Although people who wants to become a finance and mortgage professional, they have to successfully complete a Cert IV or a diploma course where they learn the management of a mortgage broking business but there’s a long way from theory to real life practice. That’s why we have designed our mentoring program to focus on areas to future proof your mortgage broking business.
- Choosing a business structure
- Marketing Plan
The key elements for any successful mortgage broking business can be broken down to the following:
- Marketing Processes
- Sales Processes
- Customer Relationship Management
- Business Processes
- Strategic Planning
Having all these five elements properly implemented into your business will ensure its success.
Marketing:
This is defined as the activities required to generate leads, inquiry and referrals. These are the key activities that you need to do to get customers?
To do this well, you need to have defined your target market, and document this in your marketing plan.
The marketing plan is where we list down all the tools, resources, information and actions a business owner needs to market successfully.
A great starting point to your marketing plan, make sure you have the following:
- Define your Ideal Customer. If you do not know what you are looking for, it will make it difficult to find customers. For most of us, this is one of the most important (and often neglected) phases of the planning process. So take your time to define what sort of customers you need to build your business around.
- What is your value proposition? What is your point of difference that will cause your Ideal Customers to be interested in using your business? If you have defined your Ideal Customer, you will then need to work out what it takes to attract these customers to your business. Remember that your point of difference should be directed at your Ideal Customers to be effective.
- Contacts and People. This is where having a network of people whom you can test your ideas with will help. These contacts may also help you to find your Ideal Customers, or may know of others who can refer you Ideal Customers. So put a list of people that you know who can help. The universe may conspire you help you succeed.
Sales Processes:
We define these as the processes that include client interviews, researching options, writing lending strategies, completing fact find forms and loan applications. Basically all the activities from the initial client interview to settlement – or the “sales process”.
This is the process where your client interaction (or User Experience in IT speak) will make or break your ongoing relationships with your customers.
Having a well organised, consistent process to engage your customers from when they first speak with you, to the successful settlement of their mortgage will generate future business. For the most successful mortgage businesses, a good sales process forms part of their point of difference.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM):
Underpinning the marketing and sales processes, you need a CRM process. This is the process where you define:
- When and how will you contact your customers?
- How will you keep in touch (KIT)?
- What information will you gather from them?
- How often will you need to update this info?
A good CRM process will help you grow the relationship between your business and your customers. This is where your Point of Difference and Value Proposition can remind your customers why they chose you. CRM processes needs to be incorporated into your Marketing and Sales processes, and should underpin your whole mortgage business.
Most successful mortgage businesses will utilise a computer program. In our experience, most mortgage broker only utilise a fraction of the capabilities of their CRM system. The key is that you can run a very successful CRM process without a computer. And unless you document and put a process in place, you will not get the most out of your CRM system.
Business Processes:
These are the processes that all businesses will need to have and maintain. Some of these processes are essential, and unless they are run efficiently, it will be a drag to your business growth. This includes:
- Compliance
- Bookkeeping
- Training and Professional Development
- Office Procedures
Most of these activities may not be income producing, and nevertheless are very important (for instance compliance activities) to your business. Make sure you have an efficient process to keep costs low.
Strategic Planning:
Of all the processes outlined, we would consider this the most important. After all, the key question here is “Why are you building your business for?” A Strategic Plan is also the reason for the existence of your business.
We would also define the exit strategy – will we be building our business to sell? Or to pass onto to others. What will be the succession plan? Are there processes and procedures already in place for the business to run effectively? What will the future management structure look like? Having a Strategic Plan in place will help you move your business through its initial growth phase, allowing you to plan its evolution.