A modified excerpt from Volume 1 of ‘Be The Better Broker‘.
Once you’re a licensed Mortgage Broker there’s only one way to become a truly successful Mortgage Broker and that’s to devote yourself to it. Completely. A key step in this process is to quit your day job and jump in.
There is no such thing as a top-producing — or a truly skilled — part-time Broker with a full-time (or even a part-time) job in another field, or even in a related field. Being top quality at anything takes focus, dedication and time commitment.
Getting started in the mortgage business is not a part-time job. Here is why:
There is always more marketing you can be doing
As a new Mortgage Broker you’re embarking on a marathon of marketing yourself and your skills. You have to get out there; you have to sell yourself. Your parent company will not give you any leads, friends and family may not even provide leads, especially the ones in related fields. Marketing, making calls, building your database, making more calls, getting familiar with lenders representatives and policies, barking up referral source trees, etc.… this is just scratching the surface. You have to get out there; you have to sell yourself. There is always more you can be doing. A job will get in the way of your success.
You must be always on
When you do start working your first client’s file, you have to be available any and all times. Deadlines imposed in brokering are tight and numerous. Meanwhile, clients come up with urgent (to them) questions at random times of the day and night and expect you to be right there to answer them. Every question from a client is an opportunity to demonstrate creativity and most of all urgency in handling their file. Urgency is the simplest of all things to excel at, and yet it is the one most fail miserably at. Don’t worry though, there is another Broker ready to step in and take over for you… Actually that is exactly what you should worry about.
Recall your own financing experience with your first home, phoning the various parties involved at all hours of the day and night for answers to various questions or to talk through various points of concern. And if you couldn’t reach your banker or Broker between 9 am and 5 pm, you were especially unhappy. Calling in a panic over some piece of the puzzle at 1:01 pm and not getting a call back until 5:01 pm — well no doubt you would not tolerate that for long before shopping for a new Broker yourself.
Brokers cannot afford to put more than an hour, let alone four hours, of silence between themselves and clients during the workday. This is an unacceptable concept. It’s unacceptable to the clients, the Realtors, the lenders, in particular to your referral sources, to the market as a whole. Slow responses are hardly acceptable during evenings and over weekends, let alone during regular office hours. Clients expect prompt responses or they’ll fire their Broker. The will fire you!
You learn by doing
In addition, the reality is that the best way to learn this business is by doing. Only by doing can your application intake and underwriting skills improve. You’ve got to get in the game and work files regularly, as many as you can. Hone your skills. Take any and every application you can in the early days, just for the practice alone.
You will hear Brokers say that chasing volume is not important; it’s how much are you making per file that matters. This is nonsense for the beginner Broker. The beginner needs to work every single file, and the income generated is secondary to the experience gained. You will only learn to be the better Broker by brokering, not by reading, talking, thinking about it. Say Yes to every single applicant. Chase Volume. Volume = Experience.
It’s a big job to learn the ins and outs of a huge range of lenders’ products and know all the peripheral rules and laws that apply to the purchasing of real estate. Your mistake, or even someone else’s mistake that you fail to notice, can cost your clients tens of thousands of dollars. It’s a heavy responsibility. Although you may be handed the problems to solve, nobody hands you the solutions. The solutions rarely come easy. You will benefit from developing relationships with experienced people in all fields of the industry whom you can approach for advice… and that, too, takes time.
As long as you’re hanging onto that regular and steady paycheque, you’re unlikely to find significant success as a Broker. The reasons are twofold. First, your primary focus and attention won’t be on brokering mortgages. Second, you have a safety net. The longer you cling to that safety net the more rigid your fingers become.
You can create your own safety net before you get started by saving enough money to cover your first (probably lean) year. It’s also a good idea to live on less in the year or so leading up to getting licensed. That will get you used to living within a budget.
Taking the leap is scary, but you’re more likely to succeed with a clear and unimpeded focus on one thing: to be the better Broker.
It is summed up best in the following quote;
The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Thank you
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