Mortgage Coaching for Managers - Learn the 5 key components of managing in house lending companies.
As the leader of a real estate organization, branching into mortgage lending can be a game-changer for your business. At Icenhower Coaching & Consulting (ICC), we’ve helped numerous real estate companies expand into new pillars of income by establishing in-house mortgage divisions. The benefits are undeniable, but managing these mortgage branches or divisions successfully requires a structured and strategic approach. That’s where mortgage coaching for managers comes into play.
In this article, I’ll guide you through the key strategies for coaching and leading a mortgage division. Drawing from our experience with high-performing real estate teams and brokerages across North America, I’ll outline actionable steps you can implement to optimize your mortgage operation for growth, efficiency, and profitability.
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VIDEO: Mortgage Coaching for Managers of In House Lending Companies
The Rise of In-House Mortgage Divisions
Many large real estate companies and teams are expanding their services to include in-house mortgage divisions. This makes sense, as it creates an additional pillar of income for businesses with an established real estate foundation. When a real estate team is consistently generating production, adding a mortgage division is a natural next step.
As a mortgage manager, your role will be to harness the existing real estate production and turn it into profitable mortgage opportunities. The beauty of this setup is that the hardest part for mortgage brokers—getting business from real estate agents—is already solved when you’re operating within your own company. You’ll just need the right mortgage coaching for managers strategies to unlock the division’s potential.
Why Mortgage Divisions Are Profitable
Mortgage lending is highly lucrative due to the significant profit margins. For most mortgage brokers, the biggest challenge is sourcing clients. However, as a real estate business with an in-house mortgage division, you have a built-in source of potential borrowers: your real estate agents and their clients. This gives you an edge over external mortgage brokers who have to work much harder to establish relationships with agents.
With that said, success in the mortgage business isn’t guaranteed. Many companies try to establish in-house lending divisions, but few manage to do so effectively. That’s where the need for mortgage coaching for managers comes into play. By implementing the right coaching principles, you can set your mortgage division up for success, ensuring that it becomes a consistent and reliable source of income for your business.
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The Five Key Components of Mortgage Coaching for Managers
To run a successful mortgage division, you need to lead it much like a real estate team. In fact, the strategies that drive high performance in real estate sales apply directly to mortgage management. In my book, The High-Performing Real Estate Team, I outline five key components that drive success in any organization. These principles are just as effective in a mortgage division. Here’s how you can apply them:
1. Set Clear, Annual Goals
The first step in mortgage coaching for managers is to set clear and measurable goals for your mortgage division. Start by establishing a goal for the entire branch, and then break it down into individual goals for each loan officer. These should be annual goals that everyone understands and commits to.
Having a clear target is essential for motivating your team and giving them direction. Without defined goals, it’s easy for loan officers to lose focus, especially when market conditions fluctuate. Goals provide the roadmap to success, and they ensure that everyone is working toward a common objective.
2. Focus on Activity-Based Indicators
Once the goals are set, the next step is to focus on activity-based indicators rather than just results. Results are important, but they are lagging indicators of success. In contrast, activity-based indicators (or lead measures) are the actions your loan officers take that lead to business generation. These are the behaviors you can control and track.
For example:
- How many meetings did your loan officers have with real estate agents?
- How many coffee or lunch appointments did they schedule?
- How many training sessions or social events did they attend to build relationships?
These activities are controllable and directly influence business growth.
This concept of focusing on activities is similar to the “lead measures” versus “lag measures” discussed in Stephen Covey’s The 4 Disciplines of Execution. By holding your loan officers accountable to specific actions, you can predict and influence future success.
Give your customers and agents a better buying and selling experience
This is not just about finding new customer. It’s about offering more value and services to the customers and agents you already have.
It’s about your customers and agents having a better buying and selling experience.
It’s about thinking beyond the real estate transaction and satisfying every client need … the transition from one home to the next and all the services that you can provide.
3. Implement Strong Accountability Systems
Accountability is critical in mortgage coaching for managers. Even with clear goals and activity-based indicators in place, your loan officers may not always follow through. That’s where accountability comes in. You need to create a system that ensures your team members are taking consistent action.
Accountability starts with regular check-ins. Weekly meetings where loan officers report on their activity-based indicators are essential. By tracking their performance and holding them accountable to their commitments, you can ensure they stay on track.
One common excuse from loan officers is that they aren’t ready to generate new business because they don’t feel comfortable with your systems or processes. This is a classic “cop-out.” The truth is that they need to generate business first, and then they’ll learn how to handle the systems through real-world experience. Your role as a coach is to help them overcome these excuses and push them to take action.
4. Create a Dashboard to Track Performance
A powerful tool for accountability is a dashboard that tracks each loan officer’s performance against their activity-based indicators. This dashboard should be visible to the entire team and updated weekly. For instance, if a loan officer is supposed to have five meetings with agents each week, the dashboard should show whether they hit that number.
Transparency is key. When everyone can see each other’s performance, it creates a natural form of accountability. No one wants to be the one who falls short in front of their peers. Additionally, the dashboard allows you to identify any roadblocks early on and address them as a team.
5. Hold Weekly Growth Meetings
Finally, you need to hold weekly growth meetings focused solely on business development. This meeting is different from a typical operational meeting where you discuss current loans or issues. Instead, it’s dedicated to reviewing the dashboard, discussing activity-based indicators, and brainstorming ways to improve performance.
These meetings should be short and to the point—around 30 minutes. The goal is to assess whether your team is taking the actions that will lead to more business and to address any challenges they’re facing. By staying focused on growth, you’ll ensure that your team is always moving forward.
Learn more about the Agent Management Portal
Looking for the best way to add value for your agents? The Agent Management Portal is a powerful learning management system. You get access to all of our state-of-the-industry training materials, as well as tools to help you create your own training content for your agents.
Overcoming Common Challenges in Mortgage Lending
One of the biggest challenges in both real estate and mortgage lending is dealing with market fluctuations. When sales volume drops due to rising interest rates or seasonal slowdowns, loan officers often start to complain and blame external factors. They may point to market conditions, lack of training, or even your systems as reasons for their poor performance.
As a mortgage manager, you need to anticipate this behavior and coach your team through it. Remind them that the key to success lies in consistent lead generation and relationship-building activities, not external factors. By holding your team accountable to their activity-based indicators, you can help them stay focused even during challenging times.
Mortgage lending is highly lucrative due to the significant profit margins. For most mortgage brokers, the biggest challenge is sourcing clients. However, as a real estate business with an in-house mortgage division, you have a built-in source of potential borrowers: your real estate agents and their clients. This gives you an edge over external mortgage brokers who have to work much harder to establish relationships with agents.
Brian Icenhower
Conclusion: A Roadmap for Success
Running an in-house mortgage division requires the same leadership skills and strategies that drive high performance in real estate teams. By setting clear goals, focusing on activity-based indicators, implementing accountability systems, tracking performance with a dashboard, and holding weekly growth meetings, you can lead your mortgage division to success.
The key takeaway from mortgage coaching for managers is that success in mortgage lending isn’t just about knowing the numbers—it’s about leading your team to take the right actions consistently. With the right coaching and leadership, your mortgage division can become a powerful pillar of income for your real estate business.
By following these five components and staying committed to growth, you’ll be well on your way to managing a successful and profitable mortgage division.
