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The goal of a broker is to assist a client with their loan journey. While this may seem like a no-brainer, Accendo’s Trent Carter highlighted how some brokers can neglect the skill of listening.
“The key is learning how to just ask insightful questions and shut up and listen and hear what people are saying. That is such an important skill. I think we’re too quick to think about what we’re going to say next,” Carter said.
“In an interview and initial client scenario. We want to tell them how good we are at our job and all the things that we can solve for them. But sometimes it’s just time to be quiet and let the client talk and they’ll tell you everything that’s going on that you need to fix.”
Listening goes beyond the client. As discussed in the latest episode of Finance Specialist, learning and development should be continuous, which requires brokers to engage and lean on their peers.
“There’s no such thing as knowing everything in finance and trends change, products change, policies change, compliance and standards change, everything is constantly evolving in our industry. And if you set your education in stone when you entered into the industry, then you’re going to stagnate really, really quickly,” said Carter.
The listening and learning don’t have to come in the form of a formal course, either. It can simply be chatting with a colleague to gather some outside perspective.
Carter said: “There’s a lot more informal type learning you can do. Seeking out good mentors and looking at brokers who you think are doing it right in the market and simply asking for their time and saying, how are you approaching that and will they inform me?
“The first two years of your industry and you got to do that formal mentoring. But you should have a mentor at every stage of your career and someone that you aspire to be like. And no matter where you get in your journey, find the next person that you want to be able to be like and start having conversations with them.”
This learning and curiosity should remain constant, from the new hire through to the CEO.
“I’ve been fortunate enough in my career to get invited to some awesome leadership forums and in that room, it’s not just about listening to the old heads. It’s some of the newer guys that walk in the room and are approaching marketing in a completely different way or leaning on technology. More heavily than I have,” said Carter.
“I’ve learned from them and I’ve adopted things that they’re bringing in. So, I just don’t think tenure equals expertise. I think expertise equals expertise. And if someone’s devoted some of their time to become expert in marketing or expert in technology or expert in systems and processes, it doesn’t matter how long they’ve been in the industry, they’ve probably got something they can teach you.”
The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full episode of Finance Specialist, click below.
