For this week, MPA brings you Melissa Gielnik, one of the industry's thought leaders and on how she handled her biggest challenge.
Each week MPA brings you advice from the industry's thought leaders on their biggest business challenge and how they tackled it. This week we speak with Melissa Gielnik, director of Smart Lending.
1. What has been one of your biggest challenges in business to date and why?
Eighteen months ago I decided I wanted to grow Smart Lending to double our volume. Growth and staffing are really big for most people, and most people don’t know where to start with them - I didn’t know where to start with them!
I wanted to be in control of what was out there and what was being promoted about Smart Lending because that’s my brand and that’s the brand that myself and my name has been built on. I didn’t want six or seven brokers running around under my name doing the wrong thing by my clients and maybe not living up to the expectations that Smart Lending has.
2. How did you overcome this challenge?
I had to go and find the type of business model I wanted to use. I spent a good year before growing my business thinking about how I was going to grow it. In the last five months we have doubled our numbers and it’s not unintentional, because there was 18 months of work behind that. What that means is the growth will be consistent now and not just a flash in the pan.
I decided to go with a model that involved hiring administrative staff to free up the brokers, rather than hiring a lot of new brokers. Every broker has a support person behind them, and they do an amazing job. We’re like the rainmakers but the people behind the scenes are absolutely integral to the business.
3. What are some of the key lessons you learnt from this experience?
I know now the importance of including the team in the process of choosing a new team member. The person has to fit our beliefs and our culture. The last girl we had to let go of, what she deemed important and what we deemed important were just so different. It’s so important to have those commonalities between the staff.
Trusting my team was also a big lesson; letting go of the little things, the day to day things and focussing on growth.
4. How have those lessons benefited you in business since?
Myself and my brokers can actually go out to the market and be present and attend PD days and learn and generate work because we have these support staff based in the office. I’m also actually able to step back now and trust my brokers to do what they do well if I’m away.
We have doubled our numbers, so in the last four months we haven’t settled under $9m. That’s between three brokers, two of whom work part-time.
Before this I don’t think I really understood what our culture was within the business and what we were all about. I knew we liked each other but now I understand why we work the way we do. We have fun at work and that comes across to our clients. We enjoy what we do.
5. If you were to tackle this again, would you do anything differently?
Now I know more about my team I would have avoided bringing on two staff members that didn’t fit our model. It costs a lot of money to hire and let go – I could have had a holiday!
6. What advice would you give to other brokers facing a similar situation?
It’s about understanding the team that you have now and what your demographic is and what your business is all about. You’ve got to get the model that fits and you’ve got to understand why you’re choosing that model and why you have the team that you have. I see a lot of broker who have a lot of people running around doing nothing but they don’t know why. Sometimes it’s about having a smaller but better team. My brokers are amazing. They’re the equivalent to five good brokers and could do my job 20 times over. It’s also about appreciating your staff. I like my staff, I value them, I show them appreciation and I pay them.
