While some trends are worth pursuing, COO urges brokers to be true to themselves to build trust
Independent mortgage brokers must wear many hats to run their own businesses effectively. Not only do they need to drum up business, but they also have to make sure the business they have results in a closed loan.
For brokers looking for advice on how to juggle being both a marketing and sales department, advice is easy to come by. Whether you’re attending a major mortgage conference or scrolling through your phone on social media, there is no shortage of advice for the busy broker.
Maddie Kamphaus (pictured top), chief operations officer for Planted Local Lending, is ready to add some advice of her own at next month’s Association of Independent Mortgage Brokers (AIME) FUSE event in Nashville.
Kamphaus urges brokers that while it is critical to keep up to date with the latest trends, success starts by finding an authentic message true to themselves and being consistent in their efforts.
“If you've been to conferences, a lot of people love to give you tips,” Kamphaus told Mortgage Professional America. “I think the problem is that people don't really need more tips. They need fewer tips that they can implement consistently. What I'm hoping to bring to the stage is that, no matter what stage of business you're in, what level of market, what knowledge you have of marketing, you can actually implement these things.
“You can walk away, like, ‘I know exactly the framework I'm going to use. I'm going to do this on Monday. I'm going to do this every Monday.’ But really, I'm giving them parameters to work within, and then they apply it to their own business.”
Outlining your pillars
Kamphaus said that while receiving great advice can help your business tremendously, one problem is that advice isn't one-size-fits-all, and it may not work for your specific situation.
“While those people have had success at those tactics, it does not mean it will work for someone else,” she said. “They're great tips and a great place to start. But if you struggle to just post anything on social media or get any sort of traction out in the marketing world, those are the last things that are going to get you results.”
And even if you receive good advice, very little of it will work right away. Kamphaus said that can be frustrating for brokers because they don’t even know how long they have to follow the advice to see success.
“If you were going to start today and crank this out for the next couple of years, how long do you need to practice this to see the payoff?” Kamphaus said. “People think it's just going to happen right away, and they're going to take this one tip they got and go home and implement it and see a difference right then. And that's just not true. You have to have a foundation before that.”
Building that foundation is one of the key messages of Kamphaus’ advice. That foundation starts with pillars that really tell both you and your customers who you are.
“One of the first steps we go through is outlining their pillars,” she said. “That's not a new concept, but what people fail to understand is that those pillars are how people have an expectation of where to meet you. We're too smart in this day and age to post stuff that is someone else's tactic as ours if it doesn't feel real.
“There's an entire world of people out there that want to connect with you because you like this one thing, and they do too. And so we are stripping down all of the excess stuff and getting to work on knowing who we are and who our consumers are.”
No cheat code
Once you figure out exactly who you are and the thing that connects you with your community, you will find some of the other advice you’ve received might start connecting better. For example, social media posts written in your style, as opposed to the style of a mortgage influencer, will connect with your community.
“There's no success cheat code,” Kamphaus said. “Wouldn't that be really nice for all of us, but there's definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach. What I hear over and over again is how you can stand out online, how you can do this, how you can do that, but we're missing literally half of the equation. It is you and it's the consumer.”
Kevin Peranio of PRMG urges brokers to “work smarter and harder” to outpace big lenders.
— Mortgage Professional America Magazine (@MPAMagazineUS) September 8, 2025
At NAMMBA Connect, he emphasized obsession with service, daily improvement, and proactive communication as keys to winning in competitive markets.https://t.co/q4sVJaos5u
One of the mortgage brokers’ greatest advantages is building relationships in your community. Kamphaus said those relationships in your market will guide you in what methods of marketing can work best. It will allow you to be efficient and effective in marketing without taking time away from closing deals.
It will also allow you to sell more than mortgage rates when trying to attract new customers.
“You really have to know your market,” she said. “The consumers in your market area are not the same as those in the zip code next to you. That whole other picture that makes marketing successful is deeply understanding the people that you work with and why they choose to work with you. When you figure that out, and you quit trying to force yourself onto them, then you have a glue situation.”
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