Suzie Maloney is a little bit country and a whole lotta rock 'n roll.

The mortgage broker/rock drummer from Yalata may dream of one day owning her own hobby farm, but she's been sowing the seeds of a successful business for the last two years.

Maloney started Zebra Finance (named after her husband's rock band the Crazy Zebras) in April 2006 and has already been recognised with several industry awards: Astute Finance named her the 2007 Female Broker of the Year, while the AMAs named her the 2007 Young Gun of the Year. She's also up for the AMA's 2008 Broker of the Year award.

"I didn't really expect any of it.  When I left the bank, I was just concentrating on the business and all these really cool things happened," she says.

For Maloney, becoming a mortgage broker was a natural progression from her career at Westpac. She started at the bank in 1989 shortly after high school and quickly moved up the ladder. By age 22, she got her first manager's role and two years later moved into a lending manager's role.

She also moved with her husband to Mt. Isa to work as a branch manager. (And yes, it's true - there are five men to every woman there, she says.)

But by 2001, Maloney was working from home as a mobile lender and decided it was time to take herself and her clients to the next level.

"Just the way my clients were growing and my business was growing I thought that I needed to be able to offer them every product that was on the market. It was a growth thing for me and also a growth thing for my clients - I think they needed more than what I could offer at the time."

Transition
Despite having years of experience helping people secure a home loan, the learning curve was steep. Maloney had about 48 hours between ending her career with Westpac and opening her door as a mortgage broker to educate herself on the broad range of lenders' products available.

And since the calls kept coming in, the second challenge was keeping up with all the back office processing.

"You're pulling pretty big hours when you first start," she says.

While her husband helped out with the processing in the early days, she's now got two support staff - one office manager and one loan processor, both of which she head hunted from other businesses.

"I have spoken to recruitment agencies. But I like to talk to somebody and see how they perform in their current environment."

Maloney's management style is in keeping with her personality - laid back and friendly. She manages by the golden rule: 'treat others as you'd like to be treated; and encourages her staff to speak up if something's wrong so they can work through it.

While her personality works well with her staff, it is equally successful with her customers. Almost 100% of her interviews translate into a deal, she says, which she attributes to her ability to be able to relate to people.

Her personality, combined with her banking experience, has helped win customers from all walks of life. As a result, she hasn't felt the need to do any advertising - she doesn't even have a listing in the phone book. She does have a strong referral network with a real estate agent, accountant and solicitor - all three of whom are also clients of hers. Other than that, the business takes care of itself.

"I don't think I do anything special, but I talk to my clients on quite a regular basis. I might have six people from the one family all my books. It's a really simple thing to maintain your business levels - just do the right thing by your client," she says.

Maloney believes mortgage brokers have a responsibility to their clients, especially in the current economic climate.

"I think now there's a lot more of a moral burden on brokers to talk to clients about the credit crisis and what's happening in the market at the moment. It's about making sure they really understand that they can cope with the increases and repayments."

When it comes to other fall-out issues from the credit crunch, such as commission changes, Maloney isn't as concerned.

"There's nothing you can do about it. It's definitely something we'll have to monitor to see what kind of impact it will have."

She is looking to diversify her business, however, by offering insurance, equipment finance and car loans.

"When you're really busy you don't look for that kind of business, but now that it's quieter you tend to let people know that you can do it."

Not to say that volumes have dropped off for Maloney. While she says the number of new purchase contracts has decreased, she's getting a lot of people looking into refinancing. And while she's reluctant to say which products are getting the most attention from borrowers, in general she says customers are looking for packages "because they give the client everything they need".

Balance
Maloney runs Zebra Finance from her home in Yatala, a suburb located halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

The location of her business, however, doesn't pre-determine her clientele.

"I've driven documents to a power station in Chinchilla. I've got a few interstate clients. Where I work has nothing to do with where I generate the business."

While she started working out of her house, Maloney recently built a separate office on her small acreage property. Having that physical division between home and office has made it easier to separate the two mentally.

She also participates in a City Network Group that meets regularly for lunch to discuss industry issues and networks with brokers from Astute.

Despite being chased by other aggregators, she's resolute on sticking with her current broker group.

"Astute has really got this small family mentality and there's heaps of internal support."

Running her own business is not without challenges, but she says it's preferable to her days at Westpac.

"It's so satisfying when you're working for yourself. There's pressure as well, but everything you do you're doing for the benefit of yourself and your family."

In the short term, she's hoping to continue what's she's doing and keep the cheques coming in, but her long-term dream is to retire at 50 and run her own hobby farm.

Business file
Company name: Zebra Finance
Start date: April 2006
Support staff: Two
Aggregator: Astute
2007-08 total loan volume: $64m
Top monthly volume: $8.4m
Average monthly volume: $5m
Number of loans settled to date: 340
Average per month: 15
Record month: 23
Best deal: "My first deal"

Personal file
Status: Married
Pets: Rottweiler, Alexandrian parrot, rainbow lorikeet
Hobbies: gardening, playing drums
Favourite movie: Pulp Fiction
Favourite sport: NRL (Parramatta Eels)
Biggest extravagance: Fine red wine
If my house was burning down, I'd save (assuming the husband and pets made it out alive): "My drum kit"

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