We find out how Michelle Towner's brokerage is growing, why best interest duty prompted a change in her business, and how she goes above and beyond for clients.
Western Australia-based broker and founder and managing director of Towner Finance, Michelle Towner, won three awards at the Better Business Awards in Perth in May, including WA’s Broker of the Year 2021.
We find out how her brokerage is growing, why best interest duty prompted a change in her business, and how she goes above and beyond for clients.
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Tell us a bit about yourself and Towner Finance
I’ve been a broker for 20 years. We have run Towner Finance for the last five years. It was just myself up until July last year. I took on Vaios Toutountzis as a broker. I also took on his lovely wife Sonja as our customer care manager.
In the last year, our business has just gone from strength to strength, and it’s growing again. We've taken on a full-time loan processor and we don’t have any plans to growth the team outside that. We are a boutique business that really provides above level customer service.
Why and how did you decide to recruit more staff?
I work massive hours to keep the volume going through. But I still need down time and time with our family. By having two brokers, we both can have annual leave. By having a full-time processor, with the number of deals [we have, it’s good] that someone’s dedicated to that. It doesn’t take Sonja away from being our great customer care manager because she’s the one who keeps all our clients updated. The admin staff allows Vaios and I more time in front of customers.
You run your business with your husband too. What sorts of loans do you write?
Initially, it was [my husband] Marcus doing all of our consumer and asset finance. But when Best Interests Duty (BID) came in in January this year, we stopped doing [non-mortgage] consumer loans. With the compliance side of it, it’s just too hard. Now we’re outsourcing that side and really focusing on the residential and commercial side.
What issues are you encountering when processing loan applications?
Where the banks are in a world of pain at the moment is discharges, and it’s every bank. Settlements are falling over left, front, and centre.
I had a client relocate from Tasmania. He drove to Perth and we just couldn’t settle his homes. Our banks were ready but he was purchasing two homes here, and those two banks were not ready, and there was no line of sight when they would be.
How did you manage that?
With my client from Tasmania, he drove across here with his two 85-year-old parents, and two dogs in the car. Luckily, his vendor gave him possession prior so he could put his parents into that property. But the vendor for which he purchased [the other property] would not give them possession prior despite them being stuck in a car with two dogs.
So, I actually put them up in Winthrop in our home that we sold and were waiting for settlement. They stayed there until we settled their property.
How do you generate your leads?
We don’t have referral partners or alliance partners. We are 100 per cent self-generated from referrals from the existing base.
For commercial loans, we have accountants that we’ve worked with on different tiers. Most of those accountants have a finance arm in their business. If clients are not happy with their accountant, we have accounting firms that we can refer them to. And we know that by referring them to those accounting firms, even though they have a finance arm in them, they will not try and take the finance side away from what we do.
We’ve got financial planners that we refer them on to, as well.
What advice would you have for new brokers?
You're changing people’s lives. Our gut has got to be in the deal. We will not do deals if we see that this just isn’t right for them, or they’d be better off waiting.
Having a mentor without a doubt [helps]. If I hear someone’s son or daughter has become a broker, they know that my phone is always on. I don’t see it as a competition. We’re all here to help one another.
You can find out more about Michelle Towner and how she’s navigated her broking career in The Adviser’s weekly Elite Broker podcast.
Tune in to the episode with Michelle Towner: WA’s Broker of the Year 2021, below:
