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May 2026 - Journey to $1 Billion
- Scott Peckford
- May 11
- 5 min read
We are on a quest to transform the mortgage industry.
We believe there needs to be more transparency, which is one reason why we decided to share a monthly report on what we have learned, what worked and what didn’t, and what’s next in our plans to grow a Billion Dollar Brokerage.
We hope you find a few useful ideas and tidbits to help you in growing your mortgage business.
Welcome to May 2026
Brokerage Stats
Production since August 1, 2021
Volume: $6,307,621,672
Files funded: 13,624
April Production
Volume: $239,256,606
Files funded: 505
April Agent Stats
Rookies: 179
Pros: 171 (+5)
Intermediate: 53 (+1)
Total Agents: 412
Licensed assistants: 46 (+8)
Top 10 Lender Volume YTD
Scotiabank - $175,505,776.86
TD - $113,783,551.23
MCAP - $69,021,712.63
First National - $68,974,237.36
Merix Financial - $62,846,632.22
Home Trust - $33,555,960.25
RFA (A) - $32,372,865.37
Manulife - $30,771,625.43
Strive - $29,419,357.49
RMG - $24,674,113.16
When Your Strength Becomes the Bottleneck
Most experienced brokers don't plateau because they stop working hard.
They plateau because the business eventually can't grow past them.
In the beginning, doing everything yourself is an advantage.
You answer every client call.
Review every file.
Solve every problem.
Handle every exception.
Those habits help you build momentum.
The problem is that success reinforces them.
As your business grows, more and more things depend on you.
Every decision routes back to your desk.
Every client expects direct access.
Every problem becomes your problem.
And eventually, growth starts to feel heavier instead of easier.
That's when most brokers hit a ceiling.
The skills that helped you become a top producer start becoming the thing that holds the business back.
Because there's a difference between being a producer and building a business.
A producer closes more deals.
A business owner creates leverage.
They build systems.
Develop people.
Create processes that allow the business to function without their constant involvement.
One of my favorite questions is this:
What happens if you're unavailable for 48 hours?
If the entire business grinds to a halt, you've found the bottleneck.
And it's probably sitting in your office chair.
The goal isn't to work less.
The goal is to build a business that can grow without everything depending on you.
That's where leverage comes from.
And leverage is what creates freedom.
Why New Brokers Struggle With Confidence
"I just don't feel confident yet."
I was on a call recently with a newer broker who said exactly that.
The interesting thing was that he was doing everything right.
He was working on deals, asking questions, and getting support when he needed it.
But when it came to client conversations, he felt unsure of himself.
So I asked him what kind of training he was getting.
The answer was mostly file-related training.
How to structure deals.
What documents to collect.
Which lender to submit to.
All important.
But nobody was really helping him with the conversations.
What to say.
How to guide a client through a call.
How to earn trust.
I've seen this a lot.
Most brokers think confidence comes from knowing more about mortgages.
It doesn't.
Confidence comes from communication.
In fact, one of the biggest lessons we learned while training new brokers was that technical knowledge alone wasn't enough.
Agents also needed coaching on Discovery Calls and Strategy Calls if they were going to succeed.
Because every broker has to make three sales:
Earn the referral.
Earn the client's trust.
Earn the lender's approval.
Miss any one of them and the deal doesn't happen.
The brokers who build confidence the fastest aren't necessarily the ones who know the most.
They're the ones who get better at conversations.
Because confidence isn't about knowing everything.
It's about knowing how to help.
Trust Without Clarity Isn't a Strategy
I recently spoke with a broker who had joined us a few months earlier.
One day he received a cheque from a lender for roughly $17,000.
It was an efficiency bonus.
The surprising part wasn't the amount.
It was that he didn't know efficiency bonuses existed.
Same files.
Same production.
Same work.
The only difference was visibility.
I've seen this happen more than once.
Another broker received lender points tied to her production.
She didn't know they were there until they showed up.
That got me thinking.
Most brokers spend a lot of time understanding mortgages.
Very few spend time understanding compensation.
They know their split.
85/15.
90/10.
Maybe 100%.
But they don't always know what is actually being split.
Because compensation isn't just commission.
There are volume bonuses.
Efficiency bonuses.
Lender incentives.
Points and rewards.
Some are obvious.
Some are buried in the fine print.
The problem isn't that anyone is necessarily doing anything wrong.
The problem is that most brokers have never been taught to follow the money.
They focus on production.
Close more deals.
Trust that everything is being handled correctly.
But trust without clarity isn't a strategy.
At some point, every broker should be able to answer a simple question:
How does money flow through my business?
Not generally.
Specifically.
Because when you understand that, you make better decisions.
And better decisions compound.
The Right Tactic at the Wrong Time Is a Bad Strategy
I was on a call recently with a new mortgage agent.
She had joined a different brokerage, and I asked her about their training.
What should she focus on first?
What order should things be learned in?
How did the training actually work?
She wasn't sure.
And that's the problem.
A lot of rookies think they have a tactic problem.
They don't.
They have a timing problem.
The right tactic at the wrong time is a bad strategy.
It's like putting icing on a cake before you put it in the oven.
Nobody would do that in baking.
But brokers do it all the time.
They spend hours reading lender policies and underwriting guidelines before they've figured out how to get a client on the phone.
They're studying step ten when they haven't completed step one.
One of the biggest lessons we've learned training new brokers is that sequence matters.
In fact, I believe there are three sales in this business:
The first sale is to the referral source.
The second sale is to the client.
The third sale is to the lender.
Most rookies focus on the third sale first.
That's backwards.
If you don't have referrals and clients, you don't have anything to submit to a lender.
This is why a clear path matters.
Not because it makes the business easy.
Because it helps you focus on the right things at the right time.
And in your first year, that can make all the difference.
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