The Journey In A Sales Role At RKT – It’s Not The First Step, It’s The Leap!

In 2011, I found myself starting my life over at age 41. The crash of 2006 – 2008 had not been kind to me. My Account Executive role was downsized and I became self-employed, not by choice, in just about one of the worst recessions in history.

I had a license to practice in my field and a small block of business and I survived, barely. I strongly disliked working alone for those 2 years but did it out of necessity. I craved an energetic team and mentorship from other professionals, so I made a change.

The first of many leaps, I applied online with several employers including a role at Quicken Loans, now called Rocket Mortgage^®.

I had to fact check the recruiter when he called me, “Are you sure you meant to call me? I don’t have any mortgage experience”. “That’s okay,” he said. “We can teach you.” And so, we scheduled the interview. I got hired as a Client Advocate on September 12, 2011.

I was in love. I told the hiring leaders in my interview, “Hey if you have a job here where I can talk on the phone and help people, I’m your girl!” and client relations was my home. But its true that when you love what you do, work hard and stand out, people notice.

Within 6 months I was asked to take on a specialty role within client relations. I grew there expanding my experience and working on client feedback with most of our senior leaders.

In 2016, my leaders approached me with a new opportunity. They said Jay Farner was looking for a leader for something called “Rocket Mortgage Chat” and asked if I wanted to interview. Based on our focus on revolutionary technology and outstanding client experiences, I knew it was the future and I said, “Yes.”

I took my first step into mortgage banking leadership June 1, 2016 – never having been a banker. I learned so much that year and eventually got to work with Richard Mandell and Tim Birkmeier to bring our Rocket Mortgage pilot under the banking umbrella.

When I tell you there is nothing like the energy of a sales floor at Rocket Mortgage, I mean it. I found the place I wanted to be the rest of my career. I was and still am inspired by our leadership and our mission to coach and develop every banker to have wildly successful careers.

I’ve seen too many success stories to count, and more are being written every day.

Now keep up because it moves fast from here. Fast forward to 2019. I started thinking about the next steps in my career and applied for a leadership development program called The On Deck Circle. I spent months with some of the top banking leaders and senior leaders in the organization and learned a lot in their intensive group.

During this time, I found that my passion as a leader was with mentoring and developing women in banking who were also thinking about leadership roles. I met Gabi Rome and Ashleigh Maisano – and had the insane pride and pleasure of working with them in RISE, an empowerment platform for women and others in sales.

I co-hosted a 1,000 attendee RISE Summit in January 2021 that focused on setting personal, professional and financial goals. I applied for and was accepted into The Alliance and again spent months with next level senior leaders and directors in banking, developing our skills to be better for the people I lead.

I have led the future leader’s development program in my region for over 2 years and rolled off several leaders to banking director roles. And as I sit here typing this, after 10 years in the game, this year I was invited to apply for a Rock Partnership with RKT.

In my dreams, no one could have convinced me that I would go from a Client Advocate in 2011 to a Senior Director of Refinance Banking (shout out to Living The Dream, my team) and be one of the top directors in the organization.

And it all started with that leap. Just one application in 2011 and answering a call, unsure if they meant to reach out to me. You won’t regret it. Make the leap!