I’m the CEO of First Community Mortgage, where we believe people matter, culture drives performance, and leadership is about service…not titles.For over two decades, I’ve helped build FCM into a purpose-driven mortgage company focused on trust, excellence, and strengthening the communities we serve. My Christian faith shapes how I lead… with humility, clarity, and a commitment to helping people grow.I’m passionate about developing leaders, building healthy culture, and preparing our company for the future, through disciplined execution, technology, and a team that shows up for each other every day.If you care about culture, leadership, faith at work, or the future of mortgage lending… let’s connect.

Great to be back on the football pitch this morning!

Keith Canter

CEO & Co-Founder at First Community Mortgage | $3.3B in originations | 400+ employees | 47 states | Building the platform where LOs become entrepreneurs

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How I went from borrowing $4,600 for a brokerage to to watching several LO’s inside our company track towards a million dollars a year.

I opened my own company in 1996 for the wrong reasons. 

I was making 40% of the profits on every loan I closed. 

I looked at the other 60% and thought... I want all of it.

So I did it. 

Small brokerage shop. 

Just me, a PC, and a fax machine. 

I had to borrow $4,600 to finish the investment. 

I'd dropped out of college a couple years earlier. No formal training. Small town Tennessee with small loan amounts and limited transaction counts.

What I didn't understand at 26 years old is that when you take all the profits, you also take all the expenses. Rent, compliance, technology, staffing, insurance, legal, accounting... it all lands on your desk, and it lands hard.

I opened that company because I wanted more money. 

What I got was an education in what it actually costs to run a business.

We've spent the last several years building something at First Community Mortgage that I wish had existed when I was that 26-year-old loan officer. A platform where you can build a company within a company.

We call it our Entrepreneurial Branch Model. 

You run your own P&L, build your own team, set your own vision, and operate like an entrepreneur... without having to figure out compliance, HR, technology, licensing, and all the corporate functions that drown people who go out on their own.

We run those functions more efficiently than any individual could. 

And because of that, there's more money left over for the people actually doing the work.

We have loan officers right now who are building real businesses inside our organization. 

They're running EOS, reading Traction, setting quarterly rocks, and building teams. 

They're making more money than a lot of people who went out and started their own company... without the headaches that come with it.

Some are on track to make a million dollars this year.

They don’t to worry about keeping the lights on or passing an audit. 

They just get to build and originate.

I'm 30 years into this industry. I've made every mistake in the book. 

You don't have to leave a great company to build something great. You just need the right platform.

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