Mentor offers tips on scaling up and business exits
A long-term mortgage broker is using her experience as a business owner and trainer to help self-employed business owners tackle two significant goals – to scale their business and plan for an eventual exit.
Founder of Classic Finance and Classic Mentoring and Coaching, Nancy Youssef (pictured above) has mentored more than 160 mortgage broking start-ups. Having founded Classic Finance in 2003, she has worked as a self-employed mortgage broker for almost 20 years.
Youssef, who provides bespoke one-on-one mentoring to existing business owners and a limited number of new brokers, told MPA that existing brokers were consistently well-versed in products and policy, but discussions indicated knowledge gaps about how to scale and plan for an eventual exit, if that was required.
“Like me, a lot of brokers come into this industry and there’s no real pathway to building a broking business,” Youssef said. “In coffee catch-ups with brokers, a lot of them were asking me, ‘how did you get off the tools’, ‘how did you scale your business’?”
Having noticed that the industry had a high attrition rate, particularly in the first two years according to the MFAA Industry Intelligence Service Report for the six months ending March 31, Youssef, already a registered trainer, was approached to be a mentor in 2011. She said she saw an opportunity to use mentoring as way to eventually exit the broking world – and to improve her own business.
“What I realised was that the new entrants coming in were looking at our broking business as a benchmark, so I had to practise what I preach,” Youssef said.
She said her broking business grew rapidly as a result, giving her the inspiration to use her own experience as a business owner to help others. In 2019, the year after the Royal Commission review into banking and the financial services industry, Youssef penned her experiences in a book called Fear, Money Purpose, which was aimed at providing inspiration and strategies to help small business owners, particularly brokers, to overcome common fears in business.
In response to why they became self-employed, Youssef acknowledged that business owners typically rattle off three reasons: to be financially secure, flexible and have more freedom.
When asked how they were tracking, many said they were not succeeding in all three aspects, she said.
“I’m using that journey around the money fears that particularly exist in businesses, to ultimately help business owners find their purpose – or why they started their business in the first place,” Youssef said.
Having grown by volume, many business owners have had to go back and touch up on their skills around business planning, recruitment, leading a team, people management, policy and procedures, and automation, she said.
Commenting on the challenges encountered by newly self-employed brokers, Youssef said aside from the overall challenge of setting up a business, lead generation and compliance were two of the bigger hurdles.
For brokers who aren’t structured and don’t manage their time, the array of lenders and products can be overwhelming, she said.
“In order to build a sustainable and profitable business, you need to write volume: volume requires a lot more paperwork than it did ten years’ ago,” Youssef said.
Noting that broking is a commission-only industry, she said some people entered the industry assuming that their previous six-figure salary could be replaced in the initial 12 months.
“They’ve got to have that financial capital put aside … that money can run out very quickly if they’re not generating leads fast enough,” Youssef said.
Youssef, who has previously spoken about the importance of being there for clients during uncertain times, said 2023 was an ideal time for all brokers to focus on their retention, particularly around repricing and looking for ways to add value.
Coming on the back end of a hot property market in Sydney, she noted that interest rates had risen, and prices had come off a little.
“Now is the time to be really customer-centric … if brokers aren’t writing as much business, now is the time to really be managing that trail book and contacting clients,” Youssef said. “You really need to be front of mind in an environment like this.”
One of the highlights of her work as a mentor was seeing existing business owners gain back some time in their week after implementing some of the concepts typically taught to new brokers.
“Just being able to help them buy themselves some time again … so many brokers are stressed, when they are finally able to let go of the control, it’s amazing what they’re able to achieve,” Youssef said.
Structured around six pillars, Youssef’s mentoring service is a bespoke but structured pathway that helps brokers to improve and grow their business. It is provided on a one-on-one basis and is tailored according to business needs.
