Building your brokerage: why imitating top performers is a bad idea

Expert discusses why having an end target in mind is vital

Building your brokerage: why imitating top performers is a bad idea

Insurance News

By Ksenia Stepanova

The natural thing most brokers want to do is jump in, take action and start building their business as soon as possible. However, seasoned brokers will tell you that it’s vital to pin down your end goal early – otherwise, you risk going in a direction that does not work for you in the long run.

James Veigli, founder of Broker Profits Vault, says identifying your goals and coming up with a game plan is a crucial step many brokers have missed in business. He has focused on the first stage of his 10X Broker Plan on growth through goals, planning and routine.

“The idea of ‘growth’ is something that is at the centre of the whole plan, whereby you focus on attracting, connecting and scaling, all with the purpose of growing,” Veigli explained.

“The problem is that a lot of brokers don’t think about the end goal properly. They just start doing, or they go out and try to imitate what others are implementing in terms of building their business – but all of that is irrelevant if you don’t start with the end in mind. We get brokers to really think about what their end goal is in terms of income and lifestyle, and what sort of business they want to build to achieve that.”

Brokers start with identifying a solid goal, and also figuring out why they want that particular outcome for motivation and certainty. The next stage is then formulating a ‘game plan’ – a set of thinking and strategy tools which break the goals down into day-to-day projects and specific tasks.

“Brokers can set the priorities that they need to action and implement in their business, as opposed to traditional business plans that are a waste of time,” Veigli said.

“They’re too complex and convoluted and often not actionable, and so they just end up at the bottom of a drawer. The game plan asks where you are, where you want to be, what projects you need to be actioning right now and what steps you need to start taking from the get-go to make it work.”

“We then use something called the ‘scrum board’, which is a management framework for getting things done,” he continued.

“You take a set of projects and action steps from your game plan, and you put those on to a physical, visual board which gives you a snapshot of what you need to do. You can then move things from the ‘hopper’ – the waiting area – and into a weekly section, a daily section, a doing section, and then finally into ‘done.’ You can then see your progress at a glance, and instantly see what you need to be doing at any point in time. It’s a really powerful tool.”

Finally, the growth stage gets brokers to focus on strategy and routine, which encourages the broker to set time aside each day to focus purely on their game plan, and on the growth of their business.

“Ambitious brokers want to grow their business, but if you don’t block out times in your schedule to focus on your business uninterrupted, you’ll be endlessly distracted by emails and phone calls,” Veigli said.

“This means you keep putting off the things that will actually improve your business for tomorrow, so it’s super important that you schedule that time to focus on your strategy, otherwise it will never happen and you’ll wake up in the exact same place in six months.”

“Finally, you need to create a routine,” he concluded. “We give brokers a framework to set up a daily morning routine, so that they start the day on the right foot. If you do that, it’ll lead to higher energy and greater success rates.”

The 10X Broker Plan is available as a free online workshop for mortgage brokers and business owners. To register and access the complete plan – click here.

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