[David] Listeners, we’re in for another treat today. We get the chance to talk to one of my people, one of the people that I admire for his success as a loan officer and also as a podcaster. This individual is new from my fifty-two years’ experience, new to the industry, but is done extraordinarily well. We want to find out what has been the secrets for him going from zero to so much success in such a short period of time. Joining me today, again, as I said earlier in the introduction, is Dustin Owen, better known as DO. Good to have you here, Dustin.
[Dustin] Thank you for having me. This is such an honor. It’s a full circle moment for me. So thank you.
[David] Well, it is honor to have someone with your success. You’ve done so well, but and I can’t imagine any of our viewers don’t know who you are, Dustin, with you having a million downloads of your podcasts per year. But just in case there’s some out there that don’t know you, I want them to get to know you. So tell us a little about your journey, about yourself, and how you got to where you’re at today.
[Dustin] Well, I appreciate that. I mean, I am a mortgage dude first. That’s like if I get a chance to speak on a national stage, which I’m fortunate to get to do a dozen times a year, the first thing I want people to know is I’m a mortgage person. Like I come from the streets, 2004, I’m 25 years old, pregnant wife, I’m lost, I’m scared, I’m broke and like many of us, I think you included, you know, found success first as an originator and not in the very beginning. I mean, those first two years I starved. But by my second full year in the industry, I’d become a top producer and to me, a top producer, even in in today’s day and age, it’s a hundred plus units per year where you’re self-generating the business typically on a referral-based setup. And like many, I had to survive the crash. I got that opportunity to survive the crash. There was a brief moment where I thought, well, maybe mortgage isn’t for me. Instead, I decided to double down on the little bit of success I had and rebuilt back and when I rebuilt back, I first rebuilt back as a top producer again. And then I rebuilt back as a branch manager, then an area manager, then a divisional, all while still producing. And along with two partners, I mean, we built our own division starting in 2009. All the way through 2024, where we did 40 million, our first full year together. Pretty quickly we were doing 40 million a month. And then at the end, and in the end, yeah, I think it’s 24. It’s not like we’re talking COVID numbers and even in towards the end of things in 2024, we were still cranking out 70, 80 million dollars a month in purchase focused, realtor referred, past client referred business. In about 2020, I got a little bored at work. you know, I had a lot of things going on, work-wise, personal-wise, and I wanted to flex my creativity. And like you, I found podcasting as my way to flex my creativity as well as my way to get back to the industry. Now, in my eyes, David, I always saw my podcast or I dreamt of my podcast kind of being like, I don’t know, Dave Ramsey and Joe Rogan have a baby. It was my opportunity to teach the world or anyone who’s willing to tune in to teach them everything they don’t teach us in school. Right? Everything that my school bus drive and mom and my electrician dad weren’t talking about at the dinner table. Quite honestly, everything I learned because I became a mortgage loan originator. Well, because we called the podcast The Loan Officer Podcast, it attracted a certain type of clientele. That clientele was men and women who were either entering the industry as originators or they were already licensed originators, but they were looking for support. They were looking for mentorship. They were looking for coaching. And a lot of things that we talked about actually spoke to the things that originators need to hear in order to shorten their learning curve, increase their probability of success. So I did that starting in 2020 as a passion project, something that I did a couple hours a week on the side. Eventually, and this is where we get to today, I retired from production in November of 2025. I’ve gone all in on my content, but more specifically, I’ve gone all in on coaching and consulting, things that I get to do because of the podcast success, and things that I tend to be good at because I can draw from my 20 years’ experience, not just my successes, but also my failures as an originator, a branch manager, and even a divisional.
[David] That’s amazing. I have so many kids in college and universities that are in finance that are getting ready to graduate and they’re going like, you know, I’ve been listening your podcast, which I’d love hearing that we’ve got we’ve got as many kids at college exploring this as an industry. But if you could answer this question for them, I think many would say, What is it that drew you to the industry in the first place, Dustin?
[Dustin] Think like a many people, and I’m willing to admit this, I know some aren’t. It was the unlimited income potential. It was an opportunity for me to flex my entrepreneurial spirit while also working in a field that I do find interesting. Like I fell in love with personal finance my senior year of high school, playing the stock market game in like Mr. Boulet’s economics class. And I remember going to oldie discount brokerage and opening my very first stock trading account in nineteen ninety-seven, where by the way, I bought Steve Madden shoes, which is kind of really, really unique because if you know the story, Steve Madden was IPO’d by the guys that Wolf of Wall Street, right? That movie, that book, that real life story. I didn’t, yeah, I was I was no part of that. It’s just later in life I later found out, wait a minute. My first stock that ever bought. But anyhow, I was that guy, David, that I loved personal finance. I loved trying to find ways that I could better myself in in this world financially, typically through working hard and serving others. And the mortgage industry allowed me to work hard, serve others, have unlimited income potential. Although I’ve never owned my own business on the mortgage origination side, it’s very entrepreneurial. and I always appreciated that. So I think the mortgage industry found me, but I was definitely seeking an opportunity that would resemble mortgage loan originator. I’m sure I could have had equal success working for Northwestern Mutual selling life insurance. I could have had equal success going to Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch and going through their financial advisor program. But as fate would have it, the mortgage industry found me.
[David] Yeah, one of the things I found interesting as we talked about in your bio was that you have competed in Iron Man races. is this I mean what is in the DNA of someone who wants to do an Iron Man and then and how did you convert some of the things you learned out of that to your success to convert it into the success as an originator?
[Dustin] Yeah, so you’ll find anyone who signs up for endurance triathlons, which that’s what an Iron Man is, or a or a half Iron Man. So truth be told, I’ve done four half Ironmans. That’s a 70.3 mile race, not a 140 mile race. I am currently training for my first ever full Iron Man. I plan to go to Portugal in October and complete the 140-mile course, which they call the long long course versus short course. But no, my joke and maybe it’s a semi-joke, maybe it’s a there’s some truth behind it. It’s a when you get tired of running from your problems, then you swim and bite from them. Or when you have so many problems, you can no longer just run from them, then you start to swim and bite from them, right? So that’s my tongue in cheek. You know, I don’t know. Most of my life, I would tell you I was allergic to running. You know, I was that guy that played football and baseball and when the baseball coach said, You have to go run the the the fence. We called them polls, and you have to give me 20 poles after practice. I was like a sloth putting my catching equipment away because I was trying to gamify how I could only have to run eight of them and not have to run all 20. But I think you go through phases in life and seasons of your career. And I was at a phase in a in a season where my kids were were going off to high school. That meant I was no longer going to be Coach Owen. Coach Owen used to coach travel baseball and tackle football and flag football. And I was no longer going to coach my son. I had some free time given back to me. And I like to do hard things. I like to push the boundaries. I think every time you do something hard, you remind yourself what’s possible. So the first thing I did that was hard is I completed the 75 hard challenge. That’s how I would introduce myself to biking and swimming. And once I started biking and swimming as well as running on a consistent basis, it just seemed natural to say, well, let’s just sign up for an Ironman race. And in a weird way, I like to do things that very few people have done, whether jump out of an airplane, whether it’s, you know, do an Iron Man, it’s in a weird way, it’s something that drives me.
[David] Well being successful in the mortgage industry is there’s not that many people there. A lot of people are involved in the mortgage industry, but to achieve the level of success that you have, what is the type of coaching you do? I mean, then when you’re talking to originators and you’re what is the type of people that are attracted to you and you’re that kind of you’re running your tribe?
[Dustin] Yeah, so I’m a big believer that I’m not gonna motivate you. I’m not and I’m not a big person who wants to go listen to a motivational speaker. I believe wholeheartedly if you want to be motivated, get out your cell phone, pull up your pictures, scroll through those pictures. There are enough faces in your camera role that should be all the motivation you need, whether it’s grandkids, whether it’s spouses, whether it’s friends and family. I think that’s the motivation we need and if you don’t have pictures in your phone, then pull up your W-2 or your 401k statement. There’s a good chance there’s enough motivation in there that you don’t need someone like me or you to show up to motivate you. But I do love to inspire change. and I’ve always been that guy that maybe I felt like I wasn’t invited in the room where it happens or I wasn’t included at the cool kid table and I want to give everyone else the opportunity to not have to fight as hard as I had to fight to gain the knowledge or to be around the experienced people. So when I coach, I come from a place of I’m not going to motivate you, but I will inspire you to change and I’m going to inspire you to change by giving you access, not just to me, but to my top producers who are coaches for me and we are going to shorten your learning curve and increase your probability of success because we’re going to teach you exactly what we did to become successful and exactly what we’re doing to stay on top. And I feel like most people, we do a great job of telling them what to do. But very few people slow down and teach how to do it and more specifically why it’s important. So we focus a lot on the how and the why. Because if you tell me to go run through a brick wall, I’m gonna be like, you’re crazy. If you say run through a brick wall because there’s a million dollars behind it, well, you gave me a why, I’ll go run through that brick wall. Even if I get concussed three times and end up with 10 stitches in my head, I know there’s a reason for me to go and do this hard activity that’s also potentially dangerous. So we focus on the how, we focus on the why. And honestly, it’s me giving back to the industry, giving things I wished was afforded to me. I wish I had access to, but for one reason or the other, it wasn’t afforded to me, nor did I have access to it.
[David] Yeah. Well you made it at the cool kid table. The sponsor for your CMB, certified mortgage banker, for those that don’t know what that means, was David Stevens, a good friend of mine, someone that is, I mean, you ran in some you’ve run in some very influential circle circles. David is just truly iconic leader of our industry of this century, in my opinion, just one of those people we he’ll be dearly, dearly missed and I encourage everyone to go listen to the interview I did under Lykken on Leadership Podcast with David shortly before he passed away. And it’s one that it’ll give you deep insights into one of the people that Dustin ran with, one amazing person he was. You and I talked about the gaps in the mortgage business sales coaching and sales training business. Tell us about what those gaps are and how are you filling them.
[Dustin] There’s multiple gaps. so when I look at the industry, and you gotta think I’m coming from a a practical knowledge standpoint, as well as you mentioned the CMB, there is an academic aspect to it as well. And you know this better than I do. When you host a podcast for as long as you have and as long as I have, you also get to know some pretty influential, successful people. I’m a big fan in general that we tell me stories, but when you don’t have a me story, tell a we story and sometimes those we stories are drawing on the conversations we’ve had with other super successful people. Like you talk about Casey Crawford all the time, as Casey’s like, you know, one of your clients that you loved the opportunity to invest in. I’m sure you have a ton of awesome Casey Crawford stories. They’re not David Lykken’s stories, but they’re Casey stories. But you can tell them because he’s your friend, he’s your client, and he’s super successful and he shared them with you. So when anytime that I answer questions like you asked, it’s like, please know it’s coming from a place of practice, as well as academia, as well as, hey, these are conversations I’m having with my friends in the industry from Spokane to Key West and everywhere in between. So here’s the gaps. I find that mortgage companies in general cater everything to the top 10%, yet they make decisions and rules regarding the bottom 10% and I would love to say, well, let’s play some money ball here. And let’s understand the top producers are going to be top producers. And we need to cater to them in terms of supporting them, re-recruiting them, making them feel the love. But at the end of the day, like those people are wired and geared a certain way that you didn’t do that. They did that. You have the fortune to support them. The people in the bottom 10% are typically the people that if you look at your P&L are probably costing the most money. Yet every decision you’re making regarding compliance or regarding attendance to meetings or you know rush policies is all based on the bottom 10. But no one’s focusing on the middle 80 and if we could focus on the middle 80, help them get out of their files, create systems and processes that when they tie into them, they are the same systems and processes that top producers are using. When we can offer the middle coaching that’s affordable and good. I’ve studied this industry. There’s a lot of affordable coaching that’s not good, and there’s a lot of great coaching that’s super expensive. How do we offer guidance that’s affordable and good? Because if I could help get or you could help get every originator in an organization doing one loan a quarter. Now the goal would be one loan a month, but one loan a quarter. For some organizations, that’s $400 million in incremental volume. For others, it’s 40 million. Even 40 million at a 25 basis point net revenue, which was I think the MBA’s latest stat, like that’s substantial money that you’re leaving on the table. So I think the first thing that I see happening is we’re not doing enough to help someone go from four to five, to help someone go from three to six, or sometimes we have someone doing four to five. They’re capable of 10. But no one has ever shown them how, nor have they provided the structure to allow them to get there. The second thing, what are we doing about the future of this industry? We talk about it. We’ve been talking about it since I got into the industry. And I’m fortunate. I went to work for, if you remember, David, there’s a company out of Atlanta called Home Bank Mortgage Corporation.
[David] Absolutely.
[Dustin] I’m a product of Home Bank Mortgage Corporation. When, when they brought me in from TV advertising. I knew nothing about mortgage, but they put me through a program. And 25 years ago, 20 years ago, Home Bank was still the creme de la creme when it came to bringing people into the industry and not many have actually been able to replicate that success. Here we are 20 years later. So something that I focus on is that. I focus on creating opportunities for individual originators as well as entire organizations where I’m like, give me your high ceiling, full gas tank originators who aren’t yet generating 20 to 30 leads a month, who aren’t yet funding four to five loans a month, and let me work with them for six months. Let me put them through a 16-week program. And if and if you don’t want to have me do it, fine. But then what are you doing? When I’m speaking to the industry now, what are you doing to bring people into the industry and give them the same opportunity that we have had in order to you know basically serve our community and fund a bunch of loans.
[David] Yeah, You talk about Moneyball. That’s one of my I love that movie. I love the the whole concept behind that. How do you integrate that into your coaching? How are you making that concept work for those that you’re coaching?
[Dustin] Yeah, so I’ll use money ball examples specifically with the divisionals or even the branch managers that that come in typically with a group of their originators or maybe they’re hiring us for a consulting standpoint, where I mean, I’ll look at a group of 40 originators and I’ll I can sit down with a divisional and say, if you had 40 originators that met this criteria and we put them through this program for six months, you are not gonna hurt my feelings if you say that that your preference would be that we help eight of them, twenty percent recognize that mortgage is not in their cards for a career. Right? Because you know this better than me, but that low producing originator who’s not doing the work to become average producing is dragging on the P&L at $2,000 a month. Right. Yeah.
[David] Yeah, and it’s dragging the energy of the whole company. It drags the energy, it drags down. I mean, there’s so many reasons why to examine either fix it or or eliminate it. it’s one of those things.
[Dustin] Yes, yeah. It’s like like what you tolerate sets your standard. So when you tolerate low producing, when you tolerate people not meeting your minimum production standards or your minimum sales activity standards, you’re letting everyone else know that that that behavior is acceptable. So I’ll sit down playing money ball and say, give me 40 and if we have eight of them out of the program and out of your organization by day day 91, I just added to your bottom line eight times two is 16, 16,000 a month. That’s pretty decent ROI. Then it’s like of the 32 that are still in the program that are going to graduate, six of them will end up becoming your next president’s club members. But then that’s going to leave us with another 26. If those because the president’s club members, they’re the ones that we brag about. Those are the ones that end up on the highlight reel. But let’s talk about the 26. Those 26 may only be an extra loan a quarter. Well, that’s 26 loans times four quarters. That’s a hundred in eight loans at a $350,000 average loan size, that’s $40 million in incremental volume. So then we, once we figure out that math, we then back into the what is it worth to you, the company operator, to invest in these people’s success and then when I’m playing moneyball, I also walk them through this. I don’t think that cost should be a should be a company cost. I think it should be a shared cost, comp corporate. pays a little, branch pays a little, and the LO needs to have skin in the game.
[David] If they don’t have game if they’re not investing in their own future and you’re the one making all the investment, you gotta ask yourself, you know, where is this relationship going? You’re setting yourself up for someone to be doing more taking than giving back. And I think that’s so far. I love what you were talking about. It says focusing why focusing on being the best loan officer is no longer enough. I love focusing on the potential of raising up that. 80% of that middle group that has the potential to grow. But when do you coach to the decision to continue with that person, seeing the potential and then also seeing the potential that they probably don’t have the potential for this business and you need to help them find another career where they can be successful?
[Dustin] Yeah, I mean early on, and you’re talking about the people who are producing low tend to produce low because they have bad habits, they don’t have structure, they don’t keep a calendar, and more specifically, they don’t prioritize their sales activities. They don’t probably have a marketing strategy or at least a marketing strategy that they implement and execute on. Those are typically easy conversations and I’ve learned, I learned this the hard way. I’m actually doing those people a favor because they don’t want to admit to themselves and others that they’re not cut out to do this. They’re afraid of telling people they failed. So they just hang out, but they can’t pay their bills. They’re not making money, they’re racking up credit card debt. So I find as a leader, if you want to be a great leader, do them the solid and release them, allow them to go seek opportunities in other industries. So that’s probably an easier one. I think the harder one is, you know, someone is doing two, three, four loans a month and they’re not a pipeline terrorist and they tow the company line. I think for those people, we give them the opportunity to be inspired to change. We focus on things that James Clear teaches like 1% better in his book, Atomic Habits. And if they’re resistant to change, but they’re good people and they tow the company line, I think we continue to support them. But I don’t think I continue to throw resources at them. So I just told a coaching student today who wanted to renew with me. I said, I’m only going to renew if you continue to make progress and these calls don’t get stale. And I think that’s where the manager has to be involved to be able to recognize if you’re just showing up and going through the motions, let’s terminate not the employment relationship, let’s terminate the mentorship coaching relationship. and as long as you can meet my minimum production standards, you’re not gonna be a pipeline terrorist, I will continue to support all originators because again, when I’m playing Moneyball, those originators doing three, four, and five loans a month. They are actually my most profitable. Not draining marketing resources. They’re not draining LOA personnel type resources. And as long as they have a decent product mix and their and their PEs are reasonable, honestly, I’d rather have some in some cases 15 or 20 of them than I would three people that are doing 20 transactions apiece because it hurts more when that person moves on and sometimes those people do great volume, but they’re not the most profitable. So there’s always that balance that I mean, you know this better than me, but that balance that we all have to to understand and and mitigate towards when we’re running a large scale operation.
[David] Yeah. What have the privilege of working with a lot of originators? No, you’re the one of the top coaches out there. You’re doing a great job making an impact on so many people’s production companies, but their lives. I think it’s really encouraging to see that. What do you think the future looks like for loan originators?
[Dustin] Ooh, so I think we’re we leaned into this with the last question, but maybe we didn’t unpack it as much. you’ve heard me say, and you all will continue to hear me say, it’s gonna be a big theme of the the Caribbean takeover event my team is putting on in September. I want them to fire the loan officer. I think loan being a great loan officer is so 1997 to 2007. I want people to become great business operators or what I call mortgage operators. Right. So we need to approach this as you work for David Lykken, LLC. Now you may be a division of Movement Mortgage or division of Cross Country or division of Barrett Financial, but we all as solopreneurs, we operate a business within a larger business. So I think the LO of the future will be hyper local. They will be the source of information They will be the subject matter expert for their friends and family, for the people in their community, for their past clients, for real estate agents and home builders. I think they’ll start to be even more a source of information on TikTok when they live stream, or, you know, when they start hosting virtual home buying workshops and they start attracting the end user, which for us is the home buyer or homeowner, onto some kind of informative educational. free for you type type content as a way to be sticky. I think ultimately my technology or what I joke, my robots, my robots will do the work. So when I say fire the loan officers, because I’ve had a lot of LOs work for me and I have a lot of friends who are LOs and they love, hey, what what makes you a great LO? my gosh, David, I’m the best at putting a file together. I’m amazing at calculating income. I know how to hand off to my processor better than anybody hands off. I’ve never had a rate lock get blown through. Like they talk about all the work that LOs get to do once they’ve done their job. But when LOs can understand it’s your job to get a lead, it’s not your job to be great at structuring a loan. No, that’s the work you get to do once you’ve done your job. So I think the future originator needs to be one that understands. He or she is operating a business. They are out there networking. They’re deploying a marketing strategy that allows them to be the subject matter expert and the source of information. They’re a great advisor and a great consultant. They’re probably even a great communicator and a great presenter. And then their robots and their technology is going to do all of the work behind the scenes that used to be what they got excited about bragging how good their skill set was. How can people learn more about you and get signed up under your coaching program?
[Dustin] question. First name, last name on LinkedIn. So Dustin Owen on LinkedIn. I have like 33,000 followers and growing. I’m super highly accessible. Just send me a message. my website is TLOPonline.com. TLOP’s the brand. If you break it down, it stands for the loan officer podcast. But ultimately, it’s now the brand that we are able to build because of the podcast popularity. You can watch or listen to the podcast. on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple, literally just search the Loan Officer Podcast. yeah, Instagram, I’m @Loanofficerpodcast. But those are probably the easiest ways to find us. I jokingly say, and I’m gonna pull from from Kirk Signetti, the Indiana Hoosiers football coach, go Google me. Like Google me, look me up. Now it’s it’s one of those things that if you go to Google and you type in Dustin Owen,
[David] Yeah. Well I recommend our listeners to do so. 1qEven if it’s just a discovery call, just find out. If you’re new to the industry, thinking about the industry, talk to Dustin. Probably be a good idea to first listen to some of his podcasts. I always impressed with the person that listens to the podcast, gains knowledge, and then calls me versus the one that hasn’t done that. So take the initiative to listen to what Dustin has put out. There’s a lot of great content out there, Dustin. Kudos to you and your success and the podcast. I it’s fun to talk to a fellow podcast. Yeah, no, it was an it was an honor, David. I was again, I said it at the top of the of the show, and I’ll I’ll I’ll bookend it with this. When your team reached out to invite me on, you made my heart smile. So thank you so much. You you’re a trailblazer in so many ways, including podcasting in our space, right? but I just appreciated getting to know you throughout the the years, running into you at conferences and now the time we spent together. Much appreciative. And group, if you don’t like listening or watching podcasts, that YouTube channel that I talked about, if you like free coaching and free training, I have 400 pieces of content that aren’t podcast related on that YouTube channel that is basically free coaching and free training. Go knock yourself out, get lost, and enjoy yourself on our page.
[David] It’s really good stuff. I listened to a number of those YouTube trainings and boy, I said this is solid material. So I’m so glad you joined us for the podcast. Listeners, reach out, get to know Dustin, listen to his podcast, get over his YouTube channel, soak this up. It’ll make a difference in your business. Dustin, thank you so much, friend.
[Dustin] David, thank you so much.
Important Links
Dustin Owen, aka D.O., joined the mortgage industry in 2004 as a Rookie LO. Within two years he was funding 100+ units per year in personal production. Owen leveraged his success as an originator into a career as mortgage sales executive. Most notably, Dustin grew his production operation from one branch funding $40 million a year to nine branches funding $70 million per month.
Dustin is the creator and host of The Loan Officer Podcast. With over 1 million downloads per year, it is the most popular podcast in the mortgage industry. It was because of the success of The Loan Officer Podcast that led Dustin to launch TLOP’s Originator Coaching, the #1 value for business coaching & sales training in the mortgage industry.
Outside of work, Dustin enjoys traveling and competing in Ironman races. He is a University of Central Florida alum and die-hard UCF football fan.