Becoming a broker (to the brokers here)

Cute_'n'_Quirky

Beware? It would be as plain as the spot on the end of the nose!

homer_j_3

Write 2 mortgages per week -

You would probably then need to see at least 4-6 people on the industry average conversion rate. I would imagine this to be a lot less for newly qualified advisers with no industry experience. I am guessing that you will earn 1k per case by charging a fee and selling some insurances so this may increase the number of people that you need to see who will accept a fee?

Unless you do remortgages all the time you will then probably have to work on the basis that 1-3 purchases will fall through and there will be clawbacks to take into consideration. I guess you could tie people in to repaying clawbacks if they cancel them to ensure you don't lose.

I think that earning 100k per year off the back of writing 100 cases is achievable to someone who has learnt their trade well and can convince people into paying extortionately for advice. it will probably be that the people that accept these fees are probably the people that need good advice for free. However, for someone new into the industry I do not believe these earnings are achievable nor realistic.

Having just quicly looked on a popular recruitment site, there are over 10 pages of jobs for mortagge advisers/trainee advisers in London so I don't buy the argument there are no jobs in London for you in a role where you can earn your craft. Of course it is easier for someone to take you on with no risk to them on a self employed basis - tie you into complex contracts and offer you a basic level opf support.

Cute_'n'_Quirky

Homer you misread my post - my post read as follows -

It is all well and good saying that you need to work for a Company so that you are protected in the early years, etc.
Whilst that may be true if you are in London, it is most certainly not true of the rest of the country.

MortgageMamma

I dont think its difficult to get a job as a newly qualified.

I was offered jobs at Abbey, Halifax E.A.'s and Barclays

I know quite a few advisers who work in banks and most of them started off as customer advisers, the banks put them through their CeMAPs and training and away they went

Anyone who approaches a bank will full cemap looking for work I think would be viewed as an asset if anything! EDIT - especially in a smaller town - CeMAP qual'ds tend to head for the cities for better work

One thing I have noticed is that there is an increasing number of cemap trainee's coming to this site for assistance - they should really be going to Cherry or a similar forum

homer_j_3

well its not a problem in my area - in the north west, in fact any area I look in on the recruitment site there is a similar amount of vacancies.

You will no doubt see a load of self employed positions which offer much higher salaries (OTE's) which may see the employed ones look less attractive but they are still there.

Remember - you can only count a signup when it completes and not a seond before - no sign up no pay. Also you will be competing with 10 other brokers over the same lead so your skills need to be better than good to convert.

Cute_'n'_Quirky

I have just checked three of the major job sites - in my area ALL of the adverts, without exception, are for Trainee Financial Advisers!

The areas I checked covered four counties. 60 miles north of me to 90 miles south of me.

A couple of weeks ago two kind MA's here sent me a whole list of bank sites since they are recruiting madly. Since I already had my Contract and I wasn't really looking I had a sneaky peek to see if I was missing anything. Fortunately I had not missed any opportunities since there weren't any! Not one 60 miles radius. So I missed nothing.

homer_j_3

where do you live? What area?

Cute_'n'_Quirky

North East.

The position up here has been the same back to last October to my knowledge.

Even Cartel have stopped recruiting!

Even with full CeMap - which I have - they want a proven track record of mortgage experience.

homer_j_3

I have found 5 jobs in first 3 pages of my search (2 mins of looking) for the North East - clearly its a big place and these may not be near you.

Self employed is not the way for any new starter in to the industry and advising. I can say this with complete confidence.

I learnt this the hard way and I would consider myself to have known quite a lot of industry knowledge and even had 12 months advising and still struggled becuase of lack of support and mentoring that I needed (It was promised before I started too).

You may think or get told that I was unsuccessful because I was unable to sell - that is not the case, I regularly write 3 cases a week minimum usually 4 or 5 and I have a good protection ratio to these too. I would write more if I had the admin support but my refusal to work 100 hours per week means that I am working to capacity at the moment. Burnout in the industry is common so do not think that its me being lazy by refusing to work as long as I can.

You may get told that I had the wrong leads - this is not entirely the case either, yes there were timewasters but a lead is a lead and you will live or die by your ability to convert, gain referrals. I am sure someone will mention the glen gary glen ross film or whatever its called with Alec Baldwin in and its a good reflection of what a sales environment can be like.

You have to remember that people gain confidence in a brand or name they can trust.

When you talk to a client and they have never heard of your company or really know how you got their details and start to talk about your experience, are you going to lie and say that you have a few years with a bank or are you going to say "I am completely new to the business but I am qualified"?

Sit that next to someone like me for example and I say, "I have had 11 years in the industry and have worked for many reputable companies like XYZ in various capacities." or someone like Andrew Smith who will say that he has had many more years than I have or my father in law who is an IFA with mortgage experience over over 25 years. Do you think your potential client will want to pay a fee for your offering?

Ultimately - no training course or qualification will give you all the answers and you will lose business because of your lack of experience and inability to provide the answers confidently. You will soon realise when you get in the job that you now know what you didn't know.

Write 2 cases per week - you can write 10 cases per week but if none go through you wont be paid a penny - remember that!

Its a common approach of people trying to recruit self employed - you only need to do this and you only need to do that. When you go back to them to say its not working, they will say "well it worked for so and so etc".

I think Dunston said it recently - you will always get a core of advisers that stay where they are successful but its very rare you will see anybody telling you about the people they lost. I have learnt that a good person to work for is soeone who will help you when you need it.

The OP is lucky that they have been recruited into a business where they can learn and they will stand a good chance of being around for the long term where as someone who can't do this will have a high rate of not making it through th efirst 2 years. I hope you prove me wrong.

Cute_'n'_Quirky

I am not speaking about myself and looking for work, although you brought me into it, I am speaking generally on the issue of finding placements.

In my past life in working with the general public and learning from them about their wants and needs what I found was that if someone new started - Doctor, Dentist, Estate Agent, Builder, Hairdresser, etc - the general opinion was that because they were new they were completely up-to-date and knowledgeable about their work - therefore they had no hesitation in approaching them.
To my way of thinking it was always a back-to-front way of looking at things!

I myself swapped from a practice of Doctors whom were 20 years older than me, to a practice of Doctors who were younger than me - the difference was astonishing.

What works for one client won't necessarily work for another.