Welcome back to Lending Leadership: The Mortgage Pros, where we dive deep into what it takes to excel in the mortgage industry not just through numbers, but through authentic leadership, smart recruiting, and building winning teams.

This week’s episode marks our first of 2026, and we’re celebrating a year on the podcast! We’re continuing our Blueprint Series by putting Tom Mills in the hot seat. As someone who’s scaled entire regions in major mortgage companies, Tom Mills shares hard-earned insights on what most firms get wrong when they try to grow too quickly.

Our core focus this episode? Recruiting in the mortgage world. We unpack why it’s more than just filling seats and how true success comes from aligning leadership, values, and trust. We reflect on our own journeys, our recruiting philosophies, and how choosing to attract the right talent makes all the difference in building not just a team but a lasting culture.

We dig into the difference between “shotgun” recruiting versus a “sniper” approach, the trap of transactional recruiting, and the golden handcuffs trend sweeping the industry. You’ll hear stories from the trenches, why creating genuine relationships is the only way forward, and what it really takes to set up a company culture built to attract and keep top talent.

Key takeaways:

1. Recruiting with Intention, Not Desperation: We discuss why building external relationships should be an ongoing pursuit. If you don’t nurture these relationships, recruiting becomes a desperate exercise a slippery slope where you sacrifice your values in exchange for short-term production. Recruiting selectively allows us to stay aligned with our core principles.
2. The Power of Servant Leadership: The best leaders aren’t just great at managing mortgages—they’re experts at managing relationships. We emphasize how our role transitioned from “mortgage business” to “people business” and why understanding, supporting, and leading others toward meaningful change is the foundation of our recruiting philosophy.
3. Defining Your Avatar and Filtering for Fit: We break down why the way you recruit determines the kind of talent you’ll attract. We’re not interested in hiring every top producer—we want those who share our values, who invest in relationships, and who are loyal to their word. Defining the qualities of your ideal team member (beyond production) helps build a high-performing, aligned culture.
4. Why Transactional Recruiting Fails: We examine the industry-wide pivot to treating originators like free agents, dangling big money with contractual “golden handcuffs.” While retention bonuses and contracts might seem attractive, they rarely create happy partnerships—and often lead to misery and turnover. We choose relationship over transaction every time.
5. The Importance of the Onboarding Experience—and Success Stories: The nurture phase of recruiting is a filter for mutual fit, not just a sales pipeline. Once someone joins, onboarding must be intentional, organized, and supportive. We highlight how creating raving fans and success stories within the organization isn’t just good business, it's essential for attracting new talent organically.

Whether you’re a branch manager thinking about recruiting, or a company leader hungry for scalable growth, remember: it’s not about how many seats you fill. It’s about who’s sitting beside you, how they work, and whether you’ve built the kind of environment that helps them and your organization—thrive for the long haul.

Thank you for tuning in! As always, we’d love to hear your questions, challenges, and feedback. Smash that like button and leave us a review. Here’s to building better teams, better leaders, and a stronger industry together.

Robert, Tom, & Dave