Balancing work, life and everything else.
Profile 03 – Running a business as a single parent
The MFAA produced an eBook as a resource to support their mortgage broker members as they navigate running a business with a work/life balance that allows them to succeed.
Important: For a copy of this valuable eBook: email Sue Hayter sue@melbournemortgagebrokermentor.com.au
eBook Contents
🔴Profile 01 – Managing a family run business
🔴Profile 02 – Managing work-life as a regional broker
🔴Resilience – your mindset, reset
🔴Profile 03 – Running a business as a single parent
🔴Profile 04 – Managing a business with a disability.
🔴Taking CARE of your team
🔴Profile 05 – Business as a young professional
🔴Profile 06 – Managing a business with two working parents
🔴Further resources
“The results and respondent comments from the 2020 survey, which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and the introduction of new regulations for brokers, highlighted that
many of our members were experiencing difficulty with time management, managing their work-life balance and generally remaining resilient in difficult times.
We’ve produced this eBook, Balancing work, life and everything else, as a resource to address these concerns and support our members as they navigate running a business with a work/life balance that allows them to succeed. It’s filled with tips and advice from a range of successful broking business owners from different walks of life, different business sizes and different stages of business growth.
We asked them about the biggest challenges they’ve faced in running a successful broking business, strategies they’ve employed to overcome these challenges and their advice to other brokers facing similar situations. We hope this resource assists you in effectively managing both your business and a balanced lifestyle.” The MFAA team.
Profile 03 – Running a business as a single parent
Extract from the MFAA Wellbeing eBook.
“The incentive is to build a better life for your children but also to maximise the time you spend away from them in the business.” Melissa Gielnik – Smart Lending.
Specialising in what she calls “mum and dad lending” Melissa has been in the industry 22 years, has a team of four and has built a thriving business through a global financial crisis, a Royal Commission, a global pandemic, and a tightening compliance environment. But it was during those years when she was raising two young children on her own, that Melissa says her business was its most successful. “When you are a single mum, you are incentivised to be successful,” she said.
“The incentive is to build a better life for your children but also to maximise the time you spend away from them in the business.” In 2014, as a single mother living what she describes as an “unsustainable” social life, she won the MFAA’s National Broker of the Year award. It was the first time a female had won the accolade in more than a decade and only the second time ever that it hadn’t been won by a male broker.
“I went up against all the industry big boys that year and nobody expected me to win – yet I did,” Melissa said. But winning Broker of the Year as a single mother would not have been possible says Melissa if she didn’t have the support she did at home. “I had a nanny, my mum and an ex-husband and all these people around me supporting me, so I absolutely didn’t get to where I got on my own,” she said. “I was the male. I came home, my dinner was cooked, the washing was folded, I’d play with the kids for a couple of hours and then I would go back to work.”
Breaking down stereotypes
Melissa says breaking traditional gender stereotypes about women taking on the primary caregiver role at home is a critical element to running a successful broking business and says she’s never been more successful than when she was a single working mum with a nanny. “Those traditional gender stereotypes about women and their role as the primary carer in the home are a challenge for a lot of female brokers,” she said.
“When we talk about gender in the industry there is a big difference because a man can be at home just working but a female is expected to be doing work plus some. “When I was building my business, I could be the ‘male’ in my business because I had the support to be working in it through the nanny and my mum helping out.” Melissa says it’s important for female brokers to be supported in their business by their partners sharing the domestic and childcare load and for women to not feel guilty when they need to bring additional support into the home.
More valuable Topics:
👉 Setting boundaries
👉 Be available to your children
👉 Embrace change
👉 4 Top Tips from Melissa
👉 For a copy of this valuable Wellbeing eBook: email Sue Hayter sue@melbournemortgagebrokermentor.com.au
Contact Award-winning expert mortgage broker mentor, coach and trainer Sue Hayter for more information about becoming a mortgage broker. www.melbournemortgagebrokermentor.com.au
Love Your Life❤️
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