Better Compensation & Pricing
NEXA says that even at $2 billion in annual production, UMortgage couldn’t independently match NEXA’s pricing. NEXA credits the collective production of roughly 4,000 loan officers for its leverage with lenders.
KT’s Story
- Eight-year Marine Corps veteran
- Former sergeant
- Guinness World Record holder in planking
- NMLS #233918
Personal background. No endorsement by the U.S. Marine Corps or Guinness World Records is implied.
I Built a Seven-Figure Career. I Still Had to Be Willing to Change My Mind.
I’m Kenneth Travis, better known as KT. I’m an eight-year Marine Corps veteran, former sergeant, and Guinness World Record holder in planking.
The preparation, discipline, and mental toughness it took to earn that record are the same qualities I bring to building a business.
I’ve spent roughly 14 years in the broker channel and ten years in retail. I’ve built businesses, led teams, and made expensive mistakes. My perspective comes from living this business.
Origin
Where It Started
I entered the mortgage industry working for a broker as an individual loan originator. The advice was, “Fake it till you make it.”
My Marine Corps training told me to build a plan and execute it. I became the top-producing originator in that office.
A partnership that proved costly taught me an early lesson about who you build with and how the business is structured. I eventually opened my own brokerage and grew it to 49 employees.
We had real success. We also had clunky technology, manual processes, and too much work holding everything together.
As the industry changed after Dodd-Frank, retail’s message became convincing: better technology, better systems, better support—and warnings about what you supposedly couldn’t do as a broker.
I bought in. I drank the Kool-Aid.
And I succeeded there, too. I became a number-one producer. My team closed approximately $200 million a year, and I earned seven figures.
Then margins tightened, and I started questioning what I was seeing.
Loan officers and retail branch managers were the backbone of the business. They generated the relationships, earned the trust, and brought in the revenue. Yet I felt too much of the pressure to protect company profits was falling on them.
I believe leadership should share that pressure with the people doing the work. I wasn’t seeing enough of that.
It changed what I was willing to build my future around.
Origin
Three Years of Asking Better Questions
I returned to the broker community and hit reset.
For three years, I studied how brokerages operated. Compensation. Expenses. Technology. Support. Branding. What it actually takes to grow.
I compared models, challenged assumptions, and kept measuring.
Eventually, I found a model I believed could be the answer—a third option that brought together more of what I wanted. I studied it deeply and committed to that direction.
Then NEXA Lending gave me a reason to look again.
The more I studied it, the stronger the case became. I had to be willing to reconsider a conclusion I had already reached.
The Promise
Why NEXA Earned My Conviction
NEXA is the strongest platform I’ve found in this industry—wholesale or retail.
It brings together the wholesale options I value, the infrastructure I need to grow, and the ability to build Greenlight Mortgage under its own brand and voice.
I see a model that gives originators and leaders more control over what they build, with support behind them and more ways to serve their borrowers.
That combination matters.
I want the loan officer to keep more of what they earn. I want the borrower to receive a better deal. I want the business to create more opportunity for the families depending on it.
And when retail mortgage companies say, “You have to sell your value,” my question is simple:
Why shouldn’t that value include a better deal?
Great service and competitive pricing belong together. So do ambition, strong earnings, and having a life outside your production report.
That’s what I’m building toward with Greenlight Mortgage empowered by NEXA Lending’s platform.
The Result
The Question I Had to Ask Myself
I understand skepticism. If something sounds too good to be true, examine it.
Bring your numbers. Bring your questions. Compare what you actually keep after expenses, the support you receive, the options available to your borrowers, and the time it takes to operate your business.
Whether you’re a retail loan officer, a branch manager, or a broker owner, give the comparison an honest look.
Then ask yourself the question I had to face:
Am I choosing the best path forward—or defending a decision I already made?
Pride and ego can make it hard to reconsider something you’ve spent years building. I understand that, too.
But if the numbers reveal a better opportunity, what would refusing to consider it cost you?
If your comparison showed a path to twice the take-home income—or the same income with half the closings—what could that make possible?
More of your children’s games. More time with your spouse or partner. The space to take care of your health, strengthen your finances, and build something your family benefits from.
More money to build a legacy. More time to be part of it.
My experience brought me to this conviction. Your business deserves the same careful examination.
You’ve seen why I chose this path. Now take a closer look at what it could make possible for your business—and your life.
