With a wealth of finance knowledge and a passion for helping people, the transition from banking and disability support work to broking was a clear fit for Nathan Martin, this year’s South Australia Newcomer award winner at Better Business Award.
He spoke on The Adviser’s New Broker podcast to give us an insight into why he made the switch and how he has climbed his way to succeed.
Why did you decide you wanted to be a mortgage broker?
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Having worked in the bank for a number of years, across many different positions. I was fortunate enough to work with a lot of different people in different businesses like retail, business banking, private banking, and I’d seen other people make the transition from working in the bank directly to setting up their own mortgage brokerage. Speaking with them, they were just really excited that they made that change and they had wished that they had started working as broker a lot earlier.
For me, wanting to become a broker is something that I was thinking about for quite some time. What prevented me from transitioning into broking when I would’ve liked is… the banks themselves, invested a lot in me, training me, putting me on multiple courses. And I just had a great experience.
How was the transition from banking to owning a business?
As we all know, if you’re working in the bank, you’re on a salary and starting a business, there’s a lot of sacrifices that you have to make. So the transition for me, I was working for People’s Choice Credit Union at the time in a mobile lending position in Melbourne.
I started investigating different franchise models, Mortgage Choice, Loan Market, and a few others. But I still felt that for me, I wanted to be the boss and I wanted to be the key decision-maker in every aspect of my business, and I just didn’t feel that those models were right for me.
About three months before COVID occurred, I started looking for jobs outside of banking [and] I was able to get a job working in the disability sector. So I took the opportunity to come back to Adelaide, work in that position and set up my mortgage broking business.
Why did you choose the mobile brokerage model?
During the time I’d worked for the banks, the roles that I enjoyed most were working in that mobile position where the clients weren’t necessarily coming into your office to see you, but you are actually going out to see them at their home, their cafe or their local business… I’ve found that’s [where] they’re most comfortable.
Since COVID… I give all my clients the opportunity where I can see you face to face, I’ll come out and see you. We can have an appointment through videoconferencing or even over the phone as well. So really people have three ways to choose to deal with me. What I find even through the pandemic is people still like to have a face-to-face conversation.
You’re across a wide-ranging portfolio, from home loans, business loans, even car loans and more, why have you taken that approach?
Just because of my background. I had exposure to many different aspects of lending and I wanted my clients to have a one-stop shop so I can assist them with any finance need that they have.
There’s been a couple of examples recently where I organised a refinance for a client and his long-term plan was to buy a commercial property for his business. So during the refinance process we had discussed that and developed a plan that he could follow to assist him in being able to get that finance when he is looking to apply in the next six to 12 months.
We’re able to put a plan in place that he can follow, if I wasn’t able to meet that need, he would just go elsewhere. I like to see myself as being someone that has a wealth of knowledge and is able to share stories of how I’ve helped people in the past.
What are your plans for the future? Are you thinking about growing the business and getting some people on deck?
For me initially, it’s just going to be growing the business because I feel that when it comes to the skill of working with a client, recommending a solution and the client accepting what you are recommending, then you’ve got the administrative parts to it.
Most of the applications that I do, I find often get approved at first pick up or second pick because I know what the credit managers and the bank are looking for. I know what information they want to know. So the point that I’m trying to make there is that I can take on more capacity by myself.
But the next step for me is to hire some admin assistance… Once I’ve built up the portfolio up to a certain level, I would probably look at trying to expand into different states.
What loans are you writing at the moment?
Most of the loans that I’m writing currently are residential, but I’ve also just started to tap into the self-managed super fund space and some commercial as well. So roughly at the moment, I’ve started just to creep up to about 2–3 million a month, which isn’t where I would like to be currently, but I’m heading in the right direction.
The business itself was a bit of a slow burn. And even going through the transition of starting my business, I still was working part-time as well as a care worker in disability support. So I was doing that about 15–20 hours a week.
One of my passions outside of my work is making a difference in people’s lives who have a disability. I’ve got a younger brother who has a disability, and I used to just love going out as a care worker, helping those clients, taking them out for lunch or shopping and just helping with everyday tasks. So I was doing that as well, but that’s just recently stopped just because I just can’t continue that on because my business is growing.
What advice would you give to new brokers who are wanting to take that step into a career in mortgage broking?
I think there could be a lot of points to this. What I would say for people would be to have the confidence to take a risk and just give it a shot. If you don’t know, you don’t know, and you just need to give it a shot.
If I had one big regret, I was working in the bank, I’d been in the bank for about seven years and there was an opportunity to start up a business, which is a comparison site for people for home loans. And I was looking at doing that before you saw most of the comparison sites as you do today. I missed out on that opportunity.
So for me, if you are confident in your ability, just do it because if you don’t, you are going to have regret later. I should have gone into broking a lot earlier. And I hear that from so many other brokers.
