Mortgage brokers are increasingly keen to hang onto their reputation as the “friendliest” financial services experts around, with community involvement still the preferred way to meet that objective.
Mortgage brokers are increasingly keen to hang onto their reputation as the “friendliest” financial services experts around, with community involvement still the preferred way to meet that objective.
Ask any broker – as MortgageBrokerNews.ca did most recently – How do client's perceive you? and the answer is invariably "Positively."
Protecting that reputation is integral to becoming the trusted advisers for Canadians, suggest analysts.
In fact, brokers may have a leg up on other financial services players.
“We’re small town and everyone knows everyone, “Mackenzie Gartside of Mackenzie Gartside & Associates Verico Select Mortgage. “We do a lot of volunteering in the community and sponsor a lot of events; a lot of them are children-type events which involve families. It makes my firm very community-oriented.”
It also helps that Gartside describes herself as “approachable and definitely not intimidating.”
“I don’t take myself seriously in the least,” she told MortgageBrokerNews.ca, suggesting that helps clients feel at ease and comfortable.
For her part, Rishel Tomlinson of Custom Mortgages believes good broker reputations also have something to do with the pride of ownership that comes from being a business owner.
“It’s our own business, as opposed to someone who works for a bank – we have that motivation to make that connection with the bank,” Tomlinson told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. “So we get to build a long-term relationship and the better we can help them.”
Another essential ingredient is helping clients figure out solutions to problems they would never have even considered.
“By understanding their situation and their goals – and taking the time to understand that – sometimes we can wow them with something they don’t even know they don’t know,” Tomlinson said.
As for the charge that other financial services professionals aren’t as friendly as mortgage brokers, not every mortgage broker agrees.
“We deal with a lot of investment advisors and they are all awesome,” Gartside said. “None of the ones in our community have any sort of arrogance attached to them; they have a good reputation and provide a lot of support in the community.”
