Is it possible to grow your personal production by 40% in a single year, cross the $93 million mark, lead a branch to over $250 million, and still be home by 4:00 PM to be a present mom to four kids?
Most loan officers would say that sounds like a fantasy. They believe that to double your business, you have to double your stress.
But my guest on the latest podcast episode, Allison Larson, is living proof that stress is not the cost of success. Stress is simply a symptom of a missing system.
Allison is a powerhouse. She’s a “beautiful badass” in the mortgage industry who has cracked the code on scaling without the burnout. She went from “winging it” and losing sleep over loan conditions to building a machine that allows her to be fiercely competitive yet incredibly chill.
If you are ready to stop winging it, we need to talk about loan officer systems.
What are Loan Officer Systems and Why Are They So Important?
When we talk about systems, most people immediately think of expensive CRMs or complicated automation software. But a system is simply a documented process for how you handle your business.
Without systems, you are operating on memory and emotion.
- You wake up at 2:00 AM panic-thinking, “Did I lock that rate?”
- You get calls at dinner asking, “Is this document request real or spam?”
- You feel like you are constantly fighting fires.
Allison said it best during our interview: “I need systems to sleep at night. If we follow the plan, it works every time.”
Implementing proper loan officer systems allows you to remove the “emotional roller coaster” from the transaction. It provides psychological safety for you, your team, and your clients. It allows you to move from being a firefighter to being a business owner.
4 Simple Loan Officer Systems to Use to Keep Organized
You don’t need to overcomplicate this. Allison runs a multi-million dollar book of business using simple tools—often just Word documents and Excel sheets.
Here are the four core tracking systems she uses to ensure nothing slips through the cracks:
1. The Lead Tracker
This is the intake valve for your entire business. It is the first document everyone on the team looks at every single day. It tracks the essentials: who the lead is, who referred them, the date they came in, and the last action taken.
The Pro Tactic: Most loan officers delete a lead from this list once they get pre-approved or archived. Don’t do that. Allison keeps every lead on the tracker for the entire month. This allows her to look back at the end of the month and calculate her true conversion metrics. If you delete them as you go, you lose the data on how many “at-bats” you actually had.
2. The Pre-Approval Tracker
Once a client moves forward, they graduate to this list. This isn’t just a list of names; it’s a “cheat sheet” for follow-up. Allison includes specific bullet points for every client, such as “Looking for 3 beds in Edina” or “Waiting on bonus income.”
The Pro Tactic: Allison uses this tracker for her themed follow-up days. On Wednesdays, she does “Rapid Dials” to her pre-approved buyers. Because the context is right there on the sheet, she doesn’t have to open a CRM and click through five tabs to remember who they are. She can dial, check in, and move to the next.
3. The Pipeline Tracker
This is your operational heartbeat. This document tracks exactly where the file is in the underwriting and processing journey. It details what is done, what is missing, and what conditions are outstanding.
The Pro Tactic: This is the cure for insomnia. The reason you wake up at 2:00 AM panic-thinking “Did we order the condo docs?” is because you are holding that task in your brain. If it is on the Pipeline Tracker, your brain has permission to let it go. If it’s on the sheet, it’s being handled.
4. The Closed Loan & Database List
The relationship doesn’t end when the loan funds. This tracker ensures that past clients enter a nurture sequence for future referrals and refinances. But Allison takes it a step further with her referral partners.
The Pro Tactic: While digital tools are great, Allison admits she still keeps a printed Excel spreadsheet of her realtors on her desk. She scribbles notes on it, crosses things off, and physically engages with the list every week. Sometimes, a messy, scribbled-on piece of paper is more effective than a pristine CRM dashboard you never look at.
How These Systems Have Helped Allison Larson’s Mortgage Game
The proof is in the production. In just two years, Allison went from $50 million to $65 million to $93 million in personal production. She helped over 187 families last year alone.
But the most impressive stat isn’t the volume—it’s the lifestyle.
During this period of hyper-growth, she also had her fourth child. Because she leaned into her systems, she was able to maintain her “chill” demeanor. She wasn’t answering phones at dinner because her systems had already answered the client’s questions before they even thought to ask them.
If you listened to Allison Larson’s previous episode, you know she is a master of leadership. But this growth required a shift from just being a “leader” to being a “system builder.” By documenting her process, she allowed 10 other loan officers to join her team and plug right into her success.
The “Deal Killer” Checklist: Systemizing Your Peace of Mind
One of the biggest sources of anxiety for a successful mortgage loan officer is the fear of missing a detail that kills a deal.
Allison solved this by creating a specific Deal Killer Checklist that her team uses during the intake process. Before a file moves to the next stage, her team must verify:
- Income: Are there non-reimbursed expenses? Gaps in employment?
- Credit: Are there disputes? New inquiries?
By documenting the exact questions that need to be asked, she removed the variance. She doesn’t have to worry if her team “missed something” because the system doesn’t allow them to miss it.
This is also how she solves the “weekend burnout” problem. She realized that running fee sheets all weekend was draining her. So, she built a system for it—a tool called Offer Ready that allows clients to run their own payment scenarios 24/7. She identified a frustration and built a system to fix it.
Stop Firefighting and Start Building
You cannot scale chaos. If you are feeling burnt out, it is not because you aren’t working hard enough; it is because you are holding too much in your head.
Here is your next step: Sit down and journal your client experience. Write a letter to yourself from the perspective of a happy client who just closed. Trace their journey all the way back to the referral. How did you respond? What happened next? What emails did they receive?
Once you write that down, you have the bones of your checklist. That checklist is the beginning of the loan officer systems that will set you free.
If you are looking for more strategies on avoiding mortgage burnout, make sure to subscribe to the podcast and keep following the Rainmaker journey.
Are you ready to make it rain? Let’s do this!
