Tanya Sale, the co-founder and CEO of aggregation group outsource Financial, joined the finance industry over 20 years ago and remains one of the very few female CEOs in the mortgage broking industry. As heard on the Women in Finance podcast, we find out how she’s built her career and what she thinks could be done to support more women in financial services.
What first attracted you to finance?
My dad gave me a piggy bank one year for my birthday, and I was obsessed with it! It used to sit on my little bedside table, and I'd put my pocket money into it. My sister would get the equivalent of the pocket money, but she’d always spend it and ask to borrow mine. I'd give her some of my pocket money but l’d take a little bit extra back. I was charging interest from a young age!
You and Andrea Tassis co-founded outsource Financial in 2010. Why did you do that and what did you want to build?
outsource is in its 13th year now but we’ve stuck to the same agenda as when we first built this company: we want to be different. We want it to be personable.
We really work with any of our brokers, whether they're male and female, we care… we actually care. And they like that. The majority of mortgage brokers in Australia are self-employed and they need assistance to build their business. It’s not just about lending, we've also added very strong training and education.
I'm just lucky that I chose a partner in Andrea Tassis. It's the best partnership and it's a rarity that it's just so good.
Less than a quarter of brokers are women. Do you think there are any barriers preventing women from joining the broking industry?
I believe the opportunities are there for women to join the industry. You can have flexible hours, you can work remotely… It's more flexible now than I've ever seen it in my whole entire working life.
But if you’re a mother and you don't have support mechanisms at home or around you - whether a partner or family - it can be very hard. When I was building this business, I had two young children. But I had a partner that was very supportive and I had some really good friends that were supporting me, too. If I didn't have that, I would have been a nervous wreck and I don't know if I would have been able to achieve what I've achieved today.
What do you think we can be doing to support more women into broking?
I talk about equality versus equity. We get the equal opportunities maybe, but we don't get the equity. Meaning my needs are going to be different to yours, so I've got to get something that suits me. For example, being a female (mortgage broker), you're going into a total stranger's home, would you feel really safe about that? I think we need to be making them feel comfortable. We (outsource Financial) have a property in Leichhardt for our members to use, at no cost. So, it alleviates them having to go to someone's home.
What advice would you give to other women starting their own businesses?
I’d sit down and speak to someone that's done it. to get the good, the bad and the ugly - the pros and the cons - before jumping straight in. You really have to be prepared. You need to really line up your ducks in a row and have processes and systems in place. Don't jump straight in thinking you're going to be able to do (it all), because it's going to be challenge after challenge after challenge.
And, have some support mechanisms and financial backing in place.
Ongoing development is also key; clean out your backyard every quarter. Take a look at your business and start looking at what has been successful and what hasn’t - see if you need to make changes.
It then comes down to you, the individual, on how much you want to succeed.
Tune in to hear more!
To find out more about Tanya Sale and her journey to becoming the outsource Financial CEO in the Women in Finance podcast, click here.
