Mortgage broker the Mortgage Choice franchise has released the results of its annual Franchise Recruitment Index.
The Index analyses the background and personal attributes of the company’s national franchise network over nine years, looking at details such as employment history, educational qualifications, age and gender.
Of those people who became financial services franchise partners between 1995 to June 30 2004, 20 percent are from a senior executive/managerial background, 19 percent from banking and finance, and 17.5 percent from sales.
However, in 2004 the largest percentage (22 percent) of franchisees originated in sales. Last year 16 percent came from banking or finance, 12 percent from a senior executive/managerial background, and 13 percent were previously self-employed. Over the entire franchise network, 72 percent have previous sales/customer service experience.
According to Mortgage Choice national corporate affairs manager, Warren O’Rourke, the customer service skills learned in sales is an important contributing factor to success as a mortgage broker.
“We find referrals are the best way for a franchisee to move forward and grow, and a broker will not be referred on if the service isn’t at or above standard,” he says.
The Index also revealed that the youngest person appointed by Mortgage Choice as a franchisee was aged 23, while the most senior was 61 years. The average age as at 30 June was 38 years. This is a slight increase in age range from the previous year’s analysis, which showed the overall youngest being 24, oldest 61, with an average age of 37.
The average age over the company’s entire years of operation is now 40.22 years. As an illustrative comparison, in 1999 the average age peaked at 46 years. O’Rourke says the decrease in the average age is a reflection of social trends, where people are looking for self-employment at an earlier age.
“We have seen a growing number of young entrepreneurs joining Mortgage Choice, but there are also a high number of more experienced workers who are looking for a career change at a later stage in life,” he says.
As it stands, the industry appears to be skewed towards males, with 80 percent of all Mortgage Choice franchisees being men, even though the most successful are actually what O’Rourke calls “female high flyers”. Indeed, the number-one sales performance (both in numbers and volumes) has for the past three years been by a female, with last year’s number-two position also achieved by a woman.
Only 30 percent of all Mortgage Choice franchisees have previous lending experience or tertiary qualifications, indicating that a diploma/degree or previous knowledge about home loan lending is not necessarily a requisite to running a mortgage broking business.
In another development, Mortgage Choice has appointed Maitland Bardwell as national retail manager. Key duties are to formulate a retail strategy for new and existing franchisees, increase the number of retail operations each year, monitor retail operation performance, ensure compliance of new and existing retail operations to company standards, coordinate the process of franchisee consultation and communications to facilitate franchisee satisfaction with the retail strategy.
5-May-2006