Sales consultants in mortgage sector not up to the mark, says Homebank
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Homebank Financial Services has hit out at the standard of sales consultants in the mortgage indus-try, saying there is a lack of talent.
George Dodds, managing director of Homebank Financial Services, a national mortgage and general in-surance brokerage, says the stan-dard of sales consultants is so poor that it is planning to go outside the industry to recruit sales staff.
He says: “Two years ago our industry was going through a golden age thanks to a buoyant economy and booming housing market. With the abundance of opportunities available, sales people became order takers and the art of establishing need in a client and then filling that need was lost.”
He says during this period basic sales skills took a backseat, parti-cularly in the mortgage market.
Dodds says Homebank is pre-pared to invest heavily in training new recruits and to subsidise or pay for them to pass CeMAP and other professional examinations.
He adds: “With today’s crop of experienced mortgage advisers, all the training in the world is of little value, if there is no intention to learn or acquire even the most basic of skills to become successful.”
David Hollingworth, communi-cations manager at London & Country, says it regularly recruits from both inside and outside the industry and has found plenty of capable recruits from the industry.
He says: “It’s not easy to recruit in the current market as a lot of experienced advisers might be wary about moving to another firm.
“But there are plenty of quality advisers in the industry and the fact they are working in one of the toughest industries you can find shows they are not useless.”
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