Kelly Cameron-Tull tried to retire at 30. But after a career journey spanning three universities, the Asian currency crisis, and MPA’s Top 100 brokers, she couldn’t simply walk away from the job she loved. Now leading her own brokerage, she shares what she’s learned along the way
Kelly Cameron-Tull tried to retire at 30. But after a career journey spanning three universities, the Asian currency crisis, and MPA’s Top 100 brokers, she couldn’t simply walk away from the job she loved. Now leading her own brokerage, she shares what she’s learned along the wayBrokers, Kelly Cameron-Tull reflects, used to follow similar career paths: “they just worked in a bank, and one day they thought they wanted to be a broker”. And indeed Cameron-Tull, who runs Get Real Finance in Brisbane, has a banking background, which she credits with helping her become Australia’s 30th most successful broker last year, with over $75m in settled loans in 2013/14. But her career path, with its numerous twists and turns, reflects the increasingly varied profession broking is becoming today.
MOVING TO KOREA
While she’s originally from Queensland, at the age of 21 Cameron-Tull took the audacious step of moving to Korea. This followed an undergraduate degree in international business, and graduate diplomas in the Korean language and export management; a sparkling academic background which had nothing to do with broking. In fact she was in Korea for an internship in a merchant bank.
“Two weeks after I started at the merchant bank, the Asian financial crisis happened,” recounts Cameron-Tull. The 1997 Asian financial crisis started with the collapse of Thailand’s currency, before spreading to other Asian economies; the South Korean won went from 800 to the US dollar to 1,700. With her wages being paid in won, Cameron-Tull’s salary effectively collapsed, although she counted herself fortunate to remain in a job at all, with 15 other merchant banks shutting down.
Foreign language Skills: A Blessing or a curse?
While Kelly values her time in Korea, she has decided not to exploit her Korean language skills in her work at Get Real Finance. This unusual decision stems from her time at NAB. “Every day, I would get phone calls from people in branches saying, ‘Oh, we just talked to this lady...’, and I would translate and tell them what they needed – but I still had to do my job. My job was as a business banker, to service my own set.” She warns brokers that an office needs more than one bilingual speaker to provide consistent service to clients, “otherwise I would have to make every single email, every single phone call, and talk to all these clients”.
While Kelly values her time in Korea, she has decided not to exploit her Korean language skills in her work at Get Real Finance. This unusual decision stems from her time at NAB. “Every day, I would get phone calls from people in branches saying, ‘Oh, we just talked to this lady...’, and I would translate and tell them what they needed – but I still had to do my job. My job was as a business banker, to service my own set.” She warns brokers that an office needs more than one bilingual speaker to provide consistent service to clients, “otherwise I would have to make every single email, every single phone call, and talk to all these clients”.
Yet Cameron-Tull was in the right place at the right time. “I was actually there to learn currency training, and I was kind of a pivotal person in that company.” With her Korean language skills and financial education, she ended up translating documents from Korean to English, for the Ministry of Finance and Economy to present to the IMF for a bailout package (the IMF eventually doled out a staggering $40bn to stabilise Asian currencies).
Cameron-Tull’s unique experience caught the eye of her superiors, who put her forward for advanced banking roles at J.P. Morgan and Credit Suisse. Yet recruiters at these banks didn’t take her so seriously. “Speaking Korean, in Korea, they were just gobsmacked when I turned up for the interview with blond hair and blue eyes.”
Turning to Australian banks was Cameron-Tull’s next option, albeit an option that required her to leave Korea.
LEARNING AT NAB
So Cameron-Tull went back to square one, applying for NAB’s sought-after graduate scheme back in Australia. With 1,400 applicants in 1998 for just seven jobs, it was far from an easy option, but Cameron-Tull is insistent that it helped her later as a broker. “The exposure I had was to every part of what we do [now] … it’s a real technical experience, that someone who’s just sold home loans for five years, they still might not have the technical knowledge I have.”
The key was variety. “I learned how to do settlements; I learned exactly what happens. I worked in the security and administration departments in the banks. So I learned what happens if there’s an error on a mortgage document. I learned what happens if there’s a typo on a loan contract.” Yet during her time at NAB, Cameron-Tull was still not interested in broking. “When I left NAB, I did not know what a mortgage broker was! When I started at NAB, they were talking about mortgages, and I did not understand what ‘mortgage’ meant; I did not understand even what the concept was.”
In fact, departing NAB had less to do with broking and more to do with the bank’s internal politics, claims Cameron-Tull. Quickly promoted to a business banking role, she was then put forward for a minority-market manager position, drawing on her language skills – but her boss blocked the move. Cameron Tull recalls her boss’s reasoning: “ ‘You haven’t been in the bank long enough; you’ve only been here nine months. We’d like you to be in the bank for two years’ … and I thought, who are you to cap my potential?”
FINDING A WAY INTO BROKING
Cameron-Tull’s move into broking was pure chance – a family friend needed financial advice for selling a house. “Every week I used to go between nine and midday and worked out the money.” But then she realised the house was not the source of the friend’s financial difficulties. “I told the real estate agent we needed to get another loan … and they said, ‘You should be in real estate’.” This wasn’t a career that particularly appealed to Cameron-Tull, but luckily, a month later, she was introduced to a broker.
REACHING THE TOP 100
Kelly’s customer relations and diversification tips
FULL-SERVICE PROVISION
“I will do everything from a hardship application to just having a chat, holding their hand and having a cry about everything that’s been happening in their life.”
CONTACT SCHEDULE
“We have a regular newsletter... that goes out once a month; we send them messages for their birthdays – text messages – that actually pick up clients all the time as well. And we contact them annually for the review on every single loan.”
DIARISING
“If a client comes to me because they just want one new loan, and they’ve been referred by someone, and I pick up they’ve got two other loans from some other place, we will diarise to pick them up in the relevant month. So moving forward, every month we have work built in.”
Kelly’s customer relations and diversification tips
FULL-SERVICE PROVISION
“I will do everything from a hardship application to just having a chat, holding their hand and having a cry about everything that’s been happening in their life.”
CONTACT SCHEDULE
“We have a regular newsletter... that goes out once a month; we send them messages for their birthdays – text messages – that actually pick up clients all the time as well. And we contact them annually for the review on every single loan.”
DIARISING
“If a client comes to me because they just want one new loan, and they’ve been referred by someone, and I pick up they’ve got two other loans from some other place, we will diarise to pick them up in the relevant month. So moving forward, every month we have work built in.”
Broking instantly appealed to her. “I just thought: do you know what? I actually enjoy this work; I really like the fact that I can help people every day.” Between leaving NAB in 1999 and setting up Get Real Finance in 2007 she assisted a number of senior brokers (not always a positive experience, she warns) and set up her first business, Borrowers Choice, writing home loans.
Attempting to retire at 30 was thanks to the success of Borrowers Choice, but also gave birth to Get Real Finance. She found the boredom of retirement unbearable after just a few weeks, and moved to Sydney because of her husband, where she set up Get Real Finance in 2005, despite having no local contacts. She built the brokerage for two years, before her husband’s job took them back to Queensland.
GET REAL FINANCE
Get Real Finance now employs five full-time staff, of which three are brokers, processing around $130m worth of loans a year, and is a former finalist for Independent Brokerage of the Year in the Australian Mortgage Awards. Cameron-Tull also made last year’s Top 100 brokers, coming in at 30th with 230 loans totalling $75m.
While home loans are Get Real Finance’s focus, the brokerage depends on referrals rather than advertising, and so is moving into car finance and insurance for the purpose of servicing existing clients. In order to do this, Cameron-Tull has drawn upon her banking experience, but also her personal interest in property development; she owns several properties and is considering charging for property investment advice.
Of course Cameron-Tull now has other concerns: three children aged three, 19 and 24, the older two coming from her husband’s previous marriage. She has been with her husband for 14 years and runs a “busy family, busy household” in which travel, cake-making and property development compete with Get Real Finance for attention. The prospect of another early retirement is tempting, but this time it seems that broking has got the better of her: “I had a date of 40, which is next year, but I really will never retire; I might just reduce my hours.”
