Q. Who is Azura Financial and how do you run it?

My brother and I are the founders of Azura Financial, which is a brokerage in Sydney, writing predominantly residential loans. We have about 30 people in our office and about 25 people in offshore positions.

We’ve settled just under $1.2 billion in the financial year 2024 (which we are pretty proud of), but we think there is a lot of potential to push higher over the next few years.

I am a broker, but the business comprises 12 separate broking businesses, which all have their own end-to-end teams. So, the overarching business doesn’t have any staff; we try to run it pretty lean. Ben and I essentially manage the business ourselves, as well as run our own broking businesses.

Our role is to support and develop all the brokers and their respective staff to be able to achieve their own goals and build robust, market-leading businesses in their own right, while maintaining the highest possible level of customer service and client outcomes.

We have almost 500 five-star Google reviews and we’ve never received less than five stars, which is something that we are immensely proud of.

The idea is that we have a high-performing culture of service, not sales, which focuses on support and development through providing shared training, resources, and services to power our brokers. As the saying goes: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Q. Azura was named one of Australia’s Top 25 Brokerages 2024 (number 10). What do you think the main factor is behind the success of Azura Financial?

The biggest thing that has contributed to the group’s success is our people. We have been extremely lucky to have attracted, assembled, and trained a fantastic group of professionals who have all contributed towards the culture and support network of the business.

I think a large part of our success at Azura is the whole team’s unwavering commitment to client outcomes. Everyone is fully invested in this ethos and holds each other to a very high standard. That has really been a distinguishing factor for us.

The fundamental difference at Azura Financial is that our brokers don’t work for us, they partner with us. We are fully invested in our brokers’ long-term success, while ensuring that our relationship remains transparent, fair, and commercially sound. So, if you are interested in taking your business to the next level, we’d love to hear from you.

Q. What do you think it takes to be a successful broker in this market?

At the end of the day, we all have the same products, what sets us apart are:

  • Our knowledge – our ability to find and recommend the best and most competitive solution and providing this efficiently.

  • Our process – making it seamless, scalable, efficient, robust, eliminating any possible errors, and allowing for the effective processing and management of applications.

  • Our customer service – getting it right, knowing what to do, and doing it quickly.

If you nail those three things, you’re already miles ahead of your competition.

Broking businesses are broadly comprised of four key business functions: business development and customer acquisition; credit; processing and administration; and client management. Ensuring all these functions are operating at the highest level comes down to planning, execution, hard work, time management, systems, documentation, delegation, and much more!

Q. What are your top tips for brokers just starting out in building their business?

The most important tip I can give everyone is to have a plan. Every business needs a plan, not just broking businesses. Have a one-page document for your one-year and a three-year plan that includes business and financial metrics, key projects and milestones, and qualitative measures. You can then work backwards and figure out what you need to do on a quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily basis to achieve your goals.

Break your goals up into quarters and choose a few key projects that you want to prioritise and complete before moving on to the next. If you try to do too much at once, you’ll spread your focus too thin and you won’t get anything done.

Be patient and work harder than ever through these slower markets. When the market finally turns, you need your business to be prepared and have as much capacity as possible, so you’ll be extremely thankful for all the work you’ve put in.

Don’t give any advice that you wouldn’t take yourself and always be generous with your time. It sounds simple, but a lot people in this industry don’t operate this way.

Learn how to build a team through processes and delegation and hire people as quickly as you can. It will pay off. If you wait until you’re too busy, it’s too late.