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Speaking on Broker Daily’s Business Accelerator podcast, broker coach and Broker Essentials founder Jason Back said brokers need to move away from the old model of transactional referral relationships and instead focus on strategic partnerships built on trust, communication, and shared customer outcomes.
“Referral partnerships are nothing new to the industry. But still, around 20–30 per cent of broker businesses come from referral partnerships, so it’s still an important piece,” Back said.
“It is a continual evolution of one of the founding modalities of lead generation. But I’d have to say that the old referral model is probably broken now and we really need to rethink it, reshape it and approach it with a different tactic to really make it part of our ecosystem.”
The old referral model is ‘broken’
Back said many referral arrangements in the broking sector have historically been built on loose relationships and inconsistent engagement.
“I think referral relationships historically, and I know we’ve all done this, including myself, have been built off the back of things like random coffees or just sort of hoping that because we know you, you’ll refer to us, or we send a couple of random referrals through every now and again,” he said.
“We have this sort of mindset of needing to have this countless number of referral partners because that’s what we need to make sure we get the volume into the business so we can write the numbers we want.
“But the reality of where we’re going now is that these relationships need to be more strategic alliances. We need to be talking more about shared client experiences, aligned values and reliability.”
Back said the strongest broker partnerships are increasingly centred around customer experience rather than simple lead swapping.
“The reality of the best brokers and brokerages that I work with, I think they approach it from, ‘How can we create a better client experience together?’ So, I think there’s a really big mindset shift there,” Back said.
Brokers need to become ‘referable’ first
According to Back, brokers should focus on strengthening their own brand and processes before actively seeking referral relationships.
“What brokers need to do first is they need to become referable,” he said.
“When you talk about that, building that credibility – your website, your socials, what people say about you – when I do those first impressions audits, what will I find, what will I uncover, what will I see?
“Because just like you’re doing research into who you ideally want to work with, accountants and financial planners and real estate agents and conveyancers and solicitors and BAs and the like do exactly the same.”
Back also pointed to the importance of process and communication standards in attracting quality referral partners.
“I did a survey a few years ago. I reached out to the top 50 REB real estate agencies around the country. And from the responses that I got, one of the things that fascinated me, especially when you’re looking at those really high-end performers, was that they were less interested in things like commission sharing, which is always a really sensitive topic in our industry and rightfully so,” he said.
“They were more interested in the process, the communication, the turnaround time and the client experience.”
Quality over quantity
While many brokers attempt to build large referral networks, Back said the better approach is often maintaining a smaller group of high-quality relationships.
“I’m not a massive fan of having this really wide and broad group of referral partners,” he said.
“I think the ideology of having 20 or 30 or 40 referral partners sounds great, but the reality is you’ve got to maintain those relationships, and I just don’t think you can do that well if you’ve got so many.
“So I think there’s a small group – it might be half a dozen, spread across two, three or four different industries. So accountants, planners, BAs, etc.
“I think less is more when it comes to the number, and higher quality over quantity would be the modality when it comes to maintaining them.”
Communication and consistency key to longevity
Back said many referral relationships ultimately fail due to poor communication and inconsistent engagement.
“Most of these partnerships generally fail from neglect. So inconsistent communication, poor customer experience, lack of updating during the process, only reaching out when you want something or when you want a referral, and treating it instead like a transaction,” he said.
He said brokers should establish clear expectations and communication processes from the outset.
“When it comes to reporting, it’s about having a really clear cadence, not just randomly meeting up during the year, but having some really dedicated times where you might meet face-to-face,” Back said.
“These good relationships don’t happen by chance. They are manicured, there’s a clear cadence, and they are well looked after. They are not something that is just an afterthought when you’ve got some downtime.”
Looking ahead, Back said brokers who succeed in 2026 will likely be those who can embed trust and reliability into every aspect of their referral relationships.
“Brokers that will win aren’t necessarily the loudest. They’re not the biggest and brightest on socials. They’re the most trusted operators,” he said.
“I think that’s where it’s going to come down to – referral partnerships will be built on certainty, clarity and trust, and it will be operationalised so it’s embedded in that other person’s business where it’s just this thing that we do that works every time, and we know the outcome that we’re going to get.
“So I think operationalising trust is at the cornerstone of every good B2B relationship.”
[Related: How should brokers approach lead generation in 2026?]
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