Are you a dependent broker?

Broker David Ham tells MPA about his new book on taking control through truly generating your own leads

Are you a dependent broker?
Broker David Ham tells MPA about his new book on taking control through truly generating your own leads

David Ham wants to know where you get your leads. Since 2000, the director of Mortgage Australia has watched brokers struggle to get clients, in a market which is only getting tougher: “brokers now need to be much more aggressive when it comes to maintaining their clients and building that lifetime relationship.”

Ham’s new book Mortgage Broking: lead generation and sales mastery splits the broking community in two, between what Ham calls ‘dependent’ and’ independent’ brokers: “if you’re completely dependent on someone else for leads then really you are just working for them; you don’t have control over your business; it’s not really yours.”

Conversely, when it comes to independent brokers “the clients see them as the person they’re dealing with; they’re not just an adjunct to someone else’s business”, Ham explains. His book is all about becoming independent, taking control of generating leads and forming long-term relationships, through marketing yourself.

“A lot of brokers are dependent brokers but they think they’re not”

“I don’t define marketing as spending money: that’s advertising” Ham notes “the relationships you have with your clients is marketing and setting up referral partners is marketing.” Nor is marketing sales: “it’s about being seen as the expert in your target market so when they pick up the phone and call you there’s actually no sale required because your marketing has done the job.”

Mortgage Broking: lead generation and sales mastery is packed with practical marketing tips, ranging from costing customer acquisition, to social media, gaining ‘trusted advisor’ status, Google AdWords and more. 

In fact, Ham says the book, alongside his earlier work The 7 Easy Steps to Mortgage Freedom, is itself a marketing tool: he’s used it to recruit brokers and numbers have doubled since writing the 7 Easy Steps. 

Many are drawn to broking for the self-employed lifestyle but, Ham warns, “a lot of brokers are dependent brokers but they think they’re not.” In-house brokers, or those dependent on one or two referral partners, leave themselves liable to a nasty shock should those partners look elsewhere: “you’re completely replaceable if you’re a dependent broker.”

We’ll be running excerpts from Mortgage Broking: lead generation and sales mastery on MPA’s website over the next few weeks. To get your own copy of Mortgage Broking: Lead Generation and Sales Mastery, visit www.mortgageaustralia.com.au/brokers