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Mortgage advisor Clayton D'Lima, of Mortgage Design, left the bank to go out on his own as a mortgage broker less than a year ago, and he says it was absolutely the right decision.

"Leaving the corporate world after 15 years has given me the flexibility to work from home and also look after the family as in my young children while still being able to pursue my passion for finance and property.

"One of the challenges is that I understood the policies of the bank I was leaving, but I had to take time to figure out how the others worked. The benefit is that I can now select the appropriate bank that's in the best interests of my client, rather than being tied to one lender."

Clayton says it is important to remember that you will work hard to keep the income ticking over, but it's worth it.

Fire and general insurance advisor Stewart Wright, of Prosper Group, says it was the best moved he ever made because he made it at the right time, and he had done his preparation before taking the plunge.

"With freedom comes responsibility. There is nothing like owning a business to get you off the couch.

"The biggest challenge is not knowing what I don't know which was heaps because I had never been in business before. However, I surrounded myself with people such as my BNI networking group and I asked them a lot of questions."

Stewart says his business coach has been invaluable.

"Don't try to do it all yourself because there are always those who are more qualified to do it for you and get better results, like your marketing consultant, business coach and accountant," he said.

Action business coach Chris Baker says that after coming out of a career as an accountant for 15 years, he was blown away by how little he actually knew about the coalface of business.

"Being an accountant I thought I knew it all. After I went into business for myself, I remember wishing for the help of some business experts who could teach me how to do it.

"The reality is that there are successful business owners all over the place and they were happy to share their knowledge and give me a bit of mentoring. If you just ask, people answer. Don't hesitate to put your hand up and retain some expert business advisors," he said.