consuming advertising.
MPA: What lessons have you learned so far from your recruitment drive?
PO: A lot of mortgage professionals are looking for greater sales and marketing support. Brands are back in flavour and aggregators generally don’t offer this – and are limited with their marketing and lead generation support. But there is a lot for people to consider. Moving away from a current aggregator or business
can be hard – both from a time and money perspective. But if the long-term opportunity is strong enough, people will make the jump. We have great interest from the market and a big learn for us is how to make the move more palatable. We’ve listened and ramped up our on-board support package to make the transition simpler.
MPA: How would you like LJ Hooker Home Loans to be performing by the end of the year?
PO: We have clear business goals and a strong vision. The business has a strong balance sheet with good capital to invest in growth. We are here for the long term and want to become Australia’s most trusted and admired home loan provider. To achieve this, we need the right business owners and people. Our bank funding partners have been fantastic, so a short-term goal is to ensure they are rewarded for their support with strong quality volumes. We currently have a great team of franchise owners and we want to ensure that by the end of the year they all have strong volumes flowing and are growing at a good rate.
MPA: How is the recruitment of your franchisee team going? What’s your target number of franchisees?
PAUL O’REGAN: We have a target of 60 franchisees throughout Australia, with expectations that each franchisee will have multiple loan writers to ensure maximisation of the territories. We have ambitious growth plans, however our long-terms goals will only be achieved with the right people, so we’ll grow at the pace we’re comfortable with.
The culture fit is crucial. It ensures all parties work well together and are successful. We are pleased that we have six approved franchises in our pipeline, backed up by a very strong list of quality people we are talking to. We’re talking to a lot of people, but we want the best, growth-minded business owners. To assist people with finding out more about our business model, we recently upgraded our information website: joinus.ljhookerhomeloans.com.au. We are getting a lot of enquiries from the site.
MPA: How will you help your franchisees concentrate on writing loans rather than admin work?PO: To run a successful mortgage business you always need to stay focused on sales and marketing. We have a few unique ways that allow our franchisees to concentrate on core business leadership and growth activity. One key area is outsourced loan processing and support. For a fixed fee of $395 per month, a franchisee has unlimited loan processing support. Our outsourced processing system assists with data entry, upfront and CRM, valuation ordering, loan packaging and electronic file storage post-settlement. The support team are quality people, with good experience. We help foster a link between the franchise, so they act as an extension of their business.
Our outsourced team are a dedicated LJ Hooker Home Loans asset managed by us, so we are always looking to extend their support and offer additional services to our network. We’re currently trialling some areas that also involve customer interaction points. Compliance is now a large part of our industry – and so it should be. But it has also added another level of workload onto mortgage professionals. The people on the ground are carrying this burden, so we have a very simple and streamlined support system around compliance.
For example, the outsourced model allows all files to be neatly stored electronically, so a lot of our reviews can be done behind the scenes without us having to disrupt the franchisee’s business. Given the unique basis of our business model of having only 60 franchisees across Australia, we will be able to provide them with the real-time and caring business support a franchisee deserves. This allows our franchisees to concentrate on growth and leadership – and not admin work, which we believe hinders the growth of franchisees.
MPA: How will having large territories benefit your franchisees?
PO: For the right person who wants to grow and build a real business with succession planning ability, they are crucial. Having large territories will benefit in many ways.
An example of this is the ability to grow the business faster to a medium to large size business. There is also the ability to have retention and succession plans for loan writers, ie the business can grow greater sales and support teams and offer leadership roles. Staff retention rates can increase as more opportunities are created.
Our local digital SEM marketing system allows our franchisees to manage and extend their brand reach and profile throughout the larger areas, and the best part is our package is turnkey, profiling our brand and the business owner. We localise the message and this allows us to target the right area demographics, and be nimble with updates. The larger territories allow our digital SEO and SEM programs to gain greater traction via a wide range of digital mediums and radio. By raising the profile of our home-loans franchisees, it also helps build greater comfort levels within our real estate teams to partner and refer customers. We are always looking at how we can leverage off digital opportunities and how the market is consuming advertising.
MPA: What lessons have you learned so far from your recruitment drive?
PO: A lot of mortgage professionals are looking for greater sales and marketing support. Brands are back in flavour and aggregators generally don’t offer this – and are limited with their marketing and lead generation support. But there is a lot for people to consider. Moving away from a current aggregator or business
can be hard – both from a time and money perspective. But if the long-term opportunity is strong enough, people will make the jump. We have great interest from the market and a big learn for us is how to make the move more palatable. We’ve listened and ramped up our on-board support package to make the transition simpler.
MPA: How would you like LJ Hooker Home Loans to be performing by the end of the year?PO: We have clear business goals and a strong vision. The business has a strong balance sheet with good capital to invest in growth. We are here for the long term and want to become Australia’s most trusted and admired home loan provider. To achieve this, we need the right business owners and people. Our bank funding partners have been fantastic, so a short-term goal is to ensure they are rewarded for their support with strong quality volumes. We currently have a great team of franchise owners and we want to ensure that by the end of the year they all have strong volumes flowing and are growing at a good rate.
