How This Loan Officer is Growing to 100 + Units in Five Years

Beth Imhoff shares how she grew from processor/LOA to a purchase-heavy originator on pace for 50+ units and $50M in her fifth year. She covers her agent acquisition tactics — especially the 'Four Doors' referral ask, listing agent communication, and status update systems. Best for LOs in their first five years who are building a realtor-based purchase business.

Takeaways you can run this week

• Use the 'Four Doors' ask with every agent who loves you: call or text them and say, 'Who are the four people around you in your office or network that you think would work well with me? Would you make an introduction?' Do this with your top 5 agents this month.
• When a buyer's offer is submitted, text the listing agent within 2 hours: 'Really excited about the potential to work together — I'll follow up with a call tomorrow morning, hope that's okay.' Then send your iPhone contact card with professional headshot so your info is saved in their phone.
• Send a Tuesday status update via email (let your team handle it), then use that email as a trigger to manually text every listing agent and buyer's agent on active files — takes ~2 minutes per file. When there's no update, text anyway: 'No major updates this week, but we're in great shape to close on time.'
• In your iPhone contacts, tag every agent as 'REALTOR [Name]' and every client as '[Name] CLIENT' in all caps. Use the Notes field in the contact to log which deal you worked on together and the month/year it closed — so you can reference it naturally in future calls.
• Three weeks after closing a transaction with a listing agent you liked, have your assistant put a calendar reminder to 'find a reason to call or send a note.' Use that touchpoint to ask, 'I'd love to stay in your loop — who on your team handles buyer clients?' This is how Beth has converted listing agent contacts into ongoing referral partners.
• For your post-close review request, keep a copy-paste script in your iPhone Notes app with direct links to Zillow and your Facebook business page. Send it as a text at funding, then follow up with a second nudge 2 weeks later if no review has been posted.

The playbook

1. 1. Offer accepted: Text listing agent within 2 hours, send iPhone contact card, schedule a call for the next morning.
2. 2. Call listing agent: Ask how they prefer to be communicated (text, call, email), confirm you'll loop in their transaction coordinator, and set expectations for your update cadence.
3. 3. Every Tuesday: Team sends email update; you use it as a trigger to text each listing agent and buyer's agent on active files — even if the update is 'no news, still on track.'
4. 4. Major milestones (appraisal back, clear to close): Send a separate quick text the moment you receive the email notification.
5. 5. Post-close: Send handwritten thank-you card to listing agent AND their transaction coordinator. Text your review request with Zillow and Facebook links.
6. 6. Three weeks post-close: Calendar reminder (set by assistant) to call or pop by the listing agent with no agenda — just relationship maintenance.
7. 7. Four Doors ask: With every strong referral partner, ask for introductions to four colleagues they'd vouch for. Repeat annually.

Worth quoting

“If your realtor is getting upset that you're communicating with them on a regular basis, maybe that's a red flag.”

“I'm not saying no, I'm saying not yet — but here's what we can do.”

Best for

LOs in years 1-5 who are building a purchase-focused business from scratch and want a concrete system for turning listing agent contacts into long-term referral partners.