Q. What prompted you to move into mortgage broking?
I was in healthcare as a support worker for a few years. Then I went into management, and then I went on to a larger organisation, managing operations Australia-wide. I had 300 support workers working for me, and I was doing a bunch of fun stuff at an executive level as well.
In that six-year period, I met a lady by the name of Liz Andrew. She had previous experience in mortgage broking, and we got along really, really well. And she suggested that we would make a really good team. So, I was like, “Okay, let’s try it, let’s have a go, let’s have a crack. We’ll start it up in the background and see what happens.”
And so, we started up Coastal Financial Consultants, and before long it started to get traction.
Q. How did you come up with a structure for the business?
Liz and I are both 50/50 in the business, which I think was one of the biggest incentives for me to join Coastal, because I think a lot of new brokers will get a mentor, and they take a large cut.
But because Liz and I had worked together for so many years, she said, “I’ll go your halves in the company. I won’t charge you for mentoring. We can just kick it off straight away.”
Q. What does your typical client look like these days?
First home buyers and also investors.
I love property investment. I’m really passionate about it personally. So that seemed to gravitate towards people with little portfolios that they’re looking to expand.
I really do like first-time buyers, though. It’s funny because a lot of brokers may say, “Oh, they ask too many questions, and they’re really needy.”
I love the education piece.
Q. How do you approach marketing and lead generation?
Our support team member, Lexi, is really passionate about it, so she does all of our marketing. We’re really lucky that she’s not only passionate about it, but really good at it as well.
We’ve run a whole bunch of different Meta campaigns, and you do your Instagram and Facebook and all the essentials. But I also like face-to-face marketing. Word of mouth, getting out there, going to events, talking to people, that sort of stuff goes a long way as well.
Q. What advice would you share with brokers who are new to the industry?
It’s going to take longer than you think. I wouldn’t encourage people to do what I’ve done and jump straight in. The only caveat to that is if you already have, say, at least five years of broking experience in the industry, know people and know how it all works.
If anybody’s looking to completely transition from another industry, maybe start with an organisation first or a franchise model where you have a lot of support, and they can potentially feed you the leads, and you have a bit more structure around you.
I think that’s probably going to be more beneficial.
