Brokers productivity more than doubled with Kaizen

LMG is reinvigorating businesses through Kaizen-productivity principles, with the LMG operational blueprint deeply embedded within Kaizen Lean Six Sigma business methodology.

Some of the things that brokers want to change through Kaizen can be:

• Clear articulation of roles & responsibilities within their teams;
• Standardisation of tasks to make scaling up easier;
• Removing bottlenecks within their process so more deals can sail through;
• Identifying & removing activities that add no value to the customer experience.

Businesses that have completed Kaizen workshops with LMG’s Broker Success Managers have shown an increase of up to 222% in productivity. That’s a lot more lodgements, a lot more approvals and a lot more settlements within the same timeframe, increasing profitability.

How does Kaizen work?

Kaizen and Lean Six Sigma business methodology aims to reduce waste and remove or rework any defective steps or tasks. In Japanese “Kai” means “good” and “Zen” meaning “Change” is often translated to continuous improvement. In simplest terms, Lean Six Sigma is the methodology, and Kaizen is one of its tools.

The Six Sigma principles originated in the Japanese car industry but the principles work across many process-driven industries and are now used around the world in manufacturing and service industries like banks, insurance companies and hospitals.

LMG’s Kaizen workshops help businesses reflect on inefficient activities in the business - double-handling of files, rewrites, spending hours on manual communications and marketing - and removing these for a streamlined service.

By identifying these habits and making incremental changes to change them, brokers can win back time that they can use for a better customer experience, service more leads and confidence to scale their businesses.

Talk the talk … and walk the walk

LMG espouses the benefits of Kaizen for its businesses. So it makes sense for the Corporate team to embrace it, as well.

LMG’s Head of Training & Implementation, Patrick Moore, recently obtained his Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma, making him one of the industry’s most knowledgeable Kaizen practitioners.

Across Loan Market, every BSM is a Certified Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt.

When a BSM is onboarding a business or conducting monthly check-ins, they and their business owner reflect on the changes they’re undertaking, delivering accountability to the improvements.

“Some of the common things that business owners want to get out of the workshop sessions is speeding-up the process for the client without losing any quality in their offering,” he said.

“Understanding what steps in their processes that hold no value is a big part of that.

“Business owners are often so busy with their day-to-day activities that they don’t dedicate time to reflect on what's actually happening in their business: making the time to understand the root cause of their pain points. The deeper we look, the easier it is to find a solution especially when we stay focused on their customer and the desired outcome.

“At the end of the day, we’re looking to help our brokers deliver an even better experience to their customers.”

Transforming business process

Melissa Wright, owner of Zest Mortgage Solutions in Queensland has undertaken three Kaizen workshops with her team since joining LMG, recording a 222% uplift in productivity since their first session.

She’s won a swag of awards in recognition of her benchmark business style including Customer Service Award (Individual category) and Finance Broker Business of the Year at the 2023 Queensland MFAAs.

“Having a detailed business process has always been very important to me,” said Melissa.

“It’s always good to have the Broker Success Manager (BSM) there in the session for an objective set of eyes. From every session we walk away with five to eight activities we want to improve through small incremental changes.”

Melissa said the sessions also enabled her staff to take stock of what they are meant to contribute to the business’ process and customer service proposition and recalibrate, if necessary.

Over the last 12 months, Zest Mortgage Solutions has set about improving the time it takes between a lead coming and the loan being lodged.

“We’ve now halved that time period - a considerable improvement.”

Understanding everyone’s role supports growth

Kaizen workshops can often uncover brokers doing roles assigned to Client Service Managers (CSMs) and vice versa.

“Having a clear articulation of roles is critical, as is standardising the tasks within a business.

“Standardisation is particularly critical if you want to scale-up. Templating tasks means processes run more smoothly and no-one is acting on their own, creating disruptions in client service.

“We’re committed to helping our businesses get bigger, and committed to bringing their teams closer together, in the process.”

Kaizen is just one part of LMG’s commitment to help businesses succeed. If you’d like to find out more about how we partner with our business owners, talk to one of our team today.