How to Write $30M/mth with Justin Picker

Okay, welcome everybody to an episode of the broker capital podcast and YouTube series We're very lucky to be joined by Justin Picker from Picker Financial. Justin, welcome Thank you Tom Salman, greatly appreciate it And I'm stoked to have you here. Let's kick things off with a pretty general question. How did you find your way into more witch-broken? Well, yeah, I've kind of learnt some tough Life lessons early on I think Getting out of university, getting a piece of paper and realizing, you know, this isn't what it's cracked up to be in the public relations space, which is what I studied for about four years And then yeah, having to move to city into Sydney. I didn't have any friends or family around that way So I'm basically gonna have to go to the city You know be there and try and start that off their career here, and I just realized this isn't for me So, you know, really at the time I got out of uni was just back into sales jobs and felt like I probably took a step backwards And then I was like I like helping people like I like kind of sales But more on the relationship side of things and then I started to self-learn about property investing and that's what people were doing and Yeah, kind of I felt that more with broken something that I I fell into with the help of a friend of mine who was starting a buyer's agency and we worked together previously for a few months and Yeah, I feel like that kind of matched my skill set later on once I got started But yeah, didn't have any banking experience or anything like that So it was just like hey, I'm gonna have to try my hand in something and learn about the property market And then by learning from the property market kind of fell into mortgage-breaking and you know buying a couple of investment properties early on I love it. Yeah, I've heard you another podcast talking about how you've you know, you've managed to accumulate a lot of investment properties And was this friend of yours who's the buyer's agent? Were they helping you on that journey as well? Yeah, absolutely absolutely. So that buyer's agent some Eddie Deline and Deline property So yeah kind of started there from from day one with him as kind of preventing his calls and You know, he basically was like you do the calls and get this off the ground and you know start the brokerage You know back into that so Yeah, that's pretty much how we kicked it off and obviously when you're learning and doing the same things and you bought a couple of small investment properties And you're following the same strategy And you're obviously facilitating the deals. It's pretty hard to not get involved. He'd be silly not to 100% so was here your your main source of referrals initially Yeah, absolutely. So obviously when I kind of started music back kind of 2018 is when I registered But kind of did nothing for a year and I had a really good mentor Red East from was by And I played fees for a year and kind of had nothing and wasn't really, you know Trying it out and getting me good kick in the bum one day and was like mate you got to have a crack and start doing this And after that kind of tough lesson then yeah, I think started to pick up a little bit with Eddie and he got a couple of referrals here and there And then also kind of push myself and got a couple of friends and family as well But yeah that that first one or two years is it's definitely the hardest. That's for sure 100% now let's talk about where you're at right now What does the team and the structure at pick a financial look like? Yeah, cool. So we've probably got a You know, you've got your big max on makes the pickles the cheese the lettuce in the hamburger all that stuff We've kind of split it up to have people kind of expertise in their role And there's a little bit of crossover here, but we have about 24 staff in total Wow, so yeah, we have a kind of leads and admin team and operations manager six brokers Everyone has a parry broker behind them Bit credit and getting deals down the line so that the brokers can focus on the relationship and the customer experience And then also we've got a sales team So you'll get a mystery of repricing and management team as well So we all work together to make sure that we keep our customers on track and try and give as much value as possible Awesome, and are those brokers are they employees or are they sort of commission only brokers? Yeah, so for me Obviously coming into this space on you know, there's obviously a lot of stresses and pressures you know coming in especially if you're learning Uh the industry and all that type of stuff so all my brokers are salary brokers and I really look at that the angle of Learn everything that you can don't worry about the pressure of if you don't get a deal. You don't eat You know, it's can you learn it can you master the opportunity and then obviously as you grow bigger You know, we do commissions and stuff like that as well um, but really I just want people to get their feet get their confidence Have their clients and and obviously you know build themselves along the way. So yeah, we do um salary employees with commissions Awesome, I mean obviously you don't just jump straight into having six salary brokers Can you tell me a bit about how How you sort of progressively grow in the team because it hasn't been a massive period of time Let's call it six years. How you've grown the team. So so how did you structure initially and then when did you add people? What does that look like? It's a really good really good question digging into their into the archive tears Is this good um, but yeah, like I was it I was one man banned for pretty much like the first year So you know, you do your deals and then you're realizing this little time, you know processing and stuff like that And you know chat out to my wife. She was very very supportive of me doing all that stuff You know prior to having children So do the phone calls during the day and then I was processing at night and you know doing proposals and everything at night time So pretty stressful time and then I realized like how I need some help here So um had a lady named Lisa. She helped me kind of part time um for about you know one to two years Just getting through some of those deals and help processing and work things out Um, and then my sister-in-law who was kind of in the accounting space and just doing some bookkeeping Um, I bring her on part time And then she was kind of doing the loan processing Initially getting started so Getting started off part-time when you have people at a part-time you realize they need to be full-time because if they're away for one or two days You know, it all kind of comes back on you anyway So anyone listening to this you've got to go full-time you got to go all in because part-time you'll end up just double handling and doing the work yourself for it gets a bit messy Um, so yeah, we realize it. Okay, we're just gonna go full-time in this space So then when men who's my sister-in-law who's a processor daughter in full-time and you know back in those days it was like hey, he's a text message or here He's this is what we've got to do before we kind of realizing it let's run as early. Did she have any experience in what which broken? No, no, so she's she's from Korea. I'm saying English is second language, but um She's very very proficient. She's very very good at what she does Love it, but yeah, she pretty much kind of learned it all by doing the processing and then She's obviously one of my headbrokers. She's not maternity leave at the moment, but she's now one of my headbrokers But yeah, she was there early days kind of doing the processing and getting things through To now yeah being a real leader within the business But yeah, basically when you realize your workload or you get to certain points or If I've got to get on the phone and do these appointments. I don't have time to do the processing and not so That's probably the first time if you can get someone to take the computer work away from you So you can focus on the phone then that obviously is going to bring your volumes and then you can kind of split that up a little bit And then obviously we've just kind of gone through that same process But yeah with men coming on that was good Lisa she was kind of ending her career in the finance industry. So She was kind of you know on the way out essentially so she had Yeah, pretty off retired and we're like that's totally fine. So then min came on board And then Steve who's yeah now my general manager he came in We did a loan for Steve and then not too long after that. He was like hey I want to be broke I want to join you and yeah, he took a plunge just like out. I took a plunge and yeah He came in didn't have the experience, but he had a what best attitude best go getting out of tune ever Um, and then you learned on the fly with me And so it was me him and min and obviously just yeah kept going from there and just kept rolling You know when has the bed he been the buys agent just got bigger and bigger We just learned a lot of things you know on the fly. So Yeah, having a team that has a really good you know attitude Will really help you through those times But yeah actually kind of a question there is like hiring it when you get a capacity You need someone to kind of come in and help you with those tasks. Yeah So and is the entire team on shore or do you have some offshore resources? Yeah, so we're probably we're probably split like 50 50 so Yeah, we're half it. So obviously our brokers. Everyone has a power broker support From them to the base in India and for our administrative staffs there based in the Philippines Nice, and who did you hire the the Indian crew from or through? So chemical products if you've heard yeah, yeah So and a chemical products product is it runs a hell of a mob there So yeah, obviously we had our team and they've been with us for about two and a half three years now So that's been a gradual process over time But now that they know our systems procedures everything that we kind of do we can really start to scale She's been helpful and you end the Philippines team as well. That was more of like a one another broker also helped Nathan Smith birdie talking in touch with you know some offshore people to sort that out and then it's obviously it's kind of grown from there Nice and does it work all right with the time difference because I know I think the Philippines are a few hours behind us I'm not sure about India Yeah, so they're about about three hours The guys in the Philippines they're all used to kind of working at six a.m You know with other kind of companies and stuff like that So that that's fine. They're a nine a.m. Out time The team and India are about three to four hours behind so they usually come on around lunchtime But actually works really well because you can kind of plan out your day or the brokers and get one of these the things We've got to work on or you have clear the inbox and these the things on the agenda today And then from that point then you can start to plan your day and then they can You know knock it down towards the end of the day. So yeah, you've got kind of coverage from you know 9 a.m. in the morning all the way through to kind of eight o'clock at night Now you've got a general manager does the general manager write loans Yes, but he's transitioning out of that So I'll see myself and Steve You know, we kind of put the two big alone riders in the business But now we're shifting back to support our younger guys and The relationship to lead we want them to use you know our clients and they're good to get their experience But where they're in the background, you know in our clients and in super supportive with that saying you know Honestly, you might have a new broker here or something like that, but they've got to learn just like we all did But you know if anything goes off course, well, we're right there to kind of catch them. So yeah, Steve's been Writing has had a really big year as well this year, but the intention is to to have our brokers come in and obviously build their confidence. - Nice, and what sort of loan volume you guys writing per year? - Okay, we probably settling it anywhere from 20 to 30 a month at the moment, which has been really good. - Yeah. - But we're talking about 100 to 120 applications per month. So what I've kind of realized is obviously, we've got the new clients coming in, but then we also got our existing clients and then if they're referring and then also their needs as well. So that's one thing that I was like, okay, well, we're looking at the flow coming in, but there's a lot of existing people coming back to us and their needs and stuff. So that's another, oh, wow, I need more brokers to really kind of catch this and make sure we're on top of mind for this relationship to keep it going. Because yeah, if you miss a phone call or an email and stuff these days, people can move pretty quickly. But that's really yeah, without trusting our servers, I'm just so focused on that. So really my focus at this point is to have quality brokers or people who really want to help and manage that workflow, but also still grow the business. - Well, what do you think the split is right now between let's say brand new clients who've never had a line with picker financial and people either refinancing or coming back? Do you know what this is split in? - It's probably about 50/50. I mean, like obviously when I started with 80 obviously, it's all new business and all that stuff, it's just new, new, new. And then you do your refires and stuff, but because we've kind of been with these guys from starting there investing journey or bought a couple of properties with Eddie, now they want to do an owner occupied or something like that. We've kind of really been there and our demographic is mainly people in there. So you know, 20 to 40 age bracket bracket. So we really kind of there as a key person in there financial journey. And I think that's more than just a broker was the bit of rebranding we had to do because we're doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes. I'm just getting alone. There's a lot of other things we provide in that sense and getting the contacts around. So we do feel there's a lot of loyalty there. People will refer to us. But also, you know, want to grow wealth with them and I'm very humbled and privileged that we get to, you know, do that with these clients. - So as the business owner and you've now got a business that is basically the size that a lot of people want to get to, how are you positioning yourself? So are you, do you see yourself as are you writing loans? Are you mainly managing people? What does that kind of flow look like down from Justin? - It's a great question. I'm now realizing that my value comes by not asking people for pay-slips and things like that. It's going to be more around, you know, how can I get the most out of my team? How can I educate them? How can I be confidence? But also for clients as well when it comes to their strategies and things like that, you know, kind of being an advisor for things like that as well as, you know, is super important. So those type of things. Yeah, if I'm asking you for pay-slips, I'm not doing my job, I'm doing disservice. But if I'm seeing how you guys have any problems, questions, queries, or I've got to jump on a phone and a client to talk about strategy, or give them confidence for their next moves, or talk about things like that. And that's really what I focus on. - Along your journey, have you done any acquisitions of trail books or brokerage businesses? - Yeah, look, I did look into it. I did buy a very, very small book from a retiring broker. And yeah, probably wasn't as like successful. Obviously those type of clients weren't really my type of clients and that's that a mortgage, but they weren't really looking to invest or whatever. So had maybe a couple of conversations. It was only about, you know, 15 or 20 clients, but yeah, I kind of realized that, yeah. For me, it probably wasn't worth it. Other people might look into it, but in terms of our strategy and all those types of stuff, it probably wasn't my greatest success. Let's put it that way. - Did you pay cash, or did you find answer? - I've just paid cash. Yeah, I was like, I didn't want to go put a hundred grand, or something like that. I think I'd like, you know, 15k or something like that. So I just did my time in the water, see how it goes, what process did it be got, and try it out. But unless they were a very active investor, or working with a buyer's agent, or something along those lines, I'd maybe consider it, but I've just found out, I find it building the trust, you know, initially, is a lot better. - Yeah. What sort of client are you looking for? - Look, I just want people to want to have a crack, you know, that understand that, okay, Sydney might be too expensive, or whatever it is, but it's just okay, looking at it outside the box, how can we get there, and like people who are serious about, you know, building wealth, I want to help the family, or you know, something like that. So we get a lot of people that realize things are too expensive, or there's got to be a better way, and then they'll speak to us, we have good strategy call. Pam got the team, get the right team around them, and we want to build some of his loyal, that wants to be on the investment journey, you know, trust us with that, and that's pretty much the clients that we work with here. - Okay, and if somebody's a first-home buyer, will you turn them away, or will you still accept them? - No, we'll do it. I mean, the four main avenues we do is you, you know, investors, first-home investors, first-home buyers, you know, refinance, cashier. It's a little bit SMSF lending, and you know, people who want to buy it, you know, owner-occupied, all that type of stuff, but it's mainly a residue that we stick into. We will do a first-home buyer. We know that there's some additional questions and handholding that we might need to do. So yeah, it just depends on the client and their needs, but we'll do it, you know, we will do first-home buyers. - And I want to get a feel for what your tech stack is in the business. So what products are you using that you love, and that it's crucial to rein the business? Which ones have you tried that didn't work out? And how do you think about that tech stack? - Well, you take it so important, and I'm always trying to, you know, find that silver bullet or the next best thing, whatever, I've probably spent the last 12 months going, "Oh, AI this and AI that." And I'm like, "Oh my God, there's so many." You know, and I've actually been wasted heaps of time, you know, going down that. But, you know, when you're getting started, I'd say look, we use Mac computers. I feel they're the best, they're fishing, get things done and not really on windows. So Mac computers, we use Google like the Gmail G Suite. So that's been really good with Docs and Sharing, you know, all that type of stuff. You Google Drive and Sheets and everything like that. So we're in the Google ecosystem. Mobile phones, everyone's using Android phones for that. But when it comes to your apps and things that we use, I use a email manager called Spark. So it kind of puts all my staff's emails in the one thing. So I've got visibility over everything, which is really handy. So if someone's away, someone's sick, got to get up to speed on something, OK, John Smith type it in, but it'll go through all the inboxes and find it. It has a lot of templates. And what the biggest thing is, is that it looks exactly the same as if you're on a computer, then you're on the phone. So I'll finish a lot of conversations. And then I can send, oh, he's my SMSF, you know, information pack. Here's the PDFs, attachments, links, everything. Looks exactly the same as if I just sent it from my phone. Sorry for my computer, but I've sent it from my phone. So it, you know, it won't say sent me the outlook or anything, it all looks the same. So that's been a really powerful one, because I feel like I'm a lot more mobile. And I want to get that out there. So the sparks been huge with the emails. We use broker engine, and we're aggregate through AFG. So we used Flex, you know, and all that type of stuff. We tried broker engine probably two or three times. I kept canceling, because I wasn't committing to it 100% and didn't get it right. And then for the third time, they said that we're not going to refund you if you stuff this one up. So I was like, OK, so I kind of forced us to do it. And we got it right finally. And that replaced our Trello board. So if you're starting off, you could probably get away with using Trello. And if you're doing it, if you're a solo broker, maybe. But what if you're doing high volumes and things, something like broker engine has been very essential. And is that the only CRM that you use? Broke engine? So we use broker engine for pretty much the CRM there. For like, you know, lodging deals, research, all those sorts of things. The other two that we use, Maestro. So we use that in conjunction with broker engine for our leads, because that gives you a public link. And it's simplified, it's pretty good in that sense. But the biggest one, which is probably every broker if they don't have it as an idiot, is quickly. If you didn't have quickly, you are in some curry. You're in some hot water. You need to sort that out. Quickly was probably the biggest change. Once we had that, we then were able to scale, get to the decisions quicker, and give a lot more substance in our calls, and really educate brokers and stuff. Like I just met with the guys quickly last night. And they caught up with them. And they're just doing amazing things. And it just surprises me that, yeah, if you don't have it, you were just wasting so much time. It's so essential, and what they keep building on with the AI stuff and all those things. I can pretty much trust those guys with my life. I feel like they've got the game by the balls. And yeah, if you don't have quickly, you really, really need to get on to that. Because that's been a massive one across the business. We're also getting to your clients with a much better result. So pretty much, you have two screens as well. You've got to have two screens. You've got to have double monitors to do everything, be it. You'll have your email, you'll have a quickly, and you'll have your brokerage in CRM, and you can't just roll in between those on the day to day. - Love it. Any lesser-known app source software products that you use? - I think Spark is always one people. Like, what the hell is Spark? - Yeah, I don't know. - And it really works well on Mac. There is a Windows one, but it's probably not as friendly, but Spark's probably the big one. We use cash deck and bank statements. That's all kind of been pretty good. Yeah, quickly, as I said, fantastic. My strobe, broker engine, we use Sherlock as well. Throughout reprising, that's been pretty handy. That does save time, just to manage your bank book and kind of come in with a try to reprise you. It's successful, we've got a good result. And here it is. So there's some good things there to get you started. Obviously, you know, you're doing a property hub, call logic, all the tools and standard things that we have. But there's nothing that jumps out at the moment. - Yep. Are you doing anything with AI? - Yeah, well, that's the thing. In the last 12 months, I really kind of looked into it, so I've seen people doing that and always text startups and everything. And yeah, I looked into it and it's a massive job. It's a huge job, not a caterer, not an engineer. And every time I kind of scratch the surface on something, it's just a whole new ecosystem that you've got to use. So we'll use it in limited cases, but it does help. AI is definitely a powerful tool and I say that it's really going to be, if you're not using AI in the future, you're definitely going to fall behind. But yeah, I just think it's still kind of half baked at the moment. But yeah, I know, you know, quickly brought out the AI bot within quickly, which has been really helpful for policies and searching and things like that. So that's been a really good use case. But yeah, for me setting up my own AI stuff, it's just an nightmare and I'm not a kid. So I'll just wait for people like quickly to do it properly. And then I'll just have to pay it in the subscription fee. And up, are you a chat GPT guy or Claude, or which one are you using? Look, chat GPT, I haven't really gone into Claude as much. I know it's very, very powerful for you coding and those type of things. And I'll use Gemini as well. They all have their own individual case study. But yeah, I've, what we're interested to see how are the brokerages and brokers roll that out. And you know, which is the best because it's a Wild West at the moment. There's just so many options. So you just, who's got the polished version first and then you can take my subscription fee. Love it. Just going back to the team, how did you recruit your team? Like, I know that you went through an offshoring or outsourcing company for the guys that are in India. But on shore, how did you find your stuff? Yeah, I'm a fantastic question. No one thing for me is trust. I need to trust the people that I'm working with. And I need no too many people in the finance base and obviously no people trusting us with their financial decisions and futures and stuff. And no one thing to me was trust. So I hired friends and family. So it was basically family and my sister-in-law first. Steve was a friend of a friend. And now he's obviously one of our best people here. And yeah, and then obviously we just kind of built from that. So then while the sister-in-law leaves us in our operations manager, Drove is a mate from university and Jack as well, mate from university, Dan. He, we used to work together about 10 years ago and I was like, be a really good broker. And he's absolutely smashing it. And then you know, V tour is our newest broker about three, four weeks in. And he was a client of ours. A big, big advocate and he wanted to change as well. He wanted to get, you know, look at getting out of his space and getting into the broker's space as it made. If you're an advocate, you've gone through this process multiple times. You understand it. So I'm really looking at that trust factor. And then also are they good people? Like, are they, can they talk on the folk and the whole conversation? Do they really believe in what we do? And that's kind of the key things there. So, you know, I didn't have banking experience when I started and I hit every branch on the way down at many declines and all these things and you learn the hard way. So I feel like I've got a safe space for a new broker to come and say, I've been there. I've done that. I've had all these great wins and I've had some losses in there as well. So learn from me. He's a safe space to build yourself up and grow from there. But yeah, it's pretty much friends and family. You know, and it's worked out really well. Amazing. And do you guys work in an office and does everybody come into the office who's in, who's on shore? Yeah, good question. So we also just basically run a Google Meet like a Zoom all day and you have like breakout rooms. So everyone's kind of in their own office and kind of break our room. Hey, I need this and collaborate, share your screen, get the result and move on. But I also work in pods as well. So basically your broker and power broker will be the team and then you guys kind of run that all day. When we started out, we probably had like 10 people on, but then I was like, oh my god, there's so many people in this one area. It's just too much going on. I think initially at first people, like is that a bit weird that like everyone can see each other all day, but it's not, I mean, you don't really look at yourself, you know, on there, it's just how do we need it. And but it's actually been so collaborative. And in terms of getting an office space, like yeah, we used to kind of have a little office space. It was like a one bedroom house. And we converted it into a few desks and stuff, but I wasn't really, I just found my staff wasn't really using it as much. And because we've got you know, Steve's Newcastle on Mara said, you know, Jack's central coast and then you know, a few in Sydney as well. So we're kind of scattered everywhere. But also Steve did the ultimate test. He went to Perth for a couple of years and you know, he worked exactly the same. You know what I mean? And that's what I want to give everyone the autonomy of as long as the job gets done in the clients are happy. You're happy. We're doing everything to the high standard. I can't hear you do it or where you do it from just as long as it gets done. So there's no real point of us kind of having an office from the way we run things. But also find you get more efficiencies because you have to worry about driving an hour or two each way or anything like that. But yeah, I'm very big on kind of remote working and you know, giving that flexibility. That's huge. I mean, that's really innovative. You know, 25 or 30 millimetre or remote people everywhere. And I like how they've, you know, they've got their camera on the whole time. It is sort of like being in an office. And I suppose if you've got a comfortable set up at home with a good camera and you know, two screens, et cetera, away you go. Absolutely. And that's the thing you find. You know, it's, I've actually found to be more collaborative because you can share this screen and you know, work the service and calculator out together or the scenario or looking it together. So it does work well. But I think when you have your own pods and stuff like that, it works well. When we do have to made up face to face, obviously, Eddie's got an unbelievable office in Strathfield. So we'll jump in there, catch up, you don't have lunches or whatever. And whenever there's any kind of banking events on the stuff, that's when we always have a good catch up there as well. So spirits are high, even though we are remote. I mean, you probably appreciate each other more when you do get together. Well, that's right. You probably appreciate each other more when you do get together. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, you do, you get a bit excited when you see each other in person. Yeah, exactly. It's just big cuddles already. So if everyone gets around each other, we're all going to celebrate the wins and losses and we've got really good culture and banter. And yeah, it's a fun place to work. And you know, whenever things go wrong, you know, that we're in the trenches and we've got each other. And when things go high, we all ride the wins together. You know, so it's a very good collaborative team spirit and, you know, I'm very proud of the team, what they've achieved. And yeah, I just want to continue doing that and helping as many people. It's just a win-win all around for everyone. You know, when I get up every day, same old team, you know, do that stuff, even through the tough times, where I want to make it through and, you know, just keep doing the good stuff. Awesome. Now, marketing, do you guys do it in-house, do you use an agency, what resources, do you use? How does it all work? Yeah, good question. So marketing is a bit of a trial and error at the moment. And I've got some good things happening and there's just, I just had a bit more structure for myself and also providing that to the team. So I have two marketing assistants that are helping me with the socials and also creating, you know, PDFs and internal documents and stuff. I got checklists and all these things and also for clients, which has been really, really good. But in terms of, you know, writing the socials, you know, at the moment, it's, you know, post at least once a day, brings a value out there. And that will consist of, you know, me talking about certain topics, but also the teams and any awards and nominations. But really, I just think you've got to give value, you've got to give something of context that people want to watch and engage with from that side of things. So yeah, it's for me, I have to do, have to do a bit more recording. But obviously Eddie's very, very big in that marketing space as well. So when we do videos together, get to pee back off that a little bit. But yeah, it's a, it's a work in progress. It was still working on, but we aren't getting some good results. Okay. Now, so you have two marketing assistants. Yeah. Are they, are they onshore? Ah, offshore. Yeah, offshore. Okay. Interesting. And so you do video calls with them and you brief them when you need things. How does that, how does that all work? Yeah, correct. So we're just working out like a structure in terms of, you know, planning out our social media posts, when there's topics on and then, you know, obviously if there's a big topic on that's why I'm just coming on my phone and just do that post, you know what I mean, about, about a certain avenue. And those videos have actually found for people who are just getting started, you know, just getting the camera and it doesn't need to be professional, all those type of things. The ones that are just you that are genuinely, you just hold on your phone, they send a convert a lot better. We get more engagement out of those. So for people who are worried about getting started, about getting the perfect lighting or whatever, it's not, it's not really about that. It's just, you know, getting there, have a crack, get started and the algorithm will pick it up. There was one video that I did. I just didn't think anything of it and got like, you know, 4,000 likes and I know 500,000 views and I went, oh wow, okay, this is pretty crazy. You know, just giving my predictions on, you know, the property market and what it was going to do. So I went, you know, huge and I was like, okay, well, now I've started this. I've got some traction. I've got to keep going with it. But yeah, no, I enjoy doing it. I like the people want to engage in this into what I have to say. But I think it also helps with your clients from retention as well. That, you know, we're still in the space. We haven't just disappeared. Even though we want to talk every day, maybe they scroll past and relate to that and go, okay, that's still in line with my strategy. So yeah, I think there's a lot of things that marketing does. It's not about likes and things. It's, it's, you know, I think it really helps the business and sometimes it's hard to measure that. But since doing marketing consistently, that has helped the client base, you know, with the trust and then coming back to us. Absolutely. So as far as channels go, which, which marketing channels are you hitting, it sounds like you're probably on Instagram. But is there anything else that you're sort of, you know? So yeah, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, they're probably the biggest ones. Yeah. Do LinkedIn as well. And that's, and YouTube as well. So they're kind of five that we do there. Just on certain topics, if I wanted to go at a big deep dive on a certain topic, there's a 10-minute video. It's going to go to YouTube. But then also you can chop that up and make reels out of that and stuff as well. So again, for anyone getting started, really good platform is called OpusClip. So OpusClip. And basically, yeah, you can do a video and it'll chop it up and edit it for you. You know, you could literally talk about first home bias for five minutes with what behind you, what what behind you. And then it will chop it up to make the captions and all that stuff. And then it can also schedule it to your social media channel. So social media is a big job. But there's a lot of really good tools out there that can really get you going. That's awesome. Yeah. I need something like that. Does your team actually post on social media or is that, is that up to you? And that's the next phase we're looking at. I mean, it was mainly kind of myself initially getting started. But you know, I feel like all my brokers have a story to tell. You know, VTool is the newest one. He's doing a lot of videos on TikTok and they're really good. You know, and they shouldn't just be about me. As I said, I'm transitioning away from that. I really want to encourage the team to do it. So if they want to do it, absolutely. I don't force them to do it, but for bringing leads and they can get themselves a slice of the pie, the commission and everything then absolutely. So with my support team as well, if they want to do the videos and ideas, we can help chop it up and edit it. So they don't have to worry about it. It's just, they want to put the time into it. But I think it's very important to start to take, but just for me, and start to like put it down onto the staff and what we do as a business, rather than just focusing on me. - 100% are you running paid marketing as well as organic? - Yeah, look, so I did a bit of that last year. I was running some webinars, which was an experience and look I got a lot out of that, which was paid marketing. So yeah, I would spend a couple of grand on ads, do a live Zoom together, if you own a people register, turn up, then realize I was like, okay, I'm talking to like 150 people at the same time with a slide deck. And that's when I kind of clicked in at one to many models. Like how many people can I influence to, you know, educate and speak to rather than doing 150 separate consultations, it was pretty much me doing a strategy consultation for 150 people at once and I was like, wow, that's a good, you know, you know, 150 hours of work, you know, in one hour basically. So it worked out really well and that was very powerful. And towards the end of last year, we just got really, really busy. That's also needed some more brokers in. So I can go back to focusing on the marketing. So yeah, paid marketing definitely does work, but in my head I was like, there's a few little things I just need to change here before I start to get back into doing that and ramping up the lead flow. Cause yeah, it definitely worked. It resonated. People registered, people enjoyed it. We got lines from it. I mean, you know, we've got people moving on their investment journey. And even just by doing that webinar, one of our clients, I watched the replay because I couldn't get there in the two weeks. And I was like, oh, I watched your webinar. It was great. Also, I'm not doing anything with this equity in my house. I'm an idiot. I need to do something and then you know, you know, two million dollar refi. Got them back with the buyer's age and they're buying a couple of investment properties. And that was from the replay. So yeah, it's definitely worth doing. If you can do something where there's that one to many more to all people can watch it, you know, in their own time. And you can really give value. That's definitely helping. And by doing webinars and marketing or YouTube videos or whatever, it certainly helps. - You're gonna be a lot of people thinking, you know, thinking, wow, I wish I could run something like that. Like being able to show your best work and show how much value you can add to 150 people at once. - Yep. - Is massive. Particularly people who've opted into a 10 year webinar. So you know that their warm leads. - Absolutely. - And as you say, it only takes one refine. You've paid for the whole thing. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, it was definitely an experience. I mean, obviously you'll have a few times and you've got to work out your kinks and won't work, what's worked well. So I've done it for like four of them. And yeah, I'll probably have a few more to go this year. But also in that webinar, you know, again, I've got to build trusts on like, hey, here's what I've done personally is an investor. Here's properties I've bought. And so here's the addresses. So you know, I'm not talking rubbish. You know, fact check it if you want. Here it is, it was all the addresses, you know. So I kind of come in with that. You know, this is made this is what I've done. My scenarios completely different, but all the things that you're gonna go through with an investor, I'm doing it personally. So that's really want to bring that value with, I know how you feel. So I'll just get the lines. It's like, how are we going to build this thing out? You know, and tie it. - On your business journey, who has been the biggest influence on you? You know, it could be someone that you actually know personally, or it could be someone who's book you've read or who you follow on YouTube or something like that. Where have you gotten a lot of your information from? - Mm-hmm. Um, I will look at Eddie Delay, and obviously in industry they are $100 million or really also 180 properties, right? So seeing the rise of him, you know, I want to many, many of my six properties. Um, and you know, been able one to be, you know, working so closely with him, you know, we've like been a best of mates, you know, as we've built the business together and we've been through the challenges and also a lot of the wins as well, you know. So a massive impact. Like if I didn't have someone like him and you had pretty much to be have access to someone like that and see it in grow has been instrumental, you know. I couldn't have done a lot of this stuff without him giving me a kick in the bum and also, you know, keeping us going from there. Um, so yeah, huge, huge impact on that as well. You know, my wife's been so, so supportive to go through all this stuff. And, you know, I've been very, very grateful for the support over the years and obviously managing young kids and everything as well. So she's been amazing. But yeah, I think you're other people like, you know, Grant Cardone's, Alex Homozy. You know, all that stuff, there's some really good stuff they put out online and Eddie and I went to Alex Homozy and like this time last year to the office in Vegas and, you know, talk about business and constraints and everything. So it's a very, very good way to look at things through their lenses. You know, and there's a lot of really good stuff online, you know, Tik Tok. It's all there, you know, for me. That's probably a negative as well every time I want to relax. So I got a Tik Tok and it's like, you need to do better. Or you're a business, that's my algorithm right now. So I'm always getting peppered by these people. (laughs) But yeah, I mean, I'd say Eddie would be, if not the biggest term 'cause it's been so close in part of it all, but yeah, there's also people online that definitely help. - Excellent. Well, do you think about your, say your revenue, do you think about what percentage you spend on marketing? Is that how you kind of sort of break down how much you should be reinvesting back into, you know, more growth? - Yeah, so we've, and that will have realized that now, right? So after doing the webinars and putting that money out, there I can see the results that, you know, if you do the ads, put the money in, do it the right way, you've got something about you to bring. What's your point of difference? And if it penetrates, it can work really, really well. So, ad spend for us hasn't really been huge over the years because we've just been so busy with clients and obviously with Eddie Eddie spends a bucket of loan on marketing. And look, we do give a, look, we have like a referral agreement. So we do give some, you know, commission that way as well. For any deals that go there, but if they're paying the marketing budget and we're all working together, you know, there's a lot, I suppose there's a chunk of our marketing, it's kind of covered with that relationship essentially. But I've now realized that, okay, well, we've got to do our own marketing as well and still yet to do it. But after doing the webinars and seeing the results, I can clearly say that marketing does work as long as you've got the right message and you're getting the right target audience. Yeah. - And also the money that you're spending on the two offshore marketing assistants, that's investment in marketing as well. - Absolutely, yeah, and that's, I want to build those systems out, clear structures so that we've got something we can put up there and I've just got to get in front of the camera. Share my ideas, you know, make sure it's chopped up and easy to read and it lands with the audiences and it's constantly giving value. So we're working through that process now to get it perfected. - When it comes to reinvesting back into the business versus taking profits, you're in a position now that for some people, they might see it as sort of like a mature level where, you know, hopefully you can take a decent amount of profit for yourself. How do you think about that? Because if you spend more money back in the business, the business is presumably going to get bigger. So how do you, is there like a percentage that you think about in your mind of how much you should take out for yourself first, how much you should put back in? - Yeah, that's a bloody good question. (laughing) Well, for me, I suppose I, my number of things I want to always reinvest back in my staff. You know, every time we have profits, we're always going back into staff wages, how can I increase wages, get maximum productivity then it was how much support can we get in? So I've really reinvested a lot back into this to get it going and getting it scaled. In terms of, you know, profit and stuff like that and obviously having any investment property portfolio right, it's like that's building a lot of wealth in the background. So I don't need to take all these profits out and stuff like that. So that's a good thing I keep reinvesting it and obviously I want to have a buff of them that have, you know, baby number three, that, you know, something that can happen. There's money in the bank, everything's fine that we keep going from there, but it does come down to you spend what you're spending it on. I think that's not having, you know, it's a massive marketing budget. We don't have the office overhead expenses. I can put that back into my staff and my people and as that's increased their responsibilities, you know, have as well. And so that's, I just want to have that consistency and sustainability and I don't want to be recklessly spending if I don't need to. But if I'm going to spend 10 grand on ads as an example, you're probably going to expect a grand back or something like that. So that's the next evolution of where I see things going. Yeah, and it's definitely worthwhile for sure. I love it. Do you have any advice or any rules of thumb when it comes to broker and innovation? You know, you don't need to tell me the exact numbers, but because it's something that I've been diving into and I've been sharing a bit about on LinkedIn. Obviously you want to encourage people to, you know, you reward them more for the more they write. Do you have a strategy that you like to use? - Yeah, cool. So I do have a, we have base and then we have like three levels of commission, right? So you're going to get your base. I'm providing all your leads, you know, and you're going to get a commission for just whatever, just for doing your job, basically. Then the next lot of commission is for existing clients that come back that don't have anything you do with me and they've fostered the relationship, bigger portion of commission goes to the broker. And then if they get anything external, has nothing to do with me or leads or anything like that and they brought the deal in themselves and it's all on them, then they get a, you know, bigger slice of the pie because that's their lead. And that's what I want my brokers to get to. It's like, hey, you're safe here. Got these things you are going to get rewarded, but when you get the confidence and you start putting yourself out there and you can, you know, you know, you refer a relationship or something pops up or you've got a lot of clients or whatever, I want them to, you know, seize that opportunity and grow there. And obviously if they bring in a bucket load of business and, you know, then obviously I'll bring to negotiate those terms, you know, because it's something that they're fostered. But yeah, at the end of the day, it's very different, you know, you credit debits and all this and whose contract and all that type of stuff. But yeah, I've never really gone down that avenue. But it's mainly just salary and commission on top. But if my brokers excel and they do all these things and they want to renegotiate or was happy to look into it. - And is pick a financial still in growth mode or is it maturing what were you at? - Still growing. I think we've had a big amount of growth this year. I think growing and maturing, you know, we're not consolidating, we're not slowing down. We're pretty new in the space. So we're just going to continue growing and doing what we do. I feel like we're just getting started in the same, but obviously the business is maturing with our systems and processes and people and procedures. But yeah, I do see us now moving into more of a bigger brokerage. When you start off, you probably don't think it's going to get to that point and do pinch myself at times going, wow, this is really taken off in such a quick space of time and the next 12 months, what's it going to look like in the next 12 months? What's it going to look like in the next 12 months? Every time it's exceeded my expectations and we're just driving forward. So yeah, that's just slowing down anytime soon and just want to continue growing and maturing absolutely. What's one thing you know now that you wish you when you started? That it's going to be hard to accept that the first two years is going to be bloody difficult. And you know, I wish I'll probably had more boundaries earlier on because I do, you know, I really do stress and carry a lot of things around for clients and bend over backwards on certain things and probably just having a bit more set expectations or boundaries would have been good. And also yeah, it's hard. It's difficult out there, you know, especially when you get started, it's difficult. You're really going to put yourself out there. So just knowing that and then once you get through the other side and you start getting consistency, that's when you know, when you get small people on board and it's more consistent than it starts to, you know, call off a bit. But yeah, for brokers who get started when they quit the industry because I haven't had a crack, I understand it's difficult right if they've had to leave or whatever. And that's probably one thing that most people don't tell you that yet is very stressful, you know, getting started. Thanks, thanks for sharing that. Now final question. What do you think the future of the mortgage broken industry is? What's what's going to change? What's not going to change? When do you, where do you see it all going? Yeah, okay. And I love this question. I think we have to be every, every more than just a broker, right? We have a glue in so many things. People want to build wealth 99.9 percent of the case you need the bank's money. You know, especially if you're going to build when you're residential or when you're in commercial portfolios. So I think we are more of a trusted advisor around financial education, how banks work, how the whole process work, how does leverage work. So we really need to understand that. And if you're doing yourself personally, you know, that's going to be a big thing as well because we're in the game of trust, right? If people are going to do all their documents and everything, they want to trust you, they want to trust your business, we have what you stand for. So I think it's really, how do we focus on the trust? And then obviously you're going to have AI tools and everything that come on the back end. But at the end of the day, with these crucial decisions, I want to speak to someone who's done it and who understands it and is in line with their goals. So that's where I really think the broker industry is looking. It's not about, you know, how good I can do a Excel spreadsheet calculator or whatever it is. It's like, well, you make me feel confident with this deal. It doesn't make sense. It hasn't been educated. And, you know, with the broker industry, getting up to near 80% of loans being written clearly, it's showing that people want to work with brokers, not banks directly. So I think having all the choices, all the understanding, everything like that and wrapping it up in a nice, confident time, you know, full of trust and confidence in what you do, that's going to be the key for brokers going forward. Brilliant. So Justin Pico, thank you so much for your time. Now I just appreciate That's all I'm going to you take care. - Ledger Matt, thanks.