Deep client understanding fuels commercial broker success

Kylie Speer  00:00:00 

Kylie, hello and welcome to MPA TV. I'm Kylie Speer, and my guest today is Jon Gawley, Managing Director at Cambridge Finance. John has been recognized as one of MPAs Top Commercial Brokers for 2025 Welcome to you, John. Huge congratulations and thank you so much for joining us today.  

Jon Gawley  00:00:23 

Yeah, no way. So it's actually a great feeling to be awarded and getting the privilege of doing this interview.  

Kylie Speer  00:00:33 

So looking forward to it. Well, firstly, John, can you take us back to the very beginning of your career? How did you first get into broking? 

Jon Gawley  00:00:43 

So I got into broking and finance in general, probably over 20 years ago. I started in banking, first with Suncorp, working in the broking sector, and then moved to a 16 year commercial banking career with NAB in that time, I sort of met up with the founder of Cambridge, and we became best mates, and Mo and Rami. And from there, towards the end of COVID, life was a bit different, and we had sort of discussed things, and yeah, worked out that we worked really well together. And was time for a change. And took a journey, and I started up with my own company, and worked in well with Marwan, and what we did was sort of change and evolve in the last three years, and Cambridge finance came about and have a really good, successful team, which I work with here. 

Kylie Speer  00:01:41 

Jon, what makes for a great commercial broker, and how does your team reflect these attributes?  

Jon Gawley  00:01:48 

I think it's it's quite simple. A good commercial broker is someone which actually understands their client, someone which actually works for their team, and, more importantly, worked well with the funders. So that might be with banks, it might be with non banks, it might be with private lenders, but it's actually just understanding what is required and working together as a team. If you don't have a team approach, it doesn't work. And I think over the years, is one thing in my banking career, where it served me well, where I performed very well, was looking after clients and just little simple things of answering a phone, returning an email, listening to your staff, working with funders, workshopping things, and just being upfront and honest with people. So I think that's what makes a good commercial broker. 

Kylie Speer  00:02:41 

How do you ensure your brokerage is in a great position to grow your client base and deal volume? 

Jon Gawley  00:02:49 

It's probably an easy, easy way to sum it up on the last question of just working with your clients and your funders, if you do it right up front and look after people from day one and be upfront and honest on what's required when it's required, listening to when their needs need to be met. Things happen, sort of a thing. So it all balls about customer relationship. And a customer relationship isn't just between a broker and the client, it's also between a broker and the funder. That's the most important part. 

Kylie Speer  00:03:26 

Are there significant challenges in securing access to funding in the property development space right now, and if so, how do you help clients overcome these challenges? 

Jon Gawley  00:03:39 

There is challenges out there with a multiple amount of funders. One key attribute, which I think that I provide and my team provides, is actually knowing who are the best to deal with, so we're not mucking around, wasting time, and we can go to trusted funders, trusted advisors to workshop deals once we speak with clients and understand their needs. So I think that's where we set ourselves amongst the best in the market, where we actually understand the clients, but we also have the key connections with funders, and that's within banks, where we not only speak to bankers, we speak to Key Credit people, key personnel people. We engage with valuers, Qs, and even with private funders. We lay it all on the line up front so there's no surprises during the process. 

Kylie Speer  00:04:35 

And finally, John, the interests of your clients and the funders you work with won't always align. How do you negotiate the best possible terms in these situations? 

Jon Gawley  00:04:48 

Again, it's a simple it's knowing your customer and also with our team here. We've got a very diverse team here of people which work with us, so we recently employed. Employed a really good work colleague of mine, which worked at NAB for 3039, years, and he has a key understanding of working capital trading businesses. So if we're having a meeting with a client, we're not just going, Oh, they want to buy a property. We're actually understanding their business. And so sometimes it is just a very basic requirement for a client. You don't need to involve but we involve everyone from day one and ask the questions. I think that aligns really well with how you can play something because if you don't ask the questions and work with everyone, you just don't get the results. 

Kylie Speer  00:05:37 

Well, congratulations once again, and thank you so much for your time today, Jon, it was brilliant speaking with you.  

Jon Gawley  00:05:43 

Yeah, no worries. It's it's been a very humbling experience to sort of be nominated and get an award. But you can't do these things minus your team and supporters. Our founder and that Marvin may he had faith in myself as his banker for years, and now, now we're sort of business partners, moving on and on, running the business. And yeah, he's, he's my sounding board with things, but my team that I have, it's great, and and the funders of my team as well, because minus the funders, you don't get the support for our clients. Thank you. 

Kylie Speer  00:06:20 

And thank you, of course, to our viewers for watching the latest episode of MPA TV. We look forward to seeing you again soon.