The COVID-19 pandemic has definitely changed a lot of things in the market. And while pandemic-related disruption has counterintuitively made doing business easier, it has also brought with it some challenges.
Read more: Shifting the balance
Mortgage Choice interim CEO Anthony Waldron, Mortgage Choice Haberfield franchise owner Jane Vaughan, and Mortgage Choice Penshurst franchise owner George Boustani spoke about what they believe will be the greatest challenge to their business and the industry over the next two to three years.
For Waldron, one trend to watch was recruitment. With a rising number of Australians using mortgage brokers to secure finance, this had left the industry with the challenge of finding enough staff to handle the work – admittedly not a bad problem to have.
“Recruitment is hard, and franchisees want to attract the right people and keep them in their businesses,” Waldron said.
Boustani agreed that the biggest challenge was staffing “and servicing the increasing number of leads moving forward.”
For Vaughan, who is on the hunt for new staff, the role of a franchise development manager (FDM) has never been more important. Her Mortgage Choice FDM is there to help identify which roles should be recruited and what should be in the contract. They also provide the intimate support around detailed business decisions and industry issues such as lender turnaround times.
“You don’t need to use this support all the time, but my FDM knows if I reach out, I really do need that support, and they’ve got the contacts to help us,” Vaughan said. “There is absolute value in having really good FDMs who have good experience and good background knowledge of what we actually do.”
