MELISSA WARBRICK CEO, Ownit Conveyancing
Living with the status quo, is not a condition Melissa Warbrick is comfortable with. There is so much to achieve by challenging yourself and others, she explains.
MELISSA Warbrick has always been passionate about challenging the status quo.
“It’s a significant aspect of my philosophy” she says
“If you want to blaze a trail, you can’t always look at what everyone else is doing – you have to do things differently.”
It was while studying marketing at university that Melissa began working at leading Queensland firm, Ownit Conveyancing.
Before too long she was enthusiastically presenting business plans to then owner, Craig.
“Craig was at an age where he’s looking to retire and I was coming up with all these marketing ideas,” she says.
“Eventually, nine years ago, I bought the business off him.”
The time was now ripe for Melissa to make her mark as sole owner and CEO, and implement the plans she had envisioned.
“We then went through monumental growth after that point,” she points out.
“We achieved back-to-back years of 30% year-on-year growth every single year, which is quite significant, and we really just transformed the business entirely.”
The change in direction wasn’t complete, though, with Melissa spearheading a review of the firm’s systems, and investing in a cutting edge, custom-built practice management system.
“We really wanted to come with a different approach to the industry,” she says.
“We said, ‘how can we offer a great experience using all of the technology available to us now?’
“It was really at that point that we conducted a comprehensive system architecture review, which revealed that to achieve our vision we needed to build and invest in something ourselves.”
The new system significantly overhauled business operations, enabling transparent tracking of internal service level agreement times across the company.
“It has allowed us to have operational excellence, business scalability, and an unparalleled customer experience through the whole business,” she says.
Melissa counts the reform as her biggest achievement.
“We have a complete lens on the entire organisation to know where any customer is becoming off track with our service level agreements, which can really probably in our industry only be achieved through extensive technology investments to be able to achieve this level of transparency.”
Leading outstanding teams at her 60-strong firm has also been a source of pride for Melissa, whose passion lies in building high-performing teams and bringing out people’s best.
“My biggest success would have to be my people,” she says, adding the investment in people and company culture is reflected in the firm’s growth.
However finding the right staff hasn’t always been easy. The biggest challenge has been integrating external personnel into the company culture, which is “very unique” in comparison to other conveyancing firms.
It’s a challenge Melissa confronted with another innovation in early 2021 as The Great Resignation hit.
As her firm rapidly grew and the property market boomed, the industry was grappling with a staff shortage.
To address the issue, her firm established the Ownit Academy to train young women, bringing in 20 to 30 at a time to skill them up so she would have a ready workforce.
“We brought in a learning and development specialist, who ran the Ownit Academy, which was great – we could foster careers for young women. That was really how we dealt with that challenge at the time,” she says.
Peers and colleagues spoke highly of Melissa’s dedication and profile that she has built in Queensland’s conveyancing industry.
They noted the growth and consumer offering she has built, how she has used digital technology to offer flexibility and choice for clients and her systematic approach to increasing her business.
For Melissa, who has two young children, family has always been her priority and she is keen to inspire other women they too can have a career, be a mum and still thrive.
In fact, her firm has systems in place to provide staff extra support if required, so they can leave on time.
“At five o’clock, I encourage everyone out the door and following the same philosophy that I live by, which is ‘be where your shoes are’. If I’m at home, that’s where I am and I really try to disconnect from work to ensure balance in every respect”.
