I’ve been involved in the world of finance for more than 20 years; I’ve worked for the NAB in various roles, joined Rothschilds and then Westpac where I was selling investment, insurance and financial planning for about six years. After a merger I was made redundant and took up a contract with Colonial First State. But in 2003 that contract was cut short and I got another payoff.

So I played golf for about six months; I was in my late 30s. The first step to me taking on a franchise was when a headhunter from Rams contacted me and I became quite interested in the offer. They were looking for people with banking and finance experience and who had a few dollars to throw in. I had been looking at all sorts of opportunities and franchising was just one of the avenues.

I was sick of bankers telling me what I could and could not do, and the opportunity to be my own boss was a key factor in the decision. I looked at other mortgage franchises to see what their models looked like but in my opinion the people, culture and model at Rams looked more attractive so I pursued this pretty quickly.

When I started at Eastwood it was just me and a receptionist. We’ve had various lending managers and now have six staff: a receptionist who is more of an office manager, three lending managers (one part time) and a few weeks ago a financial planner joined us.

Financial planning has synergies with what we do because we have to find out about customers’ assets and income but it’s the reverse of lending because we are protecting their assets.

We’ve got three main streams of business: an investment property group link plus the financial planning and the lending. I want to build it to a bigger business over the next two or three years, and then go and see the bigger companies and we’ll have something to offer them.

The biggest adjustment when I started franchising was that I was very poor. For the first year or so I was not a strong performer, it took a while to really sharpen up and get into it. I had to start talking to our customers after years of working business to business. I was spending time on building referrals but they take time to come through; I probably didn’t put enough focus on the customer.

I had to learn how to sell in a different way. In the banking game you lose the edge, you’re not so sharp.

But one day a little birdie from head office rang me and said ‘you’ve got to start selling some loans’. It was a real wake-up call. So I gave up playing golf.

It was important to get a sales process together: work out how you explain to a customer quite difficult concepts and jargon, and why they should go with you, and the different products. Then one day I realised I could do this, we were converting more customers and I was leading by example.

And I never looked back. Now the business is a lot more mature, people are referring us and calling us. We’re continually working on relationships. The bread and butter is what you generate yourself, the franchisor’s leads are the icing on the cake. This is what you pay your management fee for and a strength of the Rams model is that it does provide inputs as well as outputs.

As a franchisee you have to understand what you’re going into, what you and the franchisor provide. Early on I didn’t put in the sweat capital. Treat the franchisor as a business partner, get involved in giving input and help them find ways to help you.

I think that when I’m dispensable that’s when it’s a good business. I’m now playing golf midweek once every two weeks – I work a nine day fortnight – and I’m aiming for a four day week.

Paul van Rooyen has a Rams franchise in Eastwood, Sydney