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In the latest episode of Broker Daily’s Business Accelerator, Back spoke with Broker Daily director Alex Whitlock about the ongoing structural shift in how broking businesses are operating – one in which old rules no longer apply and previous ways of working are no longer sufficient.
“I don’t think I’ve seen it like this in years,” said Back.
“I think the light switch is certainly on for many now and they’ve realised that a new paradigm of broking is upon us. 2026 is here and it’s time to get serious.”
Together, Back and Whitlock worked through where brokers may be at risk of being left behind and how they can prevent it.
Subtle changes that reshape how brokers work
Back noted that the industry has undergone significant behavioural change, even if it has not always felt dramatic on a day-to-day basis.
The shift from face-to-face identification to digital verification, from wet signatures to electronic signing, and from in-person meetings to Zoom may not seem like major adjustments, but Back said that they have fundamentally changed how brokers operate and what they can achieve in a day.
“We’ve seen a huge change over the industry,” Back said.
“Some of it might feel a little more subtle, but the reality is these are huge changes in behaviour – in how clients interact with us and how we work with our banking partners.”
Market share today does not guarantee tomorrow
However, Back warned against allowing past advancements to become a barrier to present-day progression.
“Comfort shows up as familiarity, predictable referrals, known lenders, known processors. The idea that the things that got us where we are today will keep getting us where we want to go – that’s the danger,” he said.
Despite brokers holding a significant share of the lending market, Back warned against complacency. Holding market share today does not guarantee it in the future, particularly as new lending solutions emerge and adjacent industries evolve, he said.
“We’re starting to see markets open up that we haven’t previously thought about before because people are thinking very differently about how they capture more market share or deeper share of wallet, or how they meet the needs of a client where those needs have radically changed,” Back said.
“The longer our success lasts, the harder it becomes to question it. And I think over the last several years we’ve been very much hanging our hat on that increased market share at 77-and-a-half-odd per cent. But I think it would be dangerous to think that just because we hold market share now, it will continue into the future.”
Back pointed to changes in private lending, trust-based lending, asset finance, and the rise of buyer’s agents as examples of how markets can open and shift quickly.
Whitlock noted that resisting change is not a flaw unique to brokers – it is human nature.
He said: “It’s tempting to make assumptions about business and to leave the decision making to other people. It’s a comfortable thing for me to say I don’t really know or understand it, so I’ll just kind of excuse myself from the responsibility.
“But I look around and we’re surrounded by things that are daunting. The discomfort of learning is ever-present in business and in life. And I have no doubt that across all facets of excellence in broking, it’s the same.”
Auditing the business, not just the workflow
To avoid falling into the complacency trap, Back said it is essential for brokers to continually audit both themselves and their businesses.
He said: “The question I’d be getting people to think about right now is: if nothing changed in the next 24 months, would your current model still win?”
Back said a coaching framework that has been used to train brokers for more than a decade is Marshall Goldsmith’s Wheel of Change, which divides development into four quadrants: what you will create, what you will preserve, what you will eliminate, and what you must accept as unchangeable realities.
“This model works because it gets us to reflect on the things that really matter in your business,” Back said.
He outlined three critical action points for brokers today.
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First, brokers should identify the one thing their business relies on most – whether that is a referrer, a lender, or even themselves – and then ask the question: if that weakened by 50 per cent, what breaks first? Back said this exercise quickly reveals where a business is most exposed.
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Second, brokers should ask themselves: if they were starting the business again today, armed with everything they now know, what would they do differently?
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Finally, Back encouraged brokers to block out a couple of hours for what he called “strategic discomfort”. This time should be spent stepping away from the day-to-day act of being a broker and instead questioning assumptions, stress-testing the business model, and viewing the operation through the lens of a business owner rather than a practitioner.
Back added: “I want brokers to be constantly curious. The research and the answers they get from asking more questions will help determine the models and the businesses they drive into the future.”
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