Q. How and why did you become a broker?
I finished school in 2017, went to uni, and graduated with a bachelor of commerce degree. While I was studying full time, I was also working as a project manager at an office fitout company, which was great because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.
My mentor took me on board and thought it would be a great way to expose me to many different businesses because I was literally working in offices. And by the end of my time there, I knew that I wanted to own a small business or run a small business.
I just didn’t know what that was going to be.
Q. Why did you choose the franchise route?
I wanted to run something and I wanted to own something but I wasn’t too comfortable with the risk associated with that. The opportunity came up to do it with [my brother] Elijah, where if I didn’t know something, I had a second pair of eyes looking over it.
But then also you take on top of being a franchise owner so you have a greater support network on top of you with the Mortgage Choice franchise [network]. But then you’ve also got a mentor being your father. So if anything goes wrong, you’ve got people to talk to.
Q. What is working with your brother like?
Elijah and I are incredibly close. We have completely different interests. We have a completely different way of approaching tasks. But we have identical morals and values. That’s the main thing. Because every single thing that we approach, we both have the same goal. We just have completely different ways of looking at things.
So, we sort of then end up meeting in the middle, which is a brilliant hybrid of ideas.
Q. How do the two of you work together?
Elijah deals with every new lead that comes in [and] deals with [the client] right at the start. They get to know Elijah immediately. There’s a quick handover to me and then they develop a deeper relationship with me. And then when they go back to Elijah, there’s already a sense of familiarity.
And then the deeper connection comes from the highly emotional time associated with buying and then settlement. Elijah is able to hold their hand the whole way through.
So, there’s a nice overlap between all of us, the client and us too, throughout the whole journey.
Q. What would be your advice for brokers who are starting out?
Mine would come back to managing expectations. If you think of yourself as a client, you would want someone to under-promise and over-deliver. That is something I’ve had to learn.
I would rather set a realistic target and beat it, than set a stupidly ridiculous target that I lose sleep over. As much as it is good to obviously do the best you can and work as hard as you can, you want to be able to do that in a sustainable way.
