How These Loan Officers Are Winning Online and Offline to Grow Volume

Three Homeside Financial professionals share how they doubled production, built agent referral pipelines, and scaled using people, process, and technology. John Cornish breaks down how he went from $40-50M to $100M+ by documenting his process and hiring a front-end team. Best for LOs ready to systematize and scale.

Takeaways you can run this week

• Run a Top 40 agent direct mail campaign: mail something physical to 40 target agents week 1, follow up with a phone call Monday of week 2, repeat each week for 8 weeks. Script the call around: 'I follow up with you this well — imagine what I'll do with your clients.'
• Identify your Top 40 agents by asking your current referral partners: 'Who in your office does business the way you do and sees this as a career, not a job?' Use cross-sells from past transactions (e.g., listing agents on your closed deals) as a second source.
• Create a BombBomb screen-recorded loan estimate video, walking through every line, and have your assistant send it to every borrower. This eliminates evening phone calls and gives you a reference point for every deal.
• Set an auto-reply on your personal email that redirects borrowers to the team: state you're in scheduled calls or coaching, provide team contact info, and give specific next steps (apply here, email this person for this need). This trains borrowers without requiring you to go dark.
• Host a virtual first-time homebuyer class using done-for-you content. Louis closed 4 loans from one class with 20 attendees. Schedule the next class before the current one closes — do not let months pass between classes.
• Start asking for Google reviews from the first phone call, not just at closing. During the process, do satisfaction check-in calls on a 1-5 scale: score of 4-5 triggers a referral ask; below 4 triggers immediate service recovery. At closing, text a direct review link to the client.

The playbook

1. Step 1 — People: Hire a client concierge or junior LO to handle lead intake through pre-approval. You review every pre-approval and do the initial consultation and expectations call.
2. Step 2 — Process: Write your entire loan process in Google Docs. If you can't do a step 100% of the time, it doesn't belong in the process yet. Update it every time something breaks.
3. Step 3 — Technology: Push all borrowers to the online application. Use BombBomb for loan estimate walkthroughs. Use Homebot for database engagement. Build or commission a text-based review request tool that links directly to Google, Facebook, and a third platform.
4. Step 4 — Scale: Once process is documented, your team handles disclosure through clear-to-close. Your touches are: initial consultation, expectations call, and any restructuring needed. Everything else is delegated.
5. Step 5 — Agent pipeline: Run the Top 40 direct mail + weekly phone call campaign for 8 weeks. Simultaneously, go wide by targeting 100+ new agents annually, then go deep with the best fits.

Worth quoting

“You have people that watch your content for years. You never know when that's going to convert. The only thing we know how to do is stay consistent.”

“If you can't describe what you're doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.”

Best for

LOs doing $40-60M who feel stuck and are still handling tasks their team should own — especially those without a documented process or front-end hire.