Sept. 28, 2026

Expand Your Radius with Sarah Valentini

Some companies grow by chasing volume.

Others grow by building something people want to belong to.

In this episode of The MikedUp Show, Michael Kelleher and Michael Zau sit down with Sarah Valentini, Co-Founder and CEO of radius financial group, for a conversation about leadership, culture, community, and what it takes to build an independent mortgage bank that lasts.

Sarah started radius financial group in 1999 and has spent more than two decades building a company known not only for production, but for the way it operates. The company’s guiding belief, “better has no finish line,” says a lot about how Sarah leads. Growth is not treated as a destination. It is treated as a standard.

That idea sits at the center of this episode.

Expand Your Radius is about more than growing a company footprint.

It is about expanding what leadership means.

Expanding how mortgage companies show up for their teams.

Expanding how lenders serve their communities.

Expanding what a mortgage brand can stand for beyond rates, units, and closings.

Sarah’s journey as a founder and CEO is rooted in building with intention. Since launching radius, she has helped lead an independent mortgage bank through changing markets, different lending cycles, and shifting borrower expectations. That kind of longevity requires more than strategy. It requires culture, consistency, and a clear sense of who you are as a company.

This conversation explores how Sarah built a business with culture at the center, why leadership has to be lived daily, and how companies can keep improving without losing the values that made them successful in the first place.

Sarah was also recognized as an EY Entrepreneur of the Year New England finalist, a reflection of the entrepreneurial discipline and leadership behind the company she helped build. But her impact extends beyond mortgage banking.

Her work with South Shore Habitat for Humanity, including her recognition with the Bravo Award for her role as Outstanding Event Chair at the High Heels and Hard Hats Gala, reflects a deeper commitment to community. As National Women Build Chairwoman, Sarah helped support work focused on building homes and strengthening local communities one project at a time.

That connection between mortgage, housing, and community is one of the most important themes in this episode.

Mortgage is not just a transaction.

It is tied to where families live, how communities grow, and how leaders choose to use their platform.

Sarah’s story is a reminder that the best mortgage companies are not built only around products. They are built around people, purpose, and the constant pursuit of getting better.

This episode is for mortgage founders, executives, loan officers, operations leaders, and anyone thinking about how to build something that can grow without losing its soul.

Because better has no finish line.

Watch and listen to the full episode of The MikedUp Show.

Visit us at https://www.mikedupshow.com

Follow Adopt The Brand on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/adopt-the-brand

Learn more about radius financial group at https://www.radiusgrp.com

MikedUp Show is powered by

Truework
Truework helps mortgage teams verify income and employment faster. It reduces the back and forth that slows files down and gives lenders a cleaner way to move borrowers through the process.
https://www.truework.com/

FundingShield
FundingShield helps protect mortgage closings from wire fraud, payoff fraud, and transaction risk. It gives lenders real time checks before money moves.
https://www.fundingshield.com/

Addy AI
Addy AI helps mortgage teams handle repetitive work, respond faster, and keep borrower communication moving. It gives teams practical AI tools built around real lending tasks.
https://addy.com/

TRUE
TRUE helps mortgage companies use AI to clean up loan files, reduce manual work, and improve speed across operations. It is built for lenders that need better execution without adding more complexity.
https://true.ai/

Covered Insurance
Covered Insurance helps make insurance easier for borrowers, lenders, and real estate partners. It supports the home buying process by helping customers compare options and secure coverage with less friction.
https://itscovered.com/

Friday Harbor
Friday Harbor brings AI into mortgage origination and underwriting, helping lenders create cleaner, more complete loan files earlier in the process. It supports teams working to move faster with fewer surprises.
https://fridayharbor.ai/

AskBob AI
AskBob AI turns company knowledge, guidelines, overlays, and internal documents into fast answers for mortgage teams. It helps reduce repeat questions and gives teams trusted information inside their daily workflow.
https://www.askbobai.com/

FICO
FICO helps lenders make smarter credit decisions with scoring solutions used across mortgage and consumer finance. For mortgage teams, it supports clearer credit risk assessment and more confident lending decisions.
https://www.fico.com/

First American
First American supports real estate and mortgage transactions with title, settlement, data, valuation, and risk solutions. It helps lenders and real estate partners create more secure and reliable closing experiences.
https://www.firstam.com

Transcript

WEBVTT

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Hello and welcome to the Miked up show, the ultimate hub where the hidden stories behind the mortgage industry come to life. I'm Mike Kelleher.

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And I am Michael Zao.

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And in every episode, the Mike's dive deep into the entrepreneurial spirit, the strategic insights and the breakthrough innovations that build the world's greatest mortgage companies. So whether you're advancing your career, scouting for industry leaders or exploring opportunities in mortgage real estate, fintech and proptech, you're in the right place. Get ready to unlock the story behind every mortgage. Let's dive in today with Zara Valentini who co funded Radius Financial Group in 1999. For those keeping track of geography, that's all the way across the country from Mike Zao, but that is actually just on the other side of Boston for me. So this is a hometown story and Radius Financial has been a staple here in Massachusetts for a long time and they've expanded beyond Massachusetts. But we want to tell the story about the leadership and how Sarah has grown with the company and been able to not just advance the company, but advance on her own in ways that this show loves to talk about. One is she is a cmb, which is a certified mortgage banker and one of the first I remember at least in the intros that you can combine that with a Harvard Business School management alumni and everybody right now it's technology has turned everybody into how can you use technology to run the best manufacturing management type system so that you can reduce turn times or bring a better customer experience or lower that cost of mortgage. And she has been recognized as a housing wire woman of Influence, a 2025 Ernst Young's entrepreneur of the year New England finalist and we know with all those universities here that is not a small feat. But underneath this whole resume is really a story where she took a mid sized privately owned independent mortgage bank and now has over 28 states, over 100 loan products and is one of the fastest growing mortgage imbs in the in the state. And we're also fellow board members from Massachusetts Mortgage bankers. So we know she definitely gives back. I am excited for this interview. Sarah, before I keep going on a, on an introduction, if you want to introduce or maybe put in your own words a little bit about yourself in your journey and how you got into mortgage, founded a company and where you are today.

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Sure. Well like every little girl, I dreamed about being mortgage banker, you know, since I was little, I mean I fell into the business I think like most people fall into to mortgage banking. And you know, I was young and the Job market was terrible. I started off working at a bank in the trust department. And in the trust department all the clients usually are dead. And at 22 years old, that just sounded awful to me. And someone said, well, you should get into the mortgage business, be a loan officer. And I'm like, do I have to wear a badge? I don't even know what that is, but fell into it and fell in love with it. You know, it's. It's a people business and I like working with people.

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I think one of the topics I hear talked about in the halls of conferences is there is such a growing amount of great leaders, CEOs, women CEOs of mortgage companies. But under that there is not a large amount ofWomen founded CEOs of mortgage companies. We were lucky enough to have Patty Arviello who sort of hit that home. I know Nina, who hasn't been a guest yet up at A N Mortgage and I could probably name a few. But that's sort of the whole point of this is there are not enough. That said, here's a crazy idea, let me get into mortgage. And then not only that, but have the leadership to go against the headwinds of some of the things that have happened since 1999. You know, we just had the anniversary of 9 11. You obviously had the financial crisis, the dot com bubble, the trid, the HARP going through all that. And then Covid and now we are again in a middle of a war a long time hard to originate and have Adopt the brand day coming to New England, there is a leadership panel of some great leaders. And I was on the prep call and they were actually wanted to say how important leadership is in times like this and how to get your employees to really believe in you or to get them to have the actions you want. But whatever it is, you can build the foundation. Now, as somebody who's gone through this cycle in many different coats or camouflages, but it's still the same lull before a big increase. How are you handling that as a leader and how are you using that experience but keeping that still that same crazy idea girl from back in 1999.

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I think that what's always gotten us through the difficult markets is communication and transparency. And. It's no secret that the business has been really challenging since COVID and we had I think a little tiny uptick for last September and then at the beginning of the year and then we got the headwinds again. And we are just, we're very transparent. We're a flat organization and I think that our people know what our goals are and our people know how we're doing. And I think that that's just important for a cult, an organization.

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Sarah, let's start at the beginning of your life for a little bit from the top. Even before you're in the trust department, you had a lot of influences in your life. Actually, if we talk about how you grew up and then through your career, we've talked about Harvard Business School, we talked about you being. Going through the mba, being on, not only being a leader, but through several panels. One of the things that, when you go through Harvard Business School is that there's a tremendous amount of networking. And I've noticed that in your history that you've gleaned influence along the way. So if you start off with your. How you grew up with your mom and how she. How she taught you to have the spirit of May potentially at least ingrain a seed of entrepreneurship. And then as you. As we went through these various crises that Mike had talked about, um, you've been through also various experiences which also you've been able to glean at the same time. So tell. Tell me what. How do you. How do you learn either empathically, you know, from. From your mom, and then how do you ask questions so that you can bring that into your leadership?

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Sure. So, you know, my mom was a single mom. She was, I say, a woman before her time. She was an entrepreneur. We grew up in the restaurant business before restaurants were cool. Before that was you a thing. And, you know, grew up watching her do everything. And then I since learned how to do every. I mean, I've done every job in the restaurant business that. That exists. And I think that that's a. It's a really great foundation. I actually specifically look for people in hospitality. If we're trying to find people because they just have great experience, that that translates, I think, well to our business, the Harvard Business School. I went to the OPM program, the Owner Presidents Management Program. And, you know, I mean, that was just another. Another avenue where I've always tried to grow. You know, one of the hardest things about being an entrepreneur is that you don't have, you know, a corporation with giant training departments and constantly bringing people in. You have to find that for yourself. So I've always looked at ways to find that for myself so that I can bring that to my team. So that answer the long question you asked me. So I don't know if I got all components of it.

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What did you learn?

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Sorry, go ahead, Mike.

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And what did you learn being a leader in for a running mortgage company? Along the progression since 99 to the present, you've had many iterations of growth. What have you learned along the way? As far as have you learned more from your successes? And if you've had failures, what have you learned from that?

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Oh, gosh, I've had countless failures. You know, I probably think that, you know, the most important thing is to lead by example. I can't expect anybody to do anything if I'm not willing to do it. You know, it's an entrepreneur. I mean, I walk by our front desk and the phone's ringing, nobody's there. I'll answer the phone. I mean, you have to, you have to have that mentality when you're, when you are an entrepreneur. And of course there's, there's so many failures along the way, but, but learning from them, you know, and I mean, I can go down the list, but,

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you know, it's okay.

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It's.

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As a entrepreneur myself, I think we naturally have a yearning to learn and level up. And sometimes that can be to the detriment of staying focused on what are your goals for the year, the next five years, and accomplishing them. Constant distraction, pulling you in different directions. For example, applying for an mba, maybe when you don't need it yet, but it's just you naturally, as an entrepreneur, want to keep leveling up, learning what I feel inside an organization like a mortgage company especially, obviously loan offices are almost entrepreneurs within the company. Right. But it's contagious. So you have a lot of micro entrepreneurs that are following you as the leader entrepreneur. Do you? For those listening, where do you think are good outlets for them to stay focused? But get good advice on leveling up within the mortgage industry or leveling up within their career growth?

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I mean, certainly the MBA has great resources and, you know, starting with that and then, you know, I've always felt that finding other people that, you know, can mentor or, or guide, you know, other people that are successful inside the mortgage business or outside app. I've always looked to athletes. I think athletes are, are, you know, looking how great athletes are successful. There's a great documentary. In Search of Greatness is one of my favorites. And I think that just paying attention to what other successful people do, obviously for loan officers, I think it's fantastic they can find another leader or a loan officer that they can talk with. It can be outside of their market if they're worried about competition. But I've always felt that there's Enough business to go around anyway. But I think they have to find out what will stick with them, what motivates them in order to, to want to be better and you know, and, and follow through with that. I think there's, you know, there's so many people that they can go to but they have to figure out what's going to resonate with them so that it actually sticks.

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There's a saying that the, you're, you're a compilation of the five people that you hang around the most without, you know, and you don't have to name those five people, but would you be able to name some of the attributes that you look for in the people that you do want to hang around?

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Yes, unquestionably. Optimism. I think that people who are optimistic, you know, positive people make positive things happen. And I prefer strongly to surround myself around positive people the same way that positivity is infectious, negativity is as well. And so I, the people that I'm surrounded with are naturally optimistic people. And positive doesn't mean that they're Pollyannas. They're, you know, you can, you know, you can be a realist, but there's always ways to look at things. Like in, you know, I think in looking at the 27 years that I've had Radius, our biggest hockey stick growths were always after really bad times. And I think that it's, you know, how you approach a bad time doesn't mean that it's fun, it doesn't mean that we're happy about it. But you can look at it as an opportunity or a crisis.

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What are some attributes of the. I see two types of loan officers. There are those that are very prideful of the finance, the ability to break down the numbers, firm versus rate versus maybe long term goals, investment property. And then there's those that just are, have something about them where they're, they have an Aurora to them. They seem to appreciate that a mortgage equals a home and a home equals a family and the community is attracted to them. What are some attributes from each of those type of loan officers you feel really represent Radius Financial well out in the market?

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Yeah, I mean I would say that look, a large part of our business is from, from past clients and I, so I think the, the loan officers that have greater empathy that really look at the whole picture and aren't just order takers and anybody can give the stats. Well, this is that, that's, that it's not hard to be good at that part. It's harder to be good at understanding that, you know, asking for an extension is a big deal. This is somebody's life. This is something that they're depending on changing the kids school or relocating their job. I always say, you know, you think that asking for a day doesn't make a big difference. Well, it does make a big difference. So understanding the whys, I think is extremely important in our business. And it's the difference. It's the difference between being a retail mortgage banker, feet on the street versus, you know, rocket mortgage.

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As you talk about wise, would you be open to talking about maybe one of the whys that you have in your business for success?

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One of the whys in my business for success.

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You talk, we talked about customer service and how it's important to you and what you learned in the restaurant trade. I'll give you, give you an example. When I, when I was in college, I was working, I worked as a busboy, short line order cook, ice cream vendor, host at Disneyland at one of the restaurants. And it, you know, it was like it taught me what I, it didn't tell me what I didn't want to do. What it taught me was about, like, customer service and how. And how I wanted to be treated while I was over there. And so what did you, when you were working with your mom as a single mom and seeing her, I don't know if she struggled or not. Just because you say string or mom, it doesn't necessarily mean struggle, but it does mean that there, I mean, fiscally, I mean, but it does mean that there's a sense of hard work and there's a sense of, of what are you doing to make things happen for yourself? So what have you learned that caused you to think, this is why I would like to provide either better customer service or better work ethic or better camaraderie amongst your team, whether it was at a restaurant or whether it's inside a mortgage company or what have you.

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Look, I think the customer is the foundation. And in our business, there's internal and external customers, our internal customers, our loan officers, that first and foremost we have to make sure that we treat them so that their experience is extraordinary. So that then again, everything is a domino effect. Then they treat their clients so that it all comes down to the customer. And I don't think that you can be successful in our industry without having that extraordinary customer service. And it's not just meeting a commitment date or getting somebody to the closing table. It's. It's all the soft things in the business that you know Getting to know people and. And, you know, really understanding that this is their life. It's not, you know, it's not just collecting documents and. And giving somebody the loan. It's. It's, you know, how you make them feel along the way.

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I. The why for the Mike Dub show has been how can we show loan officers processors today how they can be the next Sarah Valentini tomorrow? And I would say, I think an area where I fail in leading the show week from week is we focus so much on the guests and their story and what's great about their company. We don't ask actually a granular question about a pathway along that journey. And since you're local and I maybe I'm selfishly asking this question, but can you take us through, like, from a geography standpoint, maybe a little bit of your expansion? There's obviously some anxiety or nerves about, okay, we did great here. Are we going to be able to. Is it worth the risk of opening up a new branch here? And then there must be a point where we can get this loan officer over here, but we have to build a branch there, and it's a little bit further than this one. Maybe it's like restaurant expansion. But can you just. Because I know all the towns. Can you maybe talk about a couple of those expansion points?

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Sure. I mean, look, the Harvard Business School would say to look at the heat maps and where are people moving? And put a pin where all of the people are moving. I would like to say that we did that, but we went the people way. I think one of the biggest challenges in our industry is finding the right people. So even though it would be obvious at a given point in time that you really want to be in Columbus, Ohio, or Nashville, Tennessee, if we don't have the right people there for us, we wouldn't be successful. So much of our growth has been about finding the right people, and the place comes secondary.

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And on the south shore.

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That's the not business school answer. But that's.

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Oh, but that's. I mean, it's. Every area is different. So south of Boston, for those that don't know, like Foxborough Stadium is not on this. I don't know if people call it on the south shore, but there's no shore near Foxborough.

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Right.

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And then if you. And you can't take a road directly, like horizontal, you have to go all the way up 93 and down Route 3, and that gets you to the south shore, down to the Cape and then the islands. Are you. Are you located now? Did you work your way up and then down across the Cape, or did you work your way more over, like, expand outside of Foxborough down to Rhode island, that route?

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Well, we started off on the South Shore and then just expanded that way.

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It's almost inverted.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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Is the Cape really a. Would you consider the Cape still a summer community or has it expanded to where it's a lot more year round?

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Yeah, Covid changed the Cape a lot. You know, the ability to work from home changed a lot of markets. So I think the Cape changed for a couple reasons. One, it used to be a lot less expensive to live. So, you know, people would migrate, you know, further and further from Boston, from the South Shore, so it would, it was less expensive. And then, you know, during COVID there were certainly people that decided, hey, I don't really need this house in Dover that I'm paying a lot for and I can live, you know, in my house in, you know, Centerville through what

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we have seen over the last, say, 15 some odd years of change, first at the financial crisis and then through Covid in that. Can you, can you walk me through how optimism has taken you to have a. In leadership? How did you take your ops team first in the financial crisis and then through Covid to say it's slow, hot, slow, hot, slow, hot. And what, what, what was your mindset through the initial portion of when that crisis happened and then how did you push through it, similar to what an athlete might go through when they get pushed down? And then we get. I don't know how we're going to get up. We got to figure it out. But what is going through your mind in crises and then how do you get out of it?

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Well, I mean, during the crisis, I can remember there was a mortgage graveyard that came out every day of, you know, companies that were, that were just going out of business. And, you know, I brought it up in the beginning, but, you know, we were, we were transparent with our people through that time. It was a very difficult time of, you know, this is for some people who are newer in the business. This isn't even going to make sense to them. But, you know, loan files were actual paper in manila folders. And because there was such a liquidity crunch with the warehouse banks, we had, we had giant stacks of loans that we said were in purgatory. And we'd have to, you know, one loan would fund and you'd grab another one and pull it out. Loan officers would go over to the pocket and say, you know, can the Smiths Move up, you know, and, you know, thank God, you know, a lot of them were refinances at the time, so you could, you know, you didn't. You didn't have to close. But it was, you know, it was. It was crazy. But, you know, that. That loan pile of loans were, you know, the loan officers were aware of what was happening and why there was issues with, you know, with the warehouse, banks and. And everything else. So I think that their trust was there. And I, you know, and I think the same thing during COVID you know, I'll tell you a little story during COVID where, you know, I talked about leading by example. We had. We had a situation where someone on our ops team doing a extremely mundane job just walked out the door. And, you know, we were. We were full capacity, beyond capacity. And I went over to one of our ops leaders, and, I mean, he looked like he was gonna have a heart attack. And I said, you know, how can I help? And he said. He just rolled his eyes and he's, you know, he's like, why don't you do that job? I said, all right, show me how to do it. And, you know, and he thought I was nuts and thought it would maybe be an hour. But I took this job and within a couple days figured out, we can automate this. Why are we doing it this way? This is stupid. And, you know, I did this other job for maybe about six or eight weeks until we found somebody. And again, I think just what it demonstrated was a lead by example. Do anything. I mean, this is. It was. The job was actually calling on insurance binders. And I have to tell you, you know, we have a very open office, and people were like, I cannot believe you are calling on insurance binders. I'm like, well, someone has to do it, and we are busy. We have to do it. So, you know, they could see that in times of difficulty, if leaders are willing to jump in, then I think that trust goes along with it. And look, trust is built over time, and it's built not by being perfect. It's built by being able to be honest when you're not perfect. So I think throughout the crisis, I don't think any of our people think that I have every answer or leaders have every answer, or we're going to do everything right. But I think that they know that we're going to be honest, that we're going to learn from anything that goes wrong and that we're going to be there, we're going to be stable, we're going to get through it might not be pretty. We had to let people go in 2022 and that was awful. But we did so with transparency. And I think that just builds the trust along the way.

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That's I'm sure there's leaders going in the back of their head can remember a point where maybe they didn't sit down and they're like, oh, that probably was a moment that I just was busy. And it reminds me of Robert Gronkowski, the tight end for the Patriots, got injured once on the field goal unit and he broke his arm. And I think maybe that year we didn't win the super bowl because of it. And everybody always questioned Belichick why you would have such a star tight end and a big integral part of the offense on special teams in the first place. But we go on to win many more Super Bowls with him. And I just think our society always focuses on the individual a little bit more than usual with social media, whether it's a sports player or somebody within an organization. But if you want a organization that has long term success as a dynasty of sorts that Radius Financial has here in Massachusetts, it does take somebody playing out of position and doing it, you know, with, with a humbleness but also a willingness to whatever you give me, I'm going to be the best at and I'm going to try and find ways to automate and improve it. And I have some questions for you about the transparency actually queued up so it would be a good segue, but I actually found a better segue. I think one of the ways to automate is finding good vendor partners and we couldn't do this show at this point without our sponsors who have been able to help us move forward. So we are going to listen to a couple of the reasons that many mortgage companies are successful with these vendors and then we'll be on the other end to ask Sarah a couple more questions about Radius Financial and what loan offices at Radius Financial are doing today.

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All right, we are back with Sarah Valentini who co founded CEO of Radius Financial a one of the fastest growing and now with the trend of what's happened here in Massachusetts they really are the I'll call it one of the top imbs here in Massachusetts which has always fascinated me over the last 10 years. Why so many loan officers recently in Massachusetts join a national company led by somebody that is not from around here and it's not for not being recognized. As we said, she's recognized Housing Wire as a woman of influence. I heard Radius Financial on Lincoln on lending five years ago. The big guest there. So it it's a national brand and I hope loan officers locally that are listening can take a little bit more time to reflect on why having a local leader in your local market is probably should be weighted more than maybe it's been weighted recently. And I think it starts with is that local leader transparent and you had mentioned transparency. Everything I've heard about Radius is it's known for a transparent tech plus human process. I know you've always been ahead on the technology side from my easy mortgage apps days. You're not just like everybody else. And that uniqueness has put your loan officers in position to gain market share in their areas of Massachusetts. And I hope this show, if it does anything, is able to provide some amplification of just how great Radius Financial is and why everybody should give you a shot. Or maybe as they say locally at one of the car dealerships, like shop us last. Right. What systems, if somebody's coming into Radius Financial should they feel is part of the culture and the ways that you're able to communicate with them and set them up for success? And. And maybe some of the teammates, like Dustin, that's been famous in marketing around here for a long time, help promote their branding and get them out there.

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Yeah, I mean, I think when we, when we bring people on, first of all, we have, I think, an amazing onboarding experience. We have a chief experience officer who really oversees all of that and makes sure that it's very stressful to make a move. So, you know, we handle everything for them like a concierge. And, you know, and that does include marketing, but, you know, it also includes, you know, any other support that they need so that they just start plug and play right from, you know, right from the beginning, because it's hard to make a move in this business.

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You're on mute, Mike. So I will ask you a quick question, this experience officer, because when I think of how stressful and onboarding and moving is, I say, oh, well, that would be a great person or that would be a great culture to bring to your customers as well, who also have the stress of moving. You mentioned how great you are at retaining customers. How important is that purchase? It's like Tapper. Tapper. I was fascinated with this. And there's so many. You said sports. There's so many ways you can bring a restaurant industry, whether it's that book, unconditional hospitality. Like, there's so many playbooks there. But there's also. Tapper says the percentages of people likely to come back based on like, it goes from like 18. If they come back the third time, there's 72% chance they're likely to be a regular at the customer. And so he uses different napkins, so they're treated different, different coupons just to get to the three. So once you get to the three, when they're moving. It's stressful. What does Radius do? What's the mantra to really start with that one, to get to the two, to get to them to be the referral and customers for.

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I mean I think just in, in our culture, you know, one of our core values is customer obsessed. Everybody understands it and it's, it's how they're treated throughout, throughout the process. And you know, I don't, I don't think that, you know, there's, there's any big secrets, but it's, you know, it's the way our culture is with communication and transparency. You have to have that same philosophy with, with the customer because you know, I think most people can understand almost anything as long as they know what's going on. A lot of times it's, you know, they're upset because they haven't heard anything or you know, and, and it might be something simple that yeah, you actually do need an extension and this is why. And explaining that and explaining the why. I think it's just, it's just different versus you know, kind of burying your head the sand and, and hoping that you, you know, that you get what you need and, and you know, rather than just being open and honest with,

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with the customer, I, I think of when there's problems. I think of the Southwest commercials when they guys, they want to, want to get away, you know, burying your head in the sand. As you mentioned, that. What, what are some of the things that you look for in self starters? Because if we can never get the job done and we need a sense of entrepreneurship to, to do that not only at, as the, at a leadership level and also even in operations, we need some, some sense of get up and goness, I guess. So how do you look for that in people in, in your in. And how do they manage their time so that you can manage yours? Because that means you're going to have some type A minuses, meaning that they're like, they got to do it their way but at the same time you want them to get things done your way at the same time.

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Yeah, I mean self starters, it's one of the reasons why I love finding people in the hospitality business because I think, you know, you kind of have to have that, that self motivation and you know, in order to, to be successful there. We've found people with military experience. Another one you look for that, that inner motivation but have, you know, obviously if somebody has experience, it's, it's a little bit different. But when you're bringing somebody into the business you know, we, we kind of go through a longer interview process, you know, including doing things like this test and things like that, just to, you know, just to see does somebody have that internal motivation. And, you know, this is, might make you laugh, but when we bring, you know, recent college grads in that they want to get into the business, you know, it's different from when I got out of college and wanted to get in the mortgage business. I was willing to wait tables and bartend and do whatever I needed to do on the side in order to you know, to eventually hopefully make it as a loan officer. I think it's different. It's really hard to find that now. So I've been known to, to call their parents and have a conversation because they, you know, to be successful in this business, you need support around you. And I think whether it's a significant other or for young kids, it's their parents. Somebody needs to understand that this job requires, you know, you're on call all the time, pick up the phone on a Saturday, pick up the phone on a Sunday, that you have to be available. And if people in your life aren't going to understand and support that, then you're probably not going to be successful. They also need to understand that it does take that self motivation because look, we all get down. None of us are, you know, it's a. I don't care who you are, you're going to have tough days. And I think if you have other people that understand what it takes to be successful and can call you out if you know you're, you're not doing what you need to do, you know, I think that's important.

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That's one of the most powerful answers we've heard on this podcast. And we've had a lot of big, big people. And I say that because I was a loan officer and had to transfer over to just be a local, still hunt what you kill. But I was young and it takes a little while to build a book of business. And I remember my parents are great and always inspired me to be entrepreneurial. But in that particular moment post financial crisis with probably what they were hearing at different dinner tables, they were very much telling me, are you nicest way? Are you sure you're making the right decision? You really need to get out of being a loan officer. And I can just imagine how many people quit on the first on the one yard line. I mean, I went like 25,000 a year to 25,000, then jumped to 75 and then over 200,000 I mean it was, I think a lot of it was a trust factor. But I think there's somebody that would reach out to my parents because you can tell if somebody has it or not and then if it's somebody like yourself probably has an 80% chance of getting it right that they're going to do it. I just think that's so powerful. I will say what do you entrepreneurs are naturally they dream big so they set themselves up where sometimes they don't have the money for the final mile. Like they go to get going and then they're very low budget for what they're about to do. Like if they're going to do a first time homebuyer seminar, they get it all done and then they just don't have enough money to buy the water bottles and the final branding or make it look nice when you get there. What are some of the things that Radius does to support those big dreaming loan officers? To make sure that they represent the Radius brand and themselves and best way possible, kind of that hospitality touch there at the end.

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Listen, I know what that's like. You know, when, when we were early on in our company and you know, we had our kickoff parties and everything, I literally made all of the food and did everything, you know, to save money. So I get that. So we're very supportive of loan officers trying to be successful and we will, you know, help them do those events so that they look amazing and they, you know, show that they have people behind them to be able to do that. Because, you know, I think for a loan officer to get success a lot of times it's, they need to know that somebody's behind them if something goes wrong. And you know, they, they have access to be able to call somebody above them to get something done. So how you present an event is extremely important and we're going to make sure that it's presented really well.

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In the restaurant industry, it's the unsung hero of the restaurant might be the prep cook, the person that maybe is chopping up the eggs for the chef salad or chop or taking the greens and separating if they need to, or curing the meat for XYZ reasons. But they need to do that in order to become the cook and understand what, what it is to make the sausage proverbially, what are some of the attributes that you think need to be done to prep originators at the basic fundamental level. So they can say this is what it takes to get the job done. And if you want to be successful, this is the prep side in the implementation of being successful.

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So, you know, I think most people that get into this business as a loan officer fail because they don't have structure like they would at a normal job. So. So if you're going to go work at Fidelity, you're going to show up and it's going to say, michael, this is your day. And you have this meeting at 10, 11, 2 and 4, and this report is due, and that report is due. And for loan officers, they start and it's like, got to go get some business. So I think we try to create some structure for them, but, you know, them understanding that they have to be accountable to that structure. That's where I think that there's a disconnect. Because I always tell loan officers the greatest thing about being a loan officer is, look, you can be marginal or not do what you're supposed to do, and you probably won't lose your job for a long time, but you can wake up one day and decide, I'm going to do what I need to do and you can actually do it. Whereas if you're working at Fidelity or another company, you would have been fired a long time ago if you're not. If you're not doing that. So try to tell them to pretend like you have that job so that you have that structure and follow the structure. We'll give you all the tools to, to, you know, create that structure for you, but you have to be accountable to it.

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So with as much as you pour out then into your entire team, how do you retain them? If. When, when. I mean, people are wanting to always have great people on their teams. So how do you retain the great talent?

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You know, I think that we have, knock on wood, very low turnover. I think it's because of our culture. And I think when other people join and they see, you know, our top loan officer's been with us for 24 years, and he was a breakfast waiter by. And I met him at this greasy spoon and he had just come back from Afghanistan and I told him if he could survive Afghanistan, he'd have a chance of surviving in the mortgage business. And, you know, he's happy and he, he knows that. He's supported and I think it's a great, a great story. So other people see that and I think that they, they understand our culture. And is it, is it perfect? Absolutely not. But they know that, hey, anytime a ball gets dropped, there's five people that are going to say, hang on, I got it. I'm going to work on this. And help you out. So it's just different from a national corporation. I mean, I started off at a big box company and I learned a lot. I'm very grateful for that experience. But I think that knowing that you can, you can, you know, be nimble and, you know, somebody, we make decisions quickly and can solve problems quickly. I think that, you know, it's really helpful for loan officers.

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Yeah, that resonates. It reminds me of a quote. I mean, there's a quote in unreasonable hospitality that says like the first time somebody comes to you with an idea, you want to listen closely because how you handle that will dictate how they choose to bring you future ideas. And you sound like a great place to just go and plant ideas. So like if you're a producing loan officer and you have an idea and you feel maybe the company you're at is just too big, you're apprehensive to give it and you've been waiting for an opportunity maybe to bring it to somebody, what should that loan officer do to get in touch with Radius Financial or you and you know, when's the best time to reach out?

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Anytime. That's, that's why we're so good. We're available all the time. Yeah, I mean we want that and we look, we solicit ideas from our people so we certainly, you know, welcome them with people, with people coming in. We have an email absurd ideaadiusgrp.com that just, you know, is direct for, you know, those, those ideas. We want them, we don't have all the answers. We want them from our people. Most of the great things that we implement come from, you know, our people bringing it to us. Yeah.

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Thank you. Any final thoughts on just the, the industry out there? Maybe something they should know about Radius Financial or probably more importantly, somebody that is producing today, why they should give Radius Financial an opportunity.

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I think that 27 years in the business is a lot. We have stood the test of time through good markets, bad markets. And I think we've always created opportunity for people. And I think that obviously there's pluses and minuses to any size operation. But being the size that we are, we're big enough to have all of the products, programs and bells and whistles, but small enough to be very flat and nimble.

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Tara, we have a segment in our show that we have three rapid fire questions. They don't have to be long drawn out answers. Okay, so here they go. Number one, you have a quote for Radius. Better has no finish line. Give us the last thing that at Radius that you made better this month.

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Oh, geez. Gosh. See that's. Now this is not rapid. You're putting me.

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That's because you have a lot of things that are going on.

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Yeah, we have a lot of things going on our post closing. So what we sometimes do is we put a high level leader in a position that they don't do in order to take a look to see where we can gain efficiency. So post closing on that.

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That's good. Okay, if you could finish this one thing, what's one thing every loan officer should do this week that costs nothing?

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Pick up the phone and build relationships.

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Who do you think is going to win the AFC East?

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Unless you want to answer that. I mean, we want to thank you for coming on the show today. I think you've taught us a lot about building a business and that a business can be a powerful tool for serving others. And so everything that Radius is known for and hopefully came out today shows that it grows from that seed. A people centered, customer obsessed culture. And it has repeat recognition as a top place to work on the Boston Globe. And that's one that's been in the past delivered to my front doorstep on time or two. So thank you again for coming on our show. We really appreciate it and have a wonderful week. Thank you for joining us on this journey into the heart of mortgage innovation. Every mortgage has a story and we're here to help you write yours. If you enjoyed today's insights, please subscribe, leave a comment, share it with your network and connect with us on social media. Until next time, keep pushing the boundaries and uncovering the stories that drive our industry forward.

Expand Your Radius with Sarah Valentini

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