Surrounding yourself with success the greatest motivator for this star broker

Every quarter, Matt Spears joins a select group of Australia’s top-performing brokers over an extended lunch or dinner, for an unfiltered discussion on what’s happening in each other’s businesses.

As the managing director of Sydney-based brokerage Evoke Capital, which secured a spot in MPA’s 100 Best Mortgage Brokers 2024 list, Spears sees these highly successful brokers not as competition but as an invaluable source of inspiration and motivation.

In fact, Spears makes it a habit of surrounding himself with success at any opportunity he can, whether that’s catching up in the gym or meeting at the crack of dawn for a run along the beach.

“I've found doing that over the last three to four years has had a big impact on the results of our business,” Spears tells MPA. “I think it really just comes down to surrounding yourself with great like-minded people who have a passion and a drive to be successful. That type of shine tends to rub onto you and the others you surround yourself with.”

As a broker of just five years, many of the people Spears interacts with are older, wiser and writing larger volumes – but intimidation is never on the agenda.

“The more successful that the broker or the brokerages are, the more open they are to sharing,” he says. “Particularly if they see that that individual has a genuine interest to learn and upskill and grow.”

"I have a view that there's so much business out there to go around that none of these guys are my competition… We're all peers and I'm very open to collaborating with all of them,” adds Spears. “If they can do something better than me, I'd love to know where I can improve. I don't profess to have all the answers.”

Spears highlights several key lessons and insights he has gained from his growing peer network:

• The importance of process: “If you don’t have a process, you don’t have a business,” he says. He has learned the necessity of having structured, documented and digitised processes for everything from staff onboarding to client management
• Scaling and hiring: Spears has learned to hire earlier than he might have otherwise, and to leverage offshore talent effectively by investing in their training and development
• Continuous learning: Spears values being in environments where he can learn from others, saying: “If you feel like you’re not learning from others, you’re probably in the wrong room”
• Pushing comfort zones: He is inspired by peers who have “been there, done that”, and believes that stepping out of his comfort zone and learning from others is a key motivator and growth driver

For his part, Spears believes he brings a unique perspective and expertise to the table, particularly in serving business owners and property investors across both residential and commercial lending.

He emphasises that while brokers may have access to similar products and policies, differentiation comes from client service, strategy and process.

Read more: Evoke Capital's commercial strategy is paying dividends

Spears has a few words of advice for brokers who may feel intimated by surrounding themselves with successful leaders in the broking industry.

“Just push through it, make the call, send that e-mail, shoot that DM through, there's nothing to be scared of,” he says. “You have absolutely nothing to lose. If you're presenting yourself with good intentions, just saying, ‘hey I love what you're doing, I'd love to hear your story’, a lot of individuals will have a lot of time to pass their language onto the next generation of brokers. I've done it plenty of times.”

Healthy body, healthy mind

Health and fitness play a pivotal role in Evoke’s team culture, with free gym memberships offered alongside flexible working hours to accommodate team members’ fitness regimes of choice (as long as they make the daily 9am prep session).

“Health is wealth,” Spears says. “We encourage all of our people to train and work out in whatever form suits them, whether it's running, weights, Pilates… whatever really gets them out of bed and into the gym and getting a bit of a sweat is something that we push.”

If it sounds like Spears never switches off, that’s because “I generally love what I do”, he says. “I love connecting with clients, I love solving a problem, I love setting strategies… We are helping people with the biggest financial decisions that they have to make in their lives, and it's not one that we should take for granted.”