Meet MPA Young Gun – Peter Vassillis!

February 19th, 2018

This year we were proud to see four young Connective brokers make it onto the MPA 2018 National Young Guns list. One of the most successful is Peter Vassilis, MD and founder of his own business, Black & White Finance located in Rose Bay, Sydney.

Starting off in the mortgage broking business is becoming more and more challenging. According to MPA Magazine, there are over a thousand new entrants to the industry every year.

Whilst the brokers on this year’s MPA Young Guns list come from a variety of backgrounds, Peter started out with great financial qualifications and a background in accountancy and as a Lender BDM. This experience has given Peter great financial knowledge, personal sales skills, and he’s also adept at utilising digital marketing channels – mastering the art of producing content that builds his professional reputation with his market audience. Getting involved with his community and working with local businesses has also been pivotal to his success.

We caught up with Peter this week to learn more about himself, his career and partnership with Connective. Here’s what he had to say.

Why did you switch from being a Lender BDM to a Mortgage Broker/Small Business Owner?

About 10 years ago, after I finished my accounting and finance degree at UTS, I started my career as an accountant at PRS Partners and shortly figured that accounting wasn’t for me. I realised I have a passion for finance and property, and I was then hired at Macquarie Bank, working in their securitisation and credit team. After that I moved to Bankwest where I spent 8 years, predominantly as a BDM.

During those fast-paced years at Bankwest, I forgot about what I always wanted to do. My end goal, which my mentor and I laid the path for, was to eventually own my own brokerage and I had forgotten all about that.

As clichéd as it sounds, it wasn’t until there was time for a moment of clarity during a holiday, on a beach in sunny Greece a few years back, that my wife and I worked out what we wanted to do. We spoke about what success for our family would look like in 3 to 5 years from that day and it was missing a piece – our own business. We envisioned a brokerage that would help simplify finance for people, making it black and white. This is where the name of our business was born – Black & white Finance!

How did you find the transition to broking?

Connective has been fantastic to work with and really has helped me make a successful transition. From understanding new systems and compliance, to new business ideas.

Importantly, the Connective Team have provided extensive Mercury CRM support, which I think has been pivotal in helping me first understand and then best use this system that streamlines my business.

In my opinion, Mercury is the best CRM in terms of functionality and user-friendliness. We’ve worked hard to automate our processes within Mercury and while it’s still a work in progress, I don’t think the system we have and the numbers I’ve achieved in such a short time, could have been done with any other CRM.

Now we’re moving into that next phase where we need to employ someone, and Connective has helped me with my strategy around this, too.

With your background as a Lender BDM, are you still required to work with a mentor for your first two years?

Given my experience and qualifications, I do not need a broker mentor for my first two years. However, I do have a life, or business mentor you could call it, which I think is vital, and it has been pivotal to our success. My mentor has helped me break down ideas, has provided me with very honest feedback, and helped me to be strategic in my approach.

Look out for more from Peter Vassilis throughout the year!

Peter will be joining us at our February Professional Development Day in Sydney later this month. He’s very generous with his time, so we can also hope to see some business insights from him in Connective Weekly – watch this space!