How brokers can find their ‘why’ and how it can make them better at helping customers
One of the reasons mortgage brokers go to work every day is the same reason everyone else does. They hope to make a living, pay their bills, and save for retirement.
However, one mortgage industry executive encourages brokers to look past the basic reason they work and find the true meaning of being a broker.
Laura Brandao (pictured top) is the CEO of Lighthouse Advisors, among many other industry positions she holds, including serving as a member of the Women’s Mortgage Network Committee with the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME).
She will be speaking at the upcoming AIME Fuse event in Nashville next month. Her topic encourages brokers to really understand why they chose to become brokers and use that knowledge to help them achieve greater success.
“My topic is, ‘Why do we do what we do,’” Brandao told Mortgage Professional America. “Why are we in the mortgage industry? Why do we have our careers? Why do we do the work that we do? It's all about creating freedom: freedom of our time, freedom of our relationships, freedom of our future, of doing something that's fulfilling, that we feel good about, because otherwise it's just a job.”
All about freedom
It’s not just the freedom to work for yourself that makes the broker environment attractive to loan professionals. It also offers the freedom to take on as many or as few loans per month as you want, and to offer the products you want to work with.
“What are we all striving for? We're striving for freedom,” Brandao said. “That's ultimately the goal of what we're looking for. The freedom to be able to spend our time how we want, and the freedom to be able to work with clients that we want. We can select who those clients are. We don't have to beg, nor do we have to do business with people who don't mesh with us. And ultimately, feeling good about the work.”
She notes the differences between the retail and broker spaces and how freedom of process can differentiate the two sides of the same coin.
“Freedom aligns perfectly with why you choose the broker channel,” she said. “I have the freedom to work with whatever lenders I want to do business with. That is freedom where, if you work in the retail space, maybe you don't have that freedom. You have to use their underwriters, their programs, and their pricing.”
But Brandao notes that some people will find the structure of the retail mortgage space preferable to the freedom that the broker environment provides.
“I know I'm someone who could never work for some 10,000-person, huge corporation,” Brandao said. “I don't like that. That's not my mentality. I like entrepreneurial. I like to be able to make decisions quickly and not have to go through 25 layers to make a decision. So I think you have to know a little bit about yourself and where you fit best.
“There are other people who have to be in the box, and they don't like to work outside that box. I think it's something that you have to go through a checklist of these things. This is the way it goes, and which way works best for you. There isn't necessarily a right or wrong answer. It's an individual decision of what works best for you.”
The importance of mortgage events
One of the events that Brandao is most excited about is the WMN at Fuse event, scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
“I'm part of the Women's Mortgage Network,” she said. “I'm on their committee also, so we're having our event on Thursday. We have 200 women who have registered to be part of this event, and we have amazing speakers, and we're going to have a great event on Thursday afternoon.”
One thing she wants to encourage brokers to do is continue attending these types of events, even if they can only attend remotely. She notes that when the market gets tighter, people who would normally attend conventions tend to back off so they can spend more hours at work.
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In some cases, brokers are concerned about the costs associated with traveling to events like Fuse. Brandao reminds them that it often is far more costly to their business not to attend these trade shows.
“When the market gets tight, people pull back and they stop showing up,” she said. “Whether it's showing up for an event, even virtual people start to pull back because they're like, ‘I have to work harder.’ And we understand that you have to focus, but sometimes you're missing out on that connection or that insight, and it's more costly not to hear.
“It is so important to get in the room. It’s sitting across the table and saying, ‘What are you doing with this?’ Yes, it's expensive to do this. But you really do have to find the time and allocate a couple of dollars over to that corner, because it's worth it. It's very, very important to be there.”
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