Broker workload causing “brand decay”

A recent survey showed that 93% of brokers agreed they were doing more work to prepare a loan, spending up to twice as much time to prepare and submit an application.

The research was carried out by real estate and finance marketing consultancy 101 Things.

Director Karen Hall said the extra time spent on these applications means “something has to give” and it is often the branding and long-term business building.

Hall said the additional focus and time caught up in customer service, education, audit and compliance enquiries takes away from a broker’s ability to promote and grow their business. 

She said she sees this on a daily basis, with broker’s failing to keep their online and social presence up-to-date, let alone mining the opportunities in their database.

The additional time required to deal with lender audit team enquiries is another very real fallout of the Royal Commission. 

In one example from Hall, a broker was asked why the applicant had not included an expense entry for education. In the same breath, they noted that the child was three years old.

Hall said, “If lender audit teams can’t conclude that three-year-olds don't go to school, marrying up the entry for childcare costs, and this is typical of the additional work now required, the consequences of the Royal Commission on a broker’s workload are truly scary.”

Hall estimated that more than 85% of brokers’ online branding and marketing is dated and sub-optimal and given it’s often their only shopfront this is costing them business on a daily basis. 

Hall said, “Your online brand is critical to how people perceive your brand, including prospective new customers. 

“Beyond online, if your marketing and promotions continually fall down the to-do list because of the burden of the Royal Commission, your business can go into a downward spiral.”

Hall uses the analogy of termites slowly eating away unnoticed at the wooden structure of a house while brokers are living ‘in’ the house. Over time, this can cause decay and actually cost more to repair in the long term.

Hall’s top tips for brokers to stay on top of your marketing and brand building, and fight off the decay are:

1. Capacity - Keep your time focused on the vital aspects of your business and outsource the functional aspects. This means being realistic about your capacity;
2. Capability - If you’re not an expert in marketing and brand, it takes longer, and the results will suffer. For example, if you’re not confident with Facebook Custom Audiences or Pixels, get an expert in and get it done;
3. Mirror - Tools like Buzzsumo and Likealyzer can give you some insight into how well you stack up against other brokers on content marketing and social media. Then put your spin on it and do it better;
4. Prolific beats perfect - get going today.