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Kylie: [00:00:19] Welcome to Australian Broker TV. I'm Kylie Speer. And joining me today is Lee Prior, National Distribution executive of ORDE Financial. Welcome to you, Lee, and thank you for joining us today.

Lee: [00:00:32] Kylie, it's fantastic to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Kylie: [00:00:36] Well, firstly, Lee, who is ORDE Financial and why is it important for brokers to know and partner with your organization?

Lee: [00:00:46] Fantastic question, Kylie. And as a new brand to the non-bank space, it's one that we're going to have to cover off quite a bit in the next 6 to 12 months, especially as we broaden our distribution footprint or created a couple of years ago. But we initially started funding about 19 months ago. We provide a broad range of products across the residential, commercial and SMSF market.

Kylie: [00:01:11] What are the key strengths of ORDEs value proposition to brokers?

Lee: [00:01:16] Key strengths, again, in a market that's very competitive in the non-bank space. The main reason that we were established was, you know, our founders thought there was a better way to do things. One of that being broker contact. That consistent messaging and consistent response. Now, all our all our brokers have direct contact and not only our sales team, but also our credit team, which also provides extremely good value to the broker.

Kylie: [00:01:46] Thank you, Lee. How does ORDE financial help brokers? 

Lee: [00:01:50] I mean, a multitude of ways. So the way that we help brokers is not just having a single line of product offering. We're big in the education space. We help them through digital journey. We help them with that connection. As I touched on earlier, having that contact with the credit flow is paramount in these uncertain times, especially when you've got customers that are providing a little bit of pressure at times because they're uncertain. They might be a little bit nervous. Sometimes the the headlines don't read very well to support what we're doing in our space, especially around the uncertainty with rate development. So having a broker that can actually pick up the phone versus going through emails or missed messages, it's really, really important for us that we provide that customer service, noting that we're a broker built business, we're built for a broker, and having them the ability to contact, contact us at any time is really important for us to help them with their customer journey.

Kylie: [00:02:48] Speaking of important, why is ongoing education important in your industry?

Lee: [00:02:54] Education Kylie. It's a hot topic and has been for a very long time. I've been in the non-bank space now close to 20 years, and it's something that we used to do, I believe on the lending side of the platform, we used to do quite well. It's something that myself and my team are going to be focused on heavily throughout our journey. It's not a short term play. This is going to be who all is known for. We're going to be an educator in this space, and one of the things that we regularly hear is that brokers should diversify. And there's this hot word diversification. And for me, it's one thing to talk about it, but then it's one thing to actually take brokers on a journey through diversification. And one of the things that our team work on is that strategic involvement with diversification, because it's one thing for us to expect a broker's office to diversify, but that's assuming they've got the time, they've got the resources, they've got the knowledge to do so. And a lot of the time we're time poor and we need to be able to help them understand what diversification is and is that taking them out of their mainstream income being, say, residential mortgages and exposing them to commercial or SMSF lending? But a lot of the time when that happens is that their primary income source takes a hit because they're not able to keep riding that. So that strategic alignment that we talk about and we'll continue to talk about is either helping them back fill the skill set, keeping them in the skill set and outsourcing the diversification piece. One of the things that you'll see in the coming months is our team talking about what it is we bring to the table and our team need to make sure in order as a business, need to make sure that we're more than just scenario responders or pricing catalysts, and that if a broker wants us to come into their business, what are we actually bringing to the table? Are we helping them with their referrers? Are we helping them with their customer base? Are we helping them diversify their business or with education front of mind?

Kylie: [00:04:51] Brilliant. Thank you, Lee. How can brokers grow their business or make that business stronger right now?

Lee: [00:04:58] At the moment, there's some businesses that are that are still writing record volumes and there are some businesses that are actually having to take a step back at the moment because that uncertainty in the market has reduced the number of options on their desk. So to grow your business now, if you've got the opportunity, now is the time to start looking at your business, looking at digital processes, digital enhancements, whether it's working with your aggregator partners or your lender mediums on what are best practices out there. And if you use our team, for example, our team would be in front of around that 2 to 300 brokers every week, every single week. And a part of that journey is that they get exposed to best practices. So really encourage, whether you're a new industry broker, whether you're a seasoned campaigner, challenge your broker, your BDMs with your lenders, challenge your aggregator mediums. What are you seeing in best practice and is there anything that you think that I could adopt to my business? Again, back to that. What else are we bringing to the table to help support their business?

Kylie: [00:06:03] So Lee, what is all doing to help support brokers in the next quarter?

Lee: [00:06:08] So over this next quarter, we'll make sure that the awareness is really, really strong about who we are. And I'm not sure if we touched on it many earlier questions, but I spoke about our overall awareness as in the industry and that one being that by design we've somewhat flown under the radar, but now it's time for us, for our industry partners to know who we are and what we stand for. And over the next quarter, it's going to be awareness, but very, very closely followed by ensuring that our education is right.

Kylie: [00:06:38] And finally, Lee, where do you see the company 12 months from now and in five years from now.

Lee: [00:06:45] The next 12 months is awareness in over the next 12 months. We need to make sure that we are known by the the broker market because again, built for a broker, we only distribute our products through brokers and mortgage managers. These next 12 months for us is really important that the industry understands what we stand for, that customer service and that brokers are our customers, that customer service is paramount. They have access to us. The five year journey again gives me excitement in the sense that we will be one of the best non-bank lenders in this space.

Kylie: [00:07:21] Awesome. Well, thank you so much once again for your time today, Lee. It was lovely speaking with you.

Lee: [00:07:27] Absolute pleasure, Kylie. Thank you so much for having me on.

Kylie: [00:07:31] And thank you to our viewers for watching the latest episode of Australian Broker TV. We look forward to seeing you again soon.