A strong focus on customer needs and the ability to build relationships with the right people within business has helped Louise Finlay, retail business development manager (BDM) for the Mortgage Broker Industry at Allianz Australia, to take out the BDM of the Year award at this year’s Women in Financial Services awards.
Louise, who has been praised for providing outstanding service to her clients, said that in her role the most important skills were understanding customers and their needs, getting to know their business and ensuring that there was a mutual benefit to everyone.
“I think it comes down to relationships and really going that extra step to understand what they [our customers] need,” she said.
Louise also managed to earn one of the highest ratings from both Aussie and Mortgage Choice for her work which helped both groups in achieving record breaking results.
She said that to her, success was about seeing positive feedback from clients and knowing that they also see the partnership as valuable.
When asked about what she valued the most when it came to building strong business relationships, Finlay said: “Having open and transparent communication, and to do that you need a good relationship, to be able to talk about the good and the bad”.
“It’s definitely about teamwork and communication, and that open and transparent communication because that allows you to talk through and clarify anything that needs to be resolved,” she said.
She also stressed that the mortgage broking industry was going through a lot of changes and that it was crucial to always understand “what is happening, what is changing and how do we fit into that”.
The other finalists were Lindsay Coates, senior distribution manager, at Netwealth Investments and Superannuation, Alessandra Bertora, BDM at Sunsuper and Banaf Davies, senior client development manager at AIA Australia.
