Welcome back to Lending Leadership, your go-to source for actionable strategies, mindset shifts, and winning plays in a tough mortgage market. With just 100 days left in 2026, we thought it was the perfect time to get real about what it takes to not only finish this year strong but to tee up lasting success for 2027 and beyond.

In this episode, we (Dave Holland, Robert Fillyaw, and Tom Mills) dig deep into the realities of today’s shifting market, the critical importance of mindset, and the tactical steps every loan originator should take right now.

We're pulling from decades of front-line mortgage experience, some hard-earned lessons, and a few playbooks that will give you a competitive edge. This episode is all about equipping you to take action while your competition is easing off the gas, and ensuring you exit 2026 with momentum, not chaos.

Key takeaways:

1. How You End Is How You Enter: The work you put in during the final 100 days of 2026 directly determines the tone, momentum, and results you see in the opening months of 2027. Don’t coast; plan, execute, and set yourself up for a powerful new year.
2. Mindset Makes the Difference: We break down the five mindsets most originators fall into. Whether you recognize yourself as a victim, pessimist, optimist, realist, or true warrior, know that only the relentless “warrior” approaches one that faces adversity head-on and keeps grinding leads to growth in tough times.
3. Relentlessly Work Your Database and Leads: Stop focusing solely on getting more leads instead, look for “leakage” in your current pipeline. If you increase your conversion rate by even 10%, you could close several more loans per month just by following up with past pre-approvals and stale leads.
4. Get Back to Basics It’s a Contact Sport: Having 50 meaningful conversations per week (with past clients, agents, builders, financial planners, and more) moves the needle more than any sophisticated marketing strategy. Make the calls, track your conversations, and commit to consistency.
5. Add Value by Being the Advisor, Not the Rate Seller: In a market where rates start with a 7, selling rates is a losing game. Shift your focus to solving problems explore strategies like temporary buydowns, creative concessions, and customized financing solutions. Align yourself as a problem-solver for both buyers and agents, and you’ll be indispensable.

As we celebrate 100 episodes and look to the next 100, we challenge you: Exit this year with a plan, momentum, and a warrior’s mindset. The seeds you plant today are the loans you’ll harvest next year. Now get out there, swing your damn pickaxe, and make your own destiny!

The sellers are kind of bumping them to do it 'cause sellers are trained in their minds to think an open house do— they can advertise it on social 'cause that's maybe the number one reason if you talk to any professional full-time agent is so they can pick up buyers.

Hey guys, here's a number for you. 100. As of September 23rd, there's 100 days left in 2026. Before you start thinking that you have plenty of time, let's break that down. When you take out weekends, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. We've only got about 70 selling days left. And then if you're talking about business you can write and actually close before the end of the year gets here, that number gets even smaller at around 55 days. Conference season hits, business planning starts.

So the question becomes, what are we going to do between now and then to get us set and ready for the year? With Lending Leadership with the Mortgage Pros, I'm Robert Filia. Dave Holland and Tom Mills joining me. Hey boys, what's up? How you doing, Robert?

Number 100, guys. We made it to 100. What percentage of podcasts make it to 100 episodes?

Probably 1%.

Ask chat.

Yeah, I, I would say that 1% may be, uh, maybe generous, Dave.

It might be.

Well, podcasts always seem like a good idea until you actually have to do them.

It's been a grind, right?

Like, we, we know that, right? Uh, it's a lot. It's a lot of prep work. Uh, I'm proud that we got there. I think we brought something great to our audience along with the, uh, along with the ladies doing the creative brief. So, uh, yeah, I think we've done great.

But enough about us. We're— this show's about our listeners. So what we're talking about are, are, are brilliant play of 100 episodes, 100 days left. for the rest of the year. And the market's gotten a little bit tight lately. So I think it's really relevant.

Just a touch. Just a touch.

It's a really relative timing for us to talk about how do we treat the next 100 days of 2026.

As of this recording, uh, yesterday the 10-year crossed 5%, which sent like alarm bells. Stop.

Just stop.

Just stop. Sent alarm bells to LOs. But I, you know, for me in my career, the most business I ever picked up on a percentage, not a total volume, because my total volume went up the most in 2021, but on a percentage year over year was 2009 to 2010. The reason it went up, the market was in turmoil for people who were in the business, Ben. It was post-Great Recession. Market was in turmoil. So many people exited the business. And there weren't as many loan officers left.

So my business went up. I think I wasn't really tracking very well back then, but it probably went up over 175% from 2009 to 2010. So there's an opportunity for all of our listeners, you know, double down on your efforts. I was thinking of a quote I got from Shawshank Redemption. The one older guy, he writes, get busy living or get busy— actually, it was Morgan Freeman. Get busy living or get busy dying. That's kind of the case.

It's here. It's not kind of where the business is, right?

It's not that bleak, but like, so you can hang your head in the sand and walk around and say, my life's over, or you can double down on your referral partners, your past customer database. It's not like your realtors like are loving these rates too. And, you know, so you got to double down your efforts and think positive and go into every day ready to attack and make new relationships and get, get more business.

Yeah.

Well, and here's, here's, here's what I know, right? And I've seen this time and time throughout my career every year. How you exit is how you enter. How you leave this year is how you're gonna enter next year. And it's gonna def— what you do in the next 100 days is going to define the tone and what your performance is going to be for 2027.

Mm-hmm.

And a lot of people miss that. They think, oh, you know, It's coming into the winter holidays.

I'm gonna go in business planning mode and focus on next year. When next year is like right now.

Next year's now.

What you do today is already 2027's business that you're closing when you're around the holidays.

100%.

So that's where I think the, you know, I think the biggest mistake originators make coming into Q4 around the holidays is, you know, and go after it when your competition's asleep is what I, you know, is always gonna be a good sales strategy. But yeah, it's, It's not time to take the foot off the gas because Q1's kind of depend on your market, right? Most of our markets, Northeast, Q1 tends to go down a little bit. Generally, if all things else were flat in the year, Q1's not going to be your better quarter, you know, so you know that, but you can absolutely, you know, do things about that starting today that all bleed into, you know, your, your, your Q1.

Well, and it, I mean, I really think people think, oh, I've got plenty of time. You know, I'll worry about Q1 in Q1 and it's too late then. Like, you're focusing on activities. Yeah, the activities that you're doing now are gonna— what, that's what moves the needle for Q1. The activities you're doing Q1 move the needle for Q2. And this is something that you constantly have to think about, guys. So like, you take a 90-day period and you condense it down, you've only got 50, 60 days really in there that are selling days. Like, you got to get to work.

So Dave, you know, from your perspective as somebody who's still originating, and not that we're removed from it, but you're still doing it, so how, how How do you personally approach Q4 and especially in a challenging Q4 like this? How are you personally approaching it?

Well, we've said time and time again that the activities you, the sales activities you do now, meeting with realtor partners, meeting with financial planners, past customer database, you may get some quick wins that result in a closing 30 or 45 days from now, but you're setting yourself up, Robert, and you touched on to the next quarter, right? 60 to 90 days from now. If you meet with 5 agents this week, you know, you're not going to see the fruits of that labor till 60, 90 days from now. So I guess my philosophy in a market like this in general is to be relentless. Like, don't bear, you know, don't put your head down, don't wallow in self-pity. You got to rise above it, which is easy to say, but if you don't do that, you're going to be in a worse position than you were You'll be in a worse position than you were in the 4th quarter. So 4th quarter for me is the time to grind, right? There's a ton of holiday parties that gets a little stale and old by the end. But I mean, I could go to a holiday party every single day of the month in December. There's that.

They're sending out holiday cards to realtors. That's easy. I do something relatively small, that I'll give everyone a pro tip. I send out, last year I sent out for the first time Christmas wreaths, live Christmas wreaths. They're not very expensive. Someone sent one to me 2 years ago. I'm like, wow, this is great. It smelled great.

It lasted for, I don't know, we took it down after 2 and a half, 3 months and the needles weren't even dropping. You don't need to water it. It is a nice gift to get. I don't know. I sent it to a bunch of my agents. Everyone loved it. So, little— what's that? You like that?

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's very Hallmark, Dave. It's very Hallmark. I like it.

Well, I got one and I loved it. Right. And then I sent out to a bunch of my agents. So, think of things like that. Staying in front of your realtor partners. You're going to get a lot of people say, hey, I don't want to meet you around the holidays. That's too busy. That's okay.

You called. You made the touch. And then I just try to, this time of year as business slows, and then in January too, I'm getting ahead of myself, is the time for business development and meet with people. You can also, if you're good at it, and if you're not, you can learn very quickly within 30 days if you focus on it, help some of your realtors do some business planning. I love that. I bet 95% of the realtors out there, if you look at, you know, full-time and part-time, More full-time agents have it. They don't do anything for business planning. So, uh, you're gonna business plan, take your model and help the realtors business plan as well too.

Add some value.

I love that. You know, and, and the key to all of this, I think, is just what you're talking about, Dave. Having a plan, um, knowing what's ahead of you. We all know what the calendar looks like. It doesn't change every year. There's no surprise coming. We know the market that we're in. We know the things that are out there that are kind of the headwinds, right? You know that stuff now.

So, you have to focus on what you can control. I'm a big believer in that, right? Control the controllables. And a lot of that, as we look at this, is not just the preparation, but the mindset aspect of it, right? So many people, I think, when they face a little bit of headwind or maybe The, the market's down, the, the rates are up, nobody's buying. Like, it's really easy to get into this—

The market sucks, people don't want to move out of their homes. Yeah, it's not—

it's—

Everyone has rates in their shoes.

Negative mindset, right? So you've got to, you've got to change that mindset as you're looking to, to do this and to move into this. And we're going to talk a little bit about kind of some of the mindsets that are out there. And then what does, what does being a warrior really look like? Because I think that, that if, if people get nothing else from this, then you have to have a plan and you have to have a warrior mindset. If you walk away with those 2 things out of this podcast, I feel like we've delivered some value, right? Um, because so many people miss this piece of it. So the, the first mindset, Tom, you were, you were touching the victim, right?

Yeah.

The market sucks. Rates are killing me. Nobody's buying. Like, that's awful.

Well, so when you say stuff like that, that's in your head. That's negative self-talk, right? Not to get too psychological, but then you think that and you walk into every single conversation thinking that. You're calling your agents and you're like, you're, you know, you're like Eeyore moping around. They feel your energy. Don't, don't think people don't feel your energy. If you're in a bad headspace, And you're wallowing in self-pity and you're telling people all these rates stink, that is gonna— you're giving your realtors negative energy. So, right there, that's— get that out of your head. Number 2, if you weren't working 40 hours a week, start working 40 hours a week.

Start working 50 hours a week, 60 hours a week. Spend some time prepping your week on the weekends.

Yeah.

Who you're gonna call, what you're gonna do, what you're gonna go after. Right? This is the time to grind, like I said, to double down and to focus even harder than you did before. And you're not going to get any quick wins. You may get some quick wins. You're not going to get many. But if you keep doing the right things over and over and over again, those results will— it will happen all of a sudden. You'll get big results, right? You'll feel like it's a slow, slow burn, and then you'll go up like this. If you focus on the right activities.

Well, if you stay in that victim mindset, a lot of times you advance to the pessimist mindset, which is it's only going to get worse from here. And, you know, robots are going to take over the world and they're not even going to need us originators anymore.

And our constant pessimism— That pessimist has a problem for every solution, right?

Right.

It's not going to work. That's not going to work. I'm not going to do that.

You know, I, I think discipline over the plan and the process of what you think is going to work, or just the strategy, I, I think is what's important. Every market I've ever looked back to, guys, it's like, it's not like, oh man, I came up with this one brilliant thing during that time that nobody else was doing that, that won the market for me. It's no, it just, I grinded, I put my head down, I, I, I stayed disciplined to the things and going back in the little things. And I think, you know, we'll get into some strategies and whatnot, but stepping back into your business, looking at where you're converting at, you know, things like that. Um, but then, you know, you have the optimist out there too, you know. Um, the, the person that, um—

This one's a trap though, Millsy. It's a trap.

It is.

Yeah, because, you know, they, they— oh, they have the— they have a more positive mindset. It's going to get better. And it— I'm more worried about the optimist at But because they, they use that as a little bit of comfort food to delay action. Yeah, they're, they're waiting, right?

Yeah.

Control what you can control. Waiting is not control. It's not action. It's, it's not consistent. It's, it's not intentional.

Yeah.

And that's, that's something we've talked about from day one on the podcast. Be consistent. Be intentional. Focus on the actions, the activities. If you put in the work, The results will follow. I've never seen it not work, right? So that's why the optimist is so dangerous, because it takes a positive mindset and uses it to not do the work, right?

And it's easy. It's easy not to do the work too. It's, it's, it's really comfortable. It's comfortable. You can do all these activities that don't move the needle. You find yourself scrolling social media. You know, helping with fulfillment duties because it's comfort food and it's easy and it's not scary. But, you know, we have seen, we've said it before on this podcast, loan officers who are newer in the business, right, who don't have a lot of experience, come out of nowhere.

Like, we have 3 or 4 within our organization that have come out of nowhere to make our leaderboard, and our leaderboard's hard to make.

Right.

It's, it's always double digits, sometimes as much as 14 or 15 loans, and they have no experience. And I know people, LOs, are thinking, how did he or she get there? They've only been doing this for 18 or 24 months because they don't know any better. We tell them what to do. They make the calls, they follow through on the action, and they have, you know, that warrior mindset. You have to be relentless. And that's sales. That's sales in general. When things get tough, you need to get tougher and double down.

Yeah. Experience can be your own worst enemy at times. Like, yeah, just sometimes not even over— I think, you know what it is? They don't have enough experience to enable them to overthink it. So they just simplify.

Yeah.

Simplify the actions, the activities, and the results tend to come a little more simple, I think.

Dave said I need to make 20 calls this week to new realtors. They make 20 calls.

Yeah. And lo and behold, it works. Who would've thought?

And, and some, in some of our markets, you know, we have other LOs and they've been calling the same people and these people call and they get a meeting, right?

Yeah.

Um, because they're just, they don't know any better. They're not scared. We tell 'em what to do and they do it. And like you said, Robert, it works. It works. It never doesn't work.

Never does.

Yeah.

So we've talked about the victim, the pessimist, the optimist. There's 2 more that I want to talk about before we pivot, right? The next is the realist. So this person sees the market for what it is, and they still make good conditions, uh, or good decisions based on the conditions. They're out there, they understand, but they're still putting in a little bit of effort. They're not playing the victim. They're not negative, a Debbie Downer. They're not just waiting for it to get better. They're putting in a little grind.

So if you're sitting in that seat and you're listening, you're, you're probably ahead of 85% of originators out there. So kudos to you. My challenge is gonna be to become a warrior. That's the last one that we wanna talk about. They look at the conditions and say, what opportunity does this create? I don't give a crap. I'm gonna make my own destiny. I'm gonna control what I can control. And I'm going to be the warrior that embraces this and create in a market that maybe the headwinds are against me.

Those people are the people that are going to dominate 2027 because they're going to start today and they're going to outpace the competition.

Which usually the people that, you know, had real true, uh, trackable, measurable goals set for 2026. And they're like, I don't care. This market's not getting in my way. I'm on pace for it. I'm going to hit my goals. That's the warrior mentality. I, I agree, man.

Well, they don't, they don't get defeated either, Tom. Like, they don't let a little— they, they have perseverance. They're, they're dedicated. They're intentional, right? They, they're still making— they're still dialing 6, 8 weeks in because they know that at some point, like Dave said, at some point it's all going to shake loose and the, the seeds that you plant are gonna reap harvest for you.

Yeah. You know, sometimes what's frustrating as a warrior, right? The hardest part to being a warrior is you got to keep going when the results aren't coming.

Mm-hmm.

You know, because sometimes it's not just like where you said, I've never seen that not work. That doesn't mean it's like insert 100 conversations, insert 50 conversations, output X amount of loans immediately. You know, there's a process around that. And you got to stay on the grind, stay committed.

Well, you get better with the conversations, right?

Sure.

And I'm going to steal something from Atomic Habits and I'm going to screw it up. I think it's called the plateau of disappointment, right? So it's like you're like this, you're just cruising along, barely, barely moving up, right? And then all of a sudden it starts to go like this. Very quickly because you're putting in the work, you're putting in the grind, you're not seeing any results, and then all of a sudden, boom, you get the results. And that's what a lot of people don't realize. They give up at a certain point, right? They're like almost there, right? They're almost there and then they give up.

Always.

If anyone does the right sales activities for any period of time, Call it 6 months or a year, you will have amazing results. Uh, if you're always thinking of that activity—

I always think of that meme, um, or that cartoon with the guy in the mine, right? And he's like 2 miles deep and he's like 6 inches from gold and he quits. Yeah, like I always think of that when we're talking about this. Like, you've come this far, you were so close, you didn't know, like one more swing of your pickaxe And you're rich.

Yeah.

Get out there and swing your damn pickaxe.

So we talk a little bit about the mindset, you know, so take that warrior mindset, right? And you got to realize there's, there's some clocks running back to what Robert said to open the episode, you know, business clock that you can still close loans in 2026. The clock on how you create loans, we mentioned roughly 55 days, like less than 2 months to create your, your new production. your new loans that will close for the, the year. Um, if you kind of chase, you know, spend, you know, every one of those days chasing only immediate business, you can only kind of have a decent December, and your Q1 is, uh, is generally— you're limping into Q1. So we— what we did, we put together some things. What should our LOs actually be doing now? You know, what do we think are some proven methods? over the next 100 days, it can really lead to some business and, and, and constant stream and, and really build a pipeline, not just to close strong, but to head into Q1 strong.

So, well, um, and as we get into that, Tom, I just, I want to just reiterate this, right? Because we keep talking about 100 days, 100 days, 100 days, but really there's 2 clocks running for you guys out there, right, that you guys need to be aware about as we're talking about this. There's clock 1, that is, what can you still close in 2026? Some of you have goals that you set that you're trying to hit, and you're, you're, you're trying, you're, you're maybe a little bit short.

We put some plays together, a couple things that we think are going to be effective. Number 1, stop the leak, right? This isn't this big fancy idea, you know. We actually know some people that really dug back through, you know, in the busy seasons of this year you know, leads that came through, found some instant business, some things slipped through the cracks, somebody had, you know, paused and now they're back in the market. So, you know, for a, you know, for a $40 million, you know, producer, you know, you gotta think you bring a lot of leads in. So it's not always about how do I get more leads? It's how do I already— how do I convert the leads that I already have?

No doubt. And that, that moves the needle so fast and so quickly. People, people miss this. I think we, we just had a conversation with one of our originators about this. Um, you know, with his lead counts, if he could increase his conversion by as simple as 10%, he— and, and he's a kind of 10% off of where the— we're used to seeing, it's an extra like 4 or 5 loans a month, right?

Mm-hmm.

So instead of you screaming, I need more leads, I need more leads, Look at the leads that you have. Look at what's in your pipeline. Look at what your pull-through rate is. Like, if you're out there and you're listening and you don't know what your pull-through rate is on your leads, that's something you should be looking at. If you're lower than 25% on leads coming in, that you have an area of opportunity there.

What's the euphemism I'm looking for? Don't buy more cows if you aren't milking the ones you have.

Mm-hmm.

You're just full of good things today, Dave.

Well, so, you know, what I would do now, Right? Which what my team has been doing and we're going to do next week. These podcasts give me great ideas. I'll call every single pre-approval from 2026. Hey, do you want to talk about rates? Do you want an update? Right? I mean, it's not like we're giving them positive news, but we're giving them news. I love that. So, you know, hit all those leads and then once you're done with those, right? Hit everything from 2025 that you've— the first last 6 months of 2025.

Right.

And then the first 6 months of '25. A lot of those deads, a lot of those leads are going to be stale, right? They may have stopped looking. They may have bought another house.

Who cares?

If you don't have anything to do, again, I want to reiterate, this is not a job, you know, where you wake up at 7:30 or 8:00 AM and then clock in and clock out when you want. This is a job that you should be working 40 hours a week minimum. Uh, and if your business is down, I don't want to hear any bullshit. You should be working 50 or 60 hours a week to get your business back up.

No doubt. I love that, going back through all your, your leads for the last year and just re-engaging them. I, I guarantee you, this is my challenge, take, take 20, 30 minutes a day until you get through it. Uh, and I guarantee you, if you do it, you'll, you'll uncover something. You'll uncover an opportunity, 100% guaranteed.

And you'll probably uncover an opportunity to, to, you know, build your process for pre-approval follow-up and lead follow-up a little bit better. It's eye-opening what you learn when you, when you dive back. Um, everybody, especially the people that do the most business, have— find the most opportunity here. Even the best teams, it, it happens, you know, because the best teams add different assistants to their team, and maybe they had a weaker link Yep. And now they, you know, business went down, that weaker link's not here, and the stronger link that had capacity all along the way, when it was like, man, I would've converted 4 of these, you know, and pulls those deals out. You gotta really, it's a good time to look in your business, start to track your conversions. If you have, you know, 3, 4 LPs, or how are each one of them converting? Because I would start to double down on the ones that are converting closer to 50% and take the ones doing 20, you know, closer to 25 or below and stop having them do some sales activity. You know, it's really worth getting into the nitty-gritty of your business in that sense this time because you, you can and, and you learn a lot from it.

No doubt.

How do you guys, how do you guys define, uh, pull-through rate and lead conversion? I mean, there's a, there's a couple different metrics you can look at.

I mean, you know, it's, it's a tough thing because it's not like you, you, you know, you look at a lot of times you kind of have to look at leads that come in on a monthly basis and then deals that come in on a monthly basis, but it's not as if those deals came in on month— they trailed, right? You know, I always thought it's a 90, you know, to 120-day trail. This market, that's, you know, that's debatable. Um, but, you know, in the end of the day, how many, you know, how many leads are you bringing in a month and, and how many deals are you putting in a month consistently? Um, that's, that's the easiest, just simple, more, more simple way I've found it to kind of measure it.

Yeah. And every, every LO, professional LO, should have that, uh, around the top of their brain.

Yeah, you gotta think, like, if you're, if you're, you know, you're supposed to close 10 loans a month and you, you know, you've— it's the middle part of the month and you haven't put in 6 loans for next month, like, you're kind of behind the pace for, for, for next month. And you gotta have that warrior mentality that breaks out that says, I'm gonna go find 2 loans for next month. That's, that's the ways you start to chase the fast business without getting all your focus on the fast business and, and you're forgetting all the big picture thing. It's strategies of, like you said, I mean, it's not, you know, if you're calling your database, it's not like everybody's saying, oh my God, thanks for calling me. I was waiting for your call to do my refinance. But you have more conversations, you ask more questions, you lead them down a path. People, one thing right now, especially with, you know, past customers, is the debt consolidation. You know, I think originators really need to understand how to sell the cash-out refi.

Because selling a cash-out refi isn't after you pull credit and put together this fancy presentation. It's selling them into the application of the debt consolidation cash-out refinance. That's really where it gets done.

Yeah.

Once you get the agreement to look at numbers, it's done. It's game over at that point.

Yeah. The numbers are going to look good on— people are carrying debt and they have equity. It's one of the easiest sales. You know, in the industry, but you just got to get them into the application and into that mindset of this is going to make sense. And, you know, most, most US, you know, households focus more on their, their cash flow, um, and their monthly payments than, than the interest rates that they carry on their debt. That's just the reality.

You know, something else to move the needle that, uh, I talked about on our sales call, and I, I think it fell on deaf ears, but if your business is down You're going to do some heavy lifting, right? There's open houses for realtors every Saturday and Sunday.

I love, love, love this play. And it's an underutilized play in our market.

Yeah. In all markets. Yeah. Because it takes extra work on the weekend, right? You got to humble yourself a little bit. I mean, the easiest start off is call agents that you're already working with. Hey, Robert, I see you have an open house at 45 West Main Street. Can I sit there with you and help you out? Like, what, what can I do to help and bring value? Right. And then it's calling agents who maybe you've done a deal with some sometime the last 2 years.

Most agents, you know, full-time agents hold open houses on Saturday and Sunday. Some in the Pittsburgh area hold open houses, twilight open houses on Wednesday and Thursday. So again, hard work, right? Not glamorous. But if you do it day in, day out, every single week. And I did it, I did it when I was in my career when I was younger, when I was scraping for business. Uh, it works. I've developed— I still have some relationships from those open houses that I did pre-2010. Sometimes in a, in a difficult market like this, you got to humble yourself a little bit and do work that you normally don't want to do.

It's not sexy, it's not glamorous. There's tons of techniques around it that we won't get into, but Uh, if your business isn't any good, you need to start doing stuff like that.

And I know some people that bumped into some buyers in open houses. Um, you know, you, you're not just meeting, you know, the agent there. There's, there's other agents that are bringing in buyers. There's buyers there. I mean, just, you know, interact.

I was just about to say that, Tom. Like, I love it because it puts 2 things that you as an originator are doing all this activity to try to find. It's putting an agent And actual active potential buyers in the same place at the same time, why wouldn't you show up there? Like, why wouldn't you want to be in that room?

And that's why realtors do it. Realtors, if you talk to any experienced realtor, they're, they're doing open houses for 2 reasons. Number one, because they feel their sellers think they need to do it, right? Open houses rarely sell homes. I mean, agents get lucky from time to time, but that's not the sole reason. They feel they, it's a requirement to do it, right?

Inventory's sitting a little longer. So yeah, they're gonna have to, Do some things to spice it up.

Well, because, because the sellers are kind of bumping them to do it because sellers are trained in their minds to think an open house— they can advertise it on social because that's maybe the number one reason if you talk to any professional full-time agent is so they can pick up buyers. That was one of the big complaints a lot of my realtor partners said during COVID Number one, there weren't open houses at the beginning of COVID And number two, homes were flying off the market so quickly. They couldn't meet any buyers. One of my agents was pretty funny. I said, you know, your buying, your purchase business is down representing buyers. She goes, I would pick up so many buyers at open houses. I said, why did, why'd you do that? Why do you think you were so successful? She goes, because I'm a normal person and I can talk to people and I'd always pick up buyers. So that's, that's them prospecting.

That's like when agents used to do a decade or more ago used to do floor time. They used to fight for floor time to take buyers' calls or inquiries. I think that's a thing of the past. But you see a lot of younger agents going to older agents, or, you know, not older, but more experienced agents, bigger agents, and saying, hey, can I— if you want to do an open house, I'll do open houses for you.

Yeah.

The loan officer should have the same mentality. And sometimes, you know, especially a female agent, like to have another person there For safety. And I, I get that.

Yeah, 100%. So let's outline this play. What's it look like? We say go to open houses. I mean, what, what, what's it actually look like? What do you do? How do you actually put it into practice?

Well, you're the mortgage guy. So when you're going to the open houses, you've got to be the mortgage guy, you know, to anyone and everyone there. So, you know, I think bringing specific payment— if you're going to go to one or two, if you already pick out you're only going to go to one or two a week, like Take the 10 minutes, go in your system and create some payment scenarios for that specific property. That makes a lot of sense. That question's pretty much always there.

Yeah. And I, and I, like you said, the 1 or 2, I would, I, if I'm running this play, I'm targeting 2 a week with 2 different agents and I'm gonna be prepared. I'm gonna plan. I'm gonna have the, the flyers printed out with, you know, with some couple different price points, maybe a different loan program or 2, some payments. So I have that ready to talk about.

Yeah, I mean, certainly if it's an agent, you know, you can ask all your agents, anyone need help sitting in open houses, right? That shows value. Number 2, if you don't know the agents, calling ahead of time, right? And say, hey, I'd love to help you on this open house. Are you open to that? A lot of them say, yeah, they want company.

Mm-hmm.

Number 3, you just kind of show up, you know, and you show up with an inexpensive realtor survival kit.

Yeah.

Right? Water.

Yeah, about our gum.

Yeah. Flyers, gum, you know, some other really basic—

Something fidgety. Yeah.

Yeah. That shows value to the agents. We have one new-ish, right? A couple years in that is doing open houses as a strategy. He's— he has gotten the overwhelming majority of his business Doing open houses, right? He does at least one a week on a Saturday or Sunday. Sometimes he does 2. Um, so if you're struggling out there and you're looking for an easy win, there's not many loan officers doing them. Um, get a plan, do some research. All, all the information's out there.

Anything you want to do in mortgage world is out there somewhere.

Yeah.

And if you spend, you know, 15 minutes Googling it or getting on AI, you'll find it and you'll find the playbook.

Well, we, we actually built the playbook for the open house playbook, guys. So for those listeners out there that, you know, send us a message, you know how to reach us, and we'll gladly forward you a copy of that playbook.

I like it. What's the next play that we got? What, what, what else can we do?

Well, we'll go back to what we had kind of talked about. So the play number 2 was, uh, or play number 2 was the open houses, and we were getting into Uh, really strategy, right? You know, stop selling rate and, and start selling, you know, really.

I'm the advisor.

Yeah, become the advisor. You know, you've got to get— when the rate starts with 7, you better learn how to sell. And, and it comes with a lot of question asking and solving problems because that rate that starts with a 7 is a problem for 9 out of 10 people you're going to tell that that's their rate.

Psychological. It's a psychological problem, right? Well, it's also a payment problem.

I mean, you know, there's a massive payment on your average. What's the 50 basis points difference from 6.5 to 7, $300,000 home?

I mean, it is, but people can oftentimes afford it, right? It's more of a psychological, like, you know, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, right? It's in their head that, you know, the rates are in 7. Oh my God, it's not a great time to buy. You know, it's for a buyer, the only thing that is not permanent in a real estate transaction is the interest rate, right? That is the variable piece that is not set in stone. So there's always the opportunity to refinance. I'm not going to say date the rate, marry the home anymore because that really didn't come to fruition.

That was like the— They'll make fun of that whole marketing campaign for the next 30 years in the mortgage industry. Yeah, for, for good reason, you know.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think, you know, learning salesmanship, learning how to become the advisor, asking some questions, you know, how long are you going to be in the home, what kind of payment are you looking for, focusing more on, on payment and affordability than what the actual rate is. And then that opens the conversation to get into some strategy, right? Do we look at A temporary buydown? Are we looking at a permanent buydown? You know, are there any other financing structures?

How long has this house been on the market? And can we get, you know, 4 to 5% seller concession, use 2% to buy the interest rate down to get them to where they're comfortable? That's where, you know, and that is one of the advantages in a down market where 7% interest rate, the buyer pool shortens, there's a little bit more inventory sitting. So as they move in the holidays, this inventory wants to get moved. Renegotiation comes back into mortgages. That's kind of the fun part of it.

No doubt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's funny that—

can we get—

well, hold on. I want to get back on the temporary buydown. It's funny that you said that. I haven't really sold temporary buydowns much. I mean, I understand them deeply, but I have a lot of clients who have gotten very anxious about the interest rates, right? For all the reasons we described. And I'm talking to the agents, hey, listen, when you make an offer on this home, let's put in an extra 2 or 3% to do a 2-1 or a 1-1 buydown. And because inventory's been sitting longer, right? I say, hey, listen, say your rate's 7, year 1 it's 5, year 2 it's 6, thereon it's 7, but it gives you a little gap here to have the opportunity to refinance.

Mm-hmm.

And it's a conversation that I never had before that's coming up more and more, and people are listening to it now for sure.

Well, it's, it's especially, uh, powerful if you have builders, right? If you're doing anything new construction, because they want to preserve that price. They don't want to do price reductions because then they have comp— that, that's a down comp that they have to compete against. So that temp buydown, permanent buydown, having, you know, having MI paid in full Um, like those are really creative things that you can do to move the payment needle and get the buyer comfortable and get them over this. What'd you call it? The, the Rubicon.

Caesar crossing the Rubicon.

There you go.

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, yeah, affordability is real. You know, affordability issue becomes real at 7%. The mindset, you know, they're more likely to shop. It's where questions and strategy comes down. And, and by the way, you know, you think about right now we're talking about the sale opportunity when you have that borrower. But really, I mean, this is your conversation pieces around that you should be having with your realtors in a market like this, you know, strategizing with them about strategies that are going to help them win and, and, and how you guys can, can convert and win those strategies together, you know.

Absolutely.

Um, that, that, that's what I think it really, it really takes. I really, really think it takes that, you know, alignment, you know. It's not like the best realtor or the best originator that wins the deal. It's the best team that aligns the best strategy that wins the deal.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. You know, something else you can do real quick that is easy, you can probably sort this in the Multi-List if you have access to it, or I'm sure it can be done easily through Google or AI. Look at homes that have been sitting on the market for a while, right? You don't know Jane or Joe agent. Reach out to them. Hey Joe, I see that your home has been sitting for 90 days. We're employing a strategy instead of price cuts. I would love to show you what a temporary buydown does for potential buyers that your seller offers.

Right?

At the very least, you don't get a response or they tell you not interested. At the best, you know, they say, hey, I'm interested, let's talk. No one's ever brought this to me. So there's another quick strategy. Again, if your business is down, you probably have 4 or 5 hours to be on the phone. Use these things.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

And then if you have, if you have those 4 and 5 hours, great segue, Dave. That takes us to play number 4, which I absolutely love because this is—

My favorite, the all-time play. It plays in any market, any season, any year.

One of the easiest things to do, like, it's a contact sport. You got to pick up the phone, have 50 conversations a week. You should have a goal as an originator to have 50 conversations a week. Oh, that's too many. That's so much. Shut up. No, it's not. It's 10 conversations a day, 5 days a week.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Like, it's not difficult. Oh, who do I call? Your past clients, realtors, builders, financial advisors. Insurance agents, title companies, prospects, your current database, your family, your mama and them. Like, it's not hard, guys. Just pick up the phone.

Agreed.

Yeah. You know, and that's, you know, I think we've all been through coaching, right? And, and, you know, it's call 40 realtors on Monday, call this, you know, in the end of the day, what are you trying to get to with all those? I promise you, in any market, you can say I had 50, I had 10 solid conversations today.

They're going to lead to something.

I had 10 calls. You keep saying that. I had 10 solid conversations that are going to lead to something each week in, each week out. You have 50 solid conversations with anybody in those lists, and we could probably even go on and add 10 more. You are going to get business. It's— that is probably the truest, one of the most truest things you say, especially when you actually start to track it and you know who are the 50 great conversations and what is my follow-up system around that great conversation.

And you get better at it, right? You build momentum. You get more comfortable. Robert says no. All right, click Robert. Move on to Tom. Tom says no.

Boom.

Move on to Rachel. You get better and you build armor, mental armor around those nos. It's the simplest thing. I have on the door of my office a picture of a phone and said, use me. I'll make you rich.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Just pick up the phone. Make the calls. Uh, if it's something you're not comfortable with, I got some bad news. You probably shouldn't be in sales.

What do you— but so I'm gonna make these calls. What do I say? Like, how do I— I don't want to— I don't want to come across salesy. I don't want to call these people and give them a sales pitch. What are some reasons? Why am I calling?

We're problem solvers. I think we're asking questions, and the questions are different to whoever it is we're calling, right? So, you know, yeah, you can't call your database and just be like, hey, Everybody's doing a cash-out debt consolidation loan right now. I've got this for you. No, they don't, they don't want to be sold. You know, I think it's, it's questions that, you know, ultimately I would consider like if I, you know, database conversation today and I talked to a couple that said that their last kid graduated from high school in, in May and they were going to sell their home and look to move in June. And they love my service so much that they're going to use me again. I'm like, I got a loan in my pipeline for June. That's a great conversation.

You know what I mean? Like that. So you— but you had to make that contact to learn that, to ask the questions, to find that out, to build now a follow-up system. When are you referring them back to the realtor? How are you handling that whole thing? You know, it's just asking questions to find out where opportunities— I think the biggest fundamental problem for originators today is they look to feed right where, you know, if that's what you want to feed at is right at the bottom, sit in every single open house you can possibly sit in because those are people that are ready to buy and do business right now. Great conversations are things that lead to when someone needs to do business, they do business with you. And I think you got to look at how many people are you adding in the top of your funnel? And based upon their likelihood of need, where— how are you moving them down the funnel? That's sales. And that's what loan officers really need to start getting better and dialed in with. You know, it starts with great conversation and then move them through a funnel.

Yeah, agreed. I love it. I think this was maybe one of our better podcasts for number 100. Wow, we, we got a lot of stuff out there.

Well, the next 100 then from 101 on, we got to really step it up, guys.

Right. We got to raise the bar. I think great, great topic, guys. Great, great plays here. You know, one thing that, that resonates with me is if you, if you exit the year in chaos, you're going to enter the next year And chaos, right? And, but if you exit it with a plan, some structure and momentum, and then January's gonna start with speed instead of zero. And I think that's the whole thing, right? Um, it's not— how you end is how you enter.

100%. 100%. Well, thanks guys. This was a great conversation. Um, if you're out there listening, uh, reach out, we're open. guys. We always want to, we always want to help fellow loan officers. So thanks for listening to Lending Leadership with the Mortgage Pros.

Robert Filia, Tom Mills, Dave Holland. Thanks so much.

Thanks, y'all.

Thanks, Sean.