In this episode of Lykken on Lending, David interviews Randell Gillespie, newly appointed President of LeaderOne, about the evolving landscape of the mortgage industry. From his own recent job change to his powerful, people-centered leadership style, Randell shares insights on what today’s professionals should be thinking about: alignment, adaptability, and authenticity. They explore why job transitions are more than career moves — they’re opportunities for transformational leadership, meaningful messaging, and building trust in an uncertain market. If you’re navigating change or leading through it, this conversation is a must-listen.
[David] Listeners, I’m excited to have a dear friend join me on the podcast today, and we’re focusing in on those that inspire and equip others to be successful. We’re focusing our podcast lately on technology and how it can move the needle for your business and the other thing right now, because there’s so many people are struggling with a mindset. We watch the markets go very erratic and up and down and over around and how do we set our mindset to success? Today joining me is a dear very special friend, Randell Gillespie, and I just wanna bring you on right away. Randell, good to have you here friend.
[Randell] David, thank you. I’m looking forward to it.
[David] It’s an honor to have you. I admire you at so many levels. One of the things we both share is a real common faith in the Lord. We just have that, and I don’t want that to turn those that don’t share that off, but I think it’s authentic that we be who we are and you and I really anchored ourselves in that. And I love the foundation that you operate from, and that is the foundation. That is at the core of who you are and what you do, and I was really got excited about you and then when I heard you were available, I got on the phone with LeaderOne, David Hopper, who is a dear friend, someone’s a client, I love this company. And I said, he says, we’re looking at this. And he reached out to me and he says, do you know Randell Gillespie. And I go, I sure do. And he says, I would love to talk to him. And the rest is history. The story of that is through those conversations, and you had so many people pursuing you but they successfully shared with you their vision. You captured that vision. And I’m thrilled that I had played a role in you landing as the President of LeaderOne. Congratulations on the new job, man.
[Randell] Thank you, and thank you, David, for just beyond just myself. Anybody who knows you has been in contact with you, seen your podcast through the years, the history you have, you are looking to just continue to make our industry better and that means complimenting companies, complimenting people. And when you put those together, boy the sky’s the limit.
[David] Yeah, it’s all about getting the right people on the right bus and getting the right people off the bus and getting people sitting in on the right seat says, oh good, the great James Collins concept that we’ve all adopted and we find so valuable. But man, you found the right bus and you are sitting on the right seat because already the impact you’re having, which I what I wanna get into in this podcast, because I want others who are leaders to hear what you’re doing that is having the level of success that you are so early we talk about President Trump in his first a hundred days and all that he’s accomplished and or if you’re on the other side of the aisle, all that he screwed up. But we prefer to think about all that he’s accomplished and we then look at what you’ve accomplished in less, far less than a hundred days. And what’s why that is. But let’s start with where your journey began. What brought you into mortgage lending and why did you, why have you stayed here so long?
[Randell] Yeah. I’m excited about it. I actually love serving people, so when I got out of high school, I joined the Marine Corps, wanted to be a military policeman, loved helping people, and [that law enforcement led me to then back to college. Once I got out of the service, I had another year or so to finish and I was doing mediations while I was in that process doing small claims, juvenile assault cases, neighborhood mediations. Really communication and then ultimately I met someone that was a fellow mediator in the area that had been in the mortgage business and told me it was something that he thought I’d be very good at. And so ultimately that’s what got me into the mortgage business. Someone had walked through the process for me.
[David] How old were you?
[Randell] Boy, I was just 25 years old. In the process. So I spent time in the Marine Corps, finished my degree, and then was able to get into the Marine Corps. Here’s the cool thing is that it wasn’t that I was looking to get into the mortgage business specifically. It was that someone walked me through a process. I made a video about this. I think David, you saw it as well. I made a process about the steps that an executive walkthrough with me to help me, and rather than looking for a job or a position, and it’s something I still practice today, it was about finding what is your natural core abilities and resources and strengths and ambitions, and how to then ultimately identify the place where you can apply those and so you’ll know you’ll be successful. So when someone talked to me about mortgage, I started talking to a couple of top producers that they put me in touch with. I asked them what they thought made them good, what were some of their skills, abilities, and I matched that with successes I had that were transferrable from the military, the Marine Corps, from law enforcement, those kinds of things in mediation and that’s how I got into mortgage. And I have loved it from literally my first closing. Still remember my first client and it was pretty cool. Yeah.
[David] Yeah. It’s so good to connect with your core what you bought. I’m impressed that you did the research. Many people were not that intentional. It’s going okay, I can make great money. Some people were motivated by the money that they could make in the industry, and certainly you can make really good money if you’re good, right? And if you work and rely a lot of the principles you talk about. Which we’re gonna get into in just a minute, but it’s a great industry because you really do have such a powerful impact on people’s lives. When we’re helping people get into homes, it is such a powerful impact. I wanna get to talk a little bit more about the change you’ve implemented and affected a companies, you have changed a lot of companies that you have worked with. How would you describe the process you have used to impact the desired change for each one of these companies that you’ve worked with?
[Randell] I think it’s really simple and I do want to give some great data and facts because we are inundated with a lot of information and philosophies, and I think it’s important to understand how people think, what makes them think, what decisions they make, but I really want to give some great data here, and it goes back to then wanting to help people. I wanna see this industry continue to do well. It’s not that I’ve been at a lot of companies necessarily, I’ve only made four changes in my career, but three of those companies have gone through acquisitions, mergers, changes in that and I think that’s foundational or fundamental ultimately for all of us right now in understanding how that affects us. But I really go back to three key principles that seem to make sense to me. I’m a very simple guy when it comes to this and it’s this, it’s gotta be is it legal? Is it profitable? and is it good for our people? And companies that have that simple waterfall, so to speak, I think do well because it’s educating to each one of those pieces. So we know, we’ve seen through the years what has happened to companies that are not ethical in doing things right. So it has to be legal. We have a lot of compliance and then secondly, it’s gotta be profitable. There is no company that stays in business without finding ways to be profitable and then ultimately is it good for our people? And I am one of those that believes that as long as you have those other two things, it’s good for your people and if it’s good for your people, those other two things. So I think they’re all congruent. No different than if I can go on. I got promoted very quickly in the Marine Corps. Loved it and I struggled at times with understanding. Number one, it was the mission. Number two, it was the people. I always felt like it should be the people first and then the mission. And I think in business for its purposes, when it’s about the people, the mission, and they’re congruent and you got leadership that inspires you, that’s what charges me, David, and I’m thankful for great people that I have gotten to work around and with And that ultimately is truly the secret. So those three things, legal, profitable, good for our people, I think those are how you implement them. We can get into more detail and talk about data.
[David] Yeah, I can’t wait to get into more of the data, let’s talk about the recent change. You’ve had some great companies, you’ve worked with some great companies and you’ve helped make them even greater. But one of the things that you did is when this last change happened, you were really searching for what is gonna be the right fit, again, saying the right alignment, for lack of a better term. What is that? What is it that you saw at LeaderOne? That said, yeah, this is right for me.
[Randell] The leadership I have always loved what I do love this mortgage business as I shared already, secondly, you gotta love where you do it and then thirdly, you gotta love who you do it for. Who do you wanna make money for? I didn’t really understand all of those principles when I first got into the business, but who I get inspired by and with and want to help them be successful. That’s important to me. I was talking to somebody yesterday, great conversation. More will be hearing about this individual in the future about a large team that will be joining and It was, they remember when we first talked a few years ago when I said, I want to help the good people win. I wanna help the ones that have the right philosophy, care about their people and so that’s what’s really paramount to me. So, when I had a chance, first of all to hear your recommendation and the history that you’ve had with the company, and then secondly, I know that there was another large team some time ago that was very attracted to this organization, so I knew that they had the right stuff in that respect.
[David] You were actually competing to, with against LeaderOne to try to get them to move to you and LeaderOne was just constantly just was thorn in your side because they were leaning more and more towards LeaderOne. That’s such a great story.
[Randell] I’m a competitor. I like to win, but it’s gotta be about the people. Ultimately it’s gotta be good for them and put those things together and then I got on the phone with David Hopper. He’s the chairman of LeaderOne. He spent the first 20 minutes doing something that has never happened in my 33 years in the mortgage business. He told me all the things that I probably wouldn’t like. I have never had a conversation start that way, and I was speechless for probably the first time in my last 20 years a fter he was done with that, I was literally quiet and he said, okay, did I just scare you away? I said, no, I’m a little bit surprised because most people try to just simply sell and the website, I’d already looked on the website, looked, got some intel from other people that I know, and I saw one of the comments on there that was a statement, and everybody has nice, fluffy statements out there. But he said, we will always do what we say and to have him start off that way. So then I asked him two questions. I said, all right you identified some issues, but here’s my question. What are you unwilling to change? Because if they’re obstinate, then you know why. Why go into that if you know it’s a problem? and he said Nothing. And I said, okay. Number two, what are you not willing to do in general to get to where you want to go? Do you know where you want to go? and so as we talk through those, I love that. That’s what inspires me and I’m one of those that believes that when you unlock that in someone’s life. I’ve certainly seen it. David, I have nine children, seven boys, two girls. I love that. And six of them are out of college and working. And I got two more, three more that are in college now. And ultimately even talking to them when they are inspired when I am inspired, the things that we can accomplish and do. So, I don’t think it’s, whether it’s a big company, a small company, I don’t think, whether it’s high tech or lower tech. The absolute core of it has to be that they are inspired and they’re unleashing the true power of their people first. If you try to unleash the power of technology first, they’re gonna fail, and that’s why we’ve seen companies reach a glass ceiling in our industry, what I’ve called the law of market share lately, as you’ve heard me say in McMorgan and all of that. That’s what I believe in. It’s when you really unleash the power of your people, you invest in them, you educate, you trust them, you listen to them, and you work alongside them. That’s what’s key. I’ve never looked for a position. I have always looked for where would I want to originate, who would I wanna represent, and what is it that ultimately I want to be a part of? That’s what I have looked at. I think too many leaders are simply looking for a position and a title rather than, and that was not the case, David, you know that you and I talked about that in,
[David] I know who you were talking to, all of them are great companies. There wasn’t a bad choice in there. You could have done well at either, but I think it’s really interesting, I was coaching David Hopper behind the scenes. I say, now, here’s the deal because. I wouldn’t say it’s negative. They bring out all the negative, but the structure, it’s a very fractionalized ownership structure. No one owns more than 12%. It’s usually less than 10% of everyone. That means there’s a lot of voices into that, and that can be perceived as a negative when you want to get things done because you have to be a consensus builder and get that done. I think that can be a weakness, but I think it also could be a great strength if you have the right leadership to bring them together, and that’s certainly what you’ve started to do. I wanna talk a little bit about that process, which you’ve done. One of the things I recommended you is get on an airplane and start flying around and meet all the different owners that are basically regional managers or branch managers that the production managers that own this company. And I said, get out there, meet them. Tell a little bit about that process when you went out and by the way I tell anybody who’s even if you have the job already, you’ve been doing it for years, get out and talk to the people. But talk about that process you went through.
[Randell] Exactly. There was a quote that someone else shared with me a couple months ago. I thought it was pretty cool. And he said, we seem to just be renting our careers and they wanna be owners and that was critical to me. And here’s the other reality, David, every company has fractional leadership. Every company out there, every company either has investors.
[David] Actual leadership not always fractional ownership.
[Randell] And it depends on how you look at it. Again, if you’re talking about publicly traded, if you’re talking about other investors or private equity, or venture capitalists, whatever it might be, there’s always multiple voices at the table. What I loved is the fact that the multiple voices aren’t hidden behind a veil someplace. The multiple voices are right there in the trenches doing the job, understand the industry and can really connect and when I saw that common denominator amongst the leaders, that inspired me and every one of them were excited about some of the things that we talked about some of the ways that we can really now use those strengths. Because I’ve always been big on autonomy. I was like that. I was a top producer as an originator. I had a number one branch. I had a number one area. I had a number one region. I’ve always been very successful to be around people that allowed me to do the things that were necessary in the markets that I covered to be successful. When I ultimately left those organizations, it’s when that changed and all of a sudden we can’t impact the decisions and the people obviously, again, legal, profitable, good for our people. I do believe you can deal all of those. So that’s what I did. I got on a plane to your point, got around to really meeting the different personalities and just like I have nine children all with different personalities and all of them have a particular strength. I learned a long time ago. Don’t get frustrated at someone’s strengths. Don’t try to improve their weaknesses. Just leverage their strengths and then put other people around them on the weaknesses and that’s what everybody is allowing us all to do. I know what my weaknesses are, I’m very willing to share those, but when I get inspired, that’s pretty cool and having that opportunity to allow people to say, you’re right, these are my strengths. Here’s my top two or three things I really love to do. Here’s the things I don’t like to do, I don’t think I’m good at and then putting those together, and that’s where it’s already been more excitement, more fun than I should be allowed to have, as I’ve often said. But I really mean it right now because it’s such a great group of people that going back to Hopper. The fact that he was willing just to say, here’s why we’re looking for someone like you and I appreciated that. So it wasn’t about come fit in this box. I’m not a guy that likes to be in a box, don’t put me in a box. Tell me what the problems are, the issues are, and great performers, we know this for top originators, we know this for top operations and support people. Give them the challenge. Let them use their gifts and abilities then to accomplish that.
[David] That’s so good. One of the things I really wanna get into so many aspects of things you’re talking about. One of the things you do extraordinarily is communicate. You communicate well through social media. You leverage it as a leader. You communicate your principles, what you believe in, and you are sharing them. Talk about what you’re] doing with the videos, the connections, and the engagement, mostly on LinkedIn and some on Facebook. Talk about that.
[Randell] You bet. A number of years ago as an MBA conference, coach K was talking about the fact that when he was coaching the Olympic team and he had all of these dynamite star performers on his team between a Michael Jordan and a Kobe Bryant and those, and he made something profound, a statement that I remembered so well, and it really resonated as I thought about it. And he said. If you wait until game time to have a relationship with your players, they’re not gonna listen to you. That’s right. Because he talked about the fact you got a limited amount of time to affect change when the game is going. It’s that time when the game is not going, that you’re developing relationships, you’re developing trust, and they understand where you’re coming from, that you’re wanting to invest and be a part of their lives. So when you have that few seconds that you’re actually yelling from the sidelines, so to speak, they know not to take that harshly, but that you’re saying that out of care. And that really hit me. I resisted social for quite a while probably. I thought, you know what? I’ve been in the business.
[David] Why did you resist it? I’m just curious because you’re doing so well now. Why was, what was the resistance? What was behind that?
[Randell] I’ve known too many people that they have a great social presence and they may be some coach that’s well known, but the reality is they were doing that because they weren’t a performer. It was more of a personality, a celebrity, so to speak and we are in an era right now where there’s more celebrities than professionals and so I’m not good at and people who really know me know this, I’m not good at self-promoting. I don’t want to do that. I love promoting other people. I love watching them get to where they want to go. So that’s really why I resisted it, because I thought, who cares about. I’ve never shown what I’ve had to eat. I’ve never shown my desk and what it looks like during the day.
[David] You do have a beautiful office. By the way. Listeners, I wish we could just pan out and show you this guy’s office. It’s a two story office with a spiral staircase that goes up to these bookshelves. It’s just something that I’ve always dreamed of having. So you’ve got this stuff, but you’re right. You don’t promote yourself, you inspire others and everything you communicate is a place from inspiring and lifting people up and I think when that’s just a magnet. It’s gonna draw people to you in a big way. How important is communicating regularly? You do it, but the regularity is where a lot of people fail.
[Randell] And that’s where I was ultimately going. You’re right, because through social, I have found, and where I accepted it is. Now people know me and in fact the calls that I’m having with people outside the organization right away, they do feel like they know you at least you got a baseline to start with and I’ll even many times start by sending out a video, a short one that just introduced. People are listening to our inflection, our voice, watching and seeing are we sincere in what we are doing that three years I did professional mediation was really powerful to me because I realized, it’s neat as I go back and I look at the different experiences that I learned and what I picked up from those helping me, like I ran a SWAT team in the Marine Corps, who would’ve ever guessed the point it, but that was valuable.
[David] That’s a great recruiting skill to have in your background. I was a SWAT, I headed up a SWAT team.
[Randell] I jokingly say if you’re at Countrywide in the middle of the meltdown, you better have some of those skills and abilities based on just the heat and the emotion that was coming out during that time. But in mediation specifically and learning how to listen and really understand and rephrase. We have some great people, great coaches out there. You are one of them, David, that talks about the importance of words and so that’s important. So getting back to then the social and in leadership, I think daily we need to motivate each other and encourage each other. I think weekly we need to educate and then monthly we need to inform. So, that’s generally been my formula. Monthly being many companies will have all hand calls or you know what’s happening and it just needs to make sure it’s relevant and it’s not just rah in that sense, but it’s truly making sure they’re informed about what they are a part of. Just like a team, what is your standing? Where are you headed? Are you accomplishing. What are the goods and the bads, but on the weekly side, I’ll work back in reverse. On the weekly side, we have got to educate people better. They need to understand not just from a sales perspective origination, but the business that we are in today. Lemme give you an example, and we’ll probably segue eventually as we talk about some of the issues today. When you look at MBA’s fourth quarter reports. They said that origination cost on average, that’s across a broad spectrum, was about what? $10,400 -$10,500 roughly? Average income per loan was barely $13,000. Why is that important? Because if you have somebody that only closes three loans a year, or four loans a year. Stop for a minute, and people say who’s doing that? Do you know David, the top? You only had to do one loan a month in order to be in the top 40% of originators last year. it’s that’s the average. And here’s the thing that, and I say this because I truly care and want to help in this regard. So remember, legal, profitable, good for our people. And when you take, and you break that down. That’s where it’s congruence, that weekly education about these kinds of things, what people don’t know. One of the things that’s changed a lot in the last 30 years since I’ve been in the business. Technology has done great things, but technology has added fixed costs that we did not have before. Just think about American households for a moment. We have bills today, fixed bills. We didn’t have Wi-Fi originally. We didn’t have cell phone bills, we didn’t have streaming costs. Those are all additional costs today that we didn’t have anything for, and likewise on the sales side. In fact, for all staffing, you’ve got CRM costs today that are more expensive than ever before. You’ve got seat costs for varying things. I added up in one instance, 13 different monthly fees per person for a company that exists. And most people don’t understand that. So if you’re only operating on about $2,000 difference between the cost to originate and then what the revenue is on a loan, by the time that you take those monthly costs. You are already now at a loss. And in fact, the statistics are that the bottom 10% of loan originators will cost you more than 20% of your support and resources and that fulfillment cost. But here’s the other thing, is there are four times more likely to have customer complaints and to have the legal compliance issues. So again, legal, profitable, good for our people.
[David] Yeah. One of the things that a good coach or a good leader comes in and lifts poor performers up into excellent performers. What is the process? What do you do when you come in? Like you’ve recently come into LeaderOne, you’re looking at the overall organization. You’re looking at who’s subpar and you’re looking at who is doing okay and you’re looking at those that are doing great. How do you lift the entire organization up and then when do you make that call? This isn’t the right fit, the LeaderOne bus is not your bus. Get off it. You invite him to go off of it. What is the process you go by on that?
[Randell] And first of all companies should be doing this. If they’re not, they should. But they’re gonna ultimately need to be acquired. Is the problem. So at the end of the day, to answer your question I’ve now put it into four categories through the help of a few others, working on a chapter of a book right now with a group of other leaders in the industry, and I’m saying the A, B, C, D, just to keep it simple because I’m a simple guy. The A is your award winners. Like they absolutely just stay out of their way, remove obstacles for them. Help them with the things they identify that they need. Your B is your best. And I’m not saying that they’re better than the awards. They’re the ones that are going to need the more of a coaching strategies. If you give them something to do, they will go do it. They will go execute. They love to mastermind with the award winners. They wanna be in that award winner group. The C are the costly, those are the ones that investing in them ends up being a lost cause and in fact, when you invest in them. You are not able to then invest in the B’s and you’re not able to reward the award winners and the A’s. And then the D’S are the determined, those are the newer ones, the ones that haven’t been there long yet, and they’re just getting their feet underneath them and you gotta move the D’s into B’s really quick. So that’s, I think, one of the things and how do you do that going back to your communication, one of the things I love to do we’ve set it up here, is having regular mastermind coaching opportunities with our teams so that they know that we want to invest in them. And can I make sure I’m saying something clear? I’m not a guy that comes in and all of a sudden it’s alright, now you know, people are on a chopping block kind of thing, that’s not it at all. What it really is I was a top producer and when I would walk into someone else’s office, when I became an area manager and I was looking around. And I was finding that these offices that were underperforming, they weren’t using the marketing materials that cost us all and I would walk into these closets and see tens of thousands of dollars of marketing materials unused and that ends up increasing that cost of origination, increasing your interest rate. And it’s not the right thing ultimately. So I want to give everyone a chance. That’s why we do masterminds, do coaching. We give everyone a chance to lift themselves up.
[David] And you’re doing that internal to your organization, the Mastermind, is that correct? It’s not like you’re bringing, you’re doing it for people. Maybe you’re, you may, do you include people that you’re trying to recruit in to give them a flavor of it.
[Randell] Oftentimes people, obviously for confidentiality, we can’t do that. But I’ll send them videos and copies of some of the masterminds and we very much encourage some of the external coaching programs. We have some external coaching programs that we support internally here as well very much because there’s some just masterful ones. One that I just kinda referred over to you with Amir Sayed to GO! coaching. Just a great individual helps lift people up.
[David] We’re releasing his, we’re releasing his podcast. We’re recording this. On the, oh gosh, what is the 13th on? Tuesday, the 13th of May. We’re releasing that one tomorrow. So that will be out in the market by the time this hits the market. Oh man. What an amazing guy. Thank you so much for introducing me to him.
[Randell] Just a great individual and to your point, yes, so it’s about lifting people up, but can I give you an example? Early one, I first became an area manager. I love, I gravitate towards people that want to do better, or at least say they wanna do better and I wanna help them and there was one particular individual where I gave them an idea of how to go out and I’m a big relationship guy, and you can still do that through social, we can probably talk about some of those things. But when you build relationships, you are multiplying yourself. Multiplicity. That’s the key to high production and getting people inspired to want to sell you. That’s what going viral is truly all about. This particular individual I actually bought them some candy bars. This was one of the initiative in the day we were gonna go around, it was a thousand dollars bar kind of thing back in those days. And I was gonna go with them. I said, here they are. Here’s a flyer. I want you to make a list who we’re gonna go visit. We’re just gonna leave something reciprocity. The secret of reciprocity is one of those key, six things that help lead someone to a Yes, based on that book and so we were gonna go do that. So I gave him the candy bars, was gone, came back a few days later, got there before he had gotten there to the office. I’m sitting at his desk doing some work while I’m waiting for him and I go to throw something away and in the trash can. This is a true story in the trash can were wrappers of the candy bars that I’d bought him that we were gonna go do.
[David] He was eating his seed, he was eating his seed.
[Randell] That really is a true story. But I needed that to realize that there’s times where you’re trying harder for someone’s success than they are. And that’s the secret, is finding those people are willing to acknowledge that maybe there’s something else that’s better for them.
[David] Yeah. And to the and you have to understand your boundaries as a coach, as your develop as an employer. there’s some things you can’t change in others, and there’s some things you can’t, and so it’s finding out what those are. I think see too many people making wasting too much time. Trying to transform someone that isn’t wanting to be transformed or isn’t willing to do what’s necessary and is not teachable. And that’s where I love Patrick Lencioni. Hungry, Humble, and Smart. They’re not willing to be, they’re not being smart for sure, but they’re not. They’re the humility of following someone else is such an important part of it. When you look, go ahead.
[Randell] Can I add one piece to that? By the way? Great stat is some McKinsey studies talked about the fact that the chances of that lower performer, and this is in mortgage, the chances of that lower performer who has not been performing better is not taking the coaching, the chances of them actually doing better is less than 15%, the chances within a two year period think of that over a two year period, that the likelihood they’re gonna continue to be a low performer is over 70%. So that’s just the odds that are against you that we need to understand.
[David] Yeah which gets back into the recruiting. Why do we even bring them in? And so what are some of the filters when you’re looking to recruit a company or a group to come in or an individual or a group? I like groups. Working with groups. It has a bigger leverage effect. What are you looking for, Randell? What are the things that you saying, this moves my needle and these are the people I wanna bring in and this is what kind of makes me go put a pause and possibly not bring them in.
[Randell] Entrepreneurial. There, there’s a sense of urgency, which I’ve been posting about urgency because Pat Sherlock and I, you and I’ve talked about her. She was talking about this and boy it helped just put it into one word. I have said entrepreneurial because that’s exactly too why I got excited about Leader one, because this is the best model I have ever seen. An entrepreneur helping develop entrepreneurial, so we’re traditional retail in how we operate. While giving our performers the opportunity to truly have ownership for those who want it. But otherwise we can be retail or we can be that. That’s cool. Now you’re working for yourself for those who are looking for that ultimate opportunity and so you’re looking for that entrepreneurial kind of spirit. Do they want to keep growing and doing better? That’s important. I don’t ever wanna just, Hey, come work for us now. You’re working there. Come here. No one wants to make those horizontal moves. This is about vertical moves always. Do they understand what they wanna do to get to the next level? What is their vision? One of the posts that I had some time ago is asking someone the question what is it you would do differently if you were running your company? And as they start to develop that answer, you can find out are they just wanting it easier where they are? Are they just simply saying, I want low rates and no cost and I don’t wanna have to work hard. Obviously that doesn’t work, and I’m exaggerating that for a moment. But are they someone who is knowing okay, I’ve gotten to a ceiling where I am at, right reason, good company. I’ve seen people and we’ve attracted people already that have started. They got to where they wanted to go, where they were at, but they realize now they can’t get to that next level, and that’s what they’re looking for and so that’s what you’re trying to identify. I am not one who just says, everybody that I talked to let’s make them part of the team. Is it good for them? If someone is 90, here’s another question I often ask is tell me. On a scale of one to 10, how happy are you if they’re an eight or better, [it’s even good to explore a little bit or what would make it a nine or a 10 and you’re most likely gonna be able to do that where you are than even making a move and I’m okay with, I wanna leave everybody better than I found them and I wanna learn from everybody that I talked to, but with someone who’s it’s about a seven. Okay, tell me what are the, what would you do differently if you were in charge and they start identifying. Maybe their company doesn’t allow them to add to their team or to use outside resources or marketing or whatever it might be. Maybe they have a tighter box, which is usually the case in those kind of situations and especially in our model where there’s a lot more margin opportunity for them to play with on their own and direct on their own than ultimately that gives them opportunity to do those kinds of things. So you’re looking for not just someone who is saying my last five companies that I’ve had in the last three years. Every one of them had this major problem, but now I’m sure it’s gonna be different. Most likely in those situations, it’s that individual themselves.
[David] Yeah, that’s such a good point. I think this brings in some companies are more entrepreneurial and they have a culture of entrepreneurialism. LeaderOne certainly does, but there’s a lot of companies out there that they don’t have that, but they’re still legitimate run companies, but it’s more of do as I tell you to do more of a less entrepreneurial is probably that the other side of being entrepreneurial where you, you follow a structure that they have. I think it is so important that people when, if you’re listing this and say I run a company, or I’m in a company that is not entrepreneurial and I really wanna be in an entrepreneurial organization first of all, count the cost bercause there’s some risks that come with that. Number one. Number two is there’s also things that you may be giving up where you’re at, where they’re providing a lot. I’m thinking of one particular client that provides so much for their people but their entrepreneurial spirits not up to what LeaderOne is, and I think it’s just matching them up. How do you work through that matching process, Randell, when you’re talking to someone and know for a fact, you encourage some people to stay where they’re at when you’re talking to them.
[Randell] I do. I do. It’s trust, transparency, and teamwork.
[David] Oh, say that again. Trust, transparency and teamwork. I like that. Okay. I just wanna make sure I got it.
[Randell] I’m hearing so many people talk about this is the most difficult recruiting environment they’ve ever had, and I see loan officers on various social media platforms that’ll say, I wish recruiters would leave me alone. The reality is, recruiters are doing the same thing that loan officers, good loan officers are doing as they’re out prospecting for realtors and referrals and realtors and builders and, referral sources are saying, boy, I wish people would just leave me alone, but we have to do it. Why? Because we’re want, we know that we can do something better for them, or at least we believe we can and so it’s that trust, David, that’s where I have never been in an environment in my 33 years. You got more years in this business by far than I do, and I think you’d probably say the same thing. On one hand, yes, I’ve never seen it more difficult to recruit, but on the other hand, I’ve never seen an environment where so many people are unhappy where they are and what’s the missing link? and I believe it’s that trust. They’re so tired of companies that are playing games with their rates while they’re in the courting process, playing games with their underwriting guidelines, playing games with promises and there was a post recently that somebody made. We’re beyond promises. We’re about proof, you can’t prove about trust.
[David]I saw that post. It was, and because at some point in time your promises are falling hollow because there’s just so many people with ethical problems that they promise things and they don’t tend to follow through on it, or they just have a track record of not following through, whether they intended to not drop the ball or not. So I think it’s really important that people do the proper evaluation and I think that’s one thing I like about you is you help people go through that evaluation process when it comes to leadership. What are the key messaging practices that you follow that have served you well in the great leadership style that you developed?
[Randell] I’ll keep this one simple too. I wanna start off every conversation in every relationship with identifying one thing that I really wanna learn from that individual, and then allow them to identify what is something they think that I can help them with and now we have more than just communication. It is relationship, and we practice that in mediation and it really develops a bond ultimately. It’s acknowledging that I know there’s a lot of things that I could do better. Absolutely and everyone has something of value that we can learn from and so that starts the communication and then it goes back to trust. When you’ve got that trust, when you’re learning from each other, now you can have truly heartfelt conversations. You can really understand where people are going. Again, I had a call just this week that was so cool because it was first just talking about some family circumstances that were going on with somebody and the fact that they trusted me with that was really cool. And I was able just to share, and usually when people find out that I got seven adult sons and they have a son. They have lots of questions about their sons and daughters too. But ultimately they’re great conversations because what we do at home, who we are as a person. You started off talking about this at the beginning. We can’t be one thing at work and another thing at home and another thing someplace else. When I was young in my car eer, I was at a bank. I spent about 25% of my time at depositories and the rest of the time at IMBs, and I was getting an award. I was with the CEO of the bank actually and it was interesting because this CEO was getting an award and his wife was at the table with us and made a comment along the lines of, you can either be a good parent or good in your job. And I just, I was a little surprised. The conversation about that and it was sad because ultimately wanting to bring that all together and work together and understand that we’re all people and got maybe that goes back to the inspirational part. We do all have to perform. I’ve had challenges in my life. I’ve had to work through. I’ve got a son with juvenile diabetes, a daughter that has had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. We’ve gone through those challenges and worked, and by working together, by caring with the teams that we’re a part of where we support each other in those challenges. That’s that teamwork. So again, as transparency, trust without trust, you’ll never get the transparency. Without transparency, you’ll never get the trust. Those things build the teamwork, and then you ultimately lift each other up. It’s like the old adage of I can have four horses all individually pulling a thousand pounds. You put them together and they pull about 20,000.
[David] They worked with the team. It’s such a good, it’s such an important thing. I used to have draft horses and back way, way back when and and I learned the power of when the synergistic effect, when you have two people working really well together, when you’re looking at where you started in the business in mortgage lending, what would you say has, is the same and what has changed?
[Randell] Boy, that’s I think there’s a number of things that are absolutely the same and they’ll continue to be the same. Things like the relationship, creativity, trust, we’ve always needed to have those kinds of things. Adaptability because then the adaptability now probably going into a little more of what most people are curious about. We have gone through things like fax machines. Remember when a US came out and automated underwriting, we had pagers and then cell phones introduced, and palm pilots and all those kinds of things. I started out, most of my career spent at Countrywide that had the clues system, the first technology really that was monumental at the time. Those are the things that are the same ultimately that you still always have to have those foundational, adaptability, trust, communication, all that kind of stuff. What I would say about then, how do we transition that to the environment that we’re in today, I think we can still learn from those things. There is a great book called The Experience Economy. I dunno if anybody here has read it, you probably read it. David. I think it’s pretty fascinating because it talks about how we’ve gone from a service economy ultimately into that experience, but now experience is turning into what’s called the transformational economy and people say, what does that mean? How does that relate to mortgage? Hope you don’t mind me getting into this, but I’m fascinated by it.
[David] No, love it. I love it, we’re letting our listeners into one of our normal conversations. You and I.
[Randell] Oh boy. I forgot we’re recording. You’re right. I thought you and I were just talking here. This is fascinating because I think it’s something that we’re seeing happen in our industry and the companies that are understanding this, and maybe they’re not even fully understanding it, but they’re finding their pathway in this. I think it’s interesting when you go through, I love to study successful companies, like experienced companies. Disney was the first one. They gave you an experience, that’s why people were spending so much money, but they’re finding out that you’re only willing to pay so much. They’re having issues. As you probably have read about more recently, Rainforest Cafe understood to take food to another level and create an experience as an example, the best one that’s in the transformational, I would say, that started that with publicly traded companies that we all know about would be like a Starbucks. They went from having a specialty to then think about how many people work at Starbucks, meaning they go to a Starbucks, get a coffee, and then sit and do their work. They do their offers independent. It’s almost become, some of their work locations, so to speak. And so that’s transformational. That’s what transformation is. It’s that where businesses guide customers through personal transformations that have lasting change. That’s what we need to do in our industry. So what does that mean? That means, again, using current examples, you have Uber and then Uber Eats, that’s changed people’s lives. You know that Uber, you can now take your personal car and make a little money off of it. Airbnb, I’m getting ready for my son who’s graduating from med school. We’re going out, got a big celebration, had to find a big house for all of us to get together and out in Pennsylvania, and all of a sudden Airbnb people can become entrepreneurs just by having a car through Touro or through these other various resources. The Ubers as an example, if you wanna drive them, or Touro, if you wanna even loan your car out or Airbnb, if you wanna rent a room or rent a house and so what does that mean for our business? I think that means yes, using technology and you notice in all those examples, we just gave technology heavy. But what do they still require, David? They still require people. Airbnb is dependent heavily on technology, Uber heavily on technology. When we all start carrying our cell phones, that’s what made those available. But you still want to talk to a person, you still need a driver, all those kinds of things. So what is that transformational in our business. I think that’s where we’re now going with some specialties, reverse, as an example, or with cash out refinancing, using technology to get the data and then ultimately using that data and using technology to communicate the savings opportunities. I’m a big into to reverse because of the aging population age in place. I will say I’ve got parents who actually went that route a couple years ago because they had so many properties and that’s really where they put their investments and they didn’t wanna sell them in their primary residence. So I say that very openly. It changed their lives. I saw that in having that kind of opportunity. And so I’m not saying this is great for everyone, but give them that option. The other thing, David, talking about cash out refinances. Think about the technology. This really hit us, we were doing some leader storming is what I’m calling it now the other day to talk about this for a minute. Conforming loan limits moved from 766 to 806. You know what people are missing. So some people are like, wow, okay. Those who did a loan a year ago, they have now more room in conforming, maybe refinancing them for that purpose in 2020. Do you remember what the conforming loan limit was? Most people forgot about this. $510,000? So from 2020 until now, 2025 went from 500,000 basically to 800,000. Add that to the fact that in that same period of time, average appreciation in the country is about 45% home ownership. So by us being experts, creating those kinds of opportunities using technology. So what has changed? I think it was what your question was. We have the ability to get that kind of data and information faster, quicker, and the one who does it fastest and quicker and then creates the strategy and goes and implements it are the ones that are gonna continue to be successful. So those are just a few ideas about what’s the old, how does that apply to the new, still needing that innovation, still needing that creativity, and then leveraging technology.
[David] So how are you bringing that to LeaderOne?.
[Randell] Relationships, inspiration, passion, training, educating, lemme go back in those daily motivation, weekly education, monthly information and so when we’re applying those things, like actually tomorrow I’ve got a first call based on one of these initiatives that we’re driving for those who were interested in being a part of it and a lot of people are, I’m not into mandating any of those things I’m into really finding out who wants to learn, who wants to grow, and let’s do that together collectively with a particular initiative that we are driving and so it’s providing those opportunities.
[David] Every time we get on a conversation, we just go, we can’t end this conversation. You just have to say, okay we’ll con the, to be continued. It was one of those things. This is one of those to be continued. Congratulations on your success on your career that you’ve had so many people follow you, your posts on the social media are just so inspirational. I love what you’re doing, the messaging you’re putting out, the frequency in what you’re putting them out. You’re benefiting the whole industry by, even though your focus is clearly now at Leaderone, your focus is to lift the entire industry and so I applaud you for that. When you look at what the average lender should be focusing on, the average loan officer should be focused on as we leave this conversation, what are the words of wisdom you’d have for them?
[Randell] Let’s all leave the industry better than we found it. It’s been my mission over the last 15 years. As I’ve made significant life changes, a company that I’d been at for almost 20 years by that point. To see those changes, to realize that I’d spent years, weeks away many nights away from my home, outbuilding new branches and growing territories, and then to see how the meltdown had changed so drastically. And realizing our, what will we learn from that? Let’s not go back to that. No games, people know who know me, know. I say it all the time I don’t like games. I would rather be honest and lose an opportunity and just put it out there and say it than to try to spin something and then have someone be part of an organization. They’re gonna find it out. It’s so expensive. I don’t understand why people do that. But then you find out those are the kind of companies then put long callbacks on and really restrained people, and then we got lawsuits that go on. I think if all of us just truly said, let’s make the industry better than we found it, we’re gonna have more consumers, more willing to be part of this process. Affordability is an all time high. But information is at an all time low. That’s our big debate as far as I’m concerned and opportunity.
[David]And then I think one of the other things is what you’re doing so is you continue to plant into and build people up when they make a decision to join you, there’s a plan and a progress to continue to invest in them. To elevate them and their game. And so there’s people will follow that. That’s worth more to most people. Someone will invest in them than a top comp plan. Unless you’re one of the top people and you think you know it all, then that’s the one that’s probably.
[Randell] But David, isn’t that your secret to success? people know you, that you are always looking to just make them better anybody that you touch. So I say that you have led the industry in that as an example. Thank you for that.
[David] It’s an honor to joy to get to the good thing about that is I get to meet people like you, Randell and then you introduce me, guys like Amir, and then there’s so many, it’s just happened. It just, when you’re around, when you associate with the right people, they will associate you with their right people and it just grows and it’s like I challenge everyone. What does your community look like? Anyone listening to this I got Randell in my life, I got Amir in my life. I got so many in my life that inspire me and that brings for a lot of people. Say you’re inspirational. Yeah, it’s coming ’cause I’m feeding from inspirational troughs that are teaching me great tables. Thank you Randell for being here. Appreciate you sharing your vision.
[Randell] Thank you so much David. Sure. Love what you do for us. Thank you for that.
[David] Appreciate you.
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About the guest:
Randell Gillespie is a seasoned mortgage industry executive who was named President, LeaderOne Financial in April, 2025. With more than 30 years of leadership experience in mortgage banking, Gillespie has a proven track record of growth, innovation, and strategic leadership to one of the nation’s most respected independently owned mortgage companies.
Founded in 1992 in Kansas City, LeaderOne operates in 48 states. As President, Gillespie works closely with the company’s leadership and market teams to build on the company’s legacy of operational innovation and model, while identifying new opportunities for expansion and success.
Prior to joining LeaderOne, Gillespie most recently served as Chief Production Officer for the newly merged Thrive Mortgage and Lower. Over the course of his career, he has held executive leadership roles at Countrywide, Bank of America, and Thrive Mortgage—where he helped lead strategy, national sales, marketing, and recruiting initiatives. He has received numerous awards through the years for leadership, production, and recruiting, while serving in every sales Leadership position in the industry. In 2023, he was honored with the prestigious HousingWire Vanguard Award for his leadership and innovation in mortgage banking.
A proud United States Marine Corps veteran, Gillespie began his mortgage career as a loan officer in Dayton, Ohio and quickly performed to become a top producer and leader. He and his wife of 38 years, Shelley, reside outside of Chicago and are the proud parents of nine children. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Gillespie is a sought-after speaker on leadership and mortgage strategy, and serves on the board of trustees for MBU, a private university in Wisconsin.