Getting to know Carly Hookem

Can you tell us about your journey to broking?

I started my career as a personal banker and within a couple of weeks, I was helping clients with their home loans. There was a financial planner in my branch who I would often refer clients to, and eventually he encouraged me to try financial planning.

I was studying on the side, and in 2012 I made the leap to working as a financial planner. I loved the relationship aspect of the role, but over time the red tape became tiring, and I started looking for another opportunity. I loved the Mortgage Choice brand, and I felt its values aligned to mine, so when the opportunity arose to purchase an established business in 2017, I jumped at it.

What’s your client mix in the Logan area?

My clients are a mix of single parents, first home buyers, teachers, nurses and self-employed people. Some of my clients have had experiences where they’ve been turned away by the local bank, or another broker, and I get a lot of joy from helping these clients secure what’s usually their first home . As a broker, you need to think outside the box to find a solution for these clients. When I'm able to help them, they become the best advocates for my business and loyal, lifelong clients.

You’ve generated a lot of leads from referrals and social media. Can you share your secret sauce?

Most of my business now comes from my Facebook business page and word of mouth referrals. It’s all organic, I don‘t pay for ads.

As brokers, what we do can be daunting to the public. I find people will look at your Facebook to decide whether they want to engage with you on a personal level, so I try not to take myself too seriously. I give people an insight into the home loan process, but also show my customers and prospects who I am as a business owner and a person. Showing my personality and sense of humour helps me attract customers that I want to work with and helps me build rapport.

I live on an acreage and sometimes I post about my animals. Recently, I posted a silly picture of my dog. He’s a rescue and a real handful. The caption read, ‘my dog is as weird as I am’ and a follower messaged me and said, ‘you’re my kind of person’ and made an appointment to come and speak to me about her home loan!

Most of my referral partners are clients of mine, such as local real estate agents, solicitors and conveyancers, and we refer clients to each other. I’ll try to match my own clients to the real estate agent or solicitor I think will work best for their personality and needs.

Your Franchise Development Manager said you’ve built an amazing team. How do you keep your team motivated?

I try to be accommodating with my staff and their hours because I know first-hand from when I worked in banking, working nine to five while my kids were young was difficult.

All my staff have children, and one has grandchildren, so I don’t want them to miss out on key moments with their kids. They really value this flexibility and understand that I don’t want work to take over their lives! Building the right culture is important to me and we make time to laugh every day.

We also all love cake, so I find an excuse to celebrate little wins with cake – it doesn’t have to be a birthday!

What do you love most about being a broker and what are some of the challenges?

We have the amazing opportunity to help everyday people get into their first home and the security of knowing that they have that asset. It’s really rewarding.

Upskilling and retaining staff, plus running the business while also running the family home can be challenging, but it’s so rewarding when you can see your people grow and your clients achieve their goals.

One of the other challenges right now is managing client expectations, especially as some clients are coming off fixed rate loans and worry about the adjustment to their lifestyle. We’ve been helping these clients consolidate and restructure other debt to help them improve their cash flow.

What are you looking forward to right now?

We’ve booked a six-week family holiday to Europe for the end of the year. We’re going to Germany, then Switzerland for Christmas and Vienna for New Years Eve before visiting family in the UK. This will be the first time I've been away from the business for longer than a week, but it’s important to take that time to recharge. Burnout is real, particularly among women because many of us work full-time jobs and then have a full-time workload at home as well. I'm going to prioritise taking some time off every year.

What do you think the broking industry could be doing to attract more women?

As business owners I think it’s important for us to offer flexible working conditions for staff. I’ve seen women working in this industry take time off to have kids and then decide not to return to work because they feel like they can’t do this job unless it’s full-time and their sole focus. Flexibility to make the role work around life is key to making sure broking feels accessible to mums.