When borrowers go to AMA-winner Damien Roylance's brokerage, they don't get an appointment - they get to feel like a VIP
When borrowers go to AMA-winner Damien Roylance's brokerage, they don't get an appointment - they get to feel like a VIP
MPA: What is the idea behind the ‘Entourage’?
Damien Roylance: The story goes that I was watching the movie Entourage and was hit by the realisation that an entourage is exactly what people need when they are buying a home. Think about all the different services and support people you rely on to help you through the process of buying, and how often you’re treated as a transaction or number. So the idea behind the business is that every client we act for is a VIP. We’re their entourage. We roll out the red carpet for each and every one of them. And each interaction looks a little different; the way we support them is a little different and our post-settlement service is unique for everyone.
MPA: Who are your target clients and how do you find them?
DR: We target a lot of first and next home buyers based in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne, and we’re very clear on who we don’t want to target too. Our focus is residential owner-occupier and investment loans, and increasingly developments – but we refer out anything that doesn’t fit this description. We have some great personal networks that we leverage. A lot of our business is word-of-mouth (either face-toface or online), and ultimately we find having an online presence helps people talk about our business. We also spend a bit of time and money investing in social media advertising; this allows us to be fairly targeted in who sees our messaging.
MPA: How does having an in-house conveyancing business assist your brokers?
DR: Having our conveyancer sitting in-house just makes everyone’s life a little bit easier. We don’t wait days for contract checks or for return phone calls, which helps compress the time it takes in certain parts of the process. We are also able to offer complimentary contract checks for our clients, making their lives easier too. Being able to have these two major components of the buying process in one place is a big plus, and I’m impressed when I see my brokers learning elements of conveyancing in aid of expediting the process. In an ideal world we’d control as much as possible – Steve Jobs always talked about a closed environment resulting in a better experience for clients, which we wholeheartedly agree with.
MPA: How do you maintain good relationships with referral partners?
DR: Long lunches, of course! I’m kidding; we only maintain relationships with referral partners that embody our business ethos too. Maintaining a referrer relationship is not a difficult thing.
We don’t pay for referrals in our business. Most of our partnerships are based on mutual respect and benefit for each other and our respective clients.
We offer a premium service, and as long as their clients or friends are getting the kind of service they receive and expect of us then they keep referring. If our service drops, then the issue is one for me to address, whether it be an element within my business or an external factor that I need to resolve.
MPA: What is the next step for Entourage Finance?
DR: We are planning on getting our broking and leadership team really humming throughout 2018 as we hired three new brokers last year. Beyond that we’ve got some expansion plans to branch into some more interesting target markets, utilising some of the networks our new team members have – we’re really excited to see where the business goes this year.
I’d also really like to explore what a closed environment concept might look like for a brokerage business. Who knows where that will lead for Entourage as a brand.
