Operations managers, admin staff, client care team, support staff ... no matter the role title, these team members are the engine of many broking businesses. This month, we meet Foong-Yue Cheah, the Operations Manager of the award-winning franchise in Williamstown, VIC, Chatswood, NSW, and soon Greensborough, VIC. Prior to joining her husband Jonathan Lee in the franchise, Foong-Yue had spent a decade working at RMIT University.
What was your journey to joining the business?
Jon started the business from a greenfield book and we intentionally kept our career paths separate initially. When Jon opened a shopfront in the middle of Williamstown, it was just him and an admin support for the first 12 months. When they left, I started to help him recruit staff. My background was in operations and I was familiar with the recruitment process.
In the early days, Jon would hire great talent but they’d leave soon after because there was no process and structure in place for them to operate in. So one weekend, we sat down and went through the end-to-end sales process and created a workflow, documenting every step. At this point I was still working full time at RMIT. On weekends and at night I'd work on the broking business.
Jon is my cheerleader and greatest advocate. After we had our son, I had post-natal depression. One morning, he called me and told me to get out of bed and come into the office - we'd bring the baby in and Jon, our broker support officer and our financial planner would all take turns looking after the baby while working! Bit by bit, I started creating templates and a process manual so that when my mat leave ended and I went back to my job at the university, I could give job descriptions to the new hires who filled the roles we needed in the business.
I was transitioning back into my university job and out of the broking business when COVID hit and we went into lockdown. Without childcare and family support, I juggled two jobsfor a year and a half – and I became burnt out. That was the turning point for me, and I realised I had to choose between my role at RMIT or the franchise. Thankfully, by that stage we’d reached a critical financial point in the business where we could afford to pay me a salary.
What advice would you give to single operators who would like to introduce a role like yours in their business?
You need to know where you're going before you go there. You need to free up your time by delegating tasks that can be standardised. Sending out fact finds, for example, is a task you can easily template. Look for other responsibilities in your business where you can outsource. This will help you work on the business rather than in the business.
Tell me about your title of Franchise Operations Manager?
In the corporate world a Chief Operating Officer (COO) is tasked with executing the CEO's strategies as well as improving the company's quality, productivity and efficiency. It was important for me to pick a title that matched what I did in the team. ‘Operations Manager’ encompasses all the above responsibilities without the C-suite title because, let's face it, we're a small business, not a Fortune 500 company!
I don't get involved in day-to-day operational activities. Rather, I work closely with my amazing staff to understand their pain points across our daily operations before designing and implementing solutions to enable their full potential.
I work closely with Jon to ensure our business strategy is aligned with our staffing, process and output, and I lead continuous improvement initiatives across our team's HR, marketing and technology areas in a structured and data-driven approach.
At the beginning of each year, we meet as a team and plan what that year will look like.
I dashboard everything, our customer profile, our trends. We pick it all apart and devise our strategy for the next 12 months and create KPIs for team members, which are visible to everyone in the team. This also gives me a clear idea where I need to focus and how I need to support staff with their own development.
What do you think the industry could be doing to attract more women?
We may need to change our approach. Instead of trying to recruit female brokers, we could shift our focus to recruiting female business owners and show them that you don’t necessarily have to be a broker to be part of this network, you can be a business owner who hires or trains brokers. We might attract more women if we sell franchises to women as a viable business that you can grow, providing you hire the right people to work with you.
