Welcome back to Lending Leadership: The Mortgage Pros, your go-to source for real talk about thriving in today’s mortgage industry.

We just hit the halfway point of the year, so in this episode, we’re laser-focused on the power (and necessity) of a mid-year business plan review for loan officers. A lot of us are feeling that “summer swagger,” but we caution against getting too comfortable—complacency can easily sneak in when business is looking good. With uncertainty looming in Q3 and Q4, this is the prime time to double-check, re-engage, or even re-invent your business strategy.

Today, Robert Fillyaw, Tom Mills, and Dave Holland dig into why this check-in matters, how to recalibrate when things drift off course, and what actions you can take right now to position yourself for a strong year-end finish.

Key takeaways:

1. A Business Plan is Only as Good as Its Execution: Writing down big goals once a year is not enough. True success comes from having specific, actionable steps—and reviewing them regularly. If you’re not following your plan, dust it off and start today.
2. Focus on Activities, Not Just Outcomes: It’s easy to obsess over volume and production numbers, but the actions you take daily and weekly are what ultimately drive results. Set goals around calls made, meetings scheduled, or new relationships started—not just closings.
3. Don’t Get Complacent with “Comfort Food” Activities: It’s tempting to spend time on easy, non-revenue-generating tasks like tinkering with your CRM or helping with file conditions. Instead, prioritize calling your database, meeting with agents, and other activities directly tied to building your pipeline.
4. Accountability and Peer Support are Game-Changers: Whether it’s a coach, teammate, family member, or trusted peer, having someone to hold you accountable (and vice versa) massively increases your chances of hitting your targets. Don’t try to do it alone.
5. Requalify and Refresh Your Agent Relationships: Take the time mid-year to evaluate your partner list. Stop chasing agents who no longer produce and replace them with qualified, active ones. This renewed focus can inject fresh energy and new business into your pipeline.

We’re halfway through the year, but it’s never too late to get back on track—or even to start from scratch if you need to. If you’re stuck, reach out to us directly for help, ideas, or accountability partnership.

If you found value in today’s episode, please hit subscribe, leave us a review, and share the episode with your fellow mortgage pros. Thanks for joining us on Lending Leadership: The Mortgage Pros. Let’s finish this year stronger than we started!

Robert, Tom, & Dave

Get your peer group, get your leadership, get your family, get, get the other LOS in your office engaged in holding you accountable to your success and you vice versa. Hold them accountable to their success. I love that. Peer to peer accountability. What's up fellas? Halfway through the year, most los are feeling pretty good about the business they're doing. Got a little swagger out there, but many of them may be speeding towards a cliff that they don't even know because they don't have a business plan or more. They haven't reviewed their business plan since they wrote it down at the end of last year. I think that's what we're going to be jumping into today.

For Tom Mills and Dave Holland, this is Robert Fillyaw with Linden leadership with the mortgage pros. Thanks for joining us today, guys. So first half of the year is gone. First quarter for most of us was pretty slow. Second quarter has been pretty nice. We've seen a nice uptick in business. I think most ellos are feeling pretty good out there, out there. But Q3 and Q4 are looming and we don't know what that holds.

There's some uncertainty there. So what, what can we do, guys? What should we do to make sure we're ready?

What time does it feel like right now? You know, it feels like a little like late 2018ish to early 2019 is kind of what the market feels like. Like it's pretty good. You know, a lot of people are struggling, you know, and some people are really shining and you know, it's certainly.

Not a little feeling pretty good. A little bit of optimism, you know.

Yeah, optimism. The refis aren't what people think, but they think they're coming. You know, I, it feels a lot like that time period and that was. And, and look, 2018 sucked and got much better. Rolled in in 2019. Great year. If we could all go back and have 2019 over and over again, we would, we would do that. But yeah, midpoint and it's a really good time.

Well, every month and every week is a good time to assess your plan. But if you have not assessed your plan, you assess your plan yet. You really must spend some time on that now. Focus, I think be honest with yourself is what's really important when you do that this time of year.

I, I would say a lot of loan officers aren't feeling great.

You think?

I mean, if you look at the numbers, some loan officers did not have the year they expected.

Sure.

Some of the people on our team. So I think a couple things happen. When you make your business plan at the end of the year, you overshoot the moon. You think that you're going to close a lot more than you actually are. You really don't have a plan per se with the actions that get there, or your plan really isn't a business plan at all. It's like hopes and dreams and things that you're going to do that you actually never execute on. So I think the first step is if you don't have a business plan, never too late, you can draft one for the second half of the year. Number two, if you do have a business plan and you're not following it, follow it on a regular basis.

I don't have the stats, but people who actually have a business plan and follow it are significantly more successful for those who don't.

Yeah, well, I do have some stats on people who have goals, right? So according to a study done by Harvard Business Review, 83% of people don't even have goals. And of those who do, only 3%. 3%. Guys write them down and review them regularly. Like, if you're an ello out there and you're not part of that 3%, you're just drifting through the year. What are you doing like. And you know, it's interesting, Dave, because my perspective is different. I think a lot of ellos feel better, comparatively speaking, right? Comparative.

They feel better at this point in 2025 than they did in 2023 or 2024.

Fair, fair. But that's a low bar.

It's a low bar. Granted, it's a low bar. But if we, we have short mindsets, right? We have short memories. So if we look back and you say, okay, well, compared to the last two years where it was dog water. Got that from my 15 year old son, dog water.

I like that water.

Yeah. Compared, compared to those last two years, I got a little swagger. I'm feeling, I'm feeling all right. I'm feeling better. I'm feeling like things are on the upswing. And that's a date. If you don't have a business plan, that's a really freaking dangerous place to be. Because what happens is then you get complacent and you take your foot off the gas and you stop being consistent with the things that you need to do that are needed to, to build business.

And that's a recipe for disaster. As we come into a time of the year that's going to slow down.

Well, you know, I think Tom said, or maybe you said, a lot of people just Kind of drift through their weeks. They have all the best intentions to do certain actions, sales calls, meetings, coffees, etc. But they get lulled into the comfort food. And the comfort food to me is maybe working on their CRM, helping their processor with conditions stuff that's easy to.

Do, the stuff you do in addition to or not necessarily condition stuff.

But they're not income producing activities. Right?

Yeah.

Does it make, you know, back to the business plan. The most successful loan officers we all see are the ones who are dialed in, have a plan, revisit it weekly or sometimes daily, and know what they need to do on a daily basis to be successful. And, and this can be for a loan officer closing $200 million a year or this can be for a loan officer closing $10 million a year.

That's.

Well, so consistency is key, right? In any.

You know, I read just last week that we are now on year three guys of rates being above six and a half percent. All right, year three, it's been so agree.

5. Pie baby.

Look back over the last three years. How many years have we rolled into the year saying this is going to be the year it turns. This is going to be the year it turns. This is going to be the year it turns. And here we are still hovering around that, you know, period. And I'll be honest with you, bum writing my business plan for next year. Right now I'm probably saying that it's going to stay at six and a half percent, you know what I mean? Because that's the world we've been in and we've got to come to know that world. Right? But I think a lot of people get deterred because they hope on certain things happening and that's not really a way to create a plan.

And I also think they get too hung up on the numbers. You know, we have a business plan, as you all know. Somebody asks us, what's your business plan? I'm. I'm not going to just answer. It's to do $1.5 billion. There's way more within that business plan than just. It's the actions towards initiatives, things you're trying to do within your business, things you're trying to fix within your business. And I think people need to give themselves grace on the numbers because if you really just focus on those things, moving initiatives forward, your projects forward, your actions that, you know, you need to take day in, day out, week in week out, you track that stuff, you automatically, you just stop thinking about the numbers and, and you start realizing that the numbers are hitting.

And if the numbers aren't hitting, you realize, all right, I overshot the moon a little bit. I banked on this happening. It didn't. But, hey, you know, the next. You know, eventually these things are going to come my way. And, you know, and in the meantime, I've taken all these actions, and look how I've grown my business still, you know, and I think that's. That's the approach people need to take in a business plan. It's not just about your numbers.

Think about what you're trying to do within your business that you think is going to get to the numbers you're trying to get to.

Yeah, I think that's well said, Tom. It's the activities, right? Like, when I'm coaching, I tell people, don't even worry about the results. Like, if you. If you do the activities, if you are consistent and intentional and you put in the work, I guarantee you the results will come. You'll look up and they'll be there. But the business plan, that's. That's why it's so important to have a robust business plan. Not just, I want to close 25 million this year.

Okay, that sounds great. How. What are you going to do? What are the actual activities that you're going to do? And then that's what you measure and you stay accountable and consistent to. And if you do that, it works. But that's a grind, right? So now that we're, like, halfway through the year, people have had their business plans tucked away. Like, how do you guys check yourself? What. What do you. What do you do? Like, what.

What are you doing? And what do you do if you, like, look up and you're like, crap, I've coasted and I've kind of got off track, Right? Most people set these goals in January, and they don't look at them again. February or not February, November, December, January. They put them in a drawer. They don't look at them again. So what. What do we do at this point?

Well, we'd be keeping each other in check. So having a coach, having an accountability partner, you know, we have similar goals. So, you know, together.

I just want to. I want to say one thing, right? Just real quick, if. If you're out there and this is you, and you've, you know, you've gotten off track or, you know, you. It's been stuck in a drawer, maybe you just hit a summer lull, right? You're feeling pretty good, and you're not grinding as hard as you used to. That's me. I'll put my hand up. Like when summer comes, my kids are out of school and we travel, I'm actually less focused than during when that's not the case. Right.

So if that's you, don't beat yourself up. This is, you can start at the end of this podcast and refocus and re engage. Right. So that's the great news. It's never too late. I just wanted to put that out there. Go ahead, Tom.

I think, you know, when you look back, if you haven't hit your goals, you know, look back, you got to think about what, what are you proud of, you know, and what you've achieved and that that's usually what can motivate you to go forward. What have you told yourself you're going to do that you're not going to do? You know, how many new partners have you picked up? How's your service provided? How's your systems and processes? You know, how have you worked your database, your customer base and stayed in front of them and set yourself up for, you know, what's to come?

Agreed. And if you've not done the activities that you said you're going to do, do them now. You know, when we were, when I was thinking about the podcast this morning, I thought of some action items that I need to do for the second half of the year and I didn't follow my plan exactly. Now I'm on my numbers. Like I'm, I'm on my numbers. I'm pretty much where I need to be. I know the second half always finishes stronger than the first. So I'm, I'm at 50% of where I need to be as of July 1, so I'm happy with that.

But I think about when I needed to do so. Two quick tips that I would give anyone if they've not done them, to see not immediate results, but results 60 or 90 days down the line. If you've not called your database, for the love of God, get a plan to call your past customer database. It's not expensive, it's free. They want to hear from you. This is a whole nother podcast, but start with that today. Our technique is grab one letter of the Alphabet. We were just talking to an Lo about this yesterday.

Grab one letter of the Alphabet for each week. So next week, start with A's, the following week, B. And you'll bang it out in 20 weeks because you can combine a lot of those letters. That's number one. Number two, send a postcard out to your entire customer Database, it's the cheapest way to do it. Put your picture and phone number on it. You warm up your database. Those are easy, actionable items to do.

And then look at your first six, first six months of the year. And I would call every single realtor that you've worked with and just remind them that you're in business and you know that you'd love to work with them. There's whole scripts for that. Those are items that you could probably, in one or two weeks of discipline action do. Most are all phone calls, most are free. You'll get some coffee and lunch appointments. And you, I have 100% guarantee if you do that, you will get more business. There's, you could be the worst person on the phone and you'll get business out of it.

So those are two very actionable items that you can start with today.

I was laughing, Dave.

You're smirking, Robert.

Well, yeah, I was laughing because it occurred to me that you were thinking about, you know, this morning you were thinking about the podcast and actions, you know, revisiting your, your dad, your business plan. And like you were so engrossed in this thought process that you forgot a shirt. You walked out and forgot your shirt because you were so focused on it. We, we got started late on our recording, guys, because Dave walked out and forgot a shir.

I worked out, I was sweaty. I got in my car, had my briefcase all ready to go and I was bare chested and I got 10 minutes from my house and realized I was not wearing a shirt. That's a little embarrassing.

And then he shows up and him and Tom are twinning and it's just the cutest thing.

Anybody know that you're driving down the road shirtless?

I do that on a regular basis when I'm sweating the summer from a hard run. But yeah, that is embarrassing. It's not the first or second time it's happened to me.

Why don't we put prayer.

Yes.

Then put a couple shirts in your car, Dave.

I'll leave a couple at the office so it'll never happen again.

Listen, I love what you said, Dave, about, you know, some of those steps that you can take. The, the other thing I would say about the business plan, right is if you did it right way back when and you had these activities, maybe some of these activities just aren't working. Maybe, maybe you're not good at them, maybe you don't like doing them. Maybe it's not the market for them. So this mid year review is a great opportunity to Go in and look at what's working, what's not. Your business plan's not stagnant, guys. It's not a, it's not, it's on paper or maybe even, you know, on the computer. It's not chiseled in stone.

You can change it, you can update it. This is a really good opportunity to look at that and say, hey, you know what? This activity that I thought was going to drive these results isn't working and might not be the is, you know, might not be the highest and best use of my time. I'm going to scratch that and I'm going to sub something else in. This is a great opportunity for that.

And we talked about people who write down their goals and look at them regularly in their business plan. If you want a really powerful reminder, tape a post it to your computer at your office or at your home office. Put one where you, in your bathroom where you brush your teeth on a daily basis. Those reminders are powerful. And people who transform their lives or their business are constantly thinking about their goals, in reassessing their goals. It's a whole mindset.

Well, you have to build your mindset too. I mean, we had one of our mentors, Irene Dewford, in our sales meeting, you know, the other day, and she had a great message, talked about self talk and the importance of it, how you build your self confidence and how you start to achieve greater success from that. And I think that's something I really believe in because I think a lot of the times, you know, we talk about people that may feel like they're not happy. Dave, you mentioned a lot of loans aren't happy with where things are. You know, they really need to build their confidence towards doing the things that they have chosen to do that they're not doing. And they need to start to realize what, what is it about that, you know, why am I not doing these actions? And start to build your own confidence, self talk, start to tell yourself you're going to do things, do those things. You, you know, believe in yourself a little bit more and believe that you can hit the goals that you're putting together. I really think a lot of it goes all the way back to that.

You know, we could talk about the things to put in place and what to start doing. If you don't have your mind right, you're probably not going to do those things with the level of consistency it takes to achieve really great success.

And action breeds confidence.

Absolutely.

I mean, it's one of the big things in our business. Is making calls. And the first couple calls are hard. You get a little success, you get the first couple calls under your belt during the day or the week, and then that breeds more success and you roll from strength to strength.

Yeah, it's just great conversations too. Just focus on that. You know, start with your database. If you're not, you're having some call reluctance, you start talking to the people that like you. You know what I mean? Call your, your raving fans and they'll make you feel better and build a little confidence and start calling some other people. You know, look back and there was also those great conversations. I bet you did something that week.

No doubt. I also love to remind originators, this is a great time when you're revisiting all of this, right? Revalidate your agents at this point, right? Because those agents that you put on your target list at the beginning of the year that you're chasing and calling and trying to get business from, and little man's on your shoulder saying you suck because they're not sending you any deals. Pull their year to date production up and I guarantee you you'll find some of them have none of them. Right. And that's why they're not sending you business. And it's messing with your mind. But so often, you know, we get motivated. We're going to build our target list.

We're going to, we have a plan and we, we vet the agents then. And then we never re vet them. And we're chasing the same agents. Meanwhile, some of them are out of the damn business. They don't, they don't have any business. So this is a great time to revalidate those agents as well. Remember, we're looking on in our world. We want to see eight or more buy sides a year, and that's considered a qualified agent.

If they have less than that, frankly, they probably don't have enough business to send you.

And how many of them have you picked up halfway through the year? How many new relationships have you created? Because I don't know anybody's business that's growing right now if they didn't create new relationships. Like nobody's business is growing.

So Q1 is, is behind us, guys. Q2, oh, hell, Q2 is, you know, yeah, we're in Q3 here. We're in Q3. Wow. And you know, statistically, historically, right. The. As we get deeper into Q3, Q4, we see the slowdown start to happen. Right.

And geographically, this can vary from lo to lo based on seasonality. Dave's you know, in the north, winter is coming, as we say. So the other important thing and really the sense of urgency for all of this is revisiting this and the actions like recommitting and, and putting forth the effort and the energy on these actions and activities for the next 60, 90 days is really what's going to determine how you finish the year. And the ellos that do this, we're going to see finish really strongly. And the ellos that don't, we're going to, we're going to see their business fall off because of the time of year we're going to come into. I firmly believe that and I've seen it over and over again also. This is a great time to take stock. Maybe you're, maybe you're chasing a goal.

Maybe you're, you know, you're trying to make Scotsman's Guide or you're trying to hit your company's President's Club trip or, you know, whatever your annualized production goal or income goal or whatever it was, this is a great time to re. Engage and re energize to make that final push from, for the year to, you know, achieve whatever that milestone is. So I can tell the originators out there, you know, I would not bank on rates. That's, that's a fool's errand at this point. We, Jerome Powell has 10 months left in the seat that he's in. I don't know that we're going to see anything drastically change there until he's, he's out. And we're not going to get too deep into that. But my, my point there is plan on the market not giving you anything.

You have to go and make it happen.

I think. Let's talk about the power of, of chasing something, a goal. Like you mentioned a President's Club or a Scotsman's Guide or some recognition. But, you know, I think that can go down to any mat. Let's say your company doesn't have a president's club or you don't think you're possible to change that. And you know, you, you gotta set your own personal, you know, kind of goals too. Like if I do this, I'll take my family here and share those types of goals and people find that as motivation and you know, tell your kids that, hey, Daddy does this, we're gonna, you know, blah, blah, blah. And you know, and then you kind of, you push harder for yourself just like that.

Same the way that person's pushing for that recognition or that, you know, that president's club trip. I think we all need something in front of us to chase after. It gives motivation.

I love that Tom. And you know what? There, there may be some of you out there that are at a point where you look and you're like, oh, I'm not gonna make my, my company trip or I'm not going to make this or I'm not going to make that. This is this mid year review is also a great point to reset a different goal for yourself, right? Like dial it, dial it back in and say okay, well I'm not going to hit this. But like Tom just said, if I whatever criteria and, and guys don't even make it. Like don't even make it actually closed loans. Make it, make it activity based. Give yourself a treat based on activity based. I'm going to call 10 agents a week from now through the end of Q3 and if I do that, we're going to do a weekend away, whatever it may be.

I'm going to go play a round of golf, whatever. Right? Incentivize yourself with some of that. I love that. I also love what you said, Tom. Tell somebody about it. Like get, get your peer group, get your leadership, get your family, get the other LOS in your office engaged in holding you accountable to your success and you vice versa. Hold them accountable to their success. I love that.

Peer to peer accountability and that's something.

We just talked about on our sales call last week was getting pairing up people based on production and personalities and accountability partner. I think, you know, everyone knows that if you have like a personal trainer or a friend who you work out with, like you will let yourself down on a regular basis, right? Because you know, it's easy to do. But if you have an accountability partner, someone you work at with, someone you talk to every 48 hours, another loan officer, you will work harder to show up for that person than you will for yourself. That's just human psychology and human nature. So what I would encourage our listeners to do if they don't have an accountability partner, find one. Maybe that person's not within your company. Maybe it's another loan officer, another company that you have a good relationship with. I think that is, that is huge.

In fact, I think I'm going to get my own accountability partner after this call.

I like it. Maybe they can remind you to work.

We're taking volunteers to be Dave Holland's accountability partner. Send them in with your questions.

That's a big task. Dave's hard headed. So what if it's that person out there and they're like I don't business plan. What's that? It's non existent. I'm gonna say go back through the catalog of episodes and we did an episode on business planning. Check that out. That'll give you some great foundation to get started.

There's plenty of information online. If you Google business plan. If you Google business plan for loan officer, throw it in chatgpt. You will get an actionable item and you will get a great business plan.

Don't over elaborate. One pager. Guys, we don't need an over elaborative business plan. It can be, you know, it's as simple as it can be on a napkin if we're being honest. I mean it's more of an I will statement than a, than a business plan. You know, it's more about that talk about the, the actions versus the numbers. It's an I will statement. What are the five things you're going to do, you're going to commit to every week? What are they? That's your business.

It's not a thesis. You're not going for your doctor. And listen. Hey, if you're out there and you're listening today and you're like damn, all this sounds really great, but I'm lost in the sauce and stuck and don't even know where to start. Reach out to us. Give, give any one of us a call. Hit us up with email. We'll be happy to, happy to engage with you.

Happy to walk you through it, happy to help you on it. One more thing, really, we kind of geek out over this stuff so we enjoy doing it.

And make sure you ask yourself, you know, what are the things that you need to do more of and also what are the things that you need to do less of? You know, what are the things that are making you money? Assess that. What are the things that you're doing that aren't making money? Assess that and get a plan to, you know, how you're going to go about changing.

I like it. All right guys, we're coming to probably the point in time where people start tuning out to us and get tired of hearing us. So final thoughts. Let's wrap this up. I got a question. If you guys could tell every ello listening one thing to go and do for mid year planning like the one takeaway, the one when you finish listening to this, this is what you go and do, what would that be?

Get organized and within two weeks start calling your past customer database. It's the easiest thing to do. I'm not suggesting you spend a ton of time on it. Spend two hours a week. It will pay dividends.

Customer database for Dave Tom Focus on your habits.

You know every aspect of your habits, your routines of your day to prepare for your days, you know, focus on the, that the habits that are, you know, you need to do more of and get rid of the habits that you need to do less of.

Mine's going to be re qualify your agents, you know, the ones that aren't qualified any longer, move them off, stop spending the time and energy on them and replace them with new agents that, that are qualified. And I'm a little bit of a geek but that excites me like when, when I got a new crack at someone fresh. It, it kind of gets me. It, it, it energizes me. It drives me a little bit. So hopefully that's the same for you guys out there. This has been a fun topic. I've enjoyed it fellas.

Likewise.

Yeah, good one.

Hey listen, if you're out there and like I said, if you have questions, if you are lost in the sauce on business planning, on any of the stuff we're that we're talking about, reach out to us. If you have any questions in general about you know, situations that you're running up leadership type things, any, anything to do mortgage related, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a line and we can so we can engage with you. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Smash that like button. Leave us an awesome review if you haven't already. For Tom Mills and Dave Holland, this is Robert Philyaw lending leadership with the Mortgage Pros. Thanks for tuning in guys.

Thanks.

Thanks all. Good luck.