South Australian broker Nieuvision has united in-house education and small business coach training to assist its new-to-industry brokers during the first year at work.

The firm has packed its own knowledge that comes in an educational and fund history and interwoven this with practical knowledge in aspects such as sales, lead generation and media, CEO Rick Nieuwenhoven stated.

Industry mentors include Shaun Mahoney from email marketing pro ULetters, Benjamin Simkin from lead generation consultancy BusinessNET, Andrew Phillips from sales training company FocalPoint, and global sales pro Jack Daly.

What we are doing is compiling all of the experts in their businesses with our own knowledge and offering a package of essential marketing tips for mortgage brokers to help our agents get up and running. Nieuwenhoven also helps mentor novice agents through his own experience as director on the board of the Finance Brokers Association of Australia (FBAA). Being closely tied in with the FBAA, I have managed to meet a great deal of mortgage brokers over my time. I have seen problems with mortgage brokers — they have articulated them to me, he said.

The FBAA and the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) have done a great deal of research. The largest issue in the business is new agents and how they shed quickly. If my business can offer some additional support mechanisms to agents wanting to come into the marketplace and leverage from our expertise, the industry is going to be better for this.

Nieuvision’s current group includes three mortgage brokers in addition to Nieuwenhoven himself. All have benefited from the company’s small business coaching and training programs. The system’s been great. Nick and Andy are going great guns and Steve’s building well here. I myself was composing great volumes before I took over a more managerial role in the business as CEO. It’s a fantastic fundamental base system.

For a good deal of brokers entering the business, the measure was the first on an entirely new career path, Nieuwenhoven stated. People do not necessarily possess the business skills, they do not know the tax basics of managing your own tax, or they do not possess the basic sales skills of functioning B2B or B2C. It takes a good bit of learning.

The first 12 months in the business are ‘make or break’ for new agents as they struggle to understand precisely how the business works, the procedures involved, media, etc, he said. If we can fast-track this with online tips for mortgage brokers, it makes it far more achievable for people to hit goals a lot sooner and create some revenue. They will not be under financial duress in that initial 12 month period.

While training is all done in a conventional way, the company has plans for an integrated system encompassing a selection of training and mentoring advantages to be obtained anywhere at any time.

A flaw in plenty of agent training programs is too little emphasis on the company part of being a mortgage broker, Nieuwenhoven stated. The agents learn how to perform an application and the compliance aspects. These are fundamentally important and have to be educated but then the rest is left up to chance. If you have never been in the market before, it makes it rather tricky to comprehend the pathways and how to go about finding work. Can you start off targeting companies or individuals? What is your niche? What is your point of difference?

Building a training program to assist brokers achieve success in the industry was a way to return to brokers and the business, he said.