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Commercial broker from MoneyQuest Balwyn Scott Seng recently sat down with The Adviser’s Elite Broker to talk about the impressive year he’s had so far.
After settling a record-breaking $119 million transaction in January this year, the Victorian-based broker talked about his background in broking and where he got his start, the types and numbers of loans he’s writing, and any top tips he has for other brokers in the industry.
How long have you been broking and who’s in your office?
I’ve been in the broking industry since the beginning of 2017.
We had three people in the office but unfortunately, we’re now down to two, so if there’s any aspiring brokers reading this, I’m looking for someone. We’ve probably had our best year last year and we’re on track to potentially exceed that this year.
Did you start off with the franchise or were you independent?
We started off as a franchise. The main reason is because I started this business with a partner who has chosen to leave the business and pursue other opportunities.
We were really good at what we did, which was commercial finance, but we weren’t confident in our abilities to run a business at the same time, that’s why we started under the MoneyQuest franchise.
Why did you start in commercial finance?
Coming into broking, I had about 10 years of banking experience. I spent all of that time on the business side of banking. So, until I became a broker on 1 April 2017, I’d never written a home loan for anybody other than doing my own home loans.
I’d never actually gone through the process of writing a home loan for any of my clients, so that was new to me on 1 April.
What sort of loans are you writing?
I’m actually working on one right now, a small $3 million loan, but it is completely balance sheet lends, it’s against the cash flow only.
There’s no property secured involved and those are the types of transactions that really make me want to jump out of bed in the morning and go to work. I can foresee in the next three to five years that this business will go from effectively being an SME-style business to a corporate.
How many loans a year would you say you’d write?
We don’t do a huge number of transactions because we don’t have the capacity at this point, which is why I feel that I need to start growing my staff.
Although we don’t do a large number of transactions, the transaction we do are larger, and are sometimes a little more complicated and take a little bit more time. Generally, a commercial deal might take three to six months just to get a formal offer.
The $119 million loan we did took me three years from planting a seed with a client by asking them what they want to achieve and how we can help, then effectively pulling the trigger and engaging us to do that transaction. From that point, it took another eight months.
What are some top tips you have for other aspiring brokers?
Ask for more help. There are a lot of people that if you ask for help, they’d give it to you. If you don’t, people will just assume what you’re doing.
Another tip would be to just give it a go! It’s not that difficult and if you don’t know what you’re doing, maybe there’s somebody who does. Shadow another broker doing the transaction or start as a referrer to a bank.
Some banks have a two-tiered approach where you can just refer a transaction to the banker and they’ll run the transaction on your behalf, or you could help assist. So, if you’re not comfortable doing a transaction, do it as a referrer.
I think it was Richard Branson who said this but, “just say yes and work out how to do it later”.
You can find out more about Scott Seng and MoneyQuest in The Adviser’s Elite Broker Podcast.
Tune in to the episode, How this commercial broker is smashing records, here:
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