When Jane Benko met Julia Paton nearly a decade ago, she knew the working relationship was built to last.
"I feel like Jules has been my work wife," Benko told Australian Broker. "I always knew that we're going to work together, that we had a future together. We complement each other very well, working together on past projects and brands and what have you. And if I was ever going to open up a business, or go into business with someone, I've always felt like Jules and I would compliment each other."
That was nine years ago, when the duo started working together in marketing. "Jane was my boss when I first started, and then when she came into finance, I was her boss," Paton explained.
"We've always worked well as a team together, and I think that's really important," continued Paton, who is pictured above left. "We were in the corporate world before this. And there are people you click with and people you don't click with. But when you find this kind of partner, there's synergy with somebody."
Fast forward to today and the roles have shifted again — but not the connection. The long-time collaborators have used their backgrounds in finance and marketing to launch Go For Broker, a full-service, fully-accredited commercial brokerage based in Melbourne. The firm specializes in private lending, with a focus on business loans and SME lending, and operates in partnership with aggregator LMG.
"What we want to do is to specialize in the commercial space, because it is its own beast," said Paton, who serves as cofounder and commercial finance specialist. "When you try to spread yourself too thin, you're trying to keep across all of the different product suites, and making sure that you're servicing your clients to the best of your ability, it becomes harder."
Paton noted that the duo may expand the team in the future — potentially bringing on a residential specialist if they decide to enter that market.
"Private lending is not really a trend anymore; it's really just reshaping the lending ecosystem in Australia," she explained. "We really want to help clients through that, because that area is still a little bit murky for people to navigate. It's unregulated and it can be really difficult for people to find their way through. That's essentially where we want to come in and connect clients with trusted lenders, really structure those sharp, strategic deals and guide them from chaos to clarity in that space.
"And the language around [private lending] is complex, and part of our job as brokers is to make sure that the clients have a really good understanding of what product they're going into," Paton said.
There's no shortage of work right now, amid the Australian Taxation Office's (ATO) recent crackdown on debt, rising prices and a growing number of self-employed borrowers Down Under, as well as the lingering effects of the pandemic— even five years out.
"We hear the word COVID every day — multiple times a day — from our clients, even though it seems like a while ago now," Paton said. "There's a different need in the commercial space than there is in the resi space. What happened over the last few years, clients were effectively pulling cash out of their businesses to help facilitate mortgage repayments; they're either trying to play catch up, pay their staff, pay suppliers, or just kind of keep rolling. And that's impacted the liquidity or their cash position in their business; they're still trying to recover from that.
"So we've got a distinct need, or a challenge, in the business right now that [businesses] need, either capital for growth, or capital to keep cash flow a bit more stable or pay suppliers," she said. "And with the ATO debt at the moment, that's pretty much the hot topic in the room everywhere: the ATO is chasing over $60 billion dollars worth of tax debt at the moment; 65% of that is held by SMEs. There's definitely an alternative that needs to be found for those businesses, because there is a lot of red tape in that space."
The duo said there's not enough women in the mortgage or finance sectors — and that needs to change.
"It's evidenced at every event that we ever attend; there's definitely an under representation of females in those rooms," Paton said.
"Females bring a different approach to looking after a client, in terms of the ability to listen, and just having that kind of compassion and empathy for clients," she added.
Despite there being no significant gender pay gap in broking, women still account for only 26.7% of the total broker population in Australia, according to the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA).
Benko pointed out that the industry offers strong incentives for women to join — particularly the flexibility it provides.
"I feel like [broking] is perfect for women, especially those that have gone on and had families; it's flexible," said Benko, who also serves as cofounder and commercial finance specialist. "You can do it anywhere, as long as you're there for your clients. And I feel like there's a huge opportunity there to support women. To say, this is a great alternative if you want to be. There's great money in it; there's also great rewards. If they have children and want to get back into the workforce, it's an incredible space for women. There's just not a lot of women in it."
