Our broker diarists look back at how setting up Aussie Warwick changed their work and family life
Starting a new brokerage is never easy, as Perth brokers Philip Barton and Natalie Duong have found. In a fortnightly diary, they shared the good times – and the bad – and told MPA editor Sam Richardson about the experience.
Broking can be a lonely business, and good advice can be difficult to find. Undoubtedly, high performers are willing to share their lead-generation strategies, but many of the basic challenges of starting a brokerage aren’t discussed enough. So earlier this year, MPA went looking for some early-career brokers to write a diary about their experiences, and that’s how we met Philip Barton and Natalie Duong.
At the start of the year, Barton and Duong were still finding their way in broking. They’d been proud owners of Aussie Warwick since July 2014, and each week brought new challenges. They agreed to write 12 diary entries for us, each based upon their experiences over the previous fortnight; the diary (which you can read our website) covers everything from difficult clients to Saturday opening, marketing and work/life balance.
I caught up with them in July, just after they stepped out of their annual review, and as they were coming to the end of the diary. What, I asked, had prompted them to share their experiences in the first place? “It was sheer fortune and luck on our part,” Barton says. “There was never any intention when we opened the store that we’d turn into this Bridget Jones’ Diary.” While the famous fictional diary of a 30-something single woman is hardly business reading, Duong feels their diary had a useful function: “to put into words without all the stats or the numbers, and to work out the thoughts and emotions of what has happened over the last fortnight”.
Setting up shop
Aussie Warwick is a family brokerage, and Barton and Duong have similar backgrounds in finance – Barton started at HSBC in the UK, then moved to Westpac, Bankwest and Aussie as a mobile broker, while Duong was at CBA, Westpac and Bankwest before moving to Aussie. Having just started a family, owning their own brokerage was an ambition further down the line, but not an immediate priority.
However, a brief conversation with their Aussie retail business consultant, Guy Sanders, changed all of that: Brokerage locations were immediately available, Sanders told them, and he urged them to go for it.
“The actual process just immediately started from there,” Barton says. “There was a location very close to where we lived; we found very good premises in an ideal shopping centre location, and we just decided, ‘Yeah, let’s go for it.’ It just seemed to fall into place at the right time.”
Aussie Warwick is based in a shopping centre in a suburb of Perth, and its location was a strategic decision, as Barton and Duong explain in diary number two. The small shopping centre means the brokerage enjoys consistent, locally based foot traffic, resulting in good-quality, stable walk-in clients.
Making the transition from being mobile brokers to owning a storefront has involved several shifts in thinking, according to Barton and Duong, and not just about saving on the driving. “The big difference between mobile broking and having a store is the investment,” Barton says. “With the sign over the door, you can be seen to have invested in the brand. It’s your business – you’re the chief financial officer, the compliance team; you’re everything.”
In fact, most of those extra roles have been taken on by Duong, who finds being organised helps her deal with the extra demands: “You just have to prioritise time and put aside time at the beginning and the end of every month [for] budgets, meeting compliance requirements, commission statements.” To deal with the workload, particularly compliance requirements, they took on an assistant back in January, which has helped them spend more time on finding new clients and marketing.
Continued on page 2..
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The family business
Leaving the mobile broker life behind has had personal consequences, too. In diary number seven, Barton discusses the experience of working alongside one’s spouse – the importance of honesty, separate offices and being able to relate to family-oriented clients.
As parents of young children, Barton and Duong found starting Aussie Warwick made perfect sense, as the brokerage is located just five minutes from their house, and being their own bosses gives them extra flexibility. Furthermore, being in a shopping centre means customers generally expect regular business hours, although they have since made after-hours exceptions.
They’re proud of being a family brokerage – but what happens when the brokerage starts to intrude into the family? “We don’t consciously draw a line to not talk about work when we’re at home,” Barton says. “Our family is quite young, so our time at home is really 100% committed to looking after the boys and making sure they’re OK, so we don’t really have a lot of time to talk about the business.” They do talk about work at home, Duong adds, but they try hard “to make sure that when we’re with the kids, we are with the kids, rather than our minds being on work. As they say, ‘Be present when you’re present.’”
No more teething
The diary ran over six months, and by the time I spoke to Barton and Duong for this article, their business was in a very different place from where it had been when they started writing. Things were certainly going well; the quantity of business had surprised them, driving them to open on Saturdays. As they wrote in the diary, their biggest fear did indeed come true – no customers turned up on their first open Saturday. However, business has since improved, and they’re convinced the move has won them extra clients.
Stronger than expected interest from customers also has persuaded them to bring forward a plan to take on another broker – something they hadn’t planned on doing until their third year in business. They’ve found hiring more difficult than expected, Barton says: “The challenge we have is recruiting quality. We want to recruit for the long term, not just churn through employees; we want someone who is settled in our business and feels part of the team.”
In the meantime, they’ve continued to chase new business, and were in negotiations with a local business group at the time I spoke to them. They’re also active across Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Plus. What they’re particularly excited about is a recent YouTube video in which an Aussie representative read out anonymous customer review about their brokerage. There’s a clear objective for the brokerage, Barton explains: “We want to establish a reputation that we are the brokerage to go to in our territory. We want to be well-established and well-known in the area, and we want to be known as a family business. I think it’s a reputation we want to build over the next few years.”
You can draw your own conclusions about what Barton and Duong’s experience says about broking; all 12 diary entries are available to read on MPA Online. For us at MPA, their frank reflections offered a real insight into the multi-faceted challenges faced by new brokers – despite extensive support from Aussie, there were still a number of challenges only Barton and Duong could overcome. We’re hoping other new brokers will take the plunge and put their thoughts to paper – and with business at Aussie Warwick going so well, we expect to see them back in the magazine soon.
We’d particularly like to thank Aussie Home Loans for helping us bring the Aussie Warwick Diary to life. Aussie’s team originally approached Barton and Duong about writing, and supported them and MPA throughout the process
Broking can be a lonely business, and good advice can be difficult to find. Undoubtedly, high performers are willing to share their lead-generation strategies, but many of the basic challenges of starting a brokerage aren’t discussed enough. So earlier this year, MPA went looking for some early-career brokers to write a diary about their experiences, and that’s how we met Philip Barton and Natalie Duong.
At the start of the year, Barton and Duong were still finding their way in broking. They’d been proud owners of Aussie Warwick since July 2014, and each week brought new challenges. They agreed to write 12 diary entries for us, each based upon their experiences over the previous fortnight; the diary (which you can read our website) covers everything from difficult clients to Saturday opening, marketing and work/life balance.
I caught up with them in July, just after they stepped out of their annual review, and as they were coming to the end of the diary. What, I asked, had prompted them to share their experiences in the first place? “It was sheer fortune and luck on our part,” Barton says. “There was never any intention when we opened the store that we’d turn into this Bridget Jones’ Diary.” While the famous fictional diary of a 30-something single woman is hardly business reading, Duong feels their diary had a useful function: “to put into words without all the stats or the numbers, and to work out the thoughts and emotions of what has happened over the last fortnight”.
Setting up shop
Aussie Warwick is a family brokerage, and Barton and Duong have similar backgrounds in finance – Barton started at HSBC in the UK, then moved to Westpac, Bankwest and Aussie as a mobile broker, while Duong was at CBA, Westpac and Bankwest before moving to Aussie. Having just started a family, owning their own brokerage was an ambition further down the line, but not an immediate priority.
However, a brief conversation with their Aussie retail business consultant, Guy Sanders, changed all of that: Brokerage locations were immediately available, Sanders told them, and he urged them to go for it.
“The actual process just immediately started from there,” Barton says. “There was a location very close to where we lived; we found very good premises in an ideal shopping centre location, and we just decided, ‘Yeah, let’s go for it.’ It just seemed to fall into place at the right time.”
Aussie Warwick is based in a shopping centre in a suburb of Perth, and its location was a strategic decision, as Barton and Duong explain in diary number two. The small shopping centre means the brokerage enjoys consistent, locally based foot traffic, resulting in good-quality, stable walk-in clients.
Making the transition from being mobile brokers to owning a storefront has involved several shifts in thinking, according to Barton and Duong, and not just about saving on the driving. “The big difference between mobile broking and having a store is the investment,” Barton says. “With the sign over the door, you can be seen to have invested in the brand. It’s your business – you’re the chief financial officer, the compliance team; you’re everything.”
In fact, most of those extra roles have been taken on by Duong, who finds being organised helps her deal with the extra demands: “You just have to prioritise time and put aside time at the beginning and the end of every month [for] budgets, meeting compliance requirements, commission statements.” To deal with the workload, particularly compliance requirements, they took on an assistant back in January, which has helped them spend more time on finding new clients and marketing.
Continued on page 2..
#pb#
The family business
Leaving the mobile broker life behind has had personal consequences, too. In diary number seven, Barton discusses the experience of working alongside one’s spouse – the importance of honesty, separate offices and being able to relate to family-oriented clients.
As parents of young children, Barton and Duong found starting Aussie Warwick made perfect sense, as the brokerage is located just five minutes from their house, and being their own bosses gives them extra flexibility. Furthermore, being in a shopping centre means customers generally expect regular business hours, although they have since made after-hours exceptions.
They’re proud of being a family brokerage – but what happens when the brokerage starts to intrude into the family? “We don’t consciously draw a line to not talk about work when we’re at home,” Barton says. “Our family is quite young, so our time at home is really 100% committed to looking after the boys and making sure they’re OK, so we don’t really have a lot of time to talk about the business.” They do talk about work at home, Duong adds, but they try hard “to make sure that when we’re with the kids, we are with the kids, rather than our minds being on work. As they say, ‘Be present when you’re present.’”
No more teething
The diary ran over six months, and by the time I spoke to Barton and Duong for this article, their business was in a very different place from where it had been when they started writing. Things were certainly going well; the quantity of business had surprised them, driving them to open on Saturdays. As they wrote in the diary, their biggest fear did indeed come true – no customers turned up on their first open Saturday. However, business has since improved, and they’re convinced the move has won them extra clients.
Stronger than expected interest from customers also has persuaded them to bring forward a plan to take on another broker – something they hadn’t planned on doing until their third year in business. They’ve found hiring more difficult than expected, Barton says: “The challenge we have is recruiting quality. We want to recruit for the long term, not just churn through employees; we want someone who is settled in our business and feels part of the team.”
In the meantime, they’ve continued to chase new business, and were in negotiations with a local business group at the time I spoke to them. They’re also active across Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Plus. What they’re particularly excited about is a recent YouTube video in which an Aussie representative read out anonymous customer review about their brokerage. There’s a clear objective for the brokerage, Barton explains: “We want to establish a reputation that we are the brokerage to go to in our territory. We want to be well-established and well-known in the area, and we want to be known as a family business. I think it’s a reputation we want to build over the next few years.”
You can draw your own conclusions about what Barton and Duong’s experience says about broking; all 12 diary entries are available to read on MPA Online. For us at MPA, their frank reflections offered a real insight into the multi-faceted challenges faced by new brokers – despite extensive support from Aussie, there were still a number of challenges only Barton and Duong could overcome. We’re hoping other new brokers will take the plunge and put their thoughts to paper – and with business at Aussie Warwick going so well, we expect to see them back in the magazine soon.
We’d particularly like to thank Aussie Home Loans for helping us bring the Aussie Warwick Diary to life. Aussie’s team originally approached Barton and Duong about writing, and supported them and MPA throughout the process
