Rebecca Richardson, The Mortgage Mentor On Five Things You Need To Know To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Mortgage Industry

Find other loan officers you trust with whom you can brainstorm and support each other. Loan origination may feel like a solo venture but being on an island can slow your growth and lower your morale. Most of my career I didn’t have any colleagues I really trusted and who understood things from my perspective. Once I started expanding my network I found some kindred spirits. Knowing and learning from them has made my business significantly better. My advice is to not see other loan officers as competitors but as colleagues who learn from and support each other.

Asa part of my series about the ‘Five Things You Need To Know To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Mortgage Industry,’ I had the pleasure of interviewing Rebecca Richardson. Rebecca Richardson is a nationally ranked mortgage loan originator who’s known for making complex concepts easy to understand. With over two decades of experience (and a strong distaste for performative professionalism), she’s built a career that is based on trust, strategy, and education. She also teaches other loan officers to do the same by building personal brands and leveraging social media to grow their business.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to the Mortgage industry?

I supported myself in college by working 30hrs a week for a financial planner and became fascinated with personal finance. After graduating and moving to a new city, I didn’t have the money to open my own financial planning practice. But we were able to use my then husband’s VA benefits to buy a home. One day our realtor stopped by to see how things were going. I’m sure he just wanted to know how the unpacking was going but I told him something along the lines of “you helped us get this house, now I need your help getting a job’. He suggested a local mortgage company and said I could maybe be a receptionist or processor. I set up the interview with the owner and when we met I told him I didn’t know what a processor did but if he’d tell me, I’d work really hard and would get good at it. He said “you want a job that’s (a) not available and (b) you don’t know what you’re doing.’ I said yes basically and that’s when he asked if I wanted to be a mortgage originator.

Rebecca Richardson for the Authority Magazine

21 August 2025 READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE