How Ian Fulton fell into a career that keeps on giving

Ian Fulton, Aussie Campbelltown franchisee and current treasurer of the chamber of commerce, says he fell into a career in finance more than 30 years ago.

“I was working for the federal government at the time, in what is now Centrelink, I had been there six years and wasn’t getting a lot of job satisfaction,’’ he says.

“I saw a job advertised with IMB as trainee branch manager, wrote away for an interview – this was in the days before faxes and email – they wrote back and said, yes, come and see us.

“And so I sat down with George Bailey, who was their regional manager at the time, and the personnel manager of IMB, and they offered me the job.

“I started as their branch manager in Campbelltown in 1981.’’

Job satisfaction has not been a problem since then because Ian has been doing what he loves doing – “helping people achieve what they desire’’.

“Buying a home is the major purchase in the life of most people, so helping them achieve that is very satisfying,’’ Ian says.

“And most people appreciate what you do, that’s why I am now writing loans for the grandchildren of people I wrote loans for back in 1981.’’

Up until the end of last year the premises of Aussie Campbelltown had for some years been in Queen Street, near the Campbelltown court house.

Ian says there’s some very good reasons he packed up and moved to new premises on the third level of Campbelltown Mall, on the Queen Street side.

One of them is that purchasing a home and financing it is a family decision for most people.

“There are more families coming past our new premises, whereas in Queen Street it was mostly individuals coming past through the day, and if both adults in the family come in here it’s easier to make a decision,’’ he explains.

[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“What happens here in the Mall is that people have been to Woollies, Coles or Aldi and got their groceries, and coming up the ramp they see us and head into our office and ask to make an appointment.[/social_quote]

“So, yes, we are very happy here in the new premises, we are getting good results,’’ he says.

The other reason was lack of parking up in Queen Street, another problem that’s evaporated for Ian and his team of four at Aussie Campbelltown.

There’s plenty of parking and it’s all a very short walk to see Ian and his team.

Like many other people, in the late 1970s Ian Fulton moved to Campbelltown, “where I could afford to buy when we got married, so we came here with a young child in tow’’.

And he quickly twigged that around these parts it pays to roll up your sleeves and get stuck into volunteer roles.

As well as serving in the army cadet corp and at Macarthur and districts association for the disabled, Ian Fulton has been helping out local business chambers in various executive roles for 30 years.

In 1981-82 he joined the Campbelltown chamber for the first time after he started working for IMB.

“I was treasurer back then and Jim Marsden was president,’’ he recalls.

He strongly believes business chambers play a vital role in the local community.

“The development of the Campbelltown chamber over the past five years has been great, under Anne Parnham’s leadership and then Rick Fitzpatrick’s, and now Glenn Creecy – and it’s on an upward trend,’’ he says.

“I’d like to see a lot more of the big businesses be members – we’ve got a lot of small and medium size businesses as members.

“Actually one of my missions being here is to get businesses in the Mall to join up the chamber.

“It’s not a small business chamber so we’re looking for representation across the board,’’ says Ian Fulton.

Having been curious about how mortgage brokers like Aussie Campbelltown make their money, I ask Ian Fulton to explain it to me and my readers.

It’s very simple, really.

[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“Aussie is a no fee to the client model, we get paid on results and that payment comes from the lender,’’ he says.[/social_quote]

In other words, Aussie clients don’t pay Aussie a cent.

The other thing I wanted to know was who uses a service like the one offered by Aussie and is it just first home buyers?

“No, we get a mix of clients,’’ responds Ian.

“First home buyers are very much an important part of our business, probably 20-25 per cent of our business in this area is first home buyers, predominantly because this is affordable territory for first home buyers.

“We get quite a few of what you may call upgraders, moving on to a better property than they were before, and about 15 to 20 percent is investors – mostly locals looking to grow their wealth by owning property and getting income from it.’’

♦ For more information visit the Aussie Campbelltown website, https://www.aussie.com.au/find-store/nsw/campbelltown.html