What success looks like for brokers

Theo Tsakirios, associate director at The Lending Alliance, said he attributes his success to several factors all working in harmony for positive client outcomes.

“Having a great client base and established referral network supports quality lead generation to help foster and grow long-term relationships, while having strong relationships/partnerships with lenders allow you to access and offer a wide array of loan options to cater to your clients’ requirements that may not fit the traditional lender model,” Mr Tsakirios told The Adviser.

For others, the meaning of success has constantly changed as priorities have changed, and success has taken many shapes, big and small.

Chad Arenson, director at Fuel Asset Finance, has characterised success as achieving a financial milestone within his business, or achieving a target that he had set for himself for six consecutive months.

It has also meant being able to purchase an item he has worked hard for, or being able to take a day off because he was able to meet and exceed his targets.

“To me, success can also be as simple as a good client review on Facebook,” Mr Arenson said.

“It means I am keeping people happy and doing my job well. Success comes in all shapes and sizes. Success to me as a whole means happiness, flexibility, fun and the ability to live life on my own terms.”

Josh Bartlett, director at Mortgage Advice Bureau Melbourne, believes mortgage brokers are in the privileged position of helping clients understand their living expenses and educate them on how they can pay down debt while thinking about saving for the long term.

“Success to me is simple. It’s educating as many people as I can on their finances and what having a mortgage really means,” Mr Bartlett said.

“Taking out a mortgage can be stressful; we need to make sure that we provide the right information to really help people for the future.”

For Andrew Kelly, managing director of Anasta Finance Consulting and Broker of the Year award winner at the 2020 Australian Broking Awards, client referrals are the mark of success.

“If I can have clients come to me and present their family and friends as a trusted referrer and supplier of finance, this means that I have succeeded in my ambitions to become an integral part of the supply chain of finance,” he said.

To read the complete version of how these four brokers define success as brokers, make sure you check out The Word section in the August edition of The Adviser magazine.

[Related: Two-thirds of brokers write more than mortgages]