Q. You were a star Aussie rules player before becoming a broker. What was your journey to getting here?
At quite a young age, my focus was on trying to achieve my goals at the top level of AFL. I played for a few teams in the SANFL, but came over from Subiaco and did a couple of years with Port Adelaide Magpies, South Adelaide, and then finished at Woodville West Torrens.
While I was an electrician by trade initially when I got out of school, I decided that football needed to be my main focus and that I needed to get into sales and do something where I wasn’t spending as much energy throughout the day, so that I could focus purely on football.
I started with a national transport logistics company as a state BDM there and worked my way up through the ranks. That taught me hardcore sales. I really loved the art of selling and I enjoyed dealing with the customers. But then football sort of died off and I really wanted to focus on my career as much as I could.
Q. How did you manage the shift to broking?
My brother, Scott Parry, has been my biggest mentor. He started the business (Crown Money) at the age of 21. We’ve been in finance for a long time. My dad was a private banker for NAB for about 35 years. So, my brother and I were taught at quite a young age the structures, lending, and solutions that the banks were offering in the Australian marketplace.
We were always discussing whether I should come over and work for Crown Money. And he [Scott] was always telling me about the business and how the broking industry operated. I think it was just a matter of time before I was able to make that shift.
Q. Where did you find your first clients?
I started my career in the broking industry in 2015. My first clients were Peter and Maria and they gave me the time of day – I think I sat in their house for over three hours just trying to bumble my way through my first appointment! I actually invited them to my wedding, believe it or not, because they just gave me a leg-up and that just helped me build a lot of confidence [in] myself to ensure that I knew this was going to be the industry for me.
You need five quality referral partners WHO are going to refer to you clients on a weekly basis
Football certainly gave me a good leg-up, too. It was a 15-year career and I met a lot of people and grew a fairly large network. It allowed me to transition into the mortgage broking industry a lot easier because I could lean on those connections.
But my brother taught me at an early stage in my career in mortgage broking that you need five spokes to the wheel. What he meant by that is you need five quality referral partners who are going to refer to you clients on a weekly basis. Part of that was connecting with accountants and financial planners – I would have knocked on at least 200 doors of potential referral partners. I now have probably six quality referral partners that refer to me on a week-to-week basis, but it took 200 doors to get six.
It wasn’t an easy process.It took some determination and a bit of grind. But I loved dealing with people – that was my forte. I was used to managing blue-chip clients in the transport logistics space. I just knocked on doors. I went out to accountants and financial planners and told them a bit about what we do, how we’re different, and how we could add value to their clients.
Q. What is your core focus as a broker?
We are here to help our clients and hold their hand every step of the way, whether they are a first home buyer, a refinancer, or a purchaser. Probably 70 per cent of our business is refinances, with 30 per cent being purchases.
[Most] Australians’ number one financial goal is to pay off their mortgage. So we’ve designed and developed a lending structure and a financial coach that will help them manage their finances for life until they’re debt-free. Our average client last year paid just under $40,000 off their principal debt.
Giving them the education and information so they understand where they’re at on a month-to-month basis is quite critical – helping them achieve a goal and making sure they understand there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
We’ve also started doing asset finance loans and a little bit of commercial as well.
Q. What is your top advice for brokers?
I’m a big believer that proximity is power. If you can share an office with an accountant or a financial planner so you’re close to them, you can just talk about clients and potential opportunities. That’s probably one of my big pieces of advice for any new broker coming in: proximity is power. The closer you are to people who can refer to you, the easier it’s going to be.
