Welcome back to Lending Leadership: The Mortgage Pros, your playbook for building a truly thriving mortgage business.

In this episode, we’re diving deep into what really moves the needle for mortgage loan officers. Too often, people chase the latest shiny object—new technology, marketing gimmicks, and magic-bullet solutions—hoping for shortcuts to the top. But as we reveal today, genuine, consistent success is rarely about easy wins.

To cut through the noise, we went straight to the source: our top-producing loan officers. These are our President’s Club winners and $25+ million-a-year mortgage pros—the crème de la crème. We asked them one key question: What are the top five things that actually make you money? Spoiler alert—their answers were surprisingly consistent and refreshingly straightforward.

While we didn’t have a guest for this episode, the real stars are the insights from our leading LOs, which, as always, sparked a vibrant conversation among us—Dave Holland, Tom Mills, and Robert Fillyaw. Together, we dig in to decode those proven revenue drivers, unpacking why old-school fundamentals outpace new fads, and how to turn these lessons into simple, actionable systems.

Here’s what we explored in this episode:

1. Why “blocking and tackling” everyday fundamentals still matter most—and why there’s no such thing as a shortcut to success.
2. The absolute importance of relationship-building, especially with realtors, and why this is nearly always the top source of business.
3. How systems, processes, and consistency are the unsexy but crucial backbone for scaling, retaining clients, and producing at a high level.
4. The power of past clients as a “goldmine” for referrals and repeat business, and simple ways most LOs could better leverage this resource.
5. Why speed of response in communication is an underappreciated key for building trust and winning deals—especially in today’s fast-paced market.
6. What really matters (and what doesn’t!) in personal branding and social media—and why flyers alone won’t cut it any more.

Key takeaways:

1. Realtor Relationships Drive Revenue: Our top producers were unanimous—nothing beats strategic, intentional relationships with real estate agents. This goes far beyond one-off coffees or meetings; it’s about consistent, value-driving follow-up and becoming a trusted partner (05:49). If you don’t build and nurture these connections, you’re flying solo and missing the highest-leverage opportunities.
2. Past Client Database Is a Goldmine: Loan officers with an organized, consistently worked database see steady referrals and repeat business. It’s not about cold outreach—these are folks who already know, like, and trust you. Whether through calls, mailers, or newsletters, top LOs treat their past clients as ongoing customers, not just closed files (11:21; 15:19).
3. Systems and Process Free You to Grow: Without structured processes, every extra deal just adds chaos. The best producers have clear routines and workflows—everything from how they handle new apps to client communications—so they can scale with support and avoid putting out fires all day. “Sweat the same way every time”—consistency matters (19:12).
4. Speed of Response Wins Deals: Success often hinges on how quickly you get back to agents and clients. It’s not always about being first—but being reliably responsive builds trust, captures business before it slips away, and shows you mean business (24:05).
5. Visibility and Personal Branding Matter—But Only with Purpose: Consistency in personal branding and community involvement makes you familiar before the first conversation. But winging it on social media, or just posting flyers, isn’t enough. You need a plan to actually build trust and distinguish yourself, not just fill the feed (27:36).

We wrapped this episode with an action challenge: If you had to strip your business down to just five activities that truly make you money, what would they be? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for tuning in, and remember: fortune is in the follow-up, consistency is key, and the mundane daily work is where the money really lies. Subscribe and drop us a five-star review if these insights help you lead your lending business to the next level!

• Access the HMA Top Producer Playbook: The Top 5 Things That Make LOs Money

I do that a lot. I need to be more disciplined about it. You need a system. You know, it can be as complex as you want. You know, it can be a 3-ring binder.

Simple, man.

Yeah, just follow up.

Every loan officer has an opinion about what grows their business. Some say social media, some say leads. Some will say it's the latest marketing trick. A handful are going to say flyers. We went straight to the people actually producing and asked our top producers one question. What are the top 5 things that actually make you money? The answer's surprisingly consistent. Today we're going to break that down and turn it into a simple playbook that any loan officer can run. With Lending Leadership with the Mortgage Pros, I'm Robert Filia, joined by Dave Holland, Tom Mills.

What's up, fellas?

Hey, Robert.

I'm excited to dig into this topic today. I think it's going to be very, very interesting.

Yeah, I love, love bringing on a topic that we're just sharing someone else's ideas and concepts.

So let's set the stage a little bit here with what we did, right? So we put together a list of probably 20 items that we thought maybe would be, uh, selectable for what makes you the most money. And then we had a write-in option as well. And we sent this to our top producers, right? So these are our President's Club winners, Scotsman Guide qualifiers, you know, doing $25+ million, 75 loans or more a year, kind of the crème de la crème, if you will, from a production standpoint. And we said, hey, tell us, like, tell us what makes you money.

We weren't surprised by the answers either. I mean, I think the lower-producing loan officers are looking for that, you know, silver bullet. Uh, they're looking for that piece of tech. They're looking for leads. Uh, they're looking for something that kind of gives a shortcut to the top. And, and there are no— there are no shortcuts to the top, right?

Oh, buffle that. No, no magic bullets out there in this industry. It's, it's really grit and determination and grind and hustle. And they pick an adjective, and that's, that's what you're going to see, really. So I love what we did with this though, because it's one thing to do a poll and say, okay, this is, this is what works, right? Like this is what we know. It's a whole nother thing to take it next level like we've done and build a playbook around it to actually execute on these items and put them as part of your day-to-day business strategy.

What I love the most too is it, it wasn't all actionable. It was a bigger, broader answer than that, more about you know, systems and processes and things that allow a loan officer to go and put their focus on the things that actually make money.

Yeah. So, you know, as we have this dialed in, we're going to touch on what the, what the actual items are. And then we're going to have this playbook ready for everyone out there that's listening that wants to download it free, our gift to you. So, you know, Grab a download, look through it, let us know what you think. Let us know how we could tweak it. Let us know what maybe you do better, different, or the same, right? So let's talk about guys like— were you guys— were you surprised on any of this?

Well, no, I wasn't surprised because top LOs know, as you alluded to, it's a daily grind. It's the boring blocking and tackling. And this wasn't on the top 5, but it's things like after you meet with a realtor, prospective realtor partner for lunch or coffee, shoot a text message to them, send a thank you card. Little things. If you get a referral from a past customer, send them a thank you card. It's just the daily disciplines, doing it day in, day out with a high level of consistency. Right. The top LLOs don't go in spurts off motivation.

Right. Because motivation wanes. We all know that they're disciplined and they do the boring blocking and tackling day after day. And they've made a career out of it and they've made a very good living at it. What are some of the things in the top 5 that we had? It wasn't required.

The number one—

the number one thing that drives revenue for top producers is realtor relationships.

Imagine that.

Yeah.

You know, when I talk to a loan officer that we're recruiting or within our organization, it's rare, or at a conference and they say, I hate realtors, I work— I hate working with realtors, I think this is going to be a short career for this person, or this person is not successful. And sorry, you know, if we have some listeners out there who have made a good career out of not calling on realtors and getting business from realtors, awesome. More power to you.

You're the exception, not the rule.

Yeah, I can't think of one, one successful loan officer who is at a retail shop without leads being fed to them, not a consumer direct, who's had any level of success with not working with realtors. I mean, I love realtors. They feed my family, right? They've made me a great living. Do I get frustrated sometimes? 100%. But we get frustrated with everyone. What was number 2, Tom?

Well, listen, let's stay on number 1 for—

Yeah, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Yeah, let's stay on this because I was ready to move on. This wasn't number one by a little bit. This was, this was number one across, like absolute number one is the realtor relationships are your number one driver. And that, you know, that is your, your referral relationships, having the face-to-face meetings with them, doing the agent outreach, anything that's building a relationship with that agent basically goes into this pot, if you will, right? And what, what we've seen time and time again is that the top producers, the ones that are crushing it, they're intentional about it. It's strategic. There's a plan. It's not random. They're dedicated to it, right? They set time aside.

They time block to it.

You know, it's not a one way neither to build relationships. I mean, you should think about who you are as an originator, who you want to be as an originator, the type of people you want to work with, and how do you build and strengthen those relationships? Because You know, great relationships, trust gets built, you know, so that's really what you've got to accomplish. But Dave, you mentioned a lot of like the little things, you know, thank yous and, you know, the small things that are massive that build up. But it's a consistency of doing that. Right. And I think, you know, there's— we could talk 100 ideas all day long on how to build relationships. But everybody, I encourage everybody to find their way of building relationships, their system of building relationships. And here's the thing.

We know where Every relationship usually starts with an introduction, an outreach, a phone call, whether it be a cold call or meet somebody. And then every relationship next step is a face-to-face, one-to-one meeting. Where everything gets lost is after that with a lot of originators. I've seen it before where an originator meets with this great agent, has this really great vibe, and then a month later they see they closed 3 loans with somebody else and they're like, oh, why didn't they send me business? But what did you do after that meeting? You know, to start to build. That was just the opportunity to start to build the relationship. It wasn't even when they say, you guys know how it is. Yeah, I'm going to send you my next deal. It doesn't mean that your next, the next deal is coming or we still got to work at it.

You know, just because you had a cup of coffee with somebody and give them an hour of your time, they don't owe you anything, you know, and you always have to work at it, right?

Just because you closed the last 3 deals doesn't mean that you can slack off and not put that relationship. And I think that's, I think that's why people get discouraged by it maybe sometimes. And, you know, maybe don't do it as well as they can because it's constant. This is not a one and done. We all want easy and this isn't, guys. It takes work. It's a relationship. You are building a relationship so they trust you and you become a partner in their transactions.

You have to put in the work. You have to put in the grind.

Say the money's always in the follow-up, right? You know, Tom, you mentioned that you meet someone for lunch or coffee, have a great vibe. And this happens to me, and then I forget to follow up or don't follow up hard enough. Right. I do that a lot. I need to be more disciplined about it. You need a system. You know, it can be as complex as you want. You know, it can be a 3-ring binder.

Simple, man.

Yeah.

Just follow up.

Just follow up.

I've always been a fan of a defined, you know, about a 12-week follow-up system, you know, and it doesn't have to happen in this exact sequence. But here 20 things I can do in my follow-ups weekly and let's define 12, you know. So sometimes it's like, you know, write a review, you know, send them a book. You know, if you can listen and learn things about people, you know, that, that triggers something that they may appreciate and you take that opportunity to, you know, give them something, gift them something or do something thoughtful that that's appreciated. That's a, that's a major step. But I think it can't be willy-nilly. And the reason I say 12 weeks is important to follow up at some point you have to cut it off, right? You know, and realize, you know, hey, maybe it's not meant to be. And I think that's kind of it.

You know, if you work weekly, subtly to earn somebody's business, to get in front of them, get top of mind, and you're not feeling a breakthrough after 12, I'm not saying I would never follow up with them again, but, you know, take a little break. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's okay, right? That's right. It's Not everyone is going to vibe with you. Not everyone's going to want to work with you. And, you know, a lot of times they— and here's what I'll say— they might have a great LO that they're working with in a deep relationship. I just want to hang around the hoop, right? I just want to hang around the hoop. So when someone falters or deal goes bad or they just don't, you know, there's a, there's 1,000 different things that could happen. I just want to be the next one up.

Right. But then you got to remember that there's someone who was doing that to you as well, too. You need to stay in its relationship. You need to stay focused on the relationship with your agent partner. Yeah, you can do a 12-week follow-up. You can do, you know, a 6-week follow-up. But you need a system and you need to execute on the system on a regular basis. It's the boring stuff day in and day out.

That's what you got to do.

The mundane is the money, baby.

Fortune is in the follow-up.

Yeah. So I don't think any of us— we're going to move to the next one, guys, to keep this going so we don't end up with a 3-hour podcast and no one listens to us. I don't think the next one was any surprise to us either, right? Listen, your past clients, your database is a goldmine. And by and large, for everyone listening out there, it's probably your most underutilized asset. So this is, you know, this would include repeat clients, word of mouth. Um, actual outreach to your past client database. You know, uh, a rule of thumb that I've always had is every 100 closed clients you have in your database should lead to 1, maybe 2 loans a month if you're doing it right. Um, and, and I have seen maybe 2% of loan officers do this right to actually capture it like they should.

So let's, let's get into the numbers, right? We have been taught, and this is probably true to a certain degree, that for every 100 people you have in your database, you should be able to glean 1 referral a month, right? I think that number is a little aggressive, or maybe I'm not doing it right because I have several thousand. I'm certainly not getting 30 referrals a month, probably. But I get a lot. But legitimately, I mean, and listen, that number is higher based on what type of market we're in. Meaning if we're in a heavy refi market, yeah, then that probably, that's probably close. But I have some shortcomings on it. I'm pretty good with some items, like I get 5 or 6 snail mail pieces out a year that I have organized and send. I was better about calling I do need to get better about that.

I do have a big chunk of my former customers in Homebot, but I know there's an area of opportunity that I'm not working hard enough. But I, but I do get a significant number of referrals from my past customer database, but I could be better. What are some other techniques?

I mean, you touched on them, Dave. That's, you know, it's one of the things that were mentioned is, you know, reaching out for an annual mortgage review. Having your CRM dialed in, making sure your, your database is in a CRM. Let's start there, right? Various methods of communication. Interestingly enough, snail mail is back. It's, it's, it's back in with a vengeance, right? Because now it's shifted. Everyone gets so much email that they ignore the email and they actually are opening and looking at mail. So that's made a big thing.

You know, I think appearance of the mail is a big part of that, though. Yeah. Really? Really catch the attention. Big postcards is what, uh, what, what the consumer is responding to now.

Yeah, having a call to action, you know, simply asking for the business when, when you're working through your database, you know, those, those are things, uh, that move the needle. Um, you know, picking up the phone, reaching out, stay on top of mine. And here's the thing, this is what— when I was coaching people who weren't making calls, this is where I would start. It's the lowest hanging fruit. It's the easiest call to make because these people already know, like, and trust you. They've already closed a transaction with you. It's not a cold call. It's the easiest call to make and start building the habit of calling.

So anyone out there, when we're talking about these things and you're like, where do I start? This is where I would say to start. And the other beautiful thing about this, you're like, oh, you know, I closed their loan 3 years ago. It's going to be weird me calling. No, it's not. They don't, they don't think about it like that.

They're not sitting around wringing their hands like, why hasn't Robert called me?

Imagine Dave Holland called me. He sent me flyers, but now he won't call me.

Right?

Like, pick up the phone and call him and say, hey, look, you can even own it. Hey, look, I'm trying to get more intentional on working with my database and staying top of mind. I'm sorry it fell by the wayside. Just checking in on you. How's your mom and them? Do you have any family, friends, or coworkers who are looking to buy, sell, or refinance? I might be able to help.

I, I challenge originators today to stop thinking about their people that they've closed as their past funded customers and start treating them like your customers. You know, when you think about it, and someone threw the statistic at me very young in my career, it was eye-opening. I mean, think about it and how it compounds, especially for those that do a lot of transactions, these top producers, 7,500, a couple hundred transactions a year. At the average, average homeowner You know, someone buys a home, they do— the average person does 7 transactions throughout their lifetime, whether it's, you know, a couple refinance, maybe a second property, bought it, you know, upgraded to 2 or 3 homes. But 7, and that sounds about right, guys. You know, think if you think about it, especially it's probably maybe moving up as the average age of the first-time homebuyers moved up a bit. But, you know, especially when you think about people when it was down in their 25s and 30s, early 30s, that average age to 7 transactions. So you, you literally have to look at it and say, I'm building my future pipeline with everything I do.

And, you know, I think, you know, when you look at it like those are, you know, because customer behaviors today and, and how they respond to— they— people like to have a guy, a girl, you know, hey, you know, I've got, I've got somebody great to handle this. And that's a comforting thing, um, to, to know. And people like to, to refer out, you know. And I think what you have to do is really, you know, get that customer to have a deeper affinity with you, you know, being friends with them on social media. A lot of our producers today are doing newsletters, very regular weekly, monthly newsletters that's not just about mortgage business, a lot about them, their families, what they're doing in the community. So they get more of a human touch to them. They're not just, you know, they feel like they have a real person that they know, you know, that they do business with, that they know, like, and trust. And I think that that's, that's where it gets lost, that, you know, the relationship is just beginning at the closing table.

It didn't just end. And I think that mentality alone is— will change your career if you don't have that mentality today. I think you shift that to that mentality that the relationship begins at the closing table. It does not end. And you will make millions of dollars off of that.

Mm-hmm. Well said. Well said. And then, you know, so now it's funny how this, to me anyway, I found it really ironic how the stuff ranked out because if I were going to build a blueprint and say, go build your business and this is what you need to be successful, this is, this is exactly the order that I would have put it in through the top 3 anyway. So we got the realtor relationships, right? They, that's, that's where they drive the customers to you. Then you bring the customers in and you got to take care of them and make sure that you stay top of mind and have the relationship piece with them. And then the next piece that, that came in and no surprise is strong support systems and processes. So you can stay focused on doing the business and you can maximize your time and efficiency and you don't, you're not sloppy and you're not lost in the weeds and you give that excellent world-class customer service, right? So I was actually surprised, like I was not surprised that this is one of the top 5, but I was surprised that it was recognized as a top 5, right? Because most people don't think about the way that you do business and the systems and the support that you have to be able to do business is a revenue driver, right? Most people think that it's, it's all the outbound marketing type activities., but the way that you actually do business and the system that you build to make that business easier helps drive revenue.

So I was, I was glad to see that on the list.

If you don't have good systems, what you have is a lot of problems. And what it means is when you go get more loans, you get more problems. And that's your, that's your psyche as you go into, to sales. There's, you don't, you don't put a consistent regular focus towards, you know, new realtors and existing strengthening realtor relationships and your database. When all you've got is problems behind you?

You can't. If you're firefighting all day and there's little brush fires, that drives your attention because those items are urgent and they're easy, meaning they're not scary to solve. Right. And it's like we get into all the time. We all fall into this in our respective duties and responsibilities. It's easy comfort food to jump in on.

Well, I think there's a lot of ways you think about, you know, support and systems and processes. And, you know, people think about loan partner support, but not everybody's at that level of warranting that financially yet. You know, I think it can begin well before you have, you know, loan partner support in your career, just structure within your day. You know, we talk about that term sweat the same way every time. When you do things the same way every time, you do them with a level of confidence that's different. You don't get— you don't fall off track. Back, you know. And I think that's really important.

It's not just, you know, every aspect of your, your day, from the time a loan app comes in, what, what is your structure? What is the same way that you do it every single time? Um, I, I think that's really important. And, you know, people that then develop good systems on their own and then get their production and really need a loan partner, those are the people you, you kind of see really kind of excel from there.

It's so much easier to scale it then also.

Because you can't just add a person and scale. You have to, you have to have that structure within your own self because what you do is you, when you get support is now it frees up time, right? Because this is a capacity business. So, if you don't have that structure, you can add another person to help things, but you're still lacking structure of how you do things. So, you end up, you end up now with 2 people handling problems all day long.

2 people lost in the sauce.

That's what happens. How many times have you guys done it?

It's crazy. And let's be real, to a certain extent, you need to struggle, you need to grind. And I don't know what the time period is, if it's 6 months or 6 years. I mean, we all grind it significantly longer than that because you need to understand the business. You need to be— you don't have to be an underwriter, you don't have to be the head processor, but you need to have a very high-level understanding of how the transaction works, right? Like, Like now, I don't know how to do a lot of stuff on a loan, but I can look at an application and a credit report and have someone tell me the problems, and I can diagnose it very quickly, or at least know who to ask to help me diagnose it because I've done so many loans. So there needs to be a little grind in there at some point. Tell me I'm wrong and I'm getting off track.

No, you're 100% right. People appreciate you. Listen, I'm just glad. I— you're exactly right, Dave. Um, you know, some of these loan officers, you know, their loan partner will be out and, and they're dead in the water. They, they know like they can't do anything. So it's, it's interesting. I think you need to have some of that.

And I'm just glad we got it on recording that you said that, you know, you don't know anything, you don't know how to do—

I don't know how to do a number of things, and that's okay, right?

I'm gonna have that on my business.

Yeah, well, thank you. I mean, I'm, I'm glad you mentioned the sweat, Tom, because I, I remember back to when I was originating, before I had to build a team, before I had any support, and the one thing that kept me focused and sane, um, and, and gave me capacity back in efficiency is I had a, I had a process. I went to the same screen in the same order every time. I put the file together the same way, and I asked for my email cadence was the same, and, and I had it mapped out.

I had it written down.

Identical, you know. Yeah, identical every time.

Yeah, I think that's important. And I mean, you know, Dave, you're right. You've gotta, you know, you've got to figure this business out, you know, working hard 50 hours a week. You've got to go through that, that period, I think, you know. And, and what happens is, you know, you develop referral partners. Then when you go into like the phase 2 of your, of your growth, you know, journey, and you know what happens is, is you know, you have somebody else now in the mix. So what tends to happen is you lose people along the way, you know, you lose some people when you go to that next phase. So it's important that, you know, you really, you know, you're really able to—

Yeah, I think, I think all of that's well said. You know, it's interesting because I said the first 3 didn't surprise me. The 4th one did surprise me. Like, I would not have picked this one, honestly. And the big idea between that behind this is that speed of response builds trust. And wins deals? And the poll results that got clicked on is quick response time and pre-call strategy and speed, right? So, you know, if you, if you said, hey, pick the top 5 and I saw the list, this is not one that I would have thought would have made the cut as a top 5. But, but here we are. Speed was mentioned repeatedly in various responses, being able to get back to agents and buyers, being able to respond quickly, keep deals moving, turn deals fastly, returning calls.

Fast pre-approvals, like all of that stuff was, was just kind of mentioned over and over and over again. So here we are. What do you guys think of that?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's important, right? I mean, what's the stat? I'm going to butcher it, but 75 or 80% of customers call or see me 75 or 80% go with the first person that picks up the phone. 83%. 83%. So that, that's obviously very important. I mean, there is a time horizon, right? Like, I don't know what it is. Like, if a realtor calls you and you call back in 20 minutes, half an hour, hour, that, that should be good enough, especially if you're a solo practitioner. But for some people, they have a higher degree of urgency than that.

Right?

Um, but speed of response is super important though. Just, it's, it's all, it's, it's subjective what that speed of response is.

Well, we all know the importance of answering the phone and what can happen if you don't answer the phone, because I mean, you know, there's a lot of realtors who still believe you're supposed to give, you know, 3 business cards out and refer 3 people. And, you know, if the customer calls the first one, you don't answer, they, they move right on to the next one.

Yeah, you know what I find interesting about this is that, uh, this is really a result of, you know, kind of the first three. Like, this is almost a byproduct of, of the first three that we had, right? Um, you, you've had the realtor relationships, you got the customers, and then you have the system to give you the time to have the speed to deliver, right? So all of this is kind of hand in hand to, to open the door to this fourth one, if you will, um, which we're being told by our top producers is vitally important so you can capture the business and, and drive revenue. So, you know, think of that out there as you're listening. If you don't have those systems, if you don't have those relationships, if the call's not coming in, oh, you don't have to worry about answering it, that's because you didn't build the realtor relationship, right? If you're not working your files the right way and you're off dealing with some stupid, petty, whatever, and you can't answer your phone, well, that's because maybe your system's broken. So I thought— I do think that aspect of it's pretty interesting. So the last one was pretty interesting as well, I thought. And the big idea behind it is that visibility strengthens trust before the first conversation. So think about, you know, consistent branding, personal branding, being at events and doing sponsorships, being involved in your community.

Being on social media, having video content out there. So, you know, when you call that agent to build the relationship or that client gets referred over, they have some warm awareness of who you are, what you do already. I can see that. I can see that as a top 5.

You know what, this is, this is, this is a needed to discuss topic because I think a lot of originators are confused on what they're doing on social media. You know, they're confused on what they're doing. And that really, it summarizes it. It's allowing people to get to know you before they know you, you know, and you know, what are you known for? You know, what is your strategy? Who do you want to be known for as an originator? What do you do really well? How do you start to portray that on social media? That's branding, folks. You know, when people talk about branding, that is by definition what, what we're really trying to do here. And I think, you know, instead of just figuring out I'm posting a video here or I'm posting a video there, you know, or I'm gonna hit, you know, make 5 posts a, a month or whatever your strategy is, like, what are you— what's the bigger structure? What's the bigger strategy behind it? What are you trying to accomplish? And I think, you know, that's where focus needs to be when people are spending their time on social media, because you can absolutely be wasting time on social media.

100%.

And then it becomes that, that, that comfort blanket, right? Where you're not doing the things that you need to do that are a little bit uncomfortable and you revert to that and you justify it saying, oh, I'm doing, you know, I'm on social media.

Yeah. I would say most LOs probably waste their time on social media. I agree. We have half dozen, dozen LOs who I think are just crushing it right now. On social that are doing a really good job. But you can't wing it. You need a plan. You need some support.

You don't need highly produced videos. Your phone and a selfie, you know, or video is generally fine. You know, they're a little more relatable than a highly glossy produced video. But yeah, you need a plan. If you're just on there commenting on open houses and realtors' listings and liking stuff, Yeah, you probably need to take it to the next level. And there's plenty of books and podcasts and things on that.

What, what about posting flyers to social media? Oh my God.

So for our listeners, it didn't make the top 5. Oh my God. Flyers. I mean, a flyer. I have made millions of dollars off flyers early on in my career. I used to walk around, I used to go every Wednesday to my real estate offices, put on a suit and pass out rate sheets. Right. That's probably about as useful as flyers.

Did I get some business out of it? Yes. But it was an awful, awful use of my time. Our producers just texting us and saying flyers weren't on the list. No shit. We spend tons of money as a company on these flyers. Open house flyers, flyers, this flyers with rates, flyers with offers, flyers on social media. Don't do anything. Stop wasting your time with flyers.

But I'm on social media. You said social media. Yeah. Guys, this has been a fun conversation. Great results from the polls. I think that, you know, it was, it was pretty interesting to see. I'm excited to get this playbook out there again. Everyone listening.

You want a copy of this playbook, reach out to us. Uh, we'll get a copy in your hands. We'll have it posted somewhere and get that shared, I'm sure. Uh, listen, the data is pretty clear, right? Money in this business flows from the relationships that you build, being able to execute on them quickly, having disciplined follow-up, strong internal support. You got to be visible. You got to have relentless focus, right? And what we know and what we see day in and day out is our top producers They're not, you know, just on a wing and a prayer hoping for this volume to come in. They make it happen. They manufacture it with the activities and the things that they do consistently and intently, proactively.

So, you know, I guess the question I would end with everyone listening, if you had to strip your business down and pick the 5 things that truly make you money, what would they be? We'd love to hear from you. If you haven't hit that subscribe button, go ahead and do that., and then drop us that 5-star review. We appreciate it. Uh, Dave Holland and Tom Mills, I'm Robert Fillyaw with Lending Leadership with the Mortgage Pros.

Thanks for tuning in, guys.

Thanks everyone. Thank you all.