Mortgage Brokering

In 1993 – I was working as a receptionist at CIBC, one of the major banks in Canada.  My workstation was in front of the board room where the branch managers of the local areas would come every week for their weekly meetings.  Al was the District Manager supervising all the branch managers and he would be the one leading the meetings.

At that time, I was quite young, but already a mother of two young children and was going through a crisis in my personal life.  I knew that the only way I could overcome it was to be financially independent very quickly. But I also knew that working as a receptionist with a fixed salary of $1200 a month was not the solution; not enough to support my children and what I wanted for them. I was determined to see what other options I had.  Given that I only had a high school education, the maximum salary I could get promoted to would be $2500 a month.  So my only option was to take on a commission-based position where there was no linear ceiling to my pay.  I looked at what position in the banking industry was commission-based and decided to train myself to be a Mortgage Development Manager (commonly known as Mortgage Broker).

Upon this conclusion, I approached Al, my District Manager with a proposal. The first data point I gave him was “There will be a large number of new immigrants coming to Canada over the next 10 years because of Hong Kong’s governance being returned to China in 1997. This will substantially increase the local Asian clientele base. So if CIBC wants to remain relevant in the industry, then it will need more Chinese speaking representatives to capture a large share of the upcoming market shift. I feel it is a waste of my potential to be sitting behind that desk making $1200 a month and bringing little value to the bank. I am confident I can bring in lots of business considering my interpersonal and sales skills, on top of the fact I can speak Cantonese fluently.”  I could tell Al was really impressed with this young receptionist who had the audacity to go and approach him the way I did. I could tell he was sold and saw my vision. He said “Come and see me as soon as you get your mortgage broker license!”

With that vote of confidence, I immediately set out to study for my license. In a mere 3 months instead of 12 months that a lot of others do, I obtained my license.  Definitely, it was through a lot of hard work and determination. I had two jobs at the time on top of the self-studying that I had to do. I remember waking up at 7am to start my job at the bank. When I was done at 3pm, I would drive to work at my mom’s Japanese restaurant and would not be home until10:30pm. I would then take a quick nap until 1am, at which point I would get up and study for the mortgage broker license until 4am.  This cycle went on for 3 months until I finally got my license.  Studying was never a strength of mine, but the motivation to overcome my crisis was so powerful that it excelled me to achieve a 98% in my exam.

I showed Al my results and I was hired on the spot! I said I will prove to him that he made a great choice in hiring me. Within a year, I went from $24,000 a year as a Receptionist to making $250,000 a year as a commission-based Mortgage Broker. In fact, I made it to a team of top producers nationwide. Al was definitely proud of his decision in hiring me.

Apart from making 10 times more than what I was getting, some of my clients became personal friends.  Some of them even became investors and business partners later on.

Up to this day, I still feel grateful for the opportunity Al gave me because the income from this new job was what I used to rise over my crisis. I knew I couldn’t depend on anyone else but me to support my children. My results and achievements further confirmed my personal theory of “If you have the will, you will find the way”.