Building the Best Mortgage Company: Lessons from Industry Veterans at HMA Mortgage

Gentlemen. Robert. Long time long time coming, and here we are. 1st, 1st episode of Lending Leadership with the Mortgage Pros. I'm really excited to be doing this with you guys.

I'm excited too, brother.

Heck, yeah. Let's go.

I'm I'm so excited. So, you know, kicking off this show, what we wanna do just to kinda get started, let's, intro ourselves a little bit so everyone know who who they're on listening to. And then, let's just talk a little bit about, you know, what brought us together, why we're doing this, what we wanna chat about, what they can look forward to, go from there. I'm I'm gonna have some fun with this, so, be ready. Yeah. Who who wants to kick off the intro?

I'm Tom Mills. I'm 19 year veteran of the mortgage industry and really looking forward to bringing, some experience and, value into some of our conversations here.

I love it. I love it. I'll go next. I'm Robert Filja, managing partner, minority owner of HMA Mortgage. 21 years in the mortgage business, and really looking forward just to sharing some ideas with these guys. I think the coolest thing about what we're gonna be able to do is is open up some insight, maybe some behind the scenes from an ownership and leadership perspective that maybe your everyday originator just doesn't have. I think that, that insight's gonna maybe help understand and grow business. I'm really excited to help, put some ideas out there and some some leadership into the market that's that's lacking.

So I look a little red today. I'm I'm not sunburned. I'm not on fire. We're we're getting our lighting right, so to be continued on that. But, excited to be doing this. Wouldn't wanna do it with anybody else than than you 2 guys.

Your lighting and Dave's Botox between the 2, it's, I'm not gonna look at the screen.

I swear I've never had Botox on my children's honor.

Okay.

think this is a great opportunity to point out that Dave has been in the business longer than Tom and I because he is older than Tom and I.

So Different generations. I mean, we're we're we're we're different generations. Right?

I mean, one of us on this podcast I know. One one of us on this show routinely wears Birkenstocks and the other 2 do not. So we'll let you guys You bet. Come to figure out who that's that is.

We'll leave it up to the audience.

So, listen, you know, a little bit of backstory on us. I'm just gonna throw this out there for those of you who may not know. So Tom, Dave, and I were all, in our respective careers and have recently come together and and really formed a dynamic partnership, the the mortgage trinity, as I like to call it, through a merger of our groups into 1, bomb ass organization known as HMA Mortgage. So, you know, we we came together through coaching, something the 3 of us believe a lot in, and have now formed this partnership with a single goal of kinda building the best damn mortgage company that's ever existed. So I think, what's gonna be really cool about this podcast is getting this kinda follow along with us in that journey, seeing where we flub, you know, the the mistakes we run into, the walls we hit. I know one of my goals is to be super super raw and transparent and just, you know, kinda put a lot of insight out there. What are you guys hoping to get out of this? Like, what what are some goals that you wanna see from here?

The opportunity to just further collaborate. You know, I think all of us have have, you know, spent a lot of time investing in ourselves and our careers through coaching and learning, and not everybody's had that luxury. You know, I feel like I I've personally, you know, spent over half a $1,000,000 to learn, how to be better at a lot of things tied to this industry. And, you know, when you think about it, we go to conferences. We're just at 1. You learn so much there, but, you know, what what what's so powerful in working with people in this industry, talking with people, collaborating with people is is the conversations that I have at conferences, not always the someone that's up there on stage speaking and, hitting on a topic. So I personally look forward to kind of bringing that collaboration, bringing our conversations into here. We can just have them here now instead of having them on the phone and and and then coming here.

So looking forward to kind of bringing some value, some leadership, some insight. Lots to talk about the business right now.

There's a lot of moving parts. We're at the mercy of the macroeconomy. There's been some wild swings that everyone knows the last 4 years.

It it literally changed the entire trajectory of my life and my work life balance and the time and and availability I had to spend with my family. And, honestly, guys, like, that was the first step in a long journey that led us to today. Right? Because we all 3 met in coaching, and now it's gonna continue to change our lives. And our mentor, Carl White, shout out to Carl in the Mortgage Marketing Animals Freedom Club, he gives this analogy that I always think about, and this is one more ripple. Right? He talks about the ripple in the pond. You throw the pebble and it just ripples out, and that's what coaching has done for us. Like, it impacts us, and then we impact people because of it. And then they impact people, and those people impact people.

This podcast is just another way to do that. I'm really, really excited.

I'd go backpacking for a week in the middle of, like, the Adirondacks or the middle of the White Mounds. I went to Kilimanjaro for 2 weeks. Places where I had

That's a savage.

Well, yeah. Well, that's not bad. Places that I wouldn't have access to my cell phone or email. I where I couldn't actually work, and it was like a forced unplug.

I think people use people create an excuse. Like, the the reality of it is is you if you can't take a week, a 3 or 4 day, you know, extended weekend, a couple of vacations a year, and kind of tune out. Like, it's not your job. It's a lot you.

Are you kinda You're doing something really wrong.

Yeah. You're doing it wrong.

You're not doing

that much at you. And you know what? If it is, give yourself a little bit of respect and and throw some boundaries down because, man, especially in a business like this, I need my time away as much as I just think if you focus on the right things day in and day out, you can absolutely take time away.

But when you're an L O with no support or limited support and your entire career is based on sometimes how quickly and accurately you can respond and you don't have help, you can't take a vacation. You need some form of support that you can trust so you can get away. Well, it's hard to

get the build the nobody builds the team and then, and then brings the business in. It's bring the business and build the team along the way. So we've all gone through those tough times, those sacrifice, taking the Saturday, Sunday morning calls, missing part of your son's game, you know, whatever it may be. But, you know, in the end of the day, that was excuses because we weren't running our business efficiently.

Well, we didn't know how to run our businesses until we were shown the light. Exactly.

That's one of the things I love coaching most on, right, is the systems and processes to build the efficiency to get the work life balance back because there's nothing like, made tons of money, done lots of cool stuff, been cool places, met cool people. There's still nothing quite as powerful as having someone say, hey. Thanks for giving me my life back. Or better yet, having one of their family members come up and say, hey. Thanks for giving me, you know, my dad back. Like And

that's happened to you a couple times.

It's happened a couple times, and it's it's it's really powerful. Like, every time, it still gets me.

So For

those of you originators out there, you can grow your business, and you can grow your quality of life at the same time. Don't let anybody fool you. Don't fool yourself. You can do it.

Yeah. It's it's it's possible. I mean, I'm a great example. I went away to Hawaii for 3 weeks in the summer of 22, and it taught me 2 things. Number 1, my team doesn't need me. And number 2, when I got myself out of the way, all I did was make us focus phone calls for an hour or 2 a day, 3 or 4 days a week, I actually did more business. So sometimes I'm self sabotaging my own business, and I don't even realize it.

Yeah. So I'm excited as we continue to go. We're gonna be talking a lot about these topics and digging in and really getting granular on some of this. And this is gonna be there's gonna be a lot of takeaway from this for for those of you out there tuning in. So I hope you'll, you'll definitely hit that like button, hit the sub smash that subscribe button as we go. But one thing I was curious about, guys, as we we kinda get to know people out there and they get to know us is let's let's share a little bit what got us in this industry. I've never met a single person that is growing up or, you know, I've ever seen a single, like, worksheet. What do what do you wanna be when you grow up? And someone put mortgage loan originator.

I don't know a single person that set out to get into the mortgage loan origination business.

My top 2 were farmer and soldier. That those were the top 2 professions that, I I, I got on my personality test when I was in high school. Farmer and soldier.

I guess you you're you do a sort of kind of farming. It's a little bit like farming. I mean Well,

I mean, how I got into business, I'll go first. You know, I was my dad's a real estate attorney. I started studying for the L staffs after 5 years of college and 2. So

5. 5. I thought college takes 4. I I didn't graduate college, so I don't know, but it's supposed to take 4.

Well, I I did get 2 really powerful 3 powerful degrees. I got a major in history, sociology with a minor in philosophy. So wasn't really on this great, career. So I started signing for the l stats. I realized that at a certain point well, yeah. At a certain point, I would make a mediocre attorney at best. So for lack of a better thing to do, I'm from Erie, PA. My mom grew up in Pittsburgh.

I took some interviews in Pittsburgh, which is a larger city than Erie. I got 2 job offers. 1 was $1,000 a month with health insurance. The other was a 100% commission, no health insurance. So I took I took the $1,000 a month with health insurance, lived in my grandparents' basement for 12, 13 months, crawled my way out of there. And I tell you what, I've never worked as the 1st year I worked so hard. I worked 12, 14 hours a day. I didn't have any business.

Right? All I did was read and, you know, make phone calls and listen to, self help books on tape. And I worked really hard to get out of my grandparents' basement. It was a cool time in my life. Right? Because I I was with my 80 some year old grandparents, but I knew I had to get out there as quickly as possible. Nothing's nothing's like motivation to live in your grandparents' basement.

And I ran

into the business, and the mortgage business did it.

That that's powerful. You got out, Dave.

You got out.

For those of you, younger listeners who are listening, so when Dave says he listened to stuff on tape, there used to be these things called cassette tapes. Right? I didn't do it, but and, I'll go next. Like, I had no no intentions of getting into the mortgage industry. I actually if you look back on all of my, you know, like, 3rd grade, 2nd grade, 1st grade, I wanna be a marine. Right? I wanted to go in the marine corps, which I did. I went to the marine corps in the reserves, not right out of high school. So I was a little bit of a a shift a ship adrift, if you will. Got out of high school, started college.

College wasn't really my thing. I was working part time at a bank, as a teller and part time at a grocery store and going to college full time. And I went to the Marine Corps Reserve and, was just kinda doing that and trying to get through school. School wasn't my thing, so, I really started to decide that I wanted to focus on one of the 2 careers, either the grocery store or the banking side. Alright?

And Well, hold on. What were you doing at the grocery store?

I was a, I was a cashier. I was a, like, office staff, like and was gonna go into management, right, which it's listen. It's Publix. It's a it's a massive grocery store.

There there was a career track there.

Right? Correct. We're service training back then. Great customer service training. And the managers all made 6 figures. Right? They're employee owned. Great company. Right? But weekends, holidays, like, you're gonna be working. And I started looking at the bank side.

I was like, well, I get all these holidays off. I get paid I get paid to be off. Right? Still going to college, but I was thinking, okay. One of these two tracks. So then what happened is a lot of the people I worked with at the bank, they started graduating college and leaving to go get jobs. And, like, 3 months later, they were back working at the bank because even though they had college degrees, they weren't getting jobs. So I kinda said, and, from there, just started working my way up through the bank. Right? Went teller to personal banker, realized I had a little bit of a knack for sales, system branch manager, branch manager, was managing a a banking center with, like, 15, 16 employees.

How were the nights and weekends and, holidays, man?

What were those? What what were nights and weekends? Right? So just, you know, went full bore, went all in, and, have have never looked back. Best decision I ever made.

Yeah. Yeah. I too, you know, no plans for the mortgage business like everybody else. It's a first of all, what a scary point in life when you're, like, you know, in your early twenties just getting out of college. You don't know what the your calling is. You don't know what you're supposed to do out there in this world. It's a really scary point. I remember through college, I started working full time for a bank, MBNA, learned a lot there.

One of the best organizations I ever worked for, amazing culture. You know, I think a lot of who I am today just learned that that ingrained in me really young in my early career working. But I got started working while I was in school full time. I started working full time and moving to night classes more to discipline myself because, if I have a lot of free time, I was gonna not use it so wisely. So I kind of keep my busy schedule to avoid wasting time. So just kinda like if you wanna avoid eating, garbage, don't put garbage in your in your cupboard or your fridge.

I feel attacked. Easy, Tom. I feel attacked.

So I, was working for a credit card bank and expressed an interest in their mortgage division because I heard they were making higher commissions than anybody else, and it was very selfish all about myself at that point. And, I got a taste of, like, kinda what corporate America was where, you know, I expressed an interest in a role, but, they felt I was going to go another direction. And I he then felt like, man, this is corporate America. I don't want this. And I went into the mortgage business. I had a friend that just had started with Ameriquis, who's actually number 1 net lender in the nation then if you guys remember them. It wasn't that long. You know, that that, my office actually got shut down for fraud.

There's probably a whole another entire episode we could have there. Were were

there windbreakers involved?

Pre the pre crash days?

Yeah. The pre crash days. Wild west? And and I was innocent, and I'm here to tell the stories and went on and carried on my 19 year career. But, you know, that was a little scary. And then, because I just started. I was doing really well. I'd been there, like, a year, and life was everything I wanted it to be and excitement and flying around the country to top producer trips and, you know, being taken care of, and it was awesome. Making great money, money I never thought was even imaginable.

But, you know, then it ended up bringing me into the next step in the IMB space and, the small IMB that's now a a a very large IMB. And and then shortly after that, I built my first sales team. You know, one of those, like, who's coming with me kinda moments and and, started a sales team together with a partner at, the age of 26. And, through years of coaching and, connecting with people, collaborating, you know, working with a large organization, growing a a a big region, have a lot of fun doing it. All those connections, all that experience, put me right right here where I am today, working with you 3, and we got, we got another 20 years ahead of us perhaps.

Maybe you guys do.

You could continue. And you do. Dave Dave, maybe maybe 15.

I'll be dead in 20 years.

That's so morbid. Not true either. Dave's probably in the best shape of the 3 of us, so not true. True that.

You know, within about a year, 14 months of being in the mortgage business, I knew this is what I wanted to do for life.

Me too.

I I was good at it. I was, you know, at that time, I perceived I was making good money. I was able to move out of my grandparents' basement. But with literally within a year, I knew this is what I wanted to do. I had a little bit of success. I was closing a 3 or 4 transactions a month, and I'm like, this is it. This this and I and and that's pretty powerful too. You know, you mentioned your Tom, we're we're kinda rudderless when we're younger, early twenties.

It's it's it's nerve wracking. You have no financial security. Yeah. It's a powerful I thought it was very powerful feeling when I said to myself, this is my this is my career. When I had friends, like, 10 years

later powerful too.

Who didn't have their career. And I knew this is what I wanted to do. And if I just focused on it, I I'd be I'd be successful.

Well and let's let's be real. Right? Like, I'd put this career against anything out there because it, like, it does it take a lot of time? Is it taxing? Yes. But you control the time that it takes. Right? Like, it's flexible in that sense, especially with tech technology today. Like, literally, I can work anywhere. I told Lacey yesterday, we were having lunch. Our kids are gonna be out of the house in 4 years. I was like, hey.

Here's a crazy idea. Our kids get out of the house. Why don't we sell the house, and we'll just live somewhere for a few months at a time? And we can travel the world. Because we can work

with That's my idea. That's my idea. My idea.

Don't tell her I stole it, though. We can literally work anywhere. Right? And then you factor in the money. Right? We make really good money for what we do. And then you sprinkle on the fact that we get to help people and help them achieve the dream of homeownership and walk through it. Like I see. It's magical. Right? I was the guy I worked in the retail bank where I was chained there from 8 to 6, Monday through Friday, and worried that my lunch took 35 minutes instead of 30.

Yeah. Screw that. I'll never go back.

I feel very blessed to have found my calling in this business. I could have found a number of things. And by the way, I think whatever people find their calling in, pursue it. You know? Absolutely.

Enjoy what you do. And vice versa, Tom, if you if you don't love what you're doing, go find something else to do.

Turn on. Change. You can make change. Yeah. I agree. Because it's that that's what's fulfilling in life. You know? Enjoying what you do day in, day out, and enjoying the people you do it with, as well is, you know, really, I think an indicator just towards life happiness. And, you know, I know some people that do really well.

It doesn't necessarily mean they they have happiness in their life.

What's the saying if you love what you do, you'll never work another you'll never work a day in your life?

That's it. That's it.

It is true.

That is true. Work is work, though, and, hard work putting in hard work, doing the right things in this business can do well. But, you know, I know through this show, I'm looking forward to you know? And we had that conversation the other day, Robert. Originators want 1 or 2 things. They they either wanna make the same amount of money doing less work, or they wanna make more money doing the same amount of work.

Mhmm. Exactly.

And, I think we can talk a lot about how you can accomplish either one of those things. Sometimes people settle in, get a nice business built that they don't have the grand illusions of of growing it past that point, but, you know, you can live a really good life.

Absolutely. I think that's well said, guys. I think that's probably a good we're gonna get into a lot of topics, and I'm excited to see just everything we lay out as we go. If you haven't already hit that like button, that subscribe button, go ahead and smash that now so you can keep up with us. And, we're gonna get really granular on some of this stuff. You know? And, if you

have Every week, we're gonna have a couple new topics.

Yeah. If you have stuff you want us to talk about, throw that out there. Otherwise, we we've really enjoyed this first episode with you guys. Like I said a hundred times, there's nobody I'd rather be on this journey with than the 2 of you. Every day, it's something new and exciting. And most days, we even get along. So, that's always

a plus. Days.

Most days. Some days, I hate you, Dave. Not today, though. Not today.

I love you both every day.

Tom always coming over the top. Hey. As we close, guys, if you had one piece of advice to put out there for people this week, what would that be?

I think that's perfectly set, Tom, because we know, right, that the 6 what you do 60 the activities you do today are what's gonna reap you results 60 to 75 days from now. So good good good advice. How about you, Dave? Go

to bed an hour earlier and get up an hour earlier. Use that hour to read. Don't surf email. Either read or work out. If you do that, I, 100%, guarantee, it will change your perspective on everything.

That I I'm gonna take that as a takeaway and challenge accepted. Tom and I were just at a place and a a gentleman got up and spoke, and he said that if you get 5 hours of sleep or less a night, your morbidity rate goes up 67%. Yeah. Which which is mind blowing to me. So

I sleep 7 and a half to 8 every single night

for the most part. That's why you have those boyish good looks. Here's my

I don't I'm looking to go to bed earlier, but kinda get up the same time because I need to add those hours, and I'm I'm kinda behind, but, the great great episode there sometimes, that mental preparation. How do you prepare for your

For the week and for the day.

Regimented. We're getting your air text at 5:35, 5 minutes after you just woke up, Dave. Yeah. We love it.

I love it. Here's here's my piece of advice, guys. If you're not doing it already, it's a really simple and easy piece of of takeaway. Answer your damn phone. Right? 83% of a of loans originate with the 1st loan officer that the person speaks with. Answer your phone. That's it. Enjoyed it, bro.

I was looking forward to the next one.

I'm looking forward to it too.

Hey. You'll, you'll see a follow on screen with our contact information. You have any questions, interested in chatting with one of us, reach out. Don't hesitate. We'd love to talk to you. Thanks so much for listening, guys.

Thanks, everyone. Thank you.