Long Road – Tales of Regional Brokers: Joanne Dillon of Smartline Personal Mortgage Advisers, Roxy Downs South Australia

Joanne Dillon of Smartline Personal Mortgage Advisers is the ‘Money Lady’ of Roxby Downs, South Australia making dreams come true.

After purchasing her first property at 19, Jo watched the interest rate soar to 17% before asking herself, do I stay in Adelaide and slowly go broke, or do I take a chance in a newly purpose-built mining town 600kms away?

Jo took the latter, and 30 years, two kids, a stint as a waitress, a 20 year plus career with NAB, and seven years on her own later, Jo hasn’t looked back.

This Prospa Long Road – Tales of Regional Brokers, places the spotlight on a remote town in South Australia to find a true diamond in the rough.

MFAA: Jo, tell us about your hometown, Roxby Downs in South Australia.

Joanne Dillon (JD): It’s a BHP mining town. We are 600kms north of Adelaide, and we are absolutely in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town is Port Augusta which is 300kms away. So, we’re very isolated and we need to be self-sufficient. The permanent population is about 2,500 people, but we have a large Fly In Fly Out (FIFO) workforce of about 3,500 who FIFO every seven days. So, it’s a different dynamic than the city where brokers chase business, find referral sources, continue to find an ongoing database, but when you live in a town like mine, the most important thing to do is stay perfectly still. The town changes so often, people come for a three year term, others come for 12 months, some continue to FIFO for years on end, but there’s a constant turnover of population, so the most important thing for me is to stay still, stay relevant, have my brand out there and continue to connect with people over and over again because there’s always new faces in town.

MFAA: Tell us a bit about your clients?

JD: I have an amazing client database, they are extremely loyal and quite happy to be vocal, so I’m proud to say that 99% of my business now comes from client referrals. And I look at it like ‘it isn’t broken, so let’s not fix it’, because what I’m doing is working and I’m continuing to just be me, and continuing to be very real.

MFAA: What sort of service do you focus on, Jo?

JD: I’m 100% resi, I don’t touch business finance, I’m a realist, so I don’t waste any time and I give the client the best experience through a referral. For me to do business finance takes time away from my resi customers, which is where my passion is. It’s about the client experience and them getting a specialist for what they need.

MFAA: How much does the fact that you live in a small town with limited housing stock impact your business?

JD: I do love it, because I’ve been in Roxby for 30 years, and I do laugh that some of the properties that come across my desk are coming across for the fourth or fifth time. Obviously being a predominantly FIFO town, the majority of my business is people who live locally but who are not buying local property. They’re buying investment properties, they’re buying properties to move to when they leave Roxby, so a lot of the actual property purchases aren’t within my postcode. You know some people are here for a two year contract so they’re not going to buy a house here, but the income is quite healthy, and steady, so they’ve got the means to then buy that property in Queensland that they’ve been dreaming of, or buy that block of land to build in two years’ time, so I’m a bit of a dream fulfiller up here. It’s the part of the job that I love the most. But yes, the average income is high, and we have very little unemployment because it’s a purpose-built mining town, and people come here to work.

MFAA: What attracted you to the town in the first place?

JD: Back then I was young, I wasn’t even 20, but I had just bought my first property, and that’s when the Government saw in their wisdom to take interest rate to 17%. So my then fiancée and I were running out of money, we were literally going broke, so we had two choices, we either move somewhere where we can earn more money, or we give up our house and go back to renting, and we both decided moving was the way to go. My ex fiancée used to work for Caterpillar, there was an opportunity up at Olympic Dam, we drove up here, had no idea where it was, but the wages were great, it was a young town, it was only two years old, and there was plenty of opportunity. I became a waitress for the first 12 months, before I commenced my 22-year career with NAB. I joined the NAB up here in Roxby, and 22 years, four locations, two children later, I decided to take the part of the job as branch manager that I loved, which was the resi lending, and go out on my own. That was seven years ago now.

MFAA: And how’s the journey been for you so far?

JD: When I started I set myself some short and long term goals, and I’m very proud to say that by my fifth year I had achieved my 10 year goal, so that was obviously a certain book size, average monthly writes, and an income level. I also set the goal that within 10 years I want to win best regional broker and I’m very proud to say I received it three times. I won Best Regional Broker in 2017 and 2018 in the NAB Better Business Awards, then I won Editor’s Choice at the same awards in 2019. So I got my hattrick and I’m now sitting back and focusing on continuing to grow my business. I’d love to go to more events, but location and logistics makes it difficult. At the moment I’m a sole operator, I’m also a sole parent to a 14-year-old and 10-year-old who are both sporty, which can be tricky. Next weekend we’re travelling 600kms to a basketball carnival, with the two kids playing at two different stadiums both at opposite ends of Adelaide.

MFAA: What do you love most about doing the job where you are?

JD: I always come back to the same thing because of where I am and everything is so close in a small town. I have no travel time between my clients, my office and my kids sport. In half an hour I can go from my office to my home, collect my kids, drop them at sport, go to a client’s place, pick up supporting documents, have a quick chat, then go back to pick up the child and be home again in half an hour. The no travel time gives me flexibility to actually be a parent, and I think that’s what works for me. Also you do hold a position within the community that is respected and valued. I’m always Jo the mortgage broker, you know people say ‘there’s the money lady’, but you are respected as a part of the community for the value that you bring and I really like that about living in a small town.