Jayden Vecchio is the Director of Red & Co Finance and is based in Brisbane. He was the FBAA Commercial Broker of the Year in 2016, and has been named on The Advisor’s elite list multiple times.
In part one of this episode with Jayden, we’re going to look at habits of success, from being mentored to managing the mind. These tips are going to make it easy for you to get ahead, take control of your business and create your own success.
Following on from this, in part two - next week's episode, we look at simple marketing hacks you can use to generate more leads. We then discuss the long game in marketing, and what that means for you. By the end of this episode you’re going to feel pumped knowing how easy it is to generate new leads and marketing habits with these tips.
My name is Jayden Vecchio and I’m the director of Red and Co, we started four years ago. We began purely as a finance business but we’ve expanded out to include property advisory and real estate services, we now work with all types of clients from first home buyers all the way to developers in Brisbane.
How did you get into the industry?
I’ve been a broker for four years and before that I was in the banking system for four or five years, I started straight out of university, where I studied business and IT. In my last year, I was nervously thinking what I wanted to do and I knew that I liked banking and property, I tried a few graduate programs and didn’t do too well. But I joined the QUT mentoring scheme and got partnered with Tim Brown in the industry, who was working for Macquarie Bank. Tim enabled me at the time to bounce ideas off him for my resume and helped me understand what life after university would be like.
Through that, and getting to know Tim I was fortunate enough to be offered a job at Macquarie Bank and that’s how I got into the finance industry
What has having a mentor done for you?
For me, my career started off the back of a mentorship and I’ve adopted that approach for getting into the industry. Even today for my business, we do a monthly advisory board where we catch up with two directors, one’s from the retail industry and the other is a partner at a law firm and they’re semi mentors of our business. It’s an unpaid thing and we get to bounce ideas off them like marketing and staffing advice. That experience is invaluable because often they’ve been through it already and really, I wouldn’t be here without it.
With a mentor, do you think that’s fast tracked your progress?
Definitely, after leaving the bank and it was just me as a broker, with my laptop and business cards, so I didn’t know what to do next. I had my 90-day plan and I knew what I had to do but it’s always quite daunting knowing what’s next. Within four weeks of becoming a broker, I started working with MPA and hit up the top 10 brokers of that year and got a coffee with one of them. I could have wasted a lot of time spending money on advertising and a website, but he said go out there ‘press some palms’, make yourself known.
Without my mentors, I couldn’t have done what I’ve done; they helped me learn from their mistakes.
It has been said that having a mentor is like chopping a tree down - with a mentor it is with a sharp axe and without is a blunt one.
You’re into self-development do you put a set amount, like a wage towards it?
It’s like anything if you don’t think about it you won’t do it.
You can get to the end of the year and say look I haven’t read a single book or listened to an audio book, so make time for it. I spend about 2-3% of my income on self-development that’s attending webinars and conferences etc.
I know initially, it’s so easy to get access to free information, but what would you do with it?
Well, you can Google how to be a great mortgage broker and obviously, there’s the Top Broker site. But I was reading it and not digesting or implementing it, so for me in that first year, having a mentor involved in my business gave me something to be accountable for and make sure each week I was seeing it through.
The power of coaching is important and even subsequent to that I’ve had different coaches from different industries, from real estate to marketing to HR. That again can help fast track what you’re doing. As such as you can read and try and do I yourself. There are only so many hours in a day and what might take you a few hours on the Internet, instead with a mentor, might be a half hour phone call, yet weeks of value in.
So don’t discount the value of investing in yourself.
Jayden, you’re a big believer in focusing on your health?
It’s like the saying ‘healthy body, healthy mind’, again, in the beginning, I didn’t feel that bad having worked big hours, long days and weekends, it didn’t matter I had my mind set on my goals and where I wanted to be.
Now as my career has progressed with a family and being married, I can’t justify working 14hr days and not sleeping on the weekend.
So my solution is that every day I wake up at 5am and exercise, if I don’t, I can’t concentrate. I’m foggy and not sharp. Doing this the morning exercise means that I feel amazing and I am more organised with my entire day.
When you work, I know you’re big on having structure, a lot of brokers find it easy to get off course. Tell us about keeping on task?
Every day I’m diligent on setting myself up for success before I go home from work I set a list and deliverables for the next day, it’s usually four or five things.
The second thing is once I’ve finished my exercise I’ll go through and focus on my mindset, looking at what I’m thankful for.
As a broker, you can hit the office in the morning and get one bad phone call which will cause you go to off the rails. Now because I’ve set my direction and I know what I need to do, I hit the office in the right headspace and have more control over my reactions.
If you set the fundamentals right, it helps you stay on course.
I know you do focus on what you’re grateful for, in this in the industry, it’s very easy to get off track and feel bad about anything that has gone wrong, how do you do that? Do you have a gratitude book?
Yeah I have a basic template I fill out every day, it’s just three points I’m grateful for it can be personally or professionally, it really grounds you for the day. When things go off track, which they always do, you can go from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. Setting those foundations in the morning helps set me up in the right mindset for the day.
So you start the day with exercise you then manage your mindset, how do you finish it?
The same as how I start it, I'll wrap up what I need to do tomorrow, as a broker it’s so easy to take problems home and then I'd find I would get into arguments with m y wife etc. one effective way is writing down what I need to do tomorrow, once you do that it takes it off your mind and you don’t think about it.
Sounds simple, but something you have to do, I also write down three points that went well that day and then review my goals. This is something I’m really big on, having one, three and five-year goals, that’s also breaking it down to 90-day goals, goals for the month and the week.
Thanks for sharing those insights Jayden.
My three big takeaways were:
Mentorship – mentor will give you direction and allow you to bounce ideas off them, sometimes you think there’s a marketing trick when in actual fact it might be simpler than that
The second was self-development, if you’re not investing in yourself you’re missing out a big opportunity
Structuring – finishing the day before it starts, write down a list of things you need to do and only look at the high priorities so if you do veer off course you can identify it and get back on track.
Tell us your three takeaways, share them on our private Facebook – TopBroker.com.au and you’ll be able to join.
