With a “99 per cent success rate”, we find out how Queensland’s recently crowned Best Newcomer, Melissa Wright, has carved her path to running a successful brokerage.
For Melissa Wright at Zest Mortgage Solutions, running a successful brokerage is all about having the right cultural fit, and she’s found that in her team of five mothers.
The Queensland-based broker and this year’s winner of the Best Newcomer award at the Better Business Awards Queensland recently spoke to The Adviser New Broker podcast about how she has managed to create a successful brokerage in just under three years.
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After years in the banking sector, taking the leap into broking was a natural progression for Ms Wright, where she found her niche in home lending.
“I just loved the home lending space. I understood it, I got it, but I just loved the opportunity to support clients in purchasing property,” she said.
After leaving banking, and following a stint in another brokerage, she decided to “give it a crack” and become a broker.
“I made a decision to give myself 12 months as a broker, see if we could make it work. If not, I was going back to the bank,” she said.
“The really key thing for me as to why I went into that space is I’ve got two children and I really wanted a flexible role. I really wanted a role that I could do around my children. [And] I really wanted a role that was doing something that I loved.”
Not only has she become a successful broker, but she’s established a brokerage with a team of five full-time staff, who are also raising families.
“With the support of my aggregator last year, it went from one casual support person to five full-time staff members,” she said.
“I realised that really helped my capabilities in the amount that I could do.”
The Loan Market broker explained while the overall workload increased, so did the overall efficiency of the business with each additional staff member.
“I got to the point where I decided that I would hire before I needed them towards the end of last year. My entire team were hired within the 2021 calendar year," she told New Broker.
While there are many facets to running a successful brokerage (from account keeping, customer service relations, generation leads and much more) the award-winning broker said staffing has “well and truly” been the biggest challenge.
“Figuring out what staff you need, finding the right staff, employing them, providing them with the coaching that they need, providing them with metrics because they like metrics to work towards. I think that was probably my biggest challenge,” Ms Wright said.
“Admittedly I’m very, very grateful to my aggregator, [which] has been fantastic in that space.
“They’ve very much held my hand through hiring, through putting on staff, and then helping me develop a plan to move those staff forward.”
‘We are all about family’: Finding the cultural fit
According to Ms Wright, having a good culture in the office was “a really key component” to what makes it successful.
“A large majority of my staff are in similar positions to myself. A large majority of them are moms, they live locally, and they really value flexibility, they really value family and we are all about family,” she said.
“My staff have all the flexibility in the world. We have lots of great team building events and family-orientated events as well where everyone brings their partners and children along, which is nice.
“I think there’s a culture and understanding that we can have that flexibility and still work really hard. It’s really important.”
But she added finding the balance between work and family was still a “work in progress.”
“Definitely haven’t got that perfect just yet,” she said, adding that keeping a tight calendar and online meetings were a “time saver.”
“We utilise a lot of Zoom appointments, a lot of phone appointments, which is also great and very time saving within itself.
“But from my calendar perspective, I only have available appointments in business hours. And then, I’ve got four after business hours appointments available a week and that’s it.
“I don’t find myself working every night to go and see clients or anything along those lines anymore. Clients fit within my schedule.
“I tend to find once you’ve got that brand where people want to come and see you and they’ve heard about you, they’re willing to be a bit flexible around time and they’re willing to make it work within your own business hours, which is great.”
Why she loves broking
When asked “what keeps her in the role” of a broker, the Queensland broker said it was her love for home lending and wanting to deliver a good home buying experience to her customers.
In addition she said her business was ever-evolving and flexible, which differed from her tenure at the banks.
“One of the big things when I worked in the bank, I loved my role, but we did our job the way we were told to do our job,” Ms Wright said.
“Now, we get to understand the process. We get to understand the experience for our clients. We are continuing to review that experience for our clients and improve it where we can.
“We continue to look at our process not just as a process, but what does it look like from the customer’s perspective, and forever improving pieces that we think we could improve to make that experience easier.”
Noting the strong refinance demand coming from borrowers as interest rates begin to rise for the first time in over a decade, the broker explained that the service was “more than just the rate”.
“We are so much more than just the rate. It’s about structure. It’s about current plans. It’s about future plans, future goals even, and how can we make that happen,” Ms Wright said.
“We don’t do a lot of talking about rates. We do a lot of talking about cash flow and goals and planning and how we can make that happen.”
Advice for new brokers
When asked her tips for other brokers just starting their own brokerages, Ms Wright said: “Business planning, I feel, is really important and something I’d wished I’d done from the start.”
She added it was critical to do your research and understand who your clients are, as well as being “less risk adverse”.
In addition Ms Wright said: “For us, being able to focus on that client focus, our marketing focus, the way we communicate on that particular client, has meant that’s the type of client that we attract.
“I wish I had learned to say no earlier as well. I think when you’re a brand new broker, you just take on everything that you can get. Any type of deal, no matter whether you know what you’re doing or whether you don’t know what you’re doing with that type of deal.
“I find that my time is much better spent working with the client that I want to work with versus trying to work with a client that maybe doesn’t fit in my set.”
At the end of the day Melissa said to “trust your gut” when deciding if you want to become a broker.
You can find out more about Melissa Wright in The Adviser New Broker podcast.
The episode with Melissa Wright, How being a mother and running a successful brokerage has paid off, can be found below:
[Related: New Broker: How being a mother and running a successful brokerage has paid off]
