Financial services has always been the most lucrative area of sales, with house prices rising and your income, as a mortgage broker is related to house prices via mortgages, your income will always be rising at least in line with inflation, most likely by more than inflation.

The regulated environment means its not a business for those looking to make a quick buck! You need certain qualifications to be allowed to give out mortgage advice. The sales cycle is quite long, especially when dealing with purchases.

As a mortgage broker you can work from anywhere, many advisors work from home and visit clients at their home, however it is better if you can work from an office and have clients visit you.

To get started you need:

• CeMAP (Certificate in Mortgage Advice and Practice), basic understanding of maths and some good sales skills.
• A computer, printer and scanner, fax machine, phone and normal office stationary.
• A Consumer Credit License, go to Office of Fair trading for this.
• Data Protection, go to the Information Commissioner for this.

The level of capital investment required depends on how you want to start up. The best way to build the business is through introductions and referrals, however this could take you a few years to really get off the ground. The easiest way to get customers is to purchase leads from any of the many lead generation companies. You’ll be able to convert 1 in 10 leads no problem, usually more. 10 leads would typically cost about £250, and you’re looking to make an average of £1000 per case assuming you don’t charge fees.

If you charge fees you should be looking to make over £2000 per case, however you’re conversion rate drops significantly so you need to work out if your pockets are deep enough to buy enough leads.

Other ways to market yourself include networking, leaflets, mail outs, however you cannot simply pick up the phone and cold call. Cold calling has been outlawed by the Financial Services Authority. You’ll need to buy in lists that have been sourced compliantly if you wish to prospect on the phone.

It is not very easy to differentiate your business when you’re all selling the same products, the only way that you do differentiate is in your service, and how you deal with people. Effectively people will buy you and not the products so you need to make sure you have as much mass appeal as you can. There are techniques you can learn to achieve this, all built around understanding individuals behavioral styles, and then matching them so they will like you, and consequently buy from you.

Some useful URLs:

• www.ifslearning.co.uk - for your CeMAP studies.
• www.fsa.gov.uk - the regulator.
• www.paaleads.com - a lead generation company.
• www.themortgagetimes.com - a very good mortgage network, will take on inexperienced brokers fresh from CeMAP training, and also provide CeMAP training as well if you’re not good at book learning.

This is a guest post written by Tristan Crickett who is an independent mortgage broker based in Bristol.

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