After earning the moniker of “Adelaide’s TikTok mortgage broker”, Sam Neville has been making waves with her innovative approach to connecting with her clients.
In this Q&A, we found out how she became a broker and how she’s used social media to build her business.
Here’s what she had to say:
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How and why did you become a broker?
I started in real estate. I went to uni and studied teaching, but when I got to the end of my degree, I decided I didn’t want to be a teacher.
I thrilled my parents by deciding to go into real estate instead. So, I did that for a couple of years, but it just never really clicked as something that was right for me. And I ended up working for realestate.com.au in marketing for the next nine years.
That’s where that sort of solidified that I wanted to be helping people buy houses, not sell houses. So, when the opportunity came to work for my local mortgage broker, I jumped at the chance.
I got in touch with my state manager for Smartline at the time, asked him what I needed to do to become a broker, and he put me on the path towards getting my diploma. I did that and about six months later, I came on board.
How did you find your clients in the early days?
I have quite a few real estate agents that refer to me and I like to keep those relationships live because they were relationships prior anyway. And the nice and friendly ones I like to keep in touch with. They’re a really good referral source for me, friends, and family as well.
I think sometimes there’s a hesitancy to contact friends and family and let them know that you’re a broker, because it might seem like you don’t know what you’re doing and you just need the business.
I was really confident to go out and say to friends and family: “Let me have a look at your loans, let me see if there’s something I can do for you”. Because there isn’t a commitment from them unless they’re happy, they can come in, they can do the meetings, even if they don’t go ahead. It’s good to practise.
Has the use of social media helped reach some new clients?
I’ve definitely drawn leads out of there. I’ve recently submitted a purchase for a client that found me on TikTok. They watched one of my videos in [regard] to buying small.
The point of the video was if you can afford a $600,000 purchase, but it’s not quite the home you want, it’s better to buy a $450,000 unit instead and pay it off as quickly as possible so that the next step into the bigger house will come easier. This client took what I said on board, they’re really the perfect example.
They came in with oodles of borrowing power and we used the First Home Buyer Scheme to get them a pre-approval and instead of going right up to the top of their borrowing power, they’ve just signed a contract for a unit, which should only take seven to 10 years to pay off.
What’s your process for posting on TikTok?
It differs depending on how much is involved in the post. I like to think of the posts on my channels in two sections; there’s TikTok content, which would be taking an existing trend or sound bite and rejigging it into a mortgage broker lens and then there would be the actual informational content.
The informational content is a little bit easier because it’s just me talking to the camera. I’ll write up a script and then I’ll rapid-fire the info at the camera for between two to five minutes, cut it all up, and post it.
The other type of content might require costume changes or it might require multiple cuts and edits, which sometimes means it takes a bit longer to create.
If you manage to find some good audio or trend, it can only take a second. I recorded one just on a walk with my dog, took about two seconds, and I just posted it!
