A broker recently named Broker of the Year at the FBAA awards has spoken to Australian Broker about his success.
Nathan Vecchio was presented with two awards at a ceremony on the Gold Coast in November. He received both Finance Broker of the Year QLD/NT as well as National Finance Broker of the Year.
Vecchio, who also came in at number 11 in Mortgage Professional Australia’s (MPA) Top 100 brokers list, said he was “humbled” by the awards.
Working with his twin brother and older brother at Hunter Galloway, they work with the Top Broker platform, which helps brokers leverage skills through sharing best practice.
After being in the finance industry for ten years and at Hunter Galloway for the last three, Vecchio said it has taken consistency to get to where he is today.
He said, “As the saying goes, it takes ten years to make an overnight success and it’s true for me. I think my greatest skill is self-discipline and being consistent.
“For me consistency beats intensity, and it starts with the small things. When I started I made 11 calls before 11am daily to new customers and prospects, and as the business has grown I still use this same approach with keeping in touch with referral partners and customers every day.”
Discussing the areas of his experience he is most proud of, he said, “I am proud of being able to help build our team and improve processes as that’s been an ongoing project within the business, and I think they are the biggest contributors to our growth.
“We spend time each week reviewing our processes with the team and looking at ways to reduce waste and double handling. We have been able to drastically increase our approval conversion rates by making lots of small changes.
“The knock on for this has also been freeing up my own time away from administration and towards relationship building and networking. In doing this I have found one extra day per week that I can now dedicate to networking and relationship building with referrers.”
As with the rest of the industry, Vecchio has been faced with changes and the threat of more. He said he is just continuing to focus on “being a better broker today than I was yesterday”.
He said, “The only thing certain in our industry is change. If you look at the past three to five years, we have had APRA come in and put brakes on certain parts of the market, the banks have changed policy and now the Royal Commission.
“While I know we might not be able to influence the end result, we have just been focusing on being better brokers every day and growing the business regardless of the result.
“A major focus of our business is training and improving ourselves each and every day for our customers.
“Using our 90 day plan we make sure we stay completely on track, and our focus on helping customers keeps the business growing.
“It's like going to the gym - if you go once and never again you're not going to see the results. But go for half an hour each day, every day for a year, and you'll see the results.”
Find out more about Nathan and Hunter Galloway here
