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What does it take to trade your wetsuit to a suit and tie job? Derry Tanzil, founder of Derry and Co in Victoria Park, WA, wasn’t always involved in finance industry and dealing with numbers. His career began in the water, working in marine conservation—protecting coral reefs, studying marine life, and preserving fragile ecosystems. However, sometimes, life comes up with a new challenge for you to keep elevating your skills and your impact towards others. www.derryandco.com.au
How did you start down this career path?
I never expected myself to work as a mortgage broker. I used to work in a management role in the hotel industry for more than 8 years. I then graduated with a Bachelor of Science and started working as a marine conservationist in Seychelles and North Queensland for almost 2 years. My journey began in the deep blue ocean where I did a coral reef survey, protecting ecosystems, and studying the underwater world. It was a career fueled by passion, but also one that came with physical demands and remote locations.
An unexpected circumstances forced me to re-plan my future. I needed to stay in a big city for my wife’s career as well. This was when I was looking for another hotel management job or another marine related job, where I thought I would spend the rest of my career here, a good friend of mine was working as a mortgage broker back then and got me into it. At first, it seemed like a different world from where I was, but I quickly realized that my skills—problem-solving, attention to detail, and a drive to help others—were just as valuable in finance as they were underwater. Instead of protecting oceans, I was now helping people turn their dreams of homeownership into reality.
Trading my wetsuit for a suit and tie, I embraced the challenge and applying the same discipline from my conservation days to navigate the complexities of lending world. Starting from zero and learning the whole industry was quite a challenge back then. Over time, I built a process-driven,
tech-savvy approach to help clients secure their dream homes efficiently Today, as an award winning mortgage broker, I see my journey as proof that hard work and purposeful job can lead people anywhere. Whether preserving the natural world or guiding people toward their future homes, I’ve found a purpose in this job and in making a difference—just in a way I never imagined.
You can reach Derry from his website https://derryandco.com.au/our-team/
What inspires you in your role/industry? Why?
• I think to answer this question is to ask why I signed up to be a business owner in the first place. It’s quite a demanding job in a very dynamic industry. Being a business owner, gives me the privilege to determine where I want to take the business and how do I want the business to be known. In this case, I judged my success by how
significant or how much improvements I could make in giving back to the community or being involved in charity programs. I always thrive to improve the business, bringing more profit, so that I can do a lot more impactful activities for the communities.
We all, as a human, like to help other people, especially when we can help them to make their dream come true – owning their own place. The satisfaction is when I see their happy face and making the process as easy as possible. As a business owner as well, I’m driven to continually improve how I serve my clients. We always make improvement, bringing new technologies, making new process to ensure that my clients receive an exceptional service and seamless experience. Recently we just updated our websites to make it more modern look. We regularly updates our websites to make it fresh and catchy
Mortgage broking industry is full of challenges. Going to work every day, not knowing what will happen, gives me a sense of excitement and reflect on myself to always improve the business and as a person.
What's your approach to customer service that separates you from the rest?
I think, the best approach is to be “Genuine”. Fortunately, I’m quite an extrovert person myself and I have a strong interest in people to try to get to know people from the day we met. It's not all about transactional business but long-term relationships. I ask questions about themselves and get them to open up. Talking about their life, family, hobbies, sports, etc, anything that can connect us. Once you have a common interest, it’s easier for the conversation to flow and less intense. I use a lot of “5 Love Languages” techniques in dealing with my customers where I always try to discover each of my clients “love language”.
I provide the personalized financial coaching to clients. Rather than simply securing a loan and moving on, I offer ongoing support and guidance to help clients manage their financial health long after their mortgage is settled. This includes regular check-ins about their repayment, helping with their financial budgeting, refinancing advice. I don’t stop there, I’m quite a bargain hunter myself and I like to send updates outside home loan on other opportunities that could save them money such as switching gas provider or internet provider when there are certain sign up promo.
How do you innovate and stay ahead of industry trends?
Technology optimisation - We utilise modern solutions and technologies for old-fashioned problems. While we utilise many technologies such as AI, Note It, Calendly, Remarkable, Illion, etc to simplify the process and enchancing customer experience. I'm also a big believer on old fashion way where we still meet face to face, explaining all the loan documents directly to the customers, even helping them with connecting utilities / arranging removalist. We are still sending a physical card during their birthday (rather than email) and other milestone life journey. My goal is to make my customers’ experience in buying a property as effortless as possible. Please check out our website as we just recently revamped the website, giving it the new fresh and modern look. https://derryandco.com.au/
We continue to expand our direct involvement in volunteering / charity program with some not-for-profit organisations which can lead to an expansion of our referral partners and
promotes our brand. Close to 10% of our business come from referrals from the organisation that we are involved and helped. This help people talk about our brand and promote our brand when there is an fund gathering event / charity event run by the organisation.
We are not afraid of changes and always strive to do better every year by implementing changes in our processes, technology, or communication. I always keep an eye and ear out for any new technology that may be useful. We are not afraid to trial and are prepared to invest in technology. We have streamlined our processes where most of our follow-up and social media are automated. This has allowed us to allocate more time in growing the business and prospecting.
What is the toughest challenge you've faced in your role? How did you overcome it?
Toughest challenge will be to consistently staying motivated and enthusiast. Being a mortgage broker, we can easily get demotivated from losing clients, faced with issued with the loan applications, time sensitive finance or settlement due date. It can has domino effect if it’s not managed properly. This stress and not feeling motivated can lead to a delay in creating new system, or delay in implement new changes, or being afraid to make any changes at all. In the end, the business will stand still, follow up is not done, customers are not getting a proper updates, etc.
Our job is an emotional roller coaster, and I feel that we have to master in controlling our emotions. One call I get the approval, the next call, I lost a customer. No matter what happen, we need to find a way, so that we can always give 100% energy and enthusiasm for the next meeting or the next call.
This is extremely tough especially when I combined it with staff management, customer’s high expectation, not to mention our personal issue or our personal mental and physical well-being too.
The weight of unresolved problems or difficult circumstances can usually disturb my sleep pattern which then drain my energy the next day, and making it hard to stay focused.
To overcome this, I usually try to focus on the foundation of the business – my long term goal. To be able to do more outreach in the community, to provide a dynamic and fun place to work, to help people getting their financial goal, etc. This usually gives me small boost in motivation again.
Another way to overcome this, fortunately, I have my team here to vent my frustration and to always support one another. Being surrounded by people that you can be open with and trust you, can make a big difference in overcoming this challenge.
What are some of your goals for the next 5 years?
My only goal is to keep growing the business, so that I can continue and expand my charity programs. I strongly believe in giving back to the community -
Expand my financial support to SunCoast Care a home where they help low-income families to have access to nutritious food and to always provide food for people in need.
Expand my financial support to Cahaya Logos Organisation where they are building a school and providing FREE education for the local kids in Mentawai, Indonesia.
To be able to increase the number of kids that I supported through Compassion Australia where they commit to releasing children from poverty . My aim is to adopt one extra kid per year. So far we adopted 7 kids and planning to keep adopting one or two kids per year which can only be achieved if the business is performing.
To grow my business, one of my plan in the next 5 years is also to diversify my business. Winning more business in commercial loan space and car loans as well. I want to better equip myself with more knowledge in Commercial Loan and Car Loan. I have also been
exploring how AI can be utilised and help our work. In the next 5 years, I want to be able to utilise a lot more AI to my work.
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