No Broke Months For Salespeople - The Mindset That Builds Leaders: John Donnelly’s Formula for Consistent Wins

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

In this powerful episode of the No Broke Months Podcast, Dan Rochon sits down with John Donnelly, Executive Director of Sales at Service First Mortgage. They unpack John’s journey from Best Buy to building a 100+ person sales force, and how servant leadership, personal reinvention, and a 12-hour walk transformed his life. John reveals what it takes to lead with consistency, navigate tough decisions, and build a team culture that thrives—especially in today’s volatile mortgage market.What you’ll learn on this episodeWhy “Would I follow me?” is the most important leadership questionJohn’s formula: self-leadership > team leadershipThe story behind John’s 12-hour solo walk and 30-mile journeyHow he’s using the Kilimanjaro climb to inspire his team and himselfThe #1 leadership mistake John made—and how you can avoid itDan’s rule: Most hires either last 90 days or six years—no in-betweenHow to know when it’s time to let someone go (for their sake and yours)Mortgage market 2024: Rates, seller concessions, and the pressure of uncertaintyWhy mid-level producers are disappearing—and how to stand outServant leadership and casting a contagious vision of growthResources mentioned in this episodeThe 12-Hour Walk by Colin O’Brady: A challenge-based book that inspired John’s mindset reset and personal transformation.Service First Mortgage: John's company where he leads a 100+ person sales team. To find out more about Dan Rochon and the CPI Community, you can check these links:Website: No Broke MonthsPodcast: No Broke Months for Salespeople PodcastInstagram: @donrochonxFacebook: Dan RochonLinkedIn: Dan Rochon

My whole approach is I want more for people than I want from them. And that's served me well for a long time. And so with that approach, sometimes leadership can be lonely, if you will, because you're trying to build everybody else up and you got to be okay with that. And you got to be okay, pointing to other people. Welcome to the no broke months for salespeople podcast, the ultimate destination for salespeople, businesspeople and entrepreneurs. As you immerse yourself in this show, you'll discover the secrets to unlocking consistent

and predictable income. We reveal the new way to persuade human behavior by mastering the art of the teach to sell method. Get ready to transform your approach and achieve unparalleled success. Welcome to the No Broke Months podcast. I'm Dan Roshan. Today, I am joined with John Donnelly. I'll tell you more about who he is.

He's gonna talk to us today about the mindset that builds leaders and his formula for consistent wins. And we're gonna jump into some things going on in the mortgage market right now, because John is the executive director of sales at service force mortgage service first mortgage, where he leads a mission to help others achieve their goals through mindset, mastery systems and culture. And John has just like a million years of experience in the mortgage business. He is that old and experienced and he's just passionate about helping people go

from, from stuck to thriving by aligning them with right environment, mindset, and leadership. John, welcome. How are you, sir? Sorry to call you out. Great. Super happy to be here, Dan. Thanks for having me.

My pleasure. John, you've been in the mortgage industry for a second, right? I started in 1997. So I got to see a couple of things go up and down here in our business. All right. So 1997. And walk us back if you could when you got started in the mortgage industry. What were you doing before and what caused you to get involved in it?

That's a great question. I was working at a computer retailer, a big box computer retailer, and my wife had a friend at a mortgage company in accounting and said they need loan officers. And I didn't even know what it was. And so I applied and got the job and I was in a call center and started learning how to do loans that way. And then eventually I was like, I don't want to be in a call center depending on some big company. I want to be a referral call center, depending on some big company. I want to be referral based loan officer,

generate my own business. So a couple of years into that, I transitioned out and started building my own business. What was the big box store? First plus doing 125 second liens. Oh no, before that, before that big box store. That was my starting my first mortgage job before that was CompUSA and Best Buy I worked at both of them. All right well Best Buy still around right CompUSA are they still around I don't think

they're not still around but yeah I worked at Best Buy and then CompUSA so. All right I was gonna say you had the wisdom to know the future. Yeah I wish I could I wish I could say that, but no, not necessarily. I had a drive to make more money and to do more, just become a sales professional. And I was actually transitioned to a government and education sales team at CompUSA and was learning how to be a sales professional. And then this came up out of nowhere. And I was like, mortgage sounds cool. People are making a lot of money.

Let's try that. So John, tell us about your organization. Like what is, what's your day to day look like? Well, how do you structure? What can you share with us? Yeah, sure. We're a mortgage banker based out of Dallas, Texas. Our focus is serving our clients, which look like builders, realtors, past customers, that type of

thing. We've got loan officers that are referral-based loan officers that are out just generating business and our job is to close fast and make them happy and get repeat business. I mean very traditional mortgage business. How many loan officers do you have with you? Oh right about a hundred. Yep. Okay and they work directly for you or how's that structured? Yeah they work for me and one do you have with you? Oh, right about a hundred. Yep. Okay. And they work directly for you or how is that structured? Yeah, they work for me and one other guy inside our company and we lead sales for the organization and we just have different channels that we're trying to maneuver and position ourselves.

Always changing. The market is always shifting and changing right now. So you have a hundred people or more than a hundred people that you're leading directly. Would that be accurate? Yes. What, and so that lays into the conversation today, which is the mindset that allows for you to be able to to build leaders and the formula for consistent wins. What would you say is the mindset that helps you as a leader and the mindset that you hear or you observe in other leaders that allows for them to be successful? Yeah, I think that the first thing that comes to mind, you know, maybe as a cliche in some ways, but I always think of servant leadership, my whole approach is I want more for people

than I want from them and that's served me well for a long time. And so with that approach, sometimes leadership can be lonely, if you will, because you're trying to build everybody else up and you got to be okay with that and you got to be okay pointing to other people. But that's kind of been my approach and it's worked great for me over the years Recently if you will I found myself Kind of going through it. I guess is I was called out by Reinventing myself like a new version of myself

I was kind of coming through and I came across this because I read a book that a friend of mine recommended called the 12 hour walk and And I read this book and it says walk out your front door and go walk for 12 hours so then like do I read it I finish it next Sunday I did it and it was pretty pretty awesome for me I took 17 pages of notes I walked 30 miles in a 12 hours and I've never done anything like that before and And for me, I've thought about my personal leadership, where am I going in my career? And I would say self leadership precedes team, it precedes team leadership. And I think that matters first. You got to take care of yourself and know where

you're going and what you're about. The best leaders, they don't sell. They teach. They build trust. They change lives. Teach Yourself is going to be published by Posto Press and Simon & Schuster. It's going to show you how to lead with influence. To leave the old way of chasing behind. Pre-orders are open now. Lock in your copy. Visit www.teachyourselfbook.com. That's teachyourselfbook.com. And Clay bonuses you're never going to see again. Your future followers are waiting. Because people don't want to be sold.

They want to be led. And it's your time. And I just had a lot of time to reflect on things. So much time. There was too much time in some senses because it was 12 hours. But you know, I made some decisions. We said I'm kind of old earlier. I've turned, I just turned 50. I decided I'm going to go hike Kilimanjaro.

That turned into a health journey for me where I had to go work out more and get in shape. But what's interesting about that is I cast this vision and then it has been attracting people to me and I share this story and the cadence of accountability to me working out more is like it's almost contagious to a lot of people around me. So that's been cool because that translates into your business. How often do you work out? Right now I work out three days a week with a trainer and then I'm walking on the weekends

pretty heavy and I'm climbing Kilimanjaro in June so I'm getting close. You feel ready for it? I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go right now. Yeah, I want to get over with like I'm ready. I'm ready to get over with and figure out what's next, which is cool. But yeah, I do want to get over with I'm climbing with a buddy of mine. He's been a realtor partner for years and we're pumped.

Yeah, we're ready. How long will that take you? Eight days. Eight days of climbing. Wow. So it's substantial and you think about why does that matter to your own personal self? That's what I think about. Okay, I'm doing this thing.

Does it matter? Or yeah, I feel better. I sleep better. I have more energy. Personally, that's a big deal. There's a lot going on in this world right now. You need a lot of energy and you got to be creative. So, you know, that personal drive is good.

And then I'm leading by example. I'm not telling people to go do something. I'm doing it myself. So I feel good about that. I think there's a big one there that you, I'm sure you're aware of, but you didn't mention it, which would be the, anytime that you achieve something that's hard, it makes it's almost, it takes other hard things and it makes them as all it puts them all into perspective, right?

So it's almost like if you're going to expand yourself, then anything that, that, that was like simple becomes simpler. And then the greater that you expand yourself, it allows for things that were just like hard and you do something incredibly hard. Now the things that were hard become easier from a perspective. Yeah. I'm not talking about that as much, but I know it's out there because I want to get done with decline to know how hard is it going to be exactly, but it's not you probably when you come back, that's probably the answer. You get some sort of version of that. I probably will be more elegant than what I just said, but

it's gonna be some sort of version of that. I think it's right on spot on. I hope it is. I do hope that it's challenging. I do hope it's hard. I hope I struggle because it will be worth it so much more, you know, Hey, John, it's gonna be be hard and you're going to struggle and it will be worth it.

Just you said, I hope all that I'm just reaffirming. Thank you. I appreciate that. I get it. I'm signing up for it to be hard and challenging. So let's go back to leadership. So first it's about leading yourself. Yeah.

It's about being a servant is your style of leadership. It's about caring for others oftentimes before you care for yourself, but there's a little bit of a balance of that, right? What mistakes since 1997, just give me one, I'm sure that there's more than one, but what mistakes have you experienced in your leadership style? Give me a specific example and expand on that. Let me know what you did, what happened, and what did you learn?

I'm trying to think of which one to share, but the first thing that pops to my mind is I remember this feeling early on in my career. I was, I took a corporate job where I was over large teams and some operations. And that was new to me, that kind of responsibility. Before that, I was just like a producing loan officer in a branch, had a couple employees, not so much responsibility.

And my approach was to be too casual, be too friendly, kind of be friends with them, I guess, in a sense. And that was my personality because sometimes you want people to like you, but that also makes it harder to make hard decisions fast. And I give people too much rope too early is one of my lessons, if you will. And I was a little bit too casual sometimes with our relationship, not weirdly, just almost too friendly. And because of that, and over time, what I've learned is that didn't help anybody.

I remember giving a loan officer who was having a hard time producing. And really when they did get loans, it was complicated because they weren't knowing the system very well. We finally parted ways. And one of our operations staff said, it's about time you did that. And I was like, why don't you tell me more? Why don't you tell me earlier? And what I learned was people are watching how your leadership style is and they're waiting for you to make those decisions.

And so I learned that I need to draw that line of a little bit quicker and I need to make decisions when my guts telling me and not sit on it too long. Yeah, it's also when you're looking at, so you would say that was a relationship with a non performer that you hung on to you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you hung on for too long.

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Teach to Sell isn't just a book, it's a shift that will build your business and your life. Do you recall why? Was it because you wanted to be liked? Was it because you had faith in that person? Was it because you cared for them? What caused you to hang out with them too long? I think that I personally feel like that I wanted to feel like I did everything I could for them. Yeah. And to know that I cleared my own conscience that it didn't work out and I had already, but I felt like I brought this person on. I spent time with them. I've taken on expense. It's

not that much. It's not, it's not a lot harder to let it go another week or another month. Like what's the difference? We got this far, but then that turns into four months, five months and you're like, okay, now we're in a hole. Now I'm upset at myself because I already knew, my gut said you gotta cut this and move on. And so that's just a early lesson that you gotta learn as a leader fast, like when to take action and make those hard decisions quicker, that just matters. And I say that early on.

Yeah, I say in my, so in my leadership journey, for people that work within my companies, oftentimes other people will say, Dan, how do you get such talented people? How do you get such great people? And I get asked that often. And my answer to it simple is that I don't actually get great people. I keep great people. And when you understand the difference between those, so what that means is, for example, right now we've got three people

that started my organization this morning. For a role. Now I hope all three succeed. I'm not talking about those three individuals, right? But let's just say a random three otherwise. Odds are maybe one will succeed. And you got to be able to make that decision quickly and part ways because you care for that individual and you care for your company, you care for the other people within your company.

And then for me, if somebody's with me for 90 days, they're with me for six years. Right. But if somebody's, but most people never make it to 90 days. And that's just been my, my, my experience. And I had to develop in that too, because I used to fall in that same trap. You care and you care more than they care. And you listen to the words rather than pay attention to the actions. That's a big part of it too.

I think that what I also learned is even though it's hard to make that decision, it's often best for them too, because it was, they end up in a better place a little bit quicker. And so you're doing them a favor, even though it doesn't feel like it, it sometimes really is doing them a favor. Yeah, I think it's always, I think you're doing it, a person, if you're a leader and you let somebody

within your organization, it doesn't match your culture, your values, your beliefs, your perspective, your vision, your mission, your goals, if you let that person stay within your organization, you're doing them a disservice. Yeah, because it doesn't make them a bad person. If they don't align with all those things, it just makes it that they're going to be uncomfortable. And their mission, vision, beliefs, perspective, etc, are different than yours. So you owe them a

favor to help them go find themselves a place that they're going to align with if it's not yours. Yeah. Yeah, I've learned that too. 100% learned that. Tell me about the mortgage market. So since I've got you here to pick your brain, there's a lot of conversation right now. And I'd to understand John like where is the market right now in regards to Regards to mortgage where you think it's going where has it been and what causes you to have those beliefs? Yeah, that's interesting that today we looked at

mortgage volume is matching the same volume as 1990 which was a really low volume here of just mortgages originated, right? And what period of time is that like over a month, over three months, a quarter? What are we talking about there? If you look at a chart of applications over the last 30 years, and you just chart that thing back, we're down a year over, I guess it's year over a year if you call it. The application volume that we're seeing as a country today matches some of the lowest

volume we've seen since 1990. And you think, okay, why is that? And another thought that I had this morning was, I bet we have a lot more people than we did in 1990. And it turns out we have 30% increase in population. It was like 259 million people and we're at like 240 million people or whatever. So we have more people, so there's more demand, but there's the same volume as 1990. And so we're like, why is that? And the feedback that I'm gaining right now is the uncertainty

of the rates and the political environment and all the things that are going on. People are just halting and they're just gonna wait and see a little bit. And rates are bouncing all over the place. Within a week, you're getting swings of a half to a point, it feels like. And so that makes you uncertain.

People that have houses up for sale are willing to give more than they have been. So it's interesting to start to see seller concessions are coming out. There's more inventory popping up. And, but to be fair, what I also see is the people that are hustling are still doing business. And so you're, there's still opportunity out there to make some money and close business. But what I see is like either volume is going down

for individuals or it's going up. There's no middle ground of a middle producer right now. You know, seeing everybody. Hey John, nice to meet you and God bless you everybody. Have the best day of your life. Be grateful, make good choices, go help somebody and God bless you,. Have the best day of your life. Be grateful, make good choices, go help somebody. And God bless you. We'll see you.

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