Loan Officer Blueprint: How to Break the $50 Million Barrier

I'm looking at the loans, look at the pipeline, but I said, my team gives a higher level of service and touch than I ever could because I'm only one human being. You know, there's four ellos on my team. They're only. They only work with my customers, my realtor partners, and they do a better job than I ever did because I'm only one person. I just couldn't get to the stuff quick enough.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Lending Leadership, the Mortgage Pros. I'm Tom Mills, one of your co hosts here, here with my partner, Dave Holland. And we have Rachel Trash joining us today in replace. In placement of Robert Philly. Also going to have a little fun. And we've got a great topic today. I'm really looking forward to it.

We're going to kind of interview Dave a little bit. So, you know, I remember when we, you know, embarked into this partnership, Dave talked a lot about, you know, paving the path for other originators and mistakes he learned along the way and how we could really build a platform that, that could. Could help originators through that path. And today we, you know, we want to start kind of a part one of two series. So, you know, how do you go from zero to $50 million and then double it to $200 million and beyond? You know, today we're going to sit down with Dave, who's been 25 years in the business, has funded nearly $2 billion in personal production in over 10,000 transactions. In part one, we're going to rewind to the early years, talk about how Dave built his reputation. They allow him to get to that level of production of 50 million, what he had to change before he could really break through it. But stay tuned for part two as well, where we'll unpack how he scaled past 100 million and beyond.

So super excited for today's episode.

Oh, you make me sound so important. It's humbling. I love it. I love it, Dave.

That's, that's a huge number, though. You know, as we were talking about this. All right, what. Look back at your 25 years of business and, and how many families were served and, and how much was funded in transactions. I mean, $2 billion. That is quite a legacy. You could stop here. You could stop here if you wanted to.

But I think we're just. I think we're just getting started.

Yeah. I mean, my leg. I always wanted to do produce loans. You know, a lot of grit. Get in there, do it. But that's not. I mean, certainly, I Want to do loans. I want to help my realtor partners, want to make money, help clients.

But, like, now that's not my 100% focus. I want to help other loan officers. Right. Do the, you know, the mistakes that I have made. We were talking, and I guess, can we call it the green room? We were talking in the green room before in my. And this will kind of plan, what we're talking about. I said to my wife, like, four or five years ago, like, how come we didn't go to, like, Spain or, like, Central America or the islands before we had kids? I. I have four kids.

And she kind of rolled her eyes and puffed at me and said, because you were always working. That's all you did. Seven days. Like, we go to Bethany Beach, Delaware, for, like, three days, like a long weekend, because I had to get back to work. Or when we had kids, I would always take the kids back to take naps. And I'm not like a dad who's the nap king. I'd go back and basically hide in the closet and work for three or four hours. And I was like, I was lying about how much I was working because I needed to get work done until I found a better way, which I guess we'll get into part two.

But it gave me the core of my systems and process and what I need, what I do now and what I needed to do to be more successful.

I love this. I love this topic. Tom.

You.

You came to us and you were like, hey, I want to. I want to talk about this tactical blueprint. Because so many loan officers fall into that same trap that Dave fell into. I know you had fallen into it. Robert shared in the past that he's fallen into it, but sure, how do you get out of that? And. And I love that you. You wanted to talk about this, because I don't think you're alone in that, Dave. I think that is.

Most people, they think that's how it needs to be, and it doesn't until you're on the other side of that and you realize the. The strategic and tactical ways that you can get out of that. It doesn't have to be like that.

Well, the most respectable thing about how you built your business here and where it is today, as you mentioned, you know, helping other loan officers, which you do, you know, we're doing every day, but you're still. Your business is still thriving. So you've really built your business to a point that you are able to go, you know, pay it forward in a way. But still serve your referral partners. Your team is rocking, you know, continuously having some good months and you know, obviously you're, you're respected, you know, here throughout the industry, very much here at HMA and a leader to our originators. And you know, I think that we, you have got a great bit, a great bit to share with us that I totally lost my train of thought. That part's going to get totally thrown out. But figure I just.

You're doing great.

Let's.

Okay, let's back up.

Like when I got a transaction early on I was so happy. I'm like, I can like pay my rent this month. Like one, one or two was gravy. All the rest after one or two was gravy. So.

But it was, you'd say early on you made a commitment to like learning really early on you just wanted to try to learn everything you could be.

Yeah. Tell us about your like, you know, obviously they get, you know, I think we talk about, we broke this into two segments. Everybody kind of plateaus at a different, you know, different level of production. And today it's, it's harder to plant, you know, to plateau where people could before because there's so much more involved with the transaction. We nurture them so much differently, you know. And I know you were, you're really efficient. So you were able to, you know, before you even got assistance and really built a team, you were doing, you know, nearly $50 million in production all on you. So let's talk, step back a little bit.

You know, to get to like 50 million in production. At that time you're probably 160,000 loan amount average. So a lot of units there. Right. So you were getting referred and you know, you obviously established referral partners through some way through a reputation. Let's tell me about some of the things that you did that established that reputation. You mentioned learning and being that student. But what are some of the tactical stuff that helped you establish a reputation allows you to, I mean that's, that's top producer level.

You know, you did that on your.

Especially back then.

Challenging.

Yeah. Two quick points. Everyone has a ceiling. You know, sometimes that's 10 million, sometimes it's 20. I think most people top out around 30, 30 before, before they need help. I guess my technique to break through that and do 50. Because this is back in the day, remember, right. When we had paper applications, we didn't have POS's.

I have a CRM. There was no E sign. I would print everything out, meet you in person, hopefully at the office or if Rachel was doing a refinance, I'd print everything out, highlight where you need to sign and send back. So I think the one year I did like almost 300 transactions with that assistant. My strategy, Tom, was just to put in the hours, 12, 14, 16 hour days. It was painful. Like when you picture someone, the first guy to the Pole, Norwegian, he took like dog sleds, right. And dogs to get there.

And he made it like in three days. And the British were Man, hauling stuff, Right. And they died on the way back. That was me. I was the British. Like I would die for. But how I established, I, you know, I don't know. We talked about that question.

I think it was. I always said what I was going to do. You know, I didn't lie to the agents, to my realtor partners, or my customers, which is important. Right. And instead of if I was doing a deal with you, Tom, and you were the realtor, and I screwed something up or something went sideways, instead of like hiding from it and burying my head in the sand, I owned it right away. I knew that instinctively. Right. I knew to own it right away.

Because if you keep putting them off, putting off. People just get angry and angry. Yeah. The closer it compounds your problem. So I own stuff and then, you know, just hard work. I would up. We didn't have a CRM, so how I would update agents was via email. And I was a coward at first.

I would call their office number where a lot of agents, even 10, 15 years ago weren't in the office and leave a voicemail because I don't want to talk to them. So I would update them before I even got on the coaching. I would know to update them on a weekly basis and just, you know, whatever I said I would do, like my word was my bond. And that's kind of what I did. And you know, in Pittsburgh, it's not a massive city, right. So word got around in some areas and I did a great job for agent A. They referred me Bob or Julie, and just kind of went from there. But the usual stuff like hard work, you know, is.

Is a given in our industry if you're going to be successful. Right. And, and really living it and having a passion for it, having a lot of grit, I know that's a word that's tossed around a lot, but having a lot of grit and humility and then wanting so bad not to fail. I worked really hard.

I'm glad you brought that up, not wanting to fail, but I do actually want to talk about those moments that the door gets slammed in your face. And in sales, the more no's you get, the closer you are to a yes. How did you handle rejection in that. That early stage of starting off your career? You know, as a young buck, were you. Did rejection really kind of break you down? Or were you like, okay, next, let's go.

I mean, I wasn't that resilient. It broke me down, certainly, you know, I was young. I was 22. I was. I had My uncle suits and I like one sports jacket. I look like I was about 14, right? And I would go weekly to agents office with rate sheets, right? Pass out rate sheets and they go right in the garbage can. But I'd go like my office was. My area was the south hills of Pittsburgh.

That's where I could farm realtors and customers. So I'd go every week or twice a week. And some of these agents said, if we give you a deal, will you stop coming in our office? And I'd fax rate sheets every day. When you'd put all the paper in, I'd fax the rate sheets to them every day. And I just, I think I broke people down. Like, this kid's not going away.

I feel like people need that now. I feel like sometimes we need a little bit more of. I don't want to say the old school drive, but sometimes people want something a little too quickly and that they're not putting in that grit. We do have a good balance now though, where we do have the tech and we do have a lot of tools that can help you, you know, save time with some of those activities. But I don't know, having that grit and starting that way, that's, that's a unique.

I mean, persistence is still something we believe in. I mean, you know, and salespeople like to be sold and want to feel that they, you know, somebody's coming after and wanting their business. And, you know, but did you, you know, while you were early on then you're, you're learning about, you know, how to be a loan technician on your products and things like that? Was there any sort of sales training, coaching, collaboration amongst peers and hey, here's how you go grow your business. Did you have any of that going on your first, like 10 years?

And I walked away from that seminar and I said, I'm going to be successful. Like when these people had no, these were not good loan officers. Not that they have anything against tattoos, but I saw a guy with a tattoo on his neck and on his back of his head. I'm like, this is my competition. Like, I think I'm going to, I'm going to be okay. But no, I didn't, I didn't. There was, there wasn't those coaching groups and stuff back then. So I think loan officers coming up today, we always say at the company, Tom and Rachel, like, get in our draft.

Like, let people who have done it pave the way. Like, I'm not the smartest guy, but I am damn good at copying people.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. You don't need to, you know, learn from somebody else. And the mistakes they made along the way makes it a lot easier and it's something we really believe in. I know one of the things you do, I see you do really well is, is implement. You implement fast, you know, and a lot of people don't do that. A lot of people, salespeople in all industries, they go to conferences, they are real excited about these ideas where they're there. It's like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. Like I.

One of the things I've always respected about you is you're back to work on Monday, putting it into place and you made a decision, you're note taking on the flight home, you know, so I respect that about you and I think that's one of the keys, man, is, is. Is how to, you know, learn and then learn, you know, ask questions around it and then try to implement it in your way and do it fast. I think a lot of people fear that for some reason.

Yeah, well, or they go back to their company, right? And they're like, hey, I learned all this stuff at this conference. And then, you know, the old bucks are like, yeah, yeah, that's not the way we do it. We do it this way. Like when you do that, we all know this. On this call, you cap yourself, right? And then you're doing non productive income activities that you can hire someone out to do it at 25, $30 an hour.

Yeah, I remember that. You know, there was this phase where coaching and in his business, like launchers really wanted to, you know, they wanted to learn to be better and, and that was a thing. A lot of companies had that, that way about them. A lot of aged leaders that, you know, were kind of dying. They weren't, they weren't hip to the. The new concepts. And they would just say, oh, that stuff doesn't work. It's just blah, blah, blah, blah.

You look today and that stuff works, you know, And a lot of those people that didn't think like that, the business has passed them by. And those that vote embrace learning and embrace what's new, Embrace the ideas, collaboration amongst their peers. They're the ones that are still thriving today, you know, and doing it easy too. Because, I mean, right now, I mean, you know, the business that you're doing now, flashback, you know, even when you're doing half of it, you're doing, I don't have 25% of the work putting into it now, because you have a team around that that's doing things and giving it even a higher level of service.

Well, that's the thing. I just came from a meeting with one of my realtor partners, a newer partner, hope to be a newer partner. And I explained the team concept. I said, hey, don't worry. I'm involved in every transaction. In a way, I am. I. I'm looking at the loans, look at the pipeline.

But I said, my team gives a higher level of service and touch than I ever could because I'm only one human being. You know, there's four los on my team. They're only. They only work with my customers, my realtor partners, and they do a better job than I ever did because I'm only one person. I just couldn't get to the stuff quick enough, you know, when I came back from my first coaching group. And he'll never listen to this. My old partner, Jonathan, he goes, ah, that stuff's all bullshit, right? And then he saw my production keep going up and up and up, and his eyes kind of perked up and he implemented a lot of the stuff that I was doing. And I never gave him a hard time about it, but it does seem like pie in the sky.

But. But it works, right? And I was at a point in my life, which I know we'll get to the next episode, where my wife and I just had our fourth kid and I did not want to work 12. I mean, 12 hours was generally the minimum. I don't want to do it anymore. I was burnout. I didn't want any more realtor partners. I was happy with 40 or 50 million, and that's all I wanted to do. But then, but then I found a better way.

So.

So how long were you kind of, I don't want to say stuck at that ceiling of around 40, 50 million, but how long did you linger there before kind of catapulting to the next level?

And again, you're only one person. So it was just you on the team, you and a processor at that point.

I'm not.

Let's just grind, baby. Let's get it done.

Well, I know today you believe it's, you know, it's more just people. It's about systems and people. You know, when you were just like a one man show, you know, now the team, it's, you know, we believe that same way every time we preach that. But you know, when you were individual, did you have any of that? Did you, did you have a system for how you did things?

I did. I don't think it was a great system, but it was basically talk to the customer, sell them either FedEx in the documents or try to get them in the office. At a certain point I stopped doing house calls. But yeah, and then just grind it through as quickly as we can to processing. So collect all the documents up front so I have them. But if someone pushed back, just write them a pre approval, make sure I was safe and move forward quickly because you know, you got to remember going back 10 years ago, it was tough to close a transaction in 30 days. Like it wasn't, it wasn't a given. Now we get 30 day transactions.

I don't even start sweating it as long as I have three weeks. But back then, closing a deal in 30 days was complicated.

Yep. So today, you know, as we work with originators and try to help originators, we're not telling, you know, I don't think our message is go work 80 hours a week like, like Dave did, you know, go, go do this, do it alone. You know, don't go to conferences. You know, it's not what we would say. So let's start to break that down a little bit based upon like, you know, what you've learned and then looking at today how the business has evolved, you know, what would you do? What are some of the habits that you would have that you know, that I know aren't a lot of habits we believe in. But let's talk a little bit about those like Monday through Friday habits. As a, for an originator that's in the middle of that, you know, doing a couple million dollars a month in origination, what do you think are some of the key habits?

Be time blocking, which I'm still not good at. Right. Because I get back into my transactions like old d. Old habits die hard. Time blocking, you know, you got an eight hour day, you should be making calls, you know, especially if you're not doing a lot of business for two hours a day. Just hit the phone really hard and get as many face to faces in as possible. The phone's not going to ring and then, you know, great. When you're involved in a transaction, have great communication with all parties.

What are some of the ways that you know, you're. You communicate now throughout a transaction, our.

CRM updates all parties at various milestones. That's easy. That's taken off my plate. I'll call, try to call the agents or one of my loan partners. Seven to 10 days. I break it up. I have four loan partners and I call their agents. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday.

I try to get organized with that because I want to touch the agents because I want to see what's going on with the transaction and give them a good level of service. I send the commitment letters out, I'm all over that. We get the appraisals out as quickly as possible to all parties. Just all the touch points that are anxieties for the realtors and are pinch points during the transaction. I just make sure those people are updated at all those milestones. And listen, the agents appreciate it, the customers appreciate it, the deals go smooth. Doesn't always translate in the business Every time. But you gain a reputation as a great communicator, which a lot of ellos are not.

I don't know why they wouldn't call the listing agent. I mean, we, we talked about this as a company a couple weeks ago. You know, for me, I want to give the listing agent good service because it smooths the transaction for my buyer's agent and my customers. Also, you know, to be frank, it's an audition too, but I've had ELO say, well, I don't want to call the listing agent because then they have my name and cell phone number. And if the deal goes south, they, they know how to go the hold of me. I'm like, that is like the worst mindset. Like, not many of our transactions go south, but that's how you're walking into your day. We should probably get you, you know, some shock treatment.

Yeah, they're gonna find you.

They're gonna.

Because you're not calling them. They're gonna find you.

You're on. You're on the Internet somewhere, right?

And I mean to be able to have that conversation and smooth that out before it becomes a full blown, you know, fire. It could just be something that could be handled ahead of time. I think you hit it on the head. The communication piece. Why are people so afraid to communicate? What is it?

Are they afraid of rejection maybe? I mean, if you're afraid of rejection in this business. Because we're. I've always said we're in technical sales, so we're selling a product, a widget that's complicated. Right. But there is a huge sales and marketing aspect. But Tom, if I had to do it all over again, right? Having so much knowledge in the mortgage business is both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes I feel like I over communicate or get involved in stuff like your average lo at XYZ bank or credit union aren't going to get involved in, I would. And I'm stealing this from our friend Rich Sierbinski.

Why is this not on silent? I'm stealing this from our friend Rich Szerbinski. I would create a content and marketing machine, right? I would put me, or probably not me, a better version, cooler looking version of me as the content and just bring in loans like that, like that you don't need. You can have great people behind you that have the knowledge in this day and age, right. And companies are tolerant of it. You see some of these lows who are just doing gobs of business that are like YouTube stars. And I bet I'm sure, they're all awesome people, right? But I bet a lot of them don't know shit about the blocking and tackling of mortgages, right? But they know how to drive the business in. So what's more important, you know, from a production revenue standpoint? It's not what, you know, it's how. How the.

Doing the deals is the easy part at the end of the day, the hard part is driving in the business.

It's finding what your superhuman power in this business is. And. And usually it's what you like, you know, and you're. You're really good at, and. And it's also what happens to make you money. And, you know, I think a lot of people run to the safe place. You know, the. The safe place is email.

The safe places, you know, that, that. The to do list, you know, like, that's the things you have to do versus the things you should be doing, you know, and I think that those that find their superhuman power, they realize this is what I should be doing, and they feel empowered to go do that more. And, you know, and then the results come. So what would you say, Dave, is your superhuman power?

Whoa. A high tolerance and threshold for pain. I mean, I'm half joking. I'm half serious, right? And I generally like. Generally most days, I like what I do. I think we brought this up on a podcast months ago. It's like my middle daughter Mary said, daddy, you always look happy. I said, I do because I genuinely like what I do like.

I think this is what I was built to do, you know, help loan officers, help borrowers, meet with realtors, get in the hard deals. Like, it's. I love what I do, and a lot of people don't have it. And I think a lot of los are either in it for the money or just in it for, like, a job. Not. Not a lot of those. Some of the los. And if you don't have a true passion for it, then you'll never be truly successful.

Yeah, well, well said. That's probably anything in life, not just this business, but this business takes a lot of emotion, a lot of. A lot of grit, a lot of hard work, a lot of pain infliction. So very. So I. I very much so. It applies to what we do.

And, and we know this, right? This business will suck the life out of you if you aren't careful. It will eat you alive. Right. You know, if you compare yourself to other Ellos, like, oh, why didn't Judy send me that deal? She sent it to Frank instead Like, if you get in that mindset, it will. It will eat you alive. Because it's. They're not reject. They're not so much rejecting you, they're just rejecting your offer at that time.

So it can be an emotional roller coaster as well, too. Gotta block it out. Rachel, put the blinders on.

Well, I think that's important. Again, like Tom said, in any sales role, you're gonna come up against that. So to have that high tolerance for pain, to have that thick skin, to know your superpower, those are all. Those are all catalysts to get you to the next level. And to keep in mind, what's your goal? What do you want? Yeah, you don't know. If you don't know where you're going, then any road will take you there. And maybe not the easiest road, maybe not the best road. Yeah, so.

So have that goal, you know, and.

I would add, like, if your company's not willing to entertain some form of assistance at some point, you're. You're going to cap yourself, because this business is not impossible to do alone. But unless you have a good, you know, back office processor, underwriter, closer, and once you get to a certain point, you're going to cap, and you're going to need some help, because you can't do it all alone. Unless you want to work seven days a week, you know, 12, 14 hours a day. But even then, you'll cap yourself.

And.

That'S what we'll get into the next episode. I did, like, 190 million in 21. And there's no way one human being can do 750 loans by themselves. Even if you work 24 hours a day, it's. It's not possible in its systems and process and a bunch of other buzzwords that we're gonna have ready same way every time. But you need that in place to scale and do a lot of volume.

Yeah. You think about the last 25 years. I think you've been originating in the last seven years. So, you know, really a quarter, you know, roughly a quarter, the last quarter of your career is probably. Probably learned more in that time from a sales, you know, perspective of really how to grow business than any of the other, you know, of the other 18 years that you were in it.

100%. 100%.

Yeah. I'm excited to dive into that, too. I mean, I know it's a cliche, but instead of working harder, getting into that, working smarter, more strategic, more tactical mindset, and how, like Tom said, the last quarter of your career, being able to blow past 100 million when you were stuck at that 50 million ceiling, like, that's powerful stuff. That's life changing stuff.

Yeah. So episode two, we'll talk a little bit more about that and the, the, the way Dave grew his business and then you know, how we kind of built that ecosystem here as leaders to, to enable others to, to, to, to, you know, have the same type of path and how this podcast purposes. Hopefully somebody listens and there's some things that, tips and tricks and little nuggets that we give them that to help.

Them along their way there, there's, there's a better way. Right. And people, you know, people have done it. So if there's not someone at your company who's doing, first of all, there's some of your company, grab him or her chat with them about, if not grab another mentor outside your company. And there's plenty of amazing coaching groups too who are doing this at a very high level. At a very high level.

Love it. I'm excited to dive in. Don't forget to like and subscribe to lending leadership, the mortgage pros and the creative brief. And this is great, Dave. I'm excited to dive in and get some of those ideas and structure and really get that blueprint in episode two. We'll catch you next time.

Yeah.

Thanks everybody.

Thanks everyone.