Nadine: Hello, I’m Nadine from Affordable Staff and I’m here with Angela from our office in the Philippines. She is a client of POD Financial and she’s actually here in Australia because Angela was up for an MFAA Loan Administration Award.
What Type Of Work Were You Doing Before Working With Us?
Angela: Before I worked as a VA, I was working in the customer service department. So in a variety of call centers. I’ve worked in different fields like in travel, pharmacy help desk, internet, and in banking as well.
Nadine: Wow so you have a nice broad range of skills.
Why Did You Choose To Work With Us?
Angela: I decided to apply as a VA because it just suits my skill set.
Nadine: Yeah.
Angela: It’s something that requires analysis, organization, attention to detail, which I have.
Nadine: Yes. You excel in that.
How Do You Find Working With POD Financial?
Angela: I love it. I think we have a really great team at POD. There are four of us right now. Laura, Grace, Jolyn, and me. And I think that we just complement each other. And we’re all girls and we’re all, we just deal well together, Grace and Jolyn. Jolyn is easy to train, which I’m doing right now with her. And Grace is very easy to deal with as a broker. And Laura of course is really great in driving the business.
Nadine: Excellent. So you guys have a nice balanced team between the four of you.
Angela: Yes.
How Has Your Visit In Australia Been?
Angela: It’s been a great visit. I’ve gotten a chance to meet lenders, the clients, I got to attend a BNI meeting, and I’ve gotten to meet my family, my sister and my aunts here. And nothing has really surprised me, everything’s just been interesting.
MFAA Excellence Awards
Angela: So a few months ago Laura mentioned that there are awards opening up for different categories. She told me and Grace to join because she is joining as well. So we all submitted our entries and luckily we all got nominated to be finalists.
Nadine: So there was actually four awards, wasn’t there? So one for Laura as a broker, one for you as a loan administrator, one for Grace as a loan administrator, and also one for POD Financial as a company. I think that is fantastic, it’s a real testament to show how you guys are working on your systems and processes and how that’s actually helping in the broking industry.
Angela: And that’s out of they said 600 entries.
Nadine: Wow, so out of 600 entries, you guys got four straight up. Fantastic, high five.
What Are Some Of The Tasks That You Do Assisting A Broking Business?
Angela: So I started out as a junior admin and as a junior admin, what I do is I organize the files as soon as documents come in in the email. I sort them into the right client folder and I fill out lender forms so that they’re ready for the clients’ and Laura’s signature. And I do research as well if Laura requires that we do as admins so that we know credit policies for each lender and we know which lender suits each client situation.
Now, as a senior or lead admin, Laura’s teaching me the credit stuff, already.
Nadine: Wow, okay.
Angela: Doing assessments.
Nadine: So that’s definitely you adding value to the team, being able to do that. So initially as well, I think all of those tasks are quite valuable. Tell me a little bit about, you set up a little bit of a spreadsheet.
Angela: Yes. We do make spreadsheets, me and Jolyn, especially for compliance. Compliance is really important right now for brokers.
Nadine: Yeah.
Angela: And we have created an Excel file spreadsheet for each individual client and each opportunity, loan opportunity that have settled. We track according to each lender’s policy what needs to be there, and what Connective as the aggregator needs to be there as well. So that has just been easy for the whole team to see what else is missing, what else do we need to request from our client.
Nadine: So a nice bit of a reference point.
How Are The Tasks Assigned To You?
Angela: So we started out as Laura getting in touch with us through Trello, Slack messages, and letting us now what she needs done for the day. But over time, because we’ve been doing it for a while now, for months and months, we have gotten into a process of checking the emails ourselves and identifying which emails require our attention as admin. So even if Laura’s out and having meetings, or meeting lenders, for example, we still have work to do. We don’t just wait for her to assign the tasks one by one.
Nadine: So essentially, you’re actually able to have tasks assigned to you by way of the system that you’ve got set up.
Angela: Yes.
Nadine: That’s fantastic.
How Do You Find Working Within That Structured System And Process?
Angela: I think it’s really, it’s great, because you don’t have to–there’s no downtime. There’s no downtime so you know there’s always work to do and you feel very useful that you are, like what you said earlier, adding value to the business.
And having to research even without your broker telling you to do this, but you know that you have to because you see the whole file, you see what the client wants to do, wants to accomplish, and you know that you have to go to this website, to see the policy, and you have to fill out this form. Yes. Because that’s all gonna go into their file and that’s upskilling yourself as well.
Nadine: Definitely, that’s fantastic. So you’re actually learning on the job, while doing your job.
What Tasks Do You Most Enjoy And What Keeps You Most Engaged?
Angela: Okay so one of my skills I think is really attention to detail and organizing. So the tasks that I enjoy as junior admin was watching out for all those emails from the clients, making sure that they’re all in the right folder and just making things organized and easy to understand by Laura, by the broker, and by the lenders as well.
Now that I’m being trained for the senior admin position, what I really like is the assessments, researching, getting to know lender policies, and figuring out how to make the deal work and for the file to service for the clients.
Nadine: Service ability. Okay, excellent. Well, thank you so much for making it all the way out here from the Philippines, we really appreciate your time.
Angela: Thank you, I love being here. It’s fantastic.
Nadine: Yes, we love having you here. I think that’s it for me, is there anything else you wanted to kind of mention to us?
Angela: I just feel that Affordable Staff is doing a really great job of selecting the right VA’s for each client in the office. And it is a secure environment as it is office space, it’s paperless. And this industry, the finance VA industry, especially, there are a lot of opportunity to grow in the business, I think.
Nadine: I think there’s a lot of opportunities, yep. Definitely for someone with so much drive as well, you know, and not only within Affordable Staff but within your client’s business as well. So yes, thank you again for being so amazing.
Angela: Thank you.
