Mario Rehayem of Pepper on why continued education, especially e-Learning, is vital for the growth of the industry.
Video transcript below:
Mario Rehayem, Pepper
Mario Rehayem: As we all know it’s an aging industry and what we are having is the, you know the industry stalwarts all slowly but surely exiting the industry and if we are not careful we are not going to be able to harness that experience and that skill set that we have all embraced over the past you know 15 years in the industry. So we need to be mindful of that. So in my view it’s imperative that we start collating that particular skill set and building training material around that.
Reporter: Continued education in the broking space is a constantly evolving challenge and can be something that faces a lot of resistance. Mario Rehayem of Pepper recognises it can be a challenge to budget for.
Mario Rehayem: We all know that education is a very expensive route to go down and the hardest part about education is probably the one of the only areas that you would spend a lot of money on without having an actual tangible measurement to measure your ROI or your return on investment.
Reporter: So who has the onus on to provide this education?
Mario Rehayem: Whether that may be a broker that has his own business, he should, he or she should invest in their staff, whether it be the aggregators investing into their brokers, whether it be lenders investing in both the aggregators and the brokers, anyone that benefits in this industry should pretty much hold each other’s hands and regroup and say to ourselves how we are going to entice new blood into the industry and how are we going to make sure that we manage the right skill set moving forward.
Reporter: Rehayem explains that Pepper have this year introduced an e-learning portal to allow brokers to continue their education in a flexible way.
Mario Rehayem: The crucial part of e-learning is you know, we all know that brokers are time poor, you know time for them and practicality is huge. So by having an e-learning portal you can watch it at any time you like, you know the leisure of your home or in your office, you know if you’ve got casual staff whatever the case may be, you can actually use that portal when it suits you, not when it suits a facilitator or you know it’s just the most convenient way of learning and I think it’s going to be the way of the future.
Reporter: So what is his biggest piece of advice when setting something like this up?
Mario Rehayem: Cost it up, map it up, understand it, don’t do what best suits your business. What we have done is not anything that’s got to do with Pepper’s business, it’s all got to do with a broker’s business. We haven’t gone out and tried to push product, it’s always been how can we assist the broker’s business. So I suggest of that learning, it’s worked exceptionally well for us. So maybe that’s a starting point is not to be selfish and make it all about yourself and make it actually about your end customer.
