I owe my entry into finance to my former boss, prior to being a broker I worked in a small printing company for 11 years wherein I held almost all of the roles at times; starting on the factory floor as a burnt out uni student (journalism), to working in the graphic design department, studying IT, production, dabbling in sales, a turn in accounts, payroll...a virtual apprenticeship in small business. As part of this he took me to Hong Kong to establish the art department for one of our Chinese buyers - man that was fun, teaching them photoshop without any common language - but it worked, they are inordinately clever copycats. Oddly I also learnt to write backwards and upside down which is invaluable in presentations today!!
He also taught me about property investment & strongly encouraged me (forced!) to buy my first investment property, for which purchase I used his broker – and there it began.
I was at this time pregnant with my first child & figured this was a career I could achieve around kids - I mean you just work nights, right? Baby home with dad & I’m home with her during the day - well at least that was how it was supposed to work. So I started out my first broking business with a baby & a now part time job & haven’t looked back.
A colleague from the broker training school was offered to run a licensed office of then Homeloans Ltd & we took premises and really cut our teeth looking after their statewide database in the early days of mortgage managers, this is 2003 and life was sweet. We had the Adelaide bank bridging product and the 100% offset on a very competitive fixed rate, as well as Origin, wasn’t much more you needed!
We grew the business, hired staff, bought a few books… we developed an interesting good cop / bad cop style & a lot of the time it was assumed that I was the secretary or the wife & largely ignored until exactly when I needed to speak up and seal the deal - it was very effective!
We both continued to live life, buy and build houses, develop all of the experience that you bring to the table in each and every meeting that you have - and I’m a firm believer that you do bring the combination of all your past experiences with you to every meeting. Empathy is built from experience and it’s the cornerstone of my business…
I think life has had quite a few curveballs in store for me since very young. After numerous miscarriages I was pregnant with baby number 2 at the Vow conference in the Hunter & something just didn’t feel right...I was in labour at 23 weeks gestation. I spent 6 days in delivery suites up and down the coast educating myself and on a roller coaster ride of probability and successes; percentage chance of in-tact survival for premie babies, trial procedures, charts, facts, attempts. We tried things that had never been done before - try discussing loans under spinal block! Sadly our boy was delivered stillborn, which in itself was harrowingly painful & I turned to my journalist roots to write about this so that first time mums who had no other experiences would know they had a right to expect something different with a big term baby. To anyone who says they want a small baby...no, you don’t!
A year later daughter number 2 arrives with a large bang; an amniotic embolism of which we are the first ever to survive at our hospital - add this to the experience.
Not long thereafter there were a few challenges to the business & the partnership broke down dramatically in 2012. Without divulging details there was a visit or two from an unsavoury character while I was home alone & a protracted legal stoush & now I am building a new business with a baby again.
Being home alone during all of this was not good for my marriage & it was the next to suffer. So now I’m separated and in fact I got served papers for my financial separation on the day the royal commission report was released; 50% of nothing is nothing buddy! But I can honestly say I’m grateful for this amazing industry - to be a single mother & be able to buy property & feed my family & raise my kids to be strong independent women is something I am grateful for.
What I had learned over all of the years was how differently women think than men, and that women are the chief decision makers. I knew that sometimes their voice was overlooked, they didn’t feel heard, I’d seen this in action at times. I had too many stories of women who’d been to branch land and asked to come back with their parents. I also knew I wanted to do things differently, authentically - I wanted to bring my IT learnings in for a more digital process (as far back as then). I wanted to run lean and portable & to build a brand that was immediately recognisable as feminine without being powderpuff. Two Red Shoes was born & the audience bought in straight away, sending me gifts or pics of anything red shoe oriented.
I very much consider myself a service person, not a sales person. I may not ever reach the sales targets some of my colleagues do but the actual game of numbers really turns me on, the education piece, walking people through the journey & watching their expressions as it falls in place.
First Painting - What a dork!
I was one of those nerdy all rounder kids in school who topped all the classes & could have just as easily been a writer, a mathematician, a scientist or an artist - the combination of which contributes to the skill set you bring to the table today, even if it’s just rapport building. Educated between Melbourne and Sydney, and having spent much time in the back of my Welsh grandfathers taxi on Sydney’s North Shore, I have a weird posh hybrid accent which -combined with changing schools often – doesn’t help with making friends! I’ve completed science programs that took us inside Lucas Heights & CSIRO, owned a v8 race car that pulled 10 second quarters at Eastern Creek, if I could get away with it I’d put my beloved convertible around every corner sideways, I’ve written award winning stories, I’ve sold my own oil paintings for pocket money, have two standard poodles who are very much farm dogs, I love small business, I LOVE boats, I’d rather pull apart a business idea than gossip over a school fence. What has all of that to do with finance? Nothing, but it’s the weave of who we are and as I say, it goes to the experience we bring to the table – each of us is built of the unique stories and background that make us, and each of us is perfectly suited to be at the table with the clients that we meet.
Furbabies
On a final note, my eldest - now almost 19 - has serious mental health issues and it’s hard; very damn hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other day after day. Especially so when she has an episode & immediately after I have to pick up the phone, plaster on a smile and be as professional as I was in the early days with a toddler climbing on me – often you feel like a fraud but it’s what you have to do. It’s also very isolating and continues the piece around experience and empathy. I believe the very best way to lift yourself is to help others & what a brilliant game we are in to do just this. I am still excited every time a lead comes in, excited for the numbers - the “can I even” scenario. This is my joy, for this I am thankful and consider myself so lucky. For a number of reasons, including to improve my own mental outlook - I took a voluntary board role on a domestic violence shelter a couple of years ago, we are a community funded shelter at a cost of around $500,000 per annum with part of our funding coming from our umbrella organisation & the rest from our fundraising efforts. I would actually strongly recommend anyone who has the opportunity to be involved in something in the community - something truly altruistic - to do so. I’ve gained so much more than I’ve given, in insight & positivity as well as real knowledge in corporate structure and governance etc from some serious experts.
We are very lucky as brokers, I am very lucky – the luckiest broker in two red shoes.
