It would be a smart move for accountants and advisers to reach out to mortgage brokers and create new ways to work together, write Vanessa Stoykov
If you read my blog last week, I explored the Mark Bouris model of ‘wealth agents’ giving advice in addition to providing mortgages at times and locations suitable to potential clients.
No big surprise this week that Mortgage Choice has announced it is aiming to test its systems and processes with ten advisory practices before rolling out its offering in July 2013.
While mortgage brokers have long been the distant cousins of advisers and accountants, the distribution and access to clients they have is extremely advantageous in growing an advice business.
While there has been lots of talk about further encouraging advisers and accountants to work together and create referral networks, the other big contender in growing the Australian advice offering is of course mortgage brokers.
While many advisers and accounting practices have mortgages as part of their product offering, not all do. Unless there is an existing strong referral network in place with a mortgage provider, this could lead to a client relationship going elsewhere to service this need.
According to our No More Practice star mentor Barry Lambert, one of the best strategies for growing a practice is ‘entanglement’, ie. providing a client with so many services that it becomes impossible for that client to disengage. It seems like the business of the future will offer accounting, advice and mortgages under one roof, or at least in one seemingly seamless network.
Add SMSFs into the mix, and according to Andrea Slattery at SPAA legal services are also part of that ‘dream team’.
So now is the time to start building your networks – what products can you offer, and how you can provide a full service offering to a client in an integrated way.
Networking, joint ventures, partnerships and acquisitions are going to be something we see a lot more of in the advice space as FOFA-ready professionals see the opportunity to provide clients with the ultimate, full lifecycle of financial advice, services and product.
It would be a natural move for accountants and advisers to reach out to mortgage brokers now and create new ways to work together to create profitable and successful broader businesses.
With new networks like YBR and Mortgage Choice becoming advice groups, advice businesses need to broaden either their network or product range to compete on an even playing field.
Competition is positive and growing demand and use of advice is positive for the industry and consumers as a whole. Working in cooperation with different members of the value chain in advice, accounting and mortgages will see the practices of the future thrive.
