Chasing Excellence

Gregg Driggs is a Branch Manager with Premier Mortgage Resources (PMR) in Price, Utah, a rural community lender with 38 years in the mortgage business. Gregg's path into the industry started in 1988, while he was working as assistant to the chairman of the board at a Salt Lake City financial advising firm and attending college — the same man who was murdered in a 1985 bombing Gregg says was later covered in the Netflix special "The Mormon Murders." He'd already dropped out of college for that job when a friend, whose father had just bought a mortgage company, offered him work — Gregg said yes without knowing much about the business, and has written loans ever since, through rates that started at 13.5% and now sit in the mid-6%s. Today, with PMR — an employee-owned company based in Meridian, Idaho — Gregg has built his business by owning a small, rural Utah market rather than competing in a major metro. In this episode of Chasing Excellence, Gregg joins host Tony Thompson to talk about his daily discipline of 13 logged conversations and handwritten notes before he'll let himself go home, the "Realtor Survival Kit" he and his wife Becky use to build realtor relationships, and why, after 41 years of marriage, he calls Becky his real secret sauce.🔑 What You'll Learn:Why Gregg believes "the market is as good as you think it is"His daily discipline: 13 logged conversations and handwritten notes before he'll go homeHow the "Realtor Survival Kit" turns open-house visits into real relationship-buildingWhy PMR's underwriters work with originators to get deals done instead of just denying themHis advice for new loan officers: "Do the work... none of this 10:30 crap"Connect with Gregg Driggs: https://www.pmrloans.com/loan-officer/gregg-driggs/ | https://www.facebook.com/driggsmortgageteam/Subscribe to Chasing Excellence for more conversations with the mortgage industry's top producers and broker-owners.

Steve Beecham is the President and Senior Loan Officer of Home Town Mortgage, a brokerage he founded in Alpharetta, Georgia in 1996, closing an estimated $75-100 million a year built almost entirely on referral relationships. Before mortgage, Steve bounced through a string of self-employed ventures — car sales, clothing, plantation interior shutters, even recycling — before a local mortgage broker recruited him.He turned the offer down at first, until a friend in the business told him he'd made $10,000 off a single refinance in a month, against the roughly $2,000 a month Steve was making at the time; that gap convinced him to make the jump, and he's been in mortgage lending for 30 years since. A four-time author on relationship-based business, Steve is now transitioning the company to his son.In this episode of Chasing Excellence, Steve joins host Tony Thompson to unpack his "give first" philosophy: why he never directly asks a referral partner for business, how he mentally maps real estate agents by niche and territory, and why he considers himself purpose-driven rather than passion-driven — a mindset that carried him through the 2009 crash.🔑 What You'll Learn:His "bar" analogy for how a referral relationship should actually start — focused entirely on the other person, not a pitchWhy he never directly asks a referral partner for business, and how that removes the fear of rejection from prospectingHow he mentally maps real estate agents by niche and territory so he always has the right person to refer a client toWhy community involvement — Rotary, a charity flower market, downtown concerts — gives him a natural reason to stay in touchWhy he considers himself purpose-driven rather than passion-driven, and how that mindset carried him through the 2009 crashConnect with Steve Beecham: https://hometownmortgage.net/team/steve-beecham | https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-beecham-1958733/Subscribe to Chasing Excellence for more conversations with the mortgage industry's top producers and broker-owners.

Dawn Carter is a VP of Mortgage Lending at Rate (formerly Guaranteed Rate) in Lake Oswego, Oregon, with 32 years in the mortgage industry. Her path into the business started on a vacation to Puerto Vallarta, where she met a woman who worked in mortgages and made the job sound glamorous, then a man at the pool told her it was "a great business for women — no glass ceiling."Weeks later, on a work trip, she walked into a hotel with a banner reading "Welcome Association of Women Mortgage Bankers" — and came home from that same trip to find she'd been laid off along with 11 coworkers. A phone call from a friend in the business connected her to a mentor, and she took her first mortgage job in 1994.In this episode of Chasing Excellence, Dawn joins host Tony Thompson to talk about staying visible in a remote-work world, why she teaches financial literacy to high schoolers, and her advice to new originators: build and own your own client database from day one, independent of any employer.🔑 What You'll Learn:Why a banner at a hotel and a poolside conversation in Puerto Vallarta led Dawn into mortgage lending in 1994How she adapts to today's biggest challenge — getting facetime with realtors who now work from homeWhy she teaches financial literacy classes to high schoolers, and how she's closed a deal directly from one of those talksHer advice to new originators: build and own your own client database from day one, independent of any employerWhy she's most grateful for the layoff that pushed her into a straight-commission mortgage careerConnect with Dawn Carter: https://www.rate.com/loan-officers/dawn-carter-127668 | https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawn-carter-51762a6/Subscribe to Chasing Excellence for more conversations with the mortgage industry's top producers and broker-owners.

Brian Dewald is the President and Senior Loan Officer of Maverick Lending Solutions, a mortgage brokerage he owns in the Denver, Colorado area, ranked in the top 1% of lenders nationally every year since 2015. Brian's path into mortgage started at a bicycle shop, where he worked as a service manager in his late teens and early twenties before a local mortgage broker recruited and mentored him into the industry in the early 2000s — he still uses the same HP 12C calculator that mentor taught him on, two decades later. Today Maverick Lending Solutions is a family business, with his wife Annetta and son Alex both working alongside him. In this episode of Chasing Excellence, Brian joins host Tony Thompson to talk about why so many originators have left the business in the past two to three years, and why that's an opening rather than a warning sign for the ones who stay disciplined — plus an underserved market he sees real opportunity in: military personnel who don't realize what home-buying options are available to them.🔑 What You'll Learn:How a chance introduction at a bicycle shop turned into a 20+ year mortgage careerWhy Brian still uses the same HP 12C calculator his first mentor taught him onWhy he believes "the fat are getting fatter" for the originators who stayed disciplined through the shakeoutWhy military buyers are one of the most underserved segments in today's marketHis case for hiring a coach — the same way Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady, and Michael Jordan didWhy he credits his wife Annetta as his "greatest cheerleader" throughout his careerConnect with Brian Dewald: https://mavericklendingsolutions.com/brian-dewald/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-dewald-b871ba4/Subscribe to Chasing Excellence for more conversations with the mortgage industry's top producers and broker-owners.

David Brecher is the President and CEO of FM Home Loans, a mortgage banking company he's led since the late 1980s — built on 100% retail, purchase-focused lending across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Florida, and staying so close to its communities that David says needs can change block to block within Brooklyn alone.That community-rooted approach kept FM Home Loans out of subprime lending entirely, which is a big part of why the company not only survived the 2008 financial crisis but came out of it stronger, under the same ownership and strategy that built it.In this episode of Chasing Excellence, recorded in Brooklyn, David joins host Tony Thompson to talk about FM Home Loans' recent community honor from HCCI, a HUD-certified housing counselor based in Harlem, for its work helping marginalized communities access affordable homeownership — plus how the company thinks about affordability in one of the toughest housing markets in the country, and why David now describes FM Home Loans as being in the housing business, not just the mortgage business.🔑 What You'll Learn:Why FM Home Loans never touched subprime lending — and how that decision helped it survive 2008How partnering with not-for-profits like HCCI opened up affordable mortgage options for underserved buyersWhy David sees today's biggest challenge as high prices stacked on high rates, not either aloneHow FM Home Loans is helping convert renters into owners in select marketsWhy David describes the company's philosophy as "we're not in the mortgage business, we're in the housing business"Connect with David Brecher: https://fmm.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/dbrecher/Subscribe to Chasing Excellence for more conversations with the mortgage industry's top producers and broker-owners.