The MTM Story
Hey there, Deanna (De) here! I started ‘More Than Mortgages’ (MTM) back in late 2017. My awesome loan processor, Natasha (Tash), joined me on this wild ride. We’d been a dynamic duo at our previous job, and when I decided to launch my own mortgage broking company, our boss Dave Thomas at Trilogy Funding was super supportive. He released Tash from her contract so she could join me and even let us work out of his office for the first few months while we found our own space. Absolute legend!
In a twist of fate, we ended up in an office in Kingston, Canberra, the same place where I began my career with Trilogy Funding. How crazy is that?! Starting a business sounds thrilling, but let me tell you, the first 18 months were a grind. Client enquiries kept pouring in, so we were as busy as ever, but now without admin support. On top of brokering, I had to learn how to run a business. We both clocked 60+ hour weeks, trying to stay afloat, and when one of us got sick, the other did too. It was brutal.
In early 2019, we hired our first employee… who quit after three days! WTF! Luckily, our second hire was fantastic. Throughout 2019 and 2020, we grew to a team of seven.
In 2020, Tash became a fully qualified mortgage broker in her own right and followed up the following year by becoming my business partner. We moved to a bigger space in Deakin and continued to expand our team. This was a whole new level of hard! Tash and I are great at brokering, but managing people? Teaching? Mentoring? Yikes! Building a team was way more challenging than we thought.
Our best move was hiring Noni, our Operations Manager/HR guru, in 2022. She transformed everything! With Noni handling team management and operations, things really took off. Now, in late 2024, MTM has 14 awesome team members. Everyone in the MTM Family loves working here (ask any of them!), and we love them back. I’m so grateful for our hardworking, team-playing, motivated crew.
From the start, I wanted to give back to people and allow others to build a successful career and enjoy the same benefits that I did when I started in broking. To this day, Tash and I still run our business with that in mind, uplifting, nurturing, supporting, and mentoring our staff, regularly donating to charities, and continually supporting other small businesses. We aren’t in business to get rich (although that would be a bonus); we primarily do it to help our clients, staff, and local and national communities where we can.
I’ve often told my team, the MTM Machine is a vehicle for us all to achieve our life goals. This means being well-paid, having flexibility in working hours, working in a place we genuinely enjoy, and feeling a sense of achievement by helping you, our client, with your mortgage needs, thereby improving your life in the process. It’s a win-win!
