AMS 07 - Australian Mortgage summit

Award categories

GOLDEN AWARDS

GOLDEN MORGIE FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN THE MORTGAGE INDUSTRY
Recognised throughout Australia for lifetime achievement in the mortgage industry, the Golden Morgie is the highest honour and most coveted award at the AMAs. The award recognises the individual making the highest contribution to the industry as a whole. Winners of the national awards are entered as finalists for this coveted category. The winner will be announced on the evening.

THE AUSTRALIAN BROKER OF THE YEAR***NEW to 08***
The residential Broker of the Year is recognised for extraordinary performance in obtaining volume, and excellent customer service. The Broker of the Year is the cream of the crop in the mortgage industry, and winners of the national awards are entered as finalists for this coveted category. The winner will be announced on the evening.

THE AUSTRALIAN BDM OF THE YEAR***NEW to 08***
The Business Development Manager (BDM) of the year is recognised for outstanding ability in building and managing broker and lender relationships. BDM of the Year is the most respected in the Australian mortgage industry. Winners of the national awards are entered as finalists for this coveted category. The winner will be announced on the evening.

THE AUSTRALIAN ROOKIE OF THE YEAR***NEW to 08***
Recognised for obtaining excellence in their first year in the mortgage industry, the Rookie of the Year makes the calls and closes the sales before you've blinked. Rookie of the Year understands the mortgage business and reminds us of the business achievement that is possible. Winners of the national awards are entered as finalists for this coveted category. The winner will be announced on the evening.

NATIONAL AWARDS

1. BROKER OF THE YEAR (INDEPENDENT)
Aggregators, brokerages and brokers themselves will be polled to find out who deserves to be on our finalists list. Like the other broker categories, Your Mortgage will ask readers to nominate anyone who has provided them with excellent service. We will give extra credence to those in a position to assess brokers' performances objectively. Finalists will be able to provide supporting documentation for the submission to the judges.

2. BROKER OF THE YEAR (FRANCHISE)
Franchise operations and brokers at franchises are invited to nominate for this category. Your Mortgage will also ask readers to nominate anyone who has provided them with excellent service. The nominations of the franchise operators themselves will be given extra importance, given that they will provide a more objective view of how a particular broker is performing. Finalists will be invited to provide references from bosses and, if possible, clients for us to give to the judging
panel.

3. BROKER OF THE YEAR (EQUITY RELEASE)
This award recognises a relatively new development in mortgage broking. We will invite all reverse equity providers to nominate outstanding brokers, as well as asking brokers to nominate themselves. Your Mortgage will also ask readers to nominate anyone who has provided them with excellent service. Judges will be given the client and lender feedback that we are provided with for deciding on the finalists.

4. BROKER OF THE YEAR (SPECIALISED COMMERCIAL)
Brokers are starting to diversify their product offerings, and so we will also look at those brokers who offer commercial finance such as equipment leasing, inventory and debtor financing (but excluding commercial real estate - see award 6). We will invite brokers and relevant commercial lenders to nominate, and give our finalists a chance to submit supporting documentation for the panel.

5. BROKER OF THE YEAR (NON-CONFORMING)
This award recognises those who are the stand out performers in the non-conforming sector. Although brokers can put themselves forward as contenders for this category, special attention will be paid to nominations made by non-conforming lenders, who are best placed to judge brokers' performances objectively. Finalists will be invited to submit any documentation that may support their nomination to the AMA judging panel.

6. BROKER OF THE YEAR (COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE)
Commercial lending is rapidly developing, and this award has been designed to recognise the standout mortgage brokers who specialise in this field, or those who have substantial success in funding commercial real estate purchases. Brokers can nominate themselves, but our researchers will be directly contacting commercial lenders to find out who the real stars are before giving their findings to the panel. Finalists will be invited to provide references from bosses and, if possible, clients for us to give to the judging panel.

7. COMMERCIAL BROKERAGE
Nomination is open to brokerages (best company, not individual) that provide finance for commercial property and/or lending. We will ask finalists to provide us with lender and client testimonials regarding their expertise and professionalism to help support their nomination.

8. YOUNG GUN OF THE YEAR (FRANCHISE)
We invite all franchise operators (and brokers themselves) to nominate their outstanding stars who have been in the business for less than two years. As with the other categories, all relevant information on the finalists will be forwarded to our judges.

9. YOUNG GUN OF THE YEAR (INDEPENDENT)
Like the other young gun category, this award is restricted to brokers who have been in the business for two years or less. Aggregators, lender BDMs and brokerages will all be invited to nominate, along with brokers themselves. Finalists will be invited to submit any documentation that may support their nomination, which will be submitted to the AMA judging panel.

10. BEST BANK BDM
BDMs are an essential ingredient in the lender/broker relationship, and this award recognises the BDMs that are most respected by the broking community. To assess this category we turn exclusively to the broking community to tell us who should be a finalist. Finalists' details are then sent to our judging panel, along with feedback from the brokers themselves about the person in question.

11. BEST NON-BANK BDM (INCLUDING MORTGAGE MANAGERS)
This award closely reflects award 10, but instead recognises best non-bank BDM (Including mortgage managers).

12. BEST AGGREGATOR BDM
This award closely reflects award 10 and 11, but recognises instead best aggregator BDM.

13. BROKERAGE OF THE YEAR (d 5 staff )
Nomination is open to everyone, with the criteria being the total number of staff (or full-time equivalents) is less than or equal to five. This figure includes all loan writers and support staff across all company offices/branches. Finalists will
be invited to provide extra submissions such as client feedback, communitybased work or aggregator/lender testimonials for the AMA judges.

14. BROKERAGE OF THE YEAR (6-12 staff )
The process is identical to award 13, with the staff criteria favouring mid-size operations.

15. BROKERAGE OF THE YEAR (>12 staff )
Again identical to awards 13 and 14, however staffing level recognise larger brokerage offices.

NATIONAL SERVICE AWARDS

16. BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE FROM AN INDIVIDUAL OFFICE
Customer service is an incredibly important measure of any brokerage's long-term success. For this award we turn to the country's biggest mortgage consumer magazine Your Mortgage and website ymm.com.au to poll our industry's clients and find out who is providing all the bells and whistles that make our best performers so good. The finalists from this selection process will be invited to provide further details on the extra mile they go to give customers the perfect 10/10 for service. Finally, our researchers will mystery shop the elite and rate each brokerage across a number of categories such as product knowledge, telephone service and a number of other important issues identified by consumers in our survey.

17. BEST ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN (PRINT/DIGITAL/TV)
This award recognises the best individual ad campaign by anyone in the industry TO brokers. We're looking for what has made the best impact to brokers, not just the ads that they remember, but whether our readers can remember the message that the ad campaign was carrying. This award recognises those who are getting their message most effectively to the mortgage community.
Our exhaustive research invites brokers to tell us which campaigns and messages they can most remember over the past year - who had the cutthrough message? We invite readers to nominate campaigns for how memorable they are, and for being able to communicate the message behind the campaign.
Having counted the votes and narrowed the categories down, we will then invite all the finalists to give us a complete set of campaign materials, explain the goals of the campaign, and give us any examples to demonstrate the success of the campaign.
All these materials will be given to our advertising judging panel - figures from some of Australia's most respected agencies and the AMA main panel, who judge not only the advertising, but perhaps more importantly, the effect of the campaign on the industry.

18. BEST INDUSTRY SERVICE
We ask readers who that industry service provider is that always goes the extra mile to give them the service that keeps them coming back. This category is judged by brokers. Once we have compiled a list of finalists, we will invite them to submit details that they believe show their commitment to service. These submissions, together with a selection of comments from people who have voted, will then be provided to the judging panel.

19. BEST NEW OFFICE ON THE BLOCK
The new office category is for an individual office or branch that is less than two years old. Brokers can nominate their own businesses, and our researchers will also contact aggregator groups and major franchises to submit details of their standout performers. A selected list of finalists will be asked to then provide further details about their business and why they feel that it deserves to win. This data will be given to the AMA judging panel.

20. MOST EFFECTIVE INTERNET PRESENCE
The internet is becoming an increasingly important medium for communication within industry groups. This category recognises those within the industry who have harnessed this medium to provide brokers with practical, effective and easily accessible facilities to help them with their day-to-day business.
For this category we ask brokers to tell us who provides them with the internet facing services that help them most in their daily business. Where do they refer to most on the net? Which aggregator, franchisor, lender or service provider gives them the web services that help them grow their business, or that helps them day-to-day? Our finalists will all be presented to the internet panel of judges, who will include website specialists, technical consultants and the rest of the AMA panel.

21. FRANCHISE OPERATION OF THE YEAR
Our researchers have already carried out telephone surveys of franchisees, and asked them to let us know what support and other attributes were most important from a franchise. Using this data we call other franchisees, and ask them to rate on a scale of 1-5 the top attributes that our survey has returned. We then calculate a total score, and rating, and ask our finalists to provide us with a list of the costs and benefits of operating their franchise to give to the judges.