It was a still-dark morning in 2020 when Samantha Shelton grabbed her purse and drove across state lines from the small Detroit suburb of Waterford, Mich. into Ohio. Her kids were still sleeping. By that point, Michigan had been totally shut down by COVID. 

But Ohio’s SAFE testing centers were still open, and Shelton had a licensing exam to take. 

A stay-at-home mom without a formal finance background, she’d initially decided to get into lending for the “exposure.” Her husband had been a loan officer with Countrywide, and as a current account executive, he frequently brought her to company events. As everyone shared stories from the trenches, though, she felt out of the loop. She didn’t like standing on the sidelines; she wanted to contribute to the conversation. More importantly, she wanted to support the people she cared about.

“To be honest with you, I was just looking to help our friends,” she says. “Be part of those conversations and celebrate those wins with people that we knew.”

And as the uncertainty of early pandemic rumblings took hold of the daily news, Shelton decided that was the perfect time to take action. She says she’s always been determined in that way. 

“Looking back now I'm like, girl, what were you doing?” she laughs. “But I needed to do something if this was truly what I wanted to do."

Mother Knows Best

Although “mortgage broker” might not seem like the most obvious career choice for a stay-at-home mom looking to branch out, for Shelton, it makes perfect sense. Between PTA meetings and soccer matches, moms have a natural way of building connections. And in an industry that everyone knows is a “relationship business,” those connections are a huge benefit to attracting and retaining a client base. 

“Moms just bring a very unique piece,” she explains. “We're at the football field. We're running concession stands. We're at the school play and we're doing all those things where that's exactly what you look for when you're looking at how good they are at communicating with people.”

Beyond being able to communicate and build connections effectively, Shelton says, moms are good at thriving in chaos. Answering questions over and over and over. Multi-tasking. Relatability. Bringing difficult concepts down to a level that even the newest buyers can understand. 

In fact, a survey from JW Surety Bonds, published in April of this year, found that one in eight prospective homebuyers didn’t even know how to define what a mortgage was. In the world of lending, with high stakes and sometimes higher confusion, Shelton believes that the patience, empathy, and multitasking abilities that moms hone in their everyday lives can translate directly into successful client relationships.

She recalls the first loan she’d ever closed for this exact reason. A young family, two kids, looking to add a third. They’d been renting for years. With so-so credit and limited savings, they thought home ownership was out of reach. Although they weren’t the “unicorn” buyers every lender might dream of, Shelton guided them through the process, gave them pep talks, held their hands as frequently as they needed her to. During the search, the wife broke down in tears. 

“She got really emotional on the phone with me and she's like, ‘I'm just so thankful that you just gave me that little bit of extra push to just see if it was even a possibility.’”

At the closing, Shelton remembered the children. Whereas other loan officers might bring champagne to christen the new house, knowing that her clients didn’t have much family in Michigan, and therefore, no babysitter, she brought toys. Coloring books. Activities to keep the kids entertained while the parents signed the closing documents. 

“The last thing I want them to do is show up in this moment that should be celebrated and then be stressed out,” she says. “And still, to this day they invite us to their kids' birthday parties. They send me updates when they do something new in their house.”

She says that initial momentum gave her the opportunity to outpace other newbies from the get-go. As she moved on to her own operation, she realized she could help other stay-at-home moms grow in the same way. By recruiting within her immediate surroundings, Shelton both expanded her business and created a pathway for other women like her to step into the industry with confidence.

Friendship To First Hire

One of her first originators, Taylor Wallace, was in a similar position to Shelton when she got into lending. The two had known each other in high school, and when they reconnected, Wallace was a mom working part-time in a dental office, seeking a job that offered flexibility and financial stability.

“My husband was in the industry, and Sam was starting to open her own brokerage,” Wallace recalls. “She was like, ‘You’re around the language already, you should get licensed.’”

The proposition was simple: take the exam, come work with me.

Wallace admits that getting licensed was more challenging than she expected. Despite being familiar with mortgage terminology through her husband’s work, the exam was on another level. “There was a difference between the textbook version and the everyday job version,” she says. “I had to study the textbook language, even if in practice, people called things something else.” 

She scheduled her test for 5 a.m., putting a sign on her office door that read, ‘If you need something, ask Dad.’ “It was nerve-wracking,” she says. “The whole time, I was praying my kids wouldn’t come in and knock because I’d have to start all over again.” She passed the exam, and immediately went to work with Shelton.

Shelton says Wallace “lit up” when she entered the industry — originating 17 loans in her first full year while she learned the ropes — and Wallace describes lending as a natural fit because she’s been guiding people her whole life, both as a mother and a sibling. 

“I'm a part of a blended family. I am the second oldest girl out of 11 total. And so, I feel like I have that traditional oldest sister [mentality],” she says. “I will hold your hand. I will make sure everybody knows where we're going, how we're going to get there, what we're going to do once we're there.”

Wallace wasn’t the only mom Shelton saw potential in. In fact, it was obvious that the very qualities that made stay-at-home moms exceptional problem-solvers at home also made them ideal candidates for mortgage lending.

Empathy Closes Loans, Too

In the three years that Align has existed, Shelton has recruited and trained 11 stay-at-home moms total. They had all the natural talent to develop as loan officers; they just needed the push, the encouragement. That’s why Shelton actively seeks them out. It comes down to soft skills, which aren’t necessarily trainable in a typical office environment. 

And for Shelton, building a staff isn’t strictly numbers-based; rather, it’s about shared values.

 “In the beginning it was more not trying to be serious, where now we're a little more serious about hiring and being intentional with the people that we're bringing on,” she says. Potential hires, she continues, should row in the same direction — like sailors on a boat working together.

“I would say I look for people like, are they intentional with the conversation that they're having? Are they making eye contact? Do they talk about their family? Family is important to me.”

While other companies and loan officers might view production and volume as their greatest achievement, Shelton, and many of her staff, find achievement in the freedom they have to enjoy their lives outside of work. Lending is important, obviously, but being there for milestones in your own family is irreplaceable. 

“You closed one loan this year, that doesn't make you a bad LO,” she says. “It makes you successful because you accomplished the goal that your family had and that was maybe like taking them to Disney World for Christmas.”

But that freedom and relaxed attitude toward production shouldn’t be mistaken for a lack of results. While Align Lending isn’t topping national volume charts, it remains comfortably sustainable, and it's still growing. 

In 2024, the company averaged over $1.5 million in monthly loan volume and closed nearly 100 loans, according to Modex data — a healthy pace, especially for a team built around flexibility, family, and long-term stability. Shelton asserts that Align Lending’s model works because of their adaptability, not in spite of it.

“I'm available to you,” she says. “And sometimes that means having a 7:30 a.m. or 8:00 p.m. call scheduled with somebody because that's what fits into their schedule.” 

It’s also, thankfully, what tends to work for her own schedule. With young children, she often finds herself doing most of her work once her kids have gone to bed for the evening. “It's convenient for me. I can lay in bed with my computer and type away all my emails and have them set up to send the next morning so I don't look like a crazy person with an email going out at 2 a.m.”

Allowing her team to build their workdays around school pickups, bedtime routines, and family obligations hasn’t hindered productivity — it’s created space for it. Rather than enforcing rigid hours or a one-size-fits-all structure, Shelton trusts her team to know when and how they work best. Some take early morning calls before their children wake up. Others, like Shelton herself, get the bulk of their work done late at night, sending emails from bed once the house is quiet.

Although Shelton doesn’t necessarily buy the idea of work-life balance, she’s a proponent of what she calls “work-life harmony,” meaning that work and personal life can coexist fluidly, allowing individuals to integrate their professional and personal responsibilities in a way that feels natural rather than strictly compartmentalized. She often brings her own children to work events with her, so that they can experience her professional life alongside her.

“My kids love what I do,” she says. “They’re my biggest cheerleaders.”

New Building, Next Chapter

For Shelton, the mission of Align Lending (beyond closing loans, of course) is about creating a presence that people can see, touch, and remember. 

From the beginning, she leaned heavily into community involvement as a cornerstone of her growth strategy, showing up at school events, county fairs, and local festivals. “We do a lot of school sponsorships,” she says. “We show up and pass out balloons to the kids. We try to offer things with no expectation back from people.”

That visibility started to pay off. In a short time, Align became a familiar face locally. But for Shelton, familiarity wasn’t enough. She wanted a physical space that represented everything she was creating. 

In 2024, her vision materialized: she had a building. “It was one of the greatest days outside of buying our first home,” she says. “It's 2024 and I'm a broker owner and I'm buying a building and it was just such a great experience for my kids to see that. And they helped. Don't get me wrong, this building was not turnkey. We were not moving in the next day. We gutted this whole building out. We spent all of last summer just ripping out walls and putting new walls up and my kids are [sic] avid at paint shopping and floor shopping. So, it's been a fun experience.”

The building wasn’t just a milestone for Shelton; it was a sign of how much Align Lending had grown. What started as a one-woman operation was now a business with a dedicated office and a growing team. Now, with licenses in six states — Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas — Shelton is expanding Align Lending beyond its hometown roots, too.

But despite her growing reach, she hasn’t strayed from her original focus: creating a recognizable brand in the local area. Just like red is associated with Target and orange with Home Depot, in Waterford Mich., Align Lending is synonymous with mortgage. 

“We aren’t just on a postcard,” Shelton says. “We aren’t just on a billboard somewhere. We physically are in the community so people know us by face.”

That local connection continues to be the backbone of her business. Sponsoring community events, from Little League games to county fairs, has not only kept Align top of mind but has also solidified Shelton’s reputation as someone who cares.

“If you’re looking to really grow your business organically, what better way than being at school or on the football field?” she says. “When I was starting out, I leaned into that, and it worked.”

What started as a simple strategy to connect with her community has evolved into a powerful business model. Now, Shelton is using those same grassroots tactics to recruit loan officers that share her vision and ethos. With a growing team of both stay-at-home moms and career professionals, Shelton continues to leverage her expertise. Proving, every day, that being a mom works.