The LO Down Mortgage Podcast

Connor Bartley
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Entrepreneurship

The LO Down Mortgage Podcast is THE podcast where we talk to the Top 20% of Loan Officers about the path to growth, the struggles they encountered along the way and the triumphs they celebrated.  Each episode is packed with valuable insights on how to grow and scale from $1-2M a month in volume to $2-5M a month and beyond.  If you're serious about growing your production volume, learn from those that have already been through it.  

  1. 4d ago

    The Loan Officer Who Figured Out How to Stop Working - The LO Down w/ Trevor Higgins

    Most loan officers think the ceiling they're hitting is a lead problem. It's not. Trevor Higgins walked into the mortgage industry with a copy of Mortgages for Dummies and zero plan. He sat in a Wells Fargo call center during a refi boom, figured out the business from scratch, and eventually built a $50M+ production model around real estate investors — because he became one himself. In this episode Trevor breaks down the math that changed everything: your hourly rate. Take your monthly commission, divide by hours worked, and suddenly every task you're still doing yourself has a dollar figure attached to it. If you can pay someone $15 an hour to do what you're doing at $100 an hour, you're not saving money — you're burning it. Trevor made his first hire and watched production jump from $25M to $35M. Then $50M. Then more. He also tells you exactly why most loan officers never get there. Two things: they keep chasing the easy button instead of picking a lane and going all in. And they confuse spreadsheet coaching — make this many calls, follow this script — with actual coaching, which is helping someone find their own answers so they actually believe them enough to act. Trevor also shares the hot tub conversation in Cabo with a billionaire who owned 80% of the oil wells in Texas that shaped how he thinks about relationships and network. Not a bad setting for a lesson that stuck. If you're bumping the same ceiling and can't name what needs to change, this is the episode. Subscribe to the LO Down newsletter for weekly content built for originators ready to build something bigger: https://www.lodownmortgagecommunity.com/subscribe Take the LO Down Diagnostic — three assessments, five minutes, tells you your hourly rate, your next hire, and your stage of growth: https://www.lodownmortgagecommunity.com/diagnostic

  2. Aug 8

    He Left Mortgage, Built a Festival, a& Came Back Smarter - The LO Down w/ Corey Petree

    Most loan officers are trying to do more. More leads. More calls. More volume. Corey Petree figured out that more is actually the wrong direction. In this episode, Corey breaks down the exact shift that took him from reactive and overwhelmed to running 20 files at once without feeling it. He walked away from mortgage to build a music festival from scratch, watched a hurricane shut it down in year two, and came back with something most LOs never develop: the ability to identify what he should not be doing and build a team around the gaps. He talks about why he turned down a preferred lender relationship with a high school friend — not because he doubted the volume, but because he knew the client experience would suffer. He shares the profit share philosophy that keeps his team from ever wanting to leave. He explains why hard files are not a problem to avoid — they are the reason the whole business exists. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, he built a character called Cash Mortgageson, a fictional mortgage broker in a smoking jacket and a bad British accent, to reach Gen Z buyers who do not trust educational content. The lesson underneath all of it is the same: hire before you need help, market to your people, and give a genuine enough damn about your team and your clients that they never want to go anywhere else. If you are closing eight to twelve loans a month and it feels like something is off but you cannot name it, this episode is the conversation you have been needing to have. Subscribe to the LO Down newsletter — weekly content built for producers who are ready to build something bigger: https://www.lodownmortgagecommunity.com/subscribe Not sure what is holding your business back? Take the LO Down Diagnostic — three assessments, five minutes, and a real dollar figure on what your current setup is costing you every month: https://www.lodownmortgagecommunity.com/diagnostic

  3. Aug 1

    $100M Before 30: It Started with One Question to Grandma - The LO Down w/ Clayton Tyrel

    Clayton Tyrel walked away from a mechanical engineering degree at Georgia Tech, asked his grandmother one honest question, and built a mortgage business from zero to nearly $100 million in five years. No refi boom to ride. No inherited book of business. Just a market most veterans were fleeing and a guy who had nothing to lose. In this episode Clayton breaks down exactly how he got there. He talks about the 15th loan — the one where everything finally clicked and he understood what it actually meant to manage a transaction from the buyer's experience backward. He talks about mutual mystification, a term his builder partner taught him that became the operating principle behind every client conversation and every team process he has ever built. No gray. No assumptions. Black and white or it does not move forward. He talks about delegation not as giving things away but as choosing where his time creates the most value. Document collection is not a tier-three problem. Saving a file that just blew up in underwriting is. Knowing the difference is what separates a producer from a business owner. He talks about rejection. About the two kinds of pain — the pain of not having enough and the pain of trying to keep what you have. About how his why — generational wealth, family, freedom — is bigger than his fear of a no. And he is still in his twenties. If you are stuck between six and ten million and you cannot figure out why, this episode is probably the conversation you have been needing to have. Watch the full episode. Take notes on the mutual mystification segment. You will use it this week.

  4. Jul 25

    Coast Guard Veteran to Mortgage SVP: Built on Service - The LO Down w/ Scott Pendleton

    Here's a question most loan officers never ask themselves. What's your time actually worth? Scott Pendleton did the math for you. Take your loan volume, divide it by 2,000 hours a year, and there's your number. For a lot of producers, it's $250 an hour. So why are you still building your own Canva flyers and chasing down documents instead of paying someone $25 an hour to do it for you? That's the kind of gut-check you get from this episode. Scott spent four and a half years in the Coast Guard, ran restaurants, and built a mortgage career on one non-negotiable principle. Service first, money later. He explains how a referral partner in Tampa turned a $60,000 deal nobody wanted into a $20 million a year real estate business, and why the loan officers who actually make it aren't chasing leads, they're becoming the most trusted person in the room. You'll hear why Scott still closes a few loans a month even as an SVP, what a real time audit looks like on a printed calendar, and the exact 75-80 percent rule he uses to hire people who can finally take work off his plate. There's also a hard truth in here about control. Most originators plateau not because they run out of leads, but because they can't let go of the wheel. Scott breaks down exactly what to look for when you finally hire, and why the mistakes your new hire makes might actually be good for you. If you're doing seven to fourteen loans a month and something feels off but you can't name it, this episode names it. Growth in this business isn't complicated. It's just uncomfortable. Watch the whole thing.

  5. Jul 18

    He Closed 30-50% of Loans From People He Already Knew - The LO Down w/ Nick Muccigrosso

    Nick Muccigrosso built his mortgage business the hard way. Started in his twenties taking the files nobody else wanted — Chinoa loans, down payment assistance, credit-challenged buyers. Not because he had to. Because he figured out that saying yes to the hard stuff was the fastest way to become the person everyone trusted with everything. His dad is a realtor with 35 years in the business. Did not send him a single referral for a long time. Nick did not expect him to. He wanted to earn it. Now he closes 30 to 50 percent of his loans from people he already knows. Not because he has some elaborate CRM campaign. Because he picks up the phone, calls past clients on their home anniversary, says thank you, and hangs up without asking for anything. In this episode Nick breaks down the two C's that define his entire value proposition — clarity and certainty — and why a pre-approval letter with his name on it means something in the Orlando market. He talks about matching his junior loan officer to the right role by remembering how she asked questions when she bought her own house. He talks about the fire-at-nine principle he learned from one of the top originators in the country and how it changed the way he protects his momentum. And he talks about what it actually looks like to build a business that closes ten loans a month without it feeling harder than closing three. Nick is not a systems guy pretending to be a people person or a people person pretending to have systems. He is both. And this conversation shows exactly what that looks like in practice.

  6. Jul 10

    Stop Pitching the P&L. Fix the Pain First - The LO Down w/ Mike Burke

    25 years. Five company closures. Same team still standing. That is not luck. That is a system. Mike Burke spent two decades watching the mortgage industry make the same mistake on a loop — recruit, neglect, lose, repeat — and decided to build something different. In this episode, Mike breaks down the three-part recruiting machine he used to hire 46 people in 3.5 years, including a 72-hour rule that most branch managers think sounds insane until they see what it produces. He explains why the first conversation should never be about comp, why you need to re-recruit your own loan officers 3 to 4 times in year one, and why the day a loan officer can tell you exactly when their sign-on bonus expires is the day you already lost them. He also makes the case that the real problem in this industry is not rates, not market conditions, and not the loan officers themselves. It is a management culture that writes checks instead of building relationships — and then wonders why nobody stays. If you manage a team, recruit for a living, or have ever sat across the table from a manager who clearly had no idea what you were actually going through, this one is going to hit. Mike is not here to tell you what you want to hear. He is here to tell you what actually works. Subscribe for weekly conversations with the producers and leaders building something bigger.

  7. Jul 1

    Stop Comparing. Start Closing: 20 Years of Hard Truth - The LO Down w/ Richard Lytle

    Most loan officers spend 20 years getting better at closing loans. Richard Lytle spent 20 years getting better at building a business. There is a difference. And this episode is that difference made audible. Richard got into this industry because a college buddy faxed him a paycheck. His first job was a boiler room. Red Bull in the fridges, cold calls all day, convince people to say yes to things that may not benefit them at all. He lasted long enough to know exactly what he never wanted to become. So he built the opposite. A business in Wilmington, North Carolina, grounded entirely in one thing — helping as many families as possible, regardless of loan size. $75K loan or a million dollar property. Same care. Same standard. Same experience every time. What he figured out that most LOs figure out too late: the lead is not the product. The experience is the product. Get that right and the leads take care of themselves. He was fielding 60 to 100 referrals a month before he hired someone to help manage them. In this episode Richard gets into the pastor who ripped him a new one and what it taught him about tone. The comparison spiral that nearly broke his confidence after 20 years. The beach photo his wife posted that launched a fitness transformation. The three-step prospecting system that keeps his agent relationships growing without cold calls. And the hire he made that his realtors love so much he ended up officiating the guy's wedding. This one is for the loan officer who is done just closing loans and ready to build something.

  8. Jun 24

    Commission Only, Single Mom, No Net: She Did it Anyway - The LO Down w/ Kelley Sullivan

    She went commission only in January 2013 with two kids under six, no salary, and a mother who thought she had lost her mind. Then 2013 happened. She got hit in the face with a softball. Twenty stitches. Hospital bed. Starting a coaching class the next morning she had just spent money she didn't have. Her kids' dad died. Her car got totaled. And she closed her first home and kept building the business she has today. This episode is not about tactics. It is about what actually separates the producers who break through from the ones who drift back to safety. Kelley Sullivan has been doing this for over two decades. She still goes to her closings. She still wakes up thinking about her borrowers. She wrote a check out of her own pocket once because a client lost earnest money due to her mistake, and it was the right thing to do. She built something real. By refusing to be an 80 percent person. By treating every client like they are hers personally. By wearing a bracelet that reads: change does not come without inconvenience. One thing Kelley said that will not leave you: the biggest mistake producers make is waiting for the phone to ring instead of asking what they are doing to make it ring. She has been asking that question since 2013. The LO Down Diagnostic asks it for you — in about 10 minutes. It calculates what your current structure is costing you every month, identifies the hire that removes your biggest bottleneck first, and tells you exactly where you are on the path from loan officer to business owner. The same path Kelley has been walking for over a decade. If this episode resonates, the diagnostic is the next step. Link in the comments. The LO Down Mortgage Podcast — for the originator who knows they're meant to build something bigger.

See All (119)

About

The LO Down Mortgage Podcast is THE podcast where we talk to the Top 20% of Loan Officers about the path to growth, the struggles they encountered along the way and the triumphs they celebrated.  Each episode is packed with valuable insights on how to grow and scale from $1-2M a month in volume to $2-5M a month and beyond.  If you're serious about growing your production volume, learn from those that have already been through it.  

Information

  • Creator
    Connor Bartley
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    119
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Connor Bartley
  • Show Website
    The LO Down Mortgage Podcast

You Might Also Like