We catch up with Sarcha Sagisaka to find out her journey into the broking space, the expectations and realities of creating your own business, and why new brokers should focus on residential.
When Sarcha Sagisaka became a broker 15 years ago, the initial draw was hitched on her zeal for business and the industry’s flexibility.
Yet, during her time in the space, the broker has found herself immersed, establishing her own brokerage — Success Finance Solutions — purchasing her own office space, and winning the Editors Choice award winner at the Western Australian Better business Awards earlier this year.
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We catch up with Sarcha Sagisaka find out her journey into the broking space, the expectations and realities of creating your own business, and why new brokers should focus on residential.
How did your journey to the broker space begin?
I actually went to university and studied international business. I was thinking I was going to go into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and save the world with world peace and all the things that you crave for when you're young.
I didn't enjoy the politics units as much as I thought I would, but I really enjoyed the business units. When I got out of university, I had a look around and thought, “What shall I do?”
What was it about broking that piqued your interest?
At the time, I had been working in the marketing department of a mortgage broking company, and I really loved seeing what these people were doing. They were helping the ‘little guy’ — saving them money, getting people homes and helping them have comfortable and pleasant lives. I really wanted a part of that.
I loved the look of the flexibility as well. I decided that it was for me and went off to work in my first company where I was trained as a mortgage broker.
You joined an existing brokerage rather than starting your own. Why go down that route?
I felt I needed the training. I'm not one to jump on and learn as I go. I'm somebody who likes to get all my ducks in a row, understand the business, understand what's happening, and make sure I really know what I'm doing; that I'm in the position to lead someone else before I go out on my own and start to advise other people.
I worked at Momentum Wealth for 10 years under Damien Collins, who used to be an accountant in his previous life, and also has a vast amount of property knowledge.
You opened your own brokerage after those 10 years. How was it taking that leap?
It was really scary and it wasn't necessarily what I was going to do at first. I was thinking: 'Do I just join up with another smaller broker in some sort of partnership?' or, 'Do I go out on my own? What do I do here?'
In the end, I discovered that I had some very strong ideas about how I wanted things to run, the pace I wanted to go at. I felt that it was better if I did that on my own, rather than trying to drag somebody along with me.
Did the experience meet your expectations?
It really was very surprising in a lot of ways. I thought I would miss being surrounded [by other people], miss the support network and all the people and the busyness. But I found that, after a decade, I was ready for something new.
I thought I'd miss travelling to an office, but I didn't at all. Working from home and travelling out to see people — it created a much more informal feeling and brought me back closer to the customers.
You recently purchased an office in Cockburn. Why choose that approach rather than rent?
It was a discussion that my husband and I had quite a lot. It was definitely time to move to a new office and I wanted it to be near my home. And I like the Cockburn area. There's a train station, it's fairly central, and I feel there's a lot of investment going into the area as well.
I hired a buyer's agent to double check everything — the rent, the strata conditions, the outgoings. I feel like I know what I'm doing in my job. And when it comes to actually purchasing something like a large commercial asset, they know what they're doing.
How are you running the office and managing your workload?
At the moment, I am adding in processes where I can. I'm creating that 'assembly line, field tick box' where I can, but in other areas, I'm actually specifying to my staff: “Stop and think here”. So I'm using a combination of that personalised case-by-case file manager/case manager scenario, combined with some processes.
I find too much tick-and-flick creates holes in the process and unexpected problems — but too much personalisation is just not efficient.
How would advise new brokers to start loan writing and when should they diversify?
I would definitely start in residential mortgages, then expand into personal loans. That’s not a huge leap. In fact, that ends up being easier in certain ways because it’s a little bit quicker and you can leverage a bit more on the cash deck.
But business lending can be tricky. So I would say, wait until you're fully across the tax side of things [before you launch into business lending]. Obviously, we can't give tax advice, but you need to really understand people's businesses and their financials.
You can find out more about Sarcha Sagisaka and how she runs her own brokerage in The Adviser’s Elite Broker podcast.
Tune in to the episode with Sarcha Sagisaka, Why this broker bought her own office space, below:
