Sales End-of-Year Vision 2026: How Loan Officers Finish the Year Strong

Jarrett Stanley

November 10, 2026

There’s no denying it’s a hard time in the mortgage business. Some people had a strong year. Some want to forget it. Either way, the year is closing, and what a loan officer does in the next few weeks shapes the first quarter of 2027.

NMBNOW Chief Production Officer Rob Jayne and Chief Marketing Officer Jarrett Stanley sat down for an end-of-year conversation about where the market really stands and what to do about it. Watch the full conversation below, or read the highlights.

This market isn’t ’07-’08

Rob hears a lot of loan officers compare today to 2007 and 2008, and he disagrees. In ’07-’08 he had over 2,000 loans in his pipeline and nowhere to deliver them. Today, loans can be delivered and serviced, with Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie on the other end. In his words: “I don’t think you can get much worse than that.”

What hasn’t changed is the demand underneath it all. “Mortgages are commodities, right? You’re selling money. And I say it all the time. People are going to buy homes.”

Uncertainty makes people nervous, and nervous people don’t know which direction to go. Rob sees that as the moment for leadership to steer the ship, and he sees year-end as a season of new opportunities for anyone willing to go find them.

Run your business off a roadmap

Rob calls business planning “the roadmap to success.” Drive to Canada without a map, Waze or Google Maps and you’ll eventually get there. With a roadmap, you know which direction you’re going, how you’ll get there and when. A good plan breaks the big goals down into daily ones, and hitting the daily goals is what gets you where you want to go.

Jarrett points to what long-time producers always preach: discipline around your book of business. Your database is something you mine, and every deal is five more potential deals. He remembers one of the most successful loan officers he ever worked with, who didn’t spend a dollar on online advertising or traditional media. He called his database like clockwork on birthdays and holidays, the unglamorous work most people skip. His line to Jarrett: “I will never go hungry again because I’m disciplined.”

The relationship work

Rob’s ask for right now: reach out to your current and potential referral partners and start talking about the first quarter of 2027, and what you can do together to help each other grow.

Then pick up a pen. Rob is a believer in handwritten holiday cards, and he tells the story of a client who called to thank him for a birthday card: “I just want to let you know that I really appreciate your birthday card. My own son forgot my birthday.”

Jarrett, who calls himself “the biggest proponent of AI that you’re ever going to find,” says that kind of effort will only count for more as everything else gets automated. “If it’s based around efficiency, AI is great. If it’s based around relationships, not so great. And knowing the difference between two is a powerful skill.”

Don’t fumble at the five-yard line

Markets like this one make loan officers stop too early. Jarrett has seen it over and over: people decide it isn’t working, that the market or they have changed, and they quit right before it pays off.

Rob puts it in football terms. It’s the Super Bowl, you’re the running back, you’re at the five-yard line with nobody behind you, and you fumble the ball.

He tells the story of riding along with one of his loan officers who had been into one real estate office about 30 times without a deal. They stopped in anyway, just as one of the top agents was on the phone with a lender who had dropped the ball on a loan. Right time, right place. They got the loan and closed it. “It could be that 31st, 32nd time that you get business from that office. So don’t give up.”

One of Rob’s mentors gave him a line he still uses: “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” Walking into an office for the 30th time is uncomfortable. Push through it enough times and the confidence comes with it.

The one thing to carry into next year

Jarrett asked Rob for the one thing that gets a loan officer through this season and sets them up on the other side. Rob’s answer starts with the daily to-do list. If it’s five or six o’clock and the list isn’t done, think about staying the extra hour. Finish the daily list and you finish the month, then the quarter, then the year. “It’s not magic. It’s you followed a plan.”

And for every setback along the way, Rob has one rule: “For every negative that you come across, turn it into two positives. Believe me when I tell you there’s two positives for every negative.”