The Champion Effect: How Internal Advocates Drive Adoption of Best-in-Class Tech for Loan Officers
Why some mortgage tech thrives while others fail: it all comes down to internal champions. Here's how they drive real adoption—and results.
We’ve seen it too many times.
A mortgage enterprise drops hundreds of thousands on a fancy new CRM. Six months later? It's literally gathering dust.
Marketing automations someone spent weeks building sit unused. Lead scoring models running aimlessly in the background, but nobody's doing anything with the insights. And your Loan Officers graduating to other tools..
This isn't an isolated incident—it's been happening to lenders across the industry for decades.
But then there are the exceptions.
Recently, I spoke with Carrie Guarrero, President of Fairway Ignite. She described a completely different scenario: "65% of our team has taken our tools and completely customized them to how they work with clients." Her team is not begrudgingly using their technology—they're actively adapting it to fit their specific workflows and business models.
So what's different?
After digging into this with Carrie, I realized the gap between success and failure isn't always about spending more or fancier features. It comes down to something much more fundamental: having internal champions who bridge the disconnect between lofty enterprise visions and the daily reality loan officers face.
When "Best-in-Class" Becomes Meaningless
During our conversation, Carrie didn't mince words: "Loan officers, frankly, are tired of being sold to." And she's right. The mortgage industry is bombarded with vendors claiming their technology is "best-in-class" to the point where the term means absolutely nothing anymore.
"The delete button is the most worn out button on my keyboard," she said with a laugh that didn't indicate joking. Anyone who's worked in the mortgage business knows exactly what she means—your inbox flooded with promises of revolutionary technology that'll magically transform your business overnight, the nonstop sales calls and vendor pitches.
There’s a recurring paradox: the harder an impractical solution is pushed, the more loan officers resist adoption. Their natural skepticism kicks in. And this implementation gap is costing lenders millions in wasted investments and missed opportunities every year.
And step one to fix this is actually understanding what "best-in-class" really means to the people who'll be using these tools every day of their working lives.
The Loan Officer Value Triangle
When I asked Carrie what really matters to LO’s, she didn't hesitate: "If I had to pick three things, it would be: save me time, which is money; save me actual money; and create a more referable experience."
That's it. That's the loan officer value triangle.
And it's a remarkably useful framework for cutting through the BS when evaluating any technology investment. Does it genuinely make loan officers more efficient? Will it reduce their costs or boost their income? Does it noticeably improve the experience for clients and referral partners?
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If the solution you are trying to implement falls short on any of these points, it's going to struggle no matter how fancy the feature list or how slick the sales demo. There are mind-blowing demos and pitch decks of products that loan officers abandoned within weeks because they just didn't deliver on these fundamentals.
And there's another huge factor: usability. As Carrie pointed out, "If a technology is easy to implement, loan officers have a much higher likelihood of adopting it." But—and this is crucial—the moment things get "hard or complex," adoption falls off a cliff.
Some people might call this laziness. It's not. It's practicality. Carrie put it perfectly: "Most of us don't have degrees in technology. We're people people." Loan officers got into this business for relationships and deals, not to become IT specialists or tech wizards. They're focused on getting loans closed and making clients happy, not spending hours mastering complicated software interfaces.
Band-Aids vs. Foundational Technology
Look around at the mortgage industry's technology landscape and what do you see? Band-Aids. Everywhere.
Quick fixes for immediate problems rather than foundational platforms that actually transform how business gets done.
Carrie hit the nail on the head when she told me, "All too often, people do think, 'Oh, well, if I just buy this, somehow, magically, through osmosis, this is going to suddenly produce results.'" We’ve all witnessed this magical thinking. It inevitably leads to fragmented tech stacks, shallow implementation, and ultimately, abandonment.
You can spot truly foundational technology by how it integrates into daily life. As Carrie explained, "My CRM runs my day. It's the first thing I open in the morning... there are two things that are open constantly on my computer all day... because without them I frankly couldn't operate."
That's the litmus test right there.
Technology that achieves this level of integration typically shares a few key characteristics:
- It tackles persistent headaches, not just temporary irritations
- It plugs directly into existing workflows instead of forcing people to jump between systems
- It delivers value immediately while growing more valuable over time
- It molds itself to how loan officers already work instead of forcing them to change their habits
That last point? It's absolutely make-or-break. It’s incredibly rare to see successful widespread adoption of any technology that demands users significantly change their behavior to accommodate it.
People just won't do it—they'll find workarounds or simply ignore it altogether.
The Champion Effect
Technology alone—no matter how brilliantly designed—almost never achieves widespread adoption without human intervention. That's where internal champions become absolutely essential.
These champions are the human bridges between lofty enterprise technology strategy and the day-to-day reality loan officers actually live in. They're a special breed that combines deep technical knowledge with peer influence and coaching abilities to drive adoption organically from within.
What makes champions different from your typical IT support or corporate trainers is their approach. They don't lecture—they demonstrate.
As Carrie put it, "The best thing we've done is proof of concept – what is a system doing that is helping others win. We will show you and pull you in, rather than pushing people in.
That distinction between pulling and pushing is huge. So much so, that in our last interview with Ryan Gran of Neo Home Loans he repeated a similar sentiment. This "pull" strategy creates a kind of internal momentum that no top-down mandate can possibly match. When loan officers see their respected peers crushing it with a particular technology, they naturally want a piece of that action too.
There's this fascinating virtuous cycle that happens. Champions tend to emerge naturally around genuinely valuable technology. Then those champions demonstrate real value to others, which drives more adoption, which creates more champions... and suddenly you've got this organic growth happening without constant pressure from management.
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The Mastery Method
What separates real champions from casual users? Mastery. Carrie told me about one of Fairway's top producers who follows what she calls the "30-day mastery rule" for any new technology:
"I have a rule that if I take on a new technology, I spend 30 days in it, and I have to get to a place where I would describe myself as an 8 out of 10 before I will move into adding something else."
This disciplined approach is so refreshingly different from the "shiny object syndrome" we see across our industry. Rather than jumping from one new tool to the next like a kid with ADHD in a toy store, champions dig in and extract maximum value from core technologies before even considering something new.
This mastery gives them serious credibility. When these champions advocate for a particular technology, they're not just repeating marketing talking points—they speak from genuine experience. They can show you specific workflows that save time, troubleshoot common headaches on the spot, and point to concrete results they've personally achieved.
Smart organizations can actually formalize this approach. Here's how I've seen it work:
- Set up clear technology mastery benchmarks for your key platforms
- Publicly recognize and reward team members who achieve this mastery
- Create an internal "certification" process that identifies champions
- Give these champions regular opportunities to share their expertise
When you do this right, it creates a culture shift where technology mastery becomes both valued and visible. People start wanting to join that club of recognized experts, and they follow the same disciplined path to get there.
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Metrics That Matter
Champions need more than just enthusiasm and good intentions—they need cold, hard evidence.
"If our technology is not putting metrics front and center - like this is where you're at now or this is where you said you wanted to be, there's a delta..." she told me its not working properly. And without those clear metrics staring you in the face, "you can convince yourself, because your day is full, that you're actually doing productive things."
And damn, that hits home. How many of us have fall into that trap? Or seen your team all into that trap?
The most effective champions I've seen use metrics in several specific ways:
- They show concrete before-and-after performance improvements (not vague promises)
- They zero in on specific workflows that actually drive measurable results
- They spotlight peer success stories backed by real numbers (not just testimonials)
- They foster healthy competition around both adoption rates and business outcomes
When done right, these metrics completely transform technology from something loan officers feel they "should probably get around to using someday" into an absolute "must have" tool. Why? Because they can see the direct connection to their business results and their bottom line.
The Customization Imperative
So many enterprise technology rollouts crash and burn for one simple reason: they try to force standardization on a profession that fundamentally thrives on individuality. And nobody resists cookie-cutter solutions more fiercely than top producers.
"Higher level producers are inherently more creative, demanding, think outside the box, want things that standard CRM solutions can't do” said Carrie.
Yet for some reason, mortgage companies keep falling into what Ryan Grant of NEO Home Loans calls the "platform trap"—implementing rigid systems that expect loan officers to adapt their workflows to the technology instead of the other way around. It's backwards, and it almost never works.
The implementations I've seen succeed all share one characteristic: they strike a balance between necessary enterprise standards and individual flexibility. And champions are absolutely crucial in maintaining this balance. They help loan officers find ways to customize technology within appropriate guardrails.
This customization factor is exactly why Carrie's team hits such impressive adoption rates. When loan officers can adapt technology to fit their specific needs and quirks, they stop seeing it as some corporate-mandated burden and start embracing it as an integral part of their business.
Technology in Service of Relationships
The single most important thing I took away from my conversation with Carrie was something that seems so obvious in retrospect: technology must enhance rather than replace the human element of mortgage lending.
"Mortgage transactions are complex, and there is a value to your wisdom and your expertise and your structuring ability," she emphasized. And she's right—the best technology amplifies these human qualities rather than trying to automate them out of existence.
True champions get this on a gut level. They never present technology as some kind of replacement for relationships. Instead, they position it as a powerful tool to deepen connections and scale them. I love how Carrie puts it: "Technology is an accompaniment, like a great bottle of wine with your meal."
Rather than droning on about automation and efficiency (which makes loan officers worry they're being replaced), effective champions focus on how the right technology enables more meaningful client interactions, more consistent communication, and more personalized service at scale.
It's not about removing the human—it's about making the human more effective and more connected.
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Creating Your Champion Ecosystem
Building an effective champion network doesn't happen by accident—it requires intentional effort from enterprise leadership. Here's a practical framework for identifying and empowering champions within your company:
- Identify natural technology adopters Look around your organization for people who are already customizing systems, creating clever workarounds, or showing genuine curiosity about new tools. They're often hiding in plain sight, solving problems without being asked.
- Provide mastery opportunities These potential champions need time and resources to really dig into key systems. Give them the space to follow that 30-day mastery model we talked about earlier. This might mean temporarily reducing other responsibilities—but trust me, the payoff is worth it.
- Create showcase platforms Set up regular forums—whether it's lunch and learns, team meetings, or internal webinars—where champions can show off their workflows and results to peers. Nothing sells technology like seeing someone you respect using it successfully.
- Recognize and reward Don't just expect champions to emerge out of goodwill. Publicly acknowledge their contributions and create meaningful incentives for driving adoption. This could be financial, career advancement, or simply status and recognition.
- Connect champions across teams Isolation kills momentum. Build a community where your champions can share insights, troubleshoot challenges, and support each other. This cross-pollination often leads to unexpected innovations.
- Include champions in technology decisions This is huge and often overlooked. When evaluating new tools, get your champions involved early. They'll spot potential adoption issues and real-world application problems that your IT department or executives might miss completely.
This approach creates a self-sustaining ecosystem where champions naturally emerge, develop their skills, and drive adoption throughout the company—without constant pushing from the top.
The Synergistic Effect
There's something fascinating that happens when you get this right: the relationship between best-in-class technology and internal champions becomes powerfully synergistic. The right technology naturally creates champions, while those champions drive wider adoption of valuable technology.
This virtuous cycle explains something that has always puzzled me—why some mortgage companies consistently outperform their peers in technology implementation, year after year. It's not just that they pick better technology or have better training programs. They've created an environment where champions naturally emerge and thrive.
The mortgage industry is facing more competitive and regulatory pressure than ever before. In this environment, and this champion effect will increasingly separate the leaders from the followers. Those companies that invest strategically in both foundational technology AND the champions who drive its adoption will build sustainable competitive advantages that last through market cycles.
The specific technologies will change—they always do. But the champion effect remains constant. It's that crucial human bridge that transforms promising technology from a vendor pitch deck into practical, measurable results in the real world.
This article is part of our Mortgage Executive Insights series, where we take you behind the scenes with leading mortgage companies to understand what really drives their success. In upcoming articles, we'll continue exploring how strategic technology selection, implementation, and adoption create tangible business results across the industry.
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