Meet the conveyancer who brings military know-how to his successful business

NIC Gould is the managing director of Queensland-based Colwell Conveyancing, which was established in 1972 and has offices in Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast.

Since stepping into the MD role in 2022, Colwell Conveyancing has experienced strong growth and is now on an acquisition pathway, looking to build a network of conveyancing firms in south-east Queensland

Having joined the industry after a 10-year career in the Australian military, Nic sat down with Australian Conveyancer to chat about the transition and how a defence background has helped him forge a successful path in Queensland’s conveyancing industry.

AUSTRALIAN CONVEYANCER: Tell us, what’s Colwell Conveyancing all about?

NIC GOULD: Sure thing. With the acquisition of Colwell Conveyancing in 2022, I saw an opportunity in the Queensland market to deliver a professional conveyancing service that focused on the use of tech and prioritised customer experience. 

I believe that communication is at the core of everything we do at the business and that’s why we’re committed to fostering relationships, leveraging technology, and optimising customer experience through processes and systems.

One of our big focuses is to prioritise customer satisfaction by doing whatever it takes to meet their needs and exceed expectations, so we’re always looking for new ways to show that we value our customers and their feedback – they’re always the top priority.

AC: What do you attribute the rapid growth of the business to?

NG: I think really the key to our success is not just a focus on customers, but also our referral partners. Also a contributor has been our transition to being a technology enabled firm, or more precisely a digital enabled firm.

That’s been a big part of the story. And it didn’t happen overnight. In fact it took the best part of two years to really transition to that because when we bought the firm it was old school. So yeah, it took us the best part of two years to build the necessary tech offering from the ground up.

AC: And what about yourself, you have an interesting backstory before conveyancing?

NG: I grew up in Bribie Island in Queensland then studied at both QUT and USQ. I’m a big believer in education and currently have a Bachelor of Law, a Graduate Certificate in Intelligence, a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, a Queensland Law Society Membership, an Australian Property Council Membership.

On the military side, yes I’m an Australian Army veteran. I served in Afghanistan on two occasions. I also worked at the Australian embassy in Indonesia, for two years. Before taking over Colwell Conveyancing, I worked at professional services firm KPMG, integrated services company Downer and Sydney-headquartered McCullough Robertson Lawyers.

AC: What key principles have you brought to conveyancing from the military?

NG: After nine years in the military and providing consultancy to large multi-national firms, and as a lawyer, I discovered there are a lot of qualities that it takes to be successful in the military which translate over to something like conveyancing and property law.

With conveyancing, you’re dealing with a lot of people’s largest transaction, or the largest investment they’re ever going to make. So it is emotionally charged, and it’s something that takes patience and it takes discipline, similar to that which exists in the military.

AC: How does your military experience flow into daily operations?

NG: It’s about really considering with empathy, and that compassion side, of how people are buying and selling for various different reasons. 

You know, in one matter you might have an investor, highly experienced, who knows what to do and then on the other hand, you’re dealing with someone who’s a first home buyer or someone who’s buying or selling property due to relationship breakdown or a passing in the family sites. In those  circumstances it’s very sentimental and can be highly charged. 

So each scenario takes a very different approach, but it really comes down to understanding the customer, understanding why, and then how do we then communicate most effectively and manage that matter. From the military it’s similar, it’s about being adaptable to change, it’s about being adaptable to different customers.

There’s also the courage side, which is about having courage to step out on your own and have a crack at something when you’re in business. Conveyancing has traditionally been a conservative field, and I saw an opportunity to do things differently. So it’s taken courage, adaptability, flexibility, to build something for our industry into the future.

At a more granular level, there’s a heavy reliance on small teams in the military and we rely heavily on teams in business, but also in the conveyancing in the property law world. So for me, I took a lot of learnings from leading small teams in the military, and leading small and medium teams in business, into my current role at Colwell Conveyancing. There might be a different context, of course, but largely that ability to lead people is still the same.

AC: What surprised you transitioning into the conveyancing industry? 

NG: Running Colwell Conveyancing is very different to the military in the sense that you don’t have the security and the protection of the big defence organisation behind you – there’s no the big military beast there. 

I guess I’m lucky to have started a couple of businesses in my time, but still being out on your own is very different to the army. It takes a different mindset, and it takes a different, I guess, appreciation or risk appetite to be able to do that. 

AC: Business can be stressful, how has your army background helped there?

NG: Absolutely, business comes with stress at times and it’s key to find ways to manage that. Stress management is essentially about being able to stay calm under pressure, not letting it get the better of you – there can be times when it’s really stressful in this game. Being able to keep a level head at stressful times was something learnt early in my days in the military.

On this front, it’s going to be different for each person, but whether it’s breathing exercises or something else, for me it’s just having that ability to just step back and appreciate the broader circumstances, the bigger picture, and then be able to lead through that.

AC: How does your veteran-run company Protegas feed into your conveyancing work?

NG: I built Protegas, an intelligence capability provider, to be a business that focuses on culture and values. Additionally, The experience of founding and bootstrapping the business had some similarities to Colwell Conveyancing as it meant taking a  50-year-old law firm and building a modern, tech-based business to disrupt the cottage conveyancing industry.

AC: What tips do you have for others starting their conveyancing journey?

NG: There’s definitely a few. One is to make sure you understand the customer, I think that’s really important. It’s also about understanding the role of the customer and the transaction, they need to be at the centre. 

The second part of that is embracing technology and allowing technology to enable rather than being afraid of it. At the same time, you have to understand that tech is an enabler and that the human will always be at the centre. So, it’s about utilising technology to enable your people, rather than take over your people.

Getting the balance right depends on your team, it depends on you as a leader, and I think it

depends on how much technology you adopt and the rate of change. There’s a balance to strike in providing the technology where it adds value, which makes sense. But where it starts to get to a point on technology that it’s not adding value and actually adding confusion, that’s where you probably need to take a step back and assess the strategy.

AC: You emphasise understanding the customer, any tips there?

NG: Sure, it’s about early and regular communication is important. It’s also about multi-modal communication, so utilising things, of course, like email, but it can’t just be one mode. That’s really, really important. At Colwell Conveyancing we also focus heavily on our onboarding process. It’s a really robust onboarding process now, and another key to understanding the customer.

AC: What do you see as major issues on the radar for the sector?

NG: Issues on the radar for us now are around continuing regulatory change. In Queensland we’ve got the new seller disclosure scheme and of course the counter terrorism financing and anti-money laundering regulations that are coming in nationally. I think they’ll be a big challenge for our industry.

With regard to the counter terrorism financing and anti-money laundering regulations, it’s my view that the increasing regulatory demands that they bring in will be a big thing to deal with  for us. I guess it’s  the added red tape and cost and the extra time. 

But on the whole, I see the sector outlook as really positive. I mean, particularly in Queensland, we’ve got a great property market right now. The property market is really buoyant in Queensland and that’s being driven by strong fundamentals, and we’ve got increasing internal migration, which is good for our business. There’s still increase in volume, and so I’m very optimistic about our industry in the years ahead

AC: And what about the outlook at Colwell Conveyancing?  

NG: We’re not trying to grow too big and too broad and be all things to all people, we’re really focusing on doing one thing, doing it well, and doing it in a market that you know.

Even so, we do have plans to grow in Queensland. We’d like to open four or five new locations as our target in the next three to five years to build on the success we’ve had to date, which is down to we have a really strong focus on customer and customer experience. 

The long and short of the expansion plans are largely to keep a local concentration, rather than going nationwide. You know we’d rather be able to focus on south east Queensland, That’s where we want to stay.

The foundation is really about just keeping to our core business, which is customer centric

operations. If we do the little things right, then the big things will fall into place. As I touched on, conveyancing has been a bit dusty for far too long even though it’s a critical element of any property transaction.

It deserves to have the spotlight shone on it to show it off as a dynamic game-changer. It is, and our team is, made up of passionate conveyancing specialists. We love it, live it and breathe it, and ultimately, our enthusiasm shows in everything we do.

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