Supporting our franchisees on their way to the top

Chris Acret Managing Director Smartline Personal Mortgage Advisers How important is franchisor support in elping franchisees to achieve their business and personal goals, and realise their full potential?

Chris Acret | Managing Director | Smartline Personal Mortgage Advisers

We have always believed franchisor support is absolutely critical to the success of any franchise model and this belief has been validated with Smartline Personal Mortgage Advisers taking out top spot in topfranchise.com.au's latest top 10 list.

People who choose to become franchisees desire to have control over their own destiny, but also require a certain level of support and systemisation. We know that our systems and support are industry best practice, whether that is our IT platform or our relationship marketing program that is run through our amazing group office team.

This systemisation has also allowed an enormous amount of sharing and knowledge transfer between those in the group. Our ability to design key systems and share this collective knowledge through our business model has enabled our franchisees to achieve substantial success through their own determined efforts and commitment to Smartline endorsed practices.

To assist our franchisees to reach their goals we provide them with comprehensive training and ongoing support. After attending an intensive 5 day induction course all franchisees are provided ongoing professional development through regular franchise meetings, advanced training in mortgage lending as well as an industry accredited 24 month mentoring program - all are designed to help franchisees develop best practice techniques and increase their ability to write loans and generate revenue.

As a result, Smartline has some of the most productive loan writers in the industry based on settlements per franchisee, as well as some of the most successful.

Ongoing support is also provided by our dedicated Business Development Managers and head office teams that assist with IT, marketing and lending support.

This attitude toward support, and training, has produced multiple top level awards for Smartline and its franchisees across the franchising and finance industries in recent years.

While these results recognise our benchmark systems and marketing, most importantly it shows that our people are passionate about what they do and about being part of the Smartline group.

Not many people have the chance to go to work every day loving what they do, while having the opportunity to build a highly successful business - but Smartline franchisees do.

Business support and skill building is essential for franchisee passion and commitment, but the thing I am most proud of at Smartline is our culture, and the level of personal support that is given to our franchisees. It's a team culture, a family culture and it's very unique in this industry.

Business is hard enough, we don't want to make it any harder for our people, we want to make business a pleasure for them. There is a strong level of trust and support within our group and we believe that gives us a real advantage. We have a clear brand proposition based on people rather than loans, and stories rather than jargon.

This strong internal culture is coupled with an industry leading customer service focus. Looking after the interests of our clients as a paramount focus has and will continue to deliver business success and drive our future growth. The driving factor behind every decision we make is the question "What is the best outcome for the client?"

We think there is real strength in our "smart advice" branding and comprehensive client care program. Our focus on supporting our Smartline franchisees to build strong and sustainable franchise businesses opportunities that benefit themselves, their families and the broader community is paying off. We have a group of amazing franchisees who offer our clients an unparalleled level of service and advice, and I'm pleased that these franchisees are so passionate and positive about being part of Smartline.

What is so heartening about being named as Australia's number 1 franchise is the fact that the ranking was the result of the votes of our 200-plus franchisees, and they voted us into number one position in support, rewards and passion, which is exactly what we have been striving for in our daily franchising operations.

We're enormously excited by what we believe the group can achieve in the coming years and believe our continued high levels of training and support will allow our franchisees - both new and existing - to capitalise on the many opportunities.

To find out more about a Smartline Mortgage Advisers Franchise franchise business opportunity, and why they performed so well in the Passion, Rewards & Support categories, refer to the A-Z Franchise Listing.