Mortgage Choice Playbook: Education, insight, inspiration

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Reimagining the way learning and development is delivered to more than 1,000 brokers, Mortgage Choice created an online and interactive tool to guide franchise business operations

IN APRIL 2022, Deloitte Access Economics found that for every $1 invested in learning and development (L&D) per employee, an additional $4.70 in business revenue per employee is generated in the same year. The financial benefit of investing in L&D is clear for broker businesses, but there are many other benefits – upskilling and reskilling brokers, discovering future leaders and franchise owners, improving productivity, and creating an engaged and motivated network.

For 30 years Mortgage Choice has been at the forefront of Australia’s mortgage broking industry, and under the ownership of global property technology business REA Group, this doesn’t change. Following the merger with Smartline late last year, Mortgage Choice now has a network of close to 1,000 brokers and more than 750 franchises nationally and remains one of Australia’s most trusted and recognised brands. Mortgage Choice builds successful businesses that set the benchmark for advice, customer care and removing complexity from the home loan process.

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Alberto Lavenuta, Mortgage Choice

That same Deloitte report also published modelling which suggested that at least 83% of Australian businesses could do more to enhance their L&D programs. And businesses across the country are heeding the call – ramping up their L&D programs as we emerge from COVID-19 restrictions. Around the time of the Deloitte report, LinkedIn also published its 2022 Workplace Learning Report, which found that of all the L&D programs it tracks, every single category was going to increase in numbers in 2022. It said its most popular programs in 2022 would focus on diversity, equity and inclusion; leading through change; delivering in-person training; and upskilling or reskilling.

In recent years, demand for mortgage brokers and significant growth in the Mortgage Choice network created the need to further enhance the company's L&D programs. The business was faced with some challenges, including:

“The Playbook offers something for everyone in our Mortgage Choice network,” says Lavenuta. “It sets the standard every new broker should aspire to reach and allows experienced brokers to benchmark their current processes to identify areas for improvement and to discover tools and resources that can help improve efficiency.” The Playbook includes:

“The Mortgage Choice Playbook is a ‘must have’ reference tool that is intuitive, interactive and full of information, from business management to process efficiency,” says Amanda Scott, State Manager for South Australia at Mortgage Choice. “This learning platform will be instrumental in assisting our franchisees in scaling their business for continued growth.” The new Playbook is just one part of Mortgage Choice’s extensive L&D offering, which also includes a team of experienced Credit Coaches who help bring new loan writers up to speed and assist experienced brokers with complex lending scenarios; and a comprehensive induction course, supplemented by a suite of post-induction programs focused on sales, marketing, lending, systems and business management. Mortgage Choice also supports new-to-industry brokers with a two-year MFAA-approved online mentor program, complemented by support in running and growing a franchise business provided by state-based Franchise Development Managers.

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“Our L&D team spent more than 12 months speaking to our top-performing franchisees around the country to discover and document what made them so successful”

Reimagining the way learning and development is delivered to more than 1,000 brokers, Mortgage Choice created an online and interactive tool to guide franchise business operations

how to better empower motivated new franchise owners and loan writers to skilfully look after their clients and grow their businesses from day one how to help established brokers looking to grow their businesses to unlock the tools and resources they needed to be more efficient how to help the businesses in the network best structure their franchises to achieve sustainable growth

As part of this journey, Mortgage Choice reimagined and redesigned its induction program, as well as the L&D support it provides throughout the entire broker business life cycle. As the first step in redesigning these programs, the L&D team renewed their purpose: to empower our broker network through education, insight and inspiration. Born from this purpose was the idea for the Mortgage Choice Playbook – an online, interactive, 360-degree tool to guide franchise business operations, providing virtual education and upskilling. “We realised we couldn’t deliver such a comprehensive resource without intense collaboration with our broker network,” says Alberto Lavenuta, National L&D Manager at Mortgage Choice. “Our L&D team spent more than 12 months speaking to our top-performing franchisees around the country to discover and document what made them so successful.” After understanding what franchisees and brokers wanted the online Playbook to cover, the L&D team then began the mammoth task of collating this information into a digestible format. The finished product includes over 200 hours of instructional videos, as well as process maps, templates, scripts, calculators, and interviews with top-performing franchisees.

guidance on increasing settlements leads and cash flow calculators tips on navigating Mortgage Choice systems such as the proprietary Broker Platform understanding the customer engagement process, from enquiry and interview to submission, approval, settlement and post-settlement tasks learning what team structure best suits a business direction around when might be a good time to expand templates for job descriptions when hiring staff operating procedures and compliance documents

“[The Playbook] sets the standard every new broker should aspire to reach and allows experienced brokers to benchmark their current processes to identify areas for improvement and to discover tools and resources that can help improve efficiency”

Alberto Lavenuta, Mortgage Choice

To supplement this already-extensive offering, this year Mortgage Choice engaged industry experts Dean Mannix and Jason Back to provide a program of monthly workshops. Mannix, an international sales performance coach, has been delivering monthly workshops to the Mortgage Choice network. Back, a former broker and award-winning industry business coach, is also delivering monthly sessions tailored for franchises at different stages in their life cycle. “Whether you’re a newly onboarded broker or a franchisee looking to grow your business, you have access to unique strengths and experience that can be used to advance your career and grow your business,” says Anthony Waldron, CEO Mortgage Choice and Financial Services. “Mortgage Choice’s L&D program, now enriched by the Mortgage Choice Playbook, helps our network capitalise on those strengths and provides support in areas that may not be as familiar – wherever our brokers are in the life cycle of their business.”

Alberto Lavenuta, Mortgage Choice