Why Flint CEO and co-founder Christian Stevens merged his business, the realities of starting a brokerage, and emerging industry trends.
In January you merged your business with fellow brokerage Confidence Finance, with Redom Syed becoming COO. What drove that decision?
With my previous business partner deciding to go and do his own thing, there was obviously a huge hole in the business for a COO role. And I met with quite a few different people but the person that resonated the most with me was Redom.
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I think having someone that understands how to grow a business, gets the efficiencies out of a team and is able to deliver [is essential]. Anyone can go out there and pitch to a partner or be on social media and generate leads. But to be able to deliver on those leads in a timely fashion through great mortgage advice takes a lot of experience.
The reason why [Redom’s] done so well with the team size he has [is] there are not many people in the industry that have that kind of experience. So I went to him and had a pretty frank conversation around where our vision was and where we were heading - due to the rate at which we're growing and how many people want to join. It was a natural fit.
You have a director model at Flint that allows brokers to operate under the Flint brand while retaining ownership of their trail and clients. Why offer this rathern than a more traditional setup?
The reason why most good brokers leave a brokerage is because they want ownership of some kind. So the issue we were trying to solve was: why would you be part of a brokerage or a business when you don't own your trail, you don't own your clients, you don't own your partners? There's no security there. For a lot of people, especially brokers, it's compounding the way that the business growth works.
So for us, it was about creating a model that allows you to have that ownership to own your future and your clients and everything else that comes with it - but also taps into a business, a culture, and a team. That's exciting because a lot of people don't talk about the fact that being a sole trader, running a business on your own, is lonely. It's hard. It's not as enjoyable as people think it is, and often you end up putting more time into it than you were at your previous job where it was probably more comfortable.
So I think for us, it was about solving that problem.
Where do you see the biggest market opportunity for brokerages?
I think the bigger opportunities are in asset, business and commercial spaces because [there are] very few asset, commercial brokers that are leveraging social media, building a brand presence or creating attention. I think the market that's the most saturated would be residential. But there's huge opportunities in those other segments of the market, as well.
Having a centralised team where you can cross-sell services within the same business [is crucial] because as soon as you say no to someone in commercial they go elsewhere and then you lose a residential [client] as well and vice versa. Being able to have a centralised team where you can cross-sell SMSF or asset finance or all the other requirements that your clients will most likely have under one roof, is just better for business. It keeps them sticky and it keeps them from going elsewhere.
What recent changes in borrowing trends have you witnessed?
A transition we've seen a lot of is my bigger clients transitioning to commercial and development [finance] because it's just chasing that next big thing. One of the most important parts about having a business that does resi, commercial, development, and everything else in between is that you want to make sure that you're there for the full lifecycle of your client.
What advice would you give to brokers thinking about starting their own business?
Outsource your loan processing as quickly as humanly possible. I think you obviously need to understand how it works; an end to end process. But there are only a certain amount of hours in a day and there's some great resources (whether you hire directly, do a per application kind of platform or outsource to someone offshore). There's hundreds of different options depending on where you're at in your journey. The purpose of doing that is to give yourself more time.
Tune in to hear more!
Find out more about how Sydney-based brokerage Flint recently reshaped its ownership structure and leadership team following a merger with brokerage Confidence Finance on the Elite Broker podcast episode, ‘How these elite brokers have merged to spark success at Flint’ here:
