Ep 142: Funding a Record $50-Million in a Single Month

Ryan Hills breaks down how his team of 17 LOs went from a $30M record month to $52M without adding headcount — through efficiency gains, team culture, and coaching each LO to their strengths. He also makes a direct case for video and social media as the primary battleground for winning consumers before fintechs and iBuyers do. LOs preparing for a purchase-market shift in 2020 (or any down-cycle) will find this episode most useful.

Takeaways you can run this week

• Audit every LO (or yourself) on a simple yin-yang framework: rate them on sales ability vs. ops/file-building ability. Pair a strong rainmaker who hates the LOS with a detail-oriented LOA who loves it — don't force the rainmaker to touch the computer.
• Run a monthly team meeting with two agenda items only: (1) celebrate what worked this month, (2) name one thing each person will do differently next month. Ryan credits this habit with compounding improvement across his whole team.
• Do the iBuyer math for your top 5 agent partners right now. Google '[your market] iBuyer net proceeds comparison' — title companies have already built spreadsheets showing Opendoor/Offerpad/Zillow fees vs. traditional. Send the relevant sheet to each agent this week with a two-line note: 'Thought you'd want this handy. Happy to co-brand it if useful.'
• Film one video this week using Ryan's on-the-fly script structure: 'Welcome to town, [iBuyer name]. Homeowners, let's talk about the differences — here's what you actually net with each option.' Post it natively to Facebook and boost it for $20 targeted to homeowners age 35+ in your zip code.
• Before Q4 ends, identify the portion of your closed loans from the past 12 months that were refis. Assume that percentage of next year's volume is gone. Write down the specific number of new purchase relationships you need to replace it, then list 3 concrete actions to build those relationships before January.
• If you produce video content, repurpose each long-form piece into platform-specific chunks the same week: pull a 60-second clip for Instagram, a quote graphic for Twitter, and post the full version to Facebook/YouTube — same content, no extra production time.

The playbook

1. Step 1 — Diagnose the gap: Identify whether each LO's constraint is sales (can't generate referrals) or ops (can't structure/close files clean).
2. Step 2 — Match the complement: Pair sales-dominant LOs with ops-strong LOAs; let sales people stay out of the LOS entirely if that's what frees them to produce.
3. Step 3 — Control daily/weekly activities: Don't set a volume goal on the whiteboard. Instead, define the specific weekly sales activities (meetings, videos, calls) that, if executed at full effort, will exceed any reasonable target.
4. Step 4 — Monthly retrospective: Celebrate wins first, then openly name what could have been better — from the top of the org down.
5. Step 5 — Distribute content with paid amplification: Publish video/written content, then spend $5–$20 per platform to reach only your defined target audience (e.g., Boeing employees age 35+, local realtors, first-time buyers in specific zip codes).
6. Step 6 — Control the iBuyer narrative: Research iBuyer fees and net proceeds for your market, create or share a comparison sheet, and position yourself as the local expert who presents ALL options — including iBuyer offers — so clients choose you as their advisor regardless of how they sell.

Worth quoting

“If you have no presence, you got no shot. The battle for the consumer is happening right now online.”

“I know 40% of my business won't be there next year. The important question: what are you going to do about it?”

Best for

LOs or branch managers who had a strong refi year and haven't yet built the purchase pipeline or team culture to survive when rates rise.