Meet Brenda Brosnan

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brenda Brosnan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Brenda, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

When I landed in the mortgage industry on accident, I spent several years in operations. It was comfortable, cushy and stable. I had a top producing loan officer tell me, “You need to be in sales! Clients would love you because you’re authentic, empathetic and highly detailed. That’s what people need when they get a mortgage!” From that moment on, I jumped into 100% commission 30 years ago. There have been incredible highs and incredible lows in this industry. For over 30 years, being commission only, I have had to wake up, start my day at ground zero and grind it out. When the market is great, every loan officer makes money and when the market is not great, many jump out and go find another job. I took a different approach early on in my career, to create raving fans in my clients and referral partners to develop a 100% “word of mouth” business. This also required me to treat my day to day job, as my own personal corporation, even though I am employed by the #1 retail lender in the country. This means, every single day, even though I am 100% commission, I get up early, get to the office and have a structured day.

The resilience required day to day, comes from being extremely competitive. Whether I am playing Monopoly, participating in a silly contest with my co-workers, or simply trying to beat my husband at something we are both doing, I love to WIN. I have this grit about me, that keeps me doing the same thing, with as much structure as possible, to create the business I need to keep winning and have the success that I set out for myself. Part of it is following a daily schedule, having a process driven business, being surrounded by a great team with my co-workers, having incredible support at home, and the true secret, is having accountability with a mentor that keeps my on pace. Anyone who owns their own business, is commission income based, or even working for another employer, needs all of those things to keep them pushing and motivated, especially during the toughest times, to achieve success and keep grinding away, especially when the going gets tough.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My life outside of my career, is consumed with my husband and twin boys, Dylan and Chase, my two dogs and living the country life in Clarkston Michigan. We recently moved onto 10 acres from a small lot in a subdivision and all of a sudden, I’m canning foods, working in my huge garden, building hunting blinds in the woods, making my own body butters, started crocheting again and enjoying our cottage in Northern Michigan. I’ve realized that balance in life is critical to one’s mental and physical health. Being in the outdoors and doing all the manual labor we’ve taken on, when we should be downsizing, brings me so much joy and peace every day.

I cherish being a busy body and challenging myself. I am one that has jumped into training for a marathon out of the blue, because it was on my bucket list. Then I trained and ran a full 26.2 marathon. One of the most life shattering events was having one of my twins get cancer and an extremely rare auto-immune disease when he was 18 months old. Not only did I get BlueCross BlueShield to pay for a $20,000 a month experimental drug, but I had to convince a team of 12 specialists at Children’s Hospital to administer this experimental drug to save my child’s life. This became my biggest challenge in life to that point and I made it happen. From that blessing, I started a 501c3 charity to help other families that were less fortunate. This was one of my greatest accomplishments, aside from my marriage of 30 years to Brendan and my two phenomenal kids that we have raised.

Overall, I have been truly blessed with an incredible life. When the going gets tough, I keep going. It’s hard but when those times come, everyone of us has choices to make. We can choose to run away and hide or run at things and face them knowing we have to give it our all.

With my career in the mortgage industry, I am at my best when I am consulting clients on the big picture of financing and leveraging real estate, to create wealth. I love understanding a clients concerns, goals and dreams and helping them with big picture planning so they can live in their dream home but still make their mortgage payment and save money. There is never one scenario for the same family. There are always multiple options to consider and I take great pride in showing the options to clients they never thought of to put them in a better spot financially, using mortgage financing. I thrive on this and having my clients and referral partners, say “wow – you were amazing and the experience was the best I ever had!” That is how it should be when someone gets a mortgage but unfortunately it’s not. My day to day work life is finding better ways to serve and create value that is life changing for my clients!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I would say the top three qualities or skills everyone should follow, regardless of whatever you are choosing to do for work or life in general are;

Be tenacious. I never give up. I realize I have nothing to lose but whatever I’m focused on achieving. If I’m trying to meet with a new Realtor, I don’t just call 2-3 times. I will call for 2 years to get that appointment. I am not obnoxious, but I’m not shy about this. Most give up so easily and settle for mediocrity. That doesn’t make me feel good so I’ll go through the ringer to achieve a goal I set for myself.

Don’t get caught in paralysis of analysis. This is easy to do when one is a perfectionist. I have spent years and years of combined time working on the perfect presentation then never finishing it. If you constantly over analyze, you’ll never execute. Just take action and don’t worry about perfection.

Always be grateful and find the positive. This is a tough one to remember day after day. It is so easy to get caught up in the emotion of distractions, obstacles, being told no, or for me, not winning over every client. Every day it’s easy to quickly jump to the negative and dwell on it. When negative thoughts creep into my head, then negativity falls out of my mouth and get caught up in the rabbit hole which serves me no purpose. It’s defeating, depressing and unmotivating. When I remember to be grateful for even the littlest win, my day is brighter, my attitude is much better and I get much more accomplished.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I am always looking for partners to collaborate with on a daily basis. I am at the stage in my career where I only want to work with people I genuinely enjoy. I love integrating my business with Realtors and other professionals such as CPA’s, divorce attorneys, estate planning attorneys, financial planners, business owners and others that have the same entrepreneurial mindset.

I thrive and excel at strategizing with others that share the philosophy of creating a life changing experience for a client. When a client has a team that is focused on their well-being, financial future and achieving their goals, they become clients for life. When professionals unite with those same goals, they can build an incredible trusting relationship to help each other grow and succeed.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.borrowwithbrenda.com
• Instagram: brendabrosnanmortgage
• Facebook: Brenda Brosnan
• Linkedin: Brenda Brosnan
• Youtube: @brendabrosnan
• Other: Tiktok: @babrosnan

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