MY BUSINESS

MY BUSINESS By Dana Kinita

The evolution of an ADVISER

Martin Robinson, mortgage and financial adviser with SHARE, remembers his first client in 1988. That’s because he has kept a record of every application he has submitted to a lender. He speaks to TMM on the changes he’s seen in the industry and how learning to adapt and upskill has been the key in his durability.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN THE INDUSTRY? I worked for a finance company, a subsidiary of Investment Finance Corporation (an Olly Newland business). It was the first Public Company to fail after the October 1987 share market crash. The receivership was announce at 6pm, Christmas Eve, 1987. On the bright side of that, we had a fantastic ‘In Receivership’ party in late January 1988.

The only job I could find of similar interest was in Wellington. That was with AGC – I was their first commercial property rep in the Capital. Unfortunately the effects of the share market crash negated any attempt to write business. So I rang my boss, Chris Barry who some will remember, probably the day before he was going to call me and resigned. With no other jobs in the market apart from collecting bad debts I went out as a commercial mortgage broker, it was really the only thing to do.

There was no demand, other than people wanting money to get out of trouble. With rapidly declining values in property, it was basically a nightmare. When I went out, I didn’t realise how bad it would be and it took several years before the commercial market recovered. WHAT WAS YOUR NEXT MOVE? I went into a partnership with an existing mortgage broker. Three months after I started with him, I worked out he was a drinking alcoholic. After a further three months he left the business and I took it over. While we were together I had worked out, there wasn’t enough business in the commercial market and we had to look at residential.

Critically I realised good customers wouldn’t bring their residential mortgage to me as I would have to charge them a fee. So I put a package to ANZ in late 1989 which was shortly after they had bought Post Bank. Lo and behold after three months they agreed to split their 1% fee, which they charged on every loan, 50/50. This made me ANZ’s first broker to have a formal commission arrangement with ANZ. The average loan was probably $60,000 to $80,000 so I was making $300 to $400 a deal. Loose change now but that’s how I survived!

My records show interest rates from the banks, back then, were 14% to 16%. So I approached NZ Guardian Trust who were charging a little less and they agreed to split their 0.75% fee 50/50! I therefore had three lenders who paid me commission, ANZ, Post Bank and Guardian Trust.

With my business partner gone I needed new premises. A referral source suggested I could get a free office if I sold a bit of life insurance. So in mid-1990, I joined Prudential to sell life insurance. Unbeknown to me their products also included income protection, total and permanent disability cover and importantly superannuation. An NZI Fire & General Agency also came with the Prudential connection. This meant I went from being a one-trick pony to a GP.

Now I’m happy to call myself a GP in the financial sector, but that’s both positive and negative. Positive, as if mortgages go quiet I ramp up Insurance or KiwiSaver work. Negative, as continuing with the analogy of a doctor, specialists make more than GPs.

WHY ARE YOU PASSIONATE ABOUT THE INDUSTRY? I say to my clients I like dealing with good people, that’s what I enjoy. That’s about 80%, the other 20% are the ones that give you aggravation, a lot of work for little return. So one of my tips is don’t be afraid to say no. In fact when you do turn business away it proves you are doing okay!

DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST CLIENT? I have a red book that has a list of every loan I’ve submitted. The first one is dated 20th December, 1988 and was for $450,000. It was a commercial loan, I can tell you who it was referred from, which lender it was submitted to, the interest rate was 16% and I got a fee of $3,500! I still write in the book every time I send an application to a lender. I’ll go electronic when the pages run out – shortly!

BEST TIME IN THE BUSINESS? I now consider myself a Financial Adviser, I don’t believe in the word broker as I see my role as providing the best possible advice.

In the mid-1990’s two colleagues and myself formed a buddy group. One was in Auckland, one in Wanganui and I was in Wellington. Every Monday morning we would fax (no email in those days) what work activity we had done the previous week. This included number of phone calls made, number of appointments completed, number of sales and the amount of commission earned. At the end of every quarter, we would meet, review where we were and set some goals for the following quarter. To finish we would do an activity like go for a sail, do a spin class together and we even ran the Rotorua Marathon in 2004.

The Buddy Group morphed into our families coming along and we’re all still good friends. Motivational wise this worked as the three of us didn’t want to get beaten by each other. Perhaps critically we were in different cities so we weren’t competing for the same clients.

CHALLENGING TIMES? The ebbs and flows of the economy catch me out. Reasonably recently the GFC curtailed my business more than it should have. Looking back, I just kept believing the next month would be okay and I wasn’t proactive in making changes quickly enough. But that’s been rectified in the last couple of years.

DID YOU HAVE A MENTOR? Not really but I’ve learnt from a lot of people over the years. A major benefit to my life came through joining Surf Life Saving as a 14 year old. That’s when I joined the Mairangi Bay club in Auckland. I’ve stayed in surf lifesaving and have been with NZ’s oldest patrolling club, Lyall Bay for nearly 30 years. I’m pleased to say I’m still competing and am currently training for the World Masters. FROM: Murrays Bay, Auckland but Lyall Bay, Wellington since 1988 FAMILY: Wife, Jan. Children: Son, Phillip, 24, Builder: Daughter, Emma, 22, Olympic swimmer. INTERESTS: Surf Life Saving, Swimming (currently I don’t have a choice), Football be it playing for Seatoun Masters div 6 (you can’t get lower or slower!) or following the Wellington Phoenix and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Whilst not realising it at the time, what I’ve learnt from some of the people involved in surf life saving is astounding. As a 14-year-old I trained with Steve Tindall (founder of The Warehouse), I used to be coached by senior managers from Fletcher Challenge, NZ Forest Products, I can go on and on. That’s where I see I received a lot of benefit in life rather than from an individual business mentor.

LOOKING BACK, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY? I have at various times had associates work with me. I think I should have tried a bit harder or been smarter in an effort to retain them. This may have moved me from being a sole practitioner to a small sized firm. WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU SEE AHEAD? What’s happened over the past few years in respect to Regulation has been great for the public. I’m well pleased with deciding to become an Authorised Financial Adviser as soon as I could. I’m afraid, RFAs are going to have to pull their socks up because a lot of their advice is not in writing and shortly it will have to be. I hope the QFEs are involved in that as well.

A challenge for Mortgage Advisers is the continual love/hate relationship we have with our Financial Service Providers. Especially the banks, who say we’re working together but they often get quite aggressive in chasing our clients directly, despite the initial introduction coming from us. As soon as mortgages go quiet the banks have a history of tapping up Advisers clients for insurance. It just frustrates the hell out of me.

Contradicting this a little is my long held belief that the lenders are my clients. I try to treat them as such. My theory being there are only half a dozen or so of them and I can’t afford to lose one of them. If I do it sure limits my ability to provide the best outcome for a customer.

BEST BUSINESS BOOK? The best business book is a detective novel as far away from business as possible.

IS THERE A TYPICAL WORKING DAY? Most of my days start with some sort of exercise then to the office by 8.45am. I then work through until 6.15pmish. I do some evening appointments but they have declined markedly over the last 10 years. I also have a bad habit of calling into the office on Sunday mornings for a couple of hours. I compensate for this by aiming to have seven weeks holidaying each year. ✚