Principal Chris Christie of Resi’s leading and first established branch details the transition to Yellow Brick Road.
The choice to transition his Resi St George brokerage to Yellow Brick Road wasn’t made lightly by Chris Christie, who established the first Resi franchise store 15 years ago in 2000.
After extensive research and interviewing many of the senior management team, it became clear YBR’s goals and visions were in line with Resi’s in providing quality financial products and services to its customers. “It would make sense that everyone falls under the one banner from a marketing perspective and to be able to take advantage of that scale and have such a larger network,” says Christie. “From an operational perspective, it’s pretty much been business as usual - our clients now have a larger variety of financial products and services that we can provide them.
From Resi green to YBR yellow
The physical appearance of the store was the biggest change, Christie says. Eventually the store will be all of YBR’s golden yellow but for now Resi’s green will still be on display alongside, so the change doesn’t seemingly happen overnight to the customer. “The first step was a co-branding. So both YBR and Resi will still be prominent for a couple of months and then there’ll be the full rebrand after that.”
Resi was a smaller franchise network with about a quarter of the offices of YBR but it had built a trusted reputation over its 30 year history and Christie has already seen the effects of combining the strengths of Resi and YBR.
Over their 15 years as a Resi store Christie says, “A lot of clients would ask ‘we want to do something with our super, who do you recommend?’ because it was something that we couldn’t do.” But under YBR and with a financial planner in-house, they can now provide that service to clients. “Being able to do that under the one banner, it provides us the ability to look at all aspects of a client’s financial position rather than just a debt.” YBR Rockdale’s clients have told Christie what they think of the change and from what he has heard so far they are taking the changes onboard. “We’ve had some really positive feedback, particularly when you explain the benefits of being part of a larger nationwide organisation. So far I haven’t had any negative feedback - they just wanted to know if anything’s changed on their existing products.”
Business owner at 20 years old
It’s no surprise that the rebrand of Christie’s store has happened without a hitch, with 15 years as a broker up his sleeve but also starting the Resi branch and becoming a business owner at the young age of 20. “I was out of uni and had just finished my commerce degree at university, majoring in finance and marketing, and was working for a finance company,” Christie says, before an opportunity presented itself to become Resi’s first franchisee. “It was great. It was challenging and rewarding at the same time - being your own boss and being able to shape the business the way you want to and make your own decisions.”
But in the early days, being so young and without any experience in mortgages to help him, couldn’t have been easy, especially maintaining focus and drive while many in his age bracket were partying and responsibility free. “The age was the hardest thing to begin with, as a 20 year old trying to sit in front of a client and tell them what they should be doing - that was probably the most challenging.” But his depth of knowledge of products and services soon put customers at ease and today he still has clients from those early days, returning for their third or fourth property 15 years later.
If success abounds, usually enjoyment of the work is an important contributor, and it is obvious that Christie loves what he does. “The enjoyment comes from actually helping people achieve what they want to achieve. Everyone’s got their goals and their aspirations and their dreams of what they want. Actually helping achieve that and helping them right through the process is most rewarding.” But he advises young business owners out there who may be starting their own brokerage to be prepared for a lot of hard work. “Nothing’s going to be given to you so be prepared to work hard, listen to clients and learn as much as you can from other people in the industry.
This article originally appeared in Australian Broker issue 12.15.
After extensive research and interviewing many of the senior management team, it became clear YBR’s goals and visions were in line with Resi’s in providing quality financial products and services to its customers. “It would make sense that everyone falls under the one banner from a marketing perspective and to be able to take advantage of that scale and have such a larger network,” says Christie. “From an operational perspective, it’s pretty much been business as usual - our clients now have a larger variety of financial products and services that we can provide them.
Being part of YBR, Christie can now offer his clients investment, insurance and super-annuation products and services. “If you don’t have the ability to push the financial planning side of things and personal wealth you don’t have to, but as a business I think it’s important that you do because that’s something that the client may not even know that they need.” The transition has happened smoothly and in good time. Since the Resi franchisees’ were informed in August last year of the acquisition, the rebrand which commenced in mid-June is almost complete.
From Resi green to YBR yellow
The physical appearance of the store was the biggest change, Christie says. Eventually the store will be all of YBR’s golden yellow but for now Resi’s green will still be on display alongside, so the change doesn’t seemingly happen overnight to the customer. “The first step was a co-branding. So both YBR and Resi will still be prominent for a couple of months and then there’ll be the full rebrand after that.”
Resi was a smaller franchise network with about a quarter of the offices of YBR but it had built a trusted reputation over its 30 year history and Christie has already seen the effects of combining the strengths of Resi and YBR.
Over their 15 years as a Resi store Christie says, “A lot of clients would ask ‘we want to do something with our super, who do you recommend?’ because it was something that we couldn’t do.” But under YBR and with a financial planner in-house, they can now provide that service to clients. “Being able to do that under the one banner, it provides us the ability to look at all aspects of a client’s financial position rather than just a debt.” YBR Rockdale’s clients have told Christie what they think of the change and from what he has heard so far they are taking the changes onboard. “We’ve had some really positive feedback, particularly when you explain the benefits of being part of a larger nationwide organisation. So far I haven’t had any negative feedback - they just wanted to know if anything’s changed on their existing products.”
Business owner at 20 years old
It’s no surprise that the rebrand of Christie’s store has happened without a hitch, with 15 years as a broker up his sleeve but also starting the Resi branch and becoming a business owner at the young age of 20. “I was out of uni and had just finished my commerce degree at university, majoring in finance and marketing, and was working for a finance company,” Christie says, before an opportunity presented itself to become Resi’s first franchisee. “It was great. It was challenging and rewarding at the same time - being your own boss and being able to shape the business the way you want to and make your own decisions.”
But in the early days, being so young and without any experience in mortgages to help him, couldn’t have been easy, especially maintaining focus and drive while many in his age bracket were partying and responsibility free. “The age was the hardest thing to begin with, as a 20 year old trying to sit in front of a client and tell them what they should be doing - that was probably the most challenging.” But his depth of knowledge of products and services soon put customers at ease and today he still has clients from those early days, returning for their third or fourth property 15 years later.
If success abounds, usually enjoyment of the work is an important contributor, and it is obvious that Christie loves what he does. “The enjoyment comes from actually helping people achieve what they want to achieve. Everyone’s got their goals and their aspirations and their dreams of what they want. Actually helping achieve that and helping them right through the process is most rewarding.” But he advises young business owners out there who may be starting their own brokerage to be prepared for a lot of hard work. “Nothing’s going to be given to you so be prepared to work hard, listen to clients and learn as much as you can from other people in the industry.
This article originally appeared in Australian Broker issue 12.15.
