A massage chair and morning workouts with the team will be the new way forward
One of 11 women in this year’s Top 100, Deanna Ezzy wonders why there aren’t more females represented in the prestigious list. She told MPA she feels very proud of the achievement while being grateful for the help of her team.
Writing more than $92 million in settlements during the year to selection, the Canberra broker came in at number 63 this year, featuring in the Top 100 for the past six years running. While the last year has been filled with uncertainty due to the pandemic, More Than Mortgages has seen an increase in business following a surge in refinance activity at the onset of COVID-19.
Read more: Deanna Ezzy tells how she switched to SFG
“The first two months after the coronavirus hit was filled with switching loan products and refinance work,” she said. “Things started to settle down around June and we were back to a steady pace with owner occupier purchase applications being the main source of my business.”
She said she noticed a positive change in the way brokers and lenders interacted during the nationwide lockdown earlier in the year as much of the country adjusted to working from home.
“If I was talking to someone from a bank, I would hear a dog barking in the background and we’d have a laugh and talk about what it’s like working from home,” she said. “This would then lead on to more discussions around how we were feeling with regards to the pandemic, giving words of support and encouragement. Having this common ground ironically brought us closer as human beings.”
She said client relationships grew to a whole new level after she started sending out weekly videos to her database.
“I was being much more ‘personal’ than I have ever been before, rather than keeping it ‘strictly business’,” she said. “My clients responded really well to this, and it allowed them to see me as a person, not just their broker.”
Read next: Top 100 broker on helping clients through the good times and the stressful
Compassion is something that Ezzy has built into the structure of her business – and something that translates in the way she approaches HR. About to move into a new office after a period of rapid growth, the principal has made sure to incorporate a break-out room within the fit out that will include a massage chair with Bluetooth headphones for guided meditation, as well as yoga mats.
“I can see my team and I doing morning YouTube work-outs and yoga together,” she said. “Once every month or two, I will bring in a massage therapist for a full body massage for each member of the team.
“My team also have access to a business/mindset coach whenever they want, and also a psychologist if that’s what they need.”
