Five ways to scale your business in 2024

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Eventually things will pick up again, and when they do, you’ll want to be technologically ready. Axiom Innovations presents five important ways to scale your business for 2024

THERE'S NO better time to prepare for the future than right now. The mortgage market may be challenging, as buyers wait out high interest rates, but that’s no reason to stand still. Taking action now can ensure your business is best positioned for the peak that follows the present-day trough. Axiom Innovations Inc. has come up with five ways you can scale your business in 2024, so you can make the most of the opportunities that await. This story is based in part on a presentation by Axiom’s Andrew Schultz, vice president of sales, at the Canadian Mortgage Summit at the Pearson Convention Centre in Brampton, ON, in September, which was sponsored and organized by Canadian Mortgage Professional. So, what are the five best ways to scale your business in 2024?

Axiom Innovations is an industry-leading technology company and the proud parent of Scarlett Network, a SaaS-based software platform dedicated to the mortgage brokering and lending industries. Some of Scarlett’s most popular modules are origination, point of sale, underwriting, compliance, payroll, CRM automation, and agent/corporate websites.

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“What a lot of people are not aware of is that there’s a lot of AI being made available that is mortgage-industry specific”

Andrew Schultz, Axiom Innovations

“What a lot of people are not aware of is that there’s a lot of AI being made available that is mortgage-industry specific,” said Schultz. “These are often tools that are going to provide recommendations on best fit for lender products for a specific client.” Of particular note to Schultz and his team is its own product, Scarlett Genius, which uses AI and machine learning to analyze an applicant file. It comes with a database of all lenders and lender products that are available through their system. It analyzes the information and makes recommendations as to what will be the best fit for that product. “We’re excited because we’ve just launched this into the Scarlett mortgage product, and it’s going to be incredibly beneficial to agents across the board,” said Schultz. “We’re providing a wealth of information, a one-stop shop, so that you don’t have to do the busy work of researching all these different products, identifying them, contacting all the different relationships, to access that information.” Overall, for Schultz, the theme is leveraging the power of AI specifically to implement efficiency tools within your business. “The beauty of Scarlett Genius and the AI tools that we have implemented is that it gives you a really unbiased opinion, and potentially opens up your eyes as an agent to other products out there that you might not be aware of,” agreed Joe Fakhri, Axiom’s president and CEO.

If you’re a broker-owner, you have agents that are managing 1 hundreds of transactions each year. Those transactions live as a book of business for the brokerage. “But the reality is, there’s a ton of opportunities to cross-sell into that book of business,” said Schultz. “Too many agents today are inputting the transaction, submitting to the lender, and walking away and hoping to catch the renewal three to five years down the road.”

Being able to identify opportunities in your database quickly and efficiently with data mining is a great way to create new leads and add value. Another part of this is being able to create a nearly infinite number of custom reports; for example, a renewal report for non-subject properties based on a certain time frame – identifying clients whose other properties with mortgages are renewing in three, six, nine, even 12 months’ time, so that you can get ahead of that and let your client know you’re looking out for their best interests.

“It’s critical if the goal and the objective is to grow and scale your business, that you have a wonderful payroll and compliance platform,” said Schultz. With the right software, it can read data information from all manner of different sources, providing the owner-operator with “down-to-the-penny accuracy” on the health of their business. “When you don’t centralize a payroll system, you end up with a lot of inaccurate data, and you’re not really in a position to properly plan and grow the business,” said Schultz. “If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business,” agreed Fakhri, looking at it from the perspective of an entrepreneur – like himself. “It’s all about the granularity of the reporting that helps me to understand what’s going on, who are my top lenders, who are my most efficient agents and brokers.”

“Authoritative data sources are going to make life more simple for the agent because they’re not going to have to question the validity of the data points they’re receiving,” he said. “It’s going to make the life of the client easier because they’re not going to have to scrape and claw and grab all this information. You’re going to get the most accurate version of the truth from one single source.” And there’s another benefit as well.

Even though times are difficult now with interest rates and inflation, “this is a really great opportunity to look at your business in a different way,” stressed Fakhri. “You might not be able to predict the future but you can most certainly plan for it.”

1. Leverage the power of AI in your business

Published 16 Oct 2023

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“If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business”

Joe Fakhri, Axiom Innovations

2. Leverage technology that can identify business in your existing book

3. Implement a systemized payroll and compliance system

“As an agent or a brokerage, we would encourage people to use a system that has the most highly integrated data source,” said Schultz. When talking of data sources, he points specifically to third-party data sources, like Equifax and TransUnion. Getting the best sources all the time “is going to increase your submission-to-approval ratio,” he said, something everyone wants. By operating more efficiently, your company will be closing more business and making more money.

4. Implement the use of a system with many well-integrated data sources

“Most of the market thinks that CRM will operate as a magic bullet for them,” cautioned Schultz. “But the reality is a CRM is only as good as the person implementing it. Good data in, good data out. This is a perfect time, while the market is quieter, to build a habit of implementing a high-quality, consistent process with a CRM,” which allows every client to have the same great standard of care. A CRM can help guide you through the client cycle, because, no matter how busy you are, “the client is on the other end waiting for that communication,” he said. “So as much as that can be systemized and automated, the better experience your clients are going to have, the busier you’ll be allowed to get. We want to be able to get repeat clients.” Schultz pointed out that it is five times as expensive to acquire a new client than it is an existing one.

5. Have a well-defined process implemented through automation and a disciplined CRM

How are Canadians using AI?

Between December 2022 and February 2023, the AI model ChatGPT racked up more than 100 million users. One in five Canadians is using generative AI tools to help them with their work or studies, according to a KPMG study released in June. The survey of 5,140 Canadians found that 1,052 were using AI (about 20%). Of that number, 18% use it daily or for every task, while 34% use it a few times a week and 26% a few times a month. As many as 10% of those surveyed said that they put private financial data into their prompts, while 15% are inputting other proprietary information, such as human resources or supply chain data, into prompts. About 49% of those surveyed said that they check the information produced by AI every time, while 45% check sometimes.

Source: KPMG

How is Canadian business adapting to AI?

According to a KPMG study published in the Financial Post in April, only 35% of organizations in Canada are using AI, compared to 72% of businesses in the US. Of Canadian companies that do use AI, four in 10 have deployed it in call centres. In Canada, companies using robots employ 15% more people. AI investment in Canada grew from $381 million in 2017 to more than $868 million in 2019. There are more than 1,500 AI startups in Canada. The University of Toronto received a donation of $100 million in 2019 toward developing AI facilities. AI could double Canada’s economic growth by 2035.

Source: Financial Post, madeincanada.ca.

“All these authoritative data points will allow us to further enhance what we call the artificial intelligence machine-learning models,” said Fakhri. “They allow us to validate the truth and weed out the bad deals.”