Closing the Mortgage Revenue Gap: AI-Powered Lead Follow-Up with Kevin DeMeritt

Rachel Thorne: This is Dialed In with Derek Simmons and Rachel Thorne. Let's talk compliance. Derek Simmons: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Dialed In. So today we're talking mortgage money that should be on your books but isn't. Kevin DeMeritt: Yeah, this is the wait, how did we miss that loan episode? We've got a special guest, Kevin DeMeritt from 2X Solutions. Derek Simmons: We're going to sketch out where that revenue gap comes from, why leads stall, and how marketing and sales keep stepping on each other in this space. Kevin DeMeritt: And we'll hit the big one when follow-up is slow or random and loan officers end up doing the wrong work at the wrong time. Derek Simmons: Exactly. If you're in mortgage, this is about real dollars, not theory. Kevin DeMeritt: So Kevin's been building tools for this problem every day. Rachel's going to kick us off with him. Derek Simmons: We want to hear from you. Submit questions via the web form in the description or give us a call at 747-946-7602 and leave your question. Don't be shy. Our AI assistant makes it super easy. Kevin, I'm really glad we get to talk about closing that revenue gap in mortgages today, especially since you're building tools at 2X Solutions that are helping marketing teams actually move the needle on conversations that turn into deals. So how are you doing today? Speaker 4: Well, thanks for having me, Rachel. I'm really excited about this conversation because I think the mortgage industry is sitting on a major opportunity. You know, a lot of mortgage companies believe their biggest challenge is. and just generating more leads but when you look under the hood the bigger issue is often what happens after a lead enters their system how quickly does somebody respond how many attempts are made is the follow-up consistent Derek Simmons: That's a really important distinction. So when you say the real problem isn't lead generation, what do you mean by that specifically? Speaker 4: Well, a mortgage company may need more leads, but before buying more leads, the company should look at what's happening to the leads it already has. Is there immediate response? How many attempts once the lead comes in or are they abandoned? How many loan officers are following up? up consistently? How many aged leads are sitting untouched in the CRM? You know, mortgage companies often spend heavily to create the demand and then rely on individual human effort to follow up. The lead may be valuable, but if nobody reaches that borrower at the right time, the company never gets the opportunity to find out. At 2X, we call that the revenue gap. It's the revenue lost between the moment a lead enters the business and the moment that the lead turns into a real sales opportunity. So a lot of companies respond to that gap by buying more leads, but pouring more leads into an inconsistent follow-up process usually creates more waste, not more revenue. Derek Simmons: So the revenue gap is really about execution on the leads you already have, not just volume. When a lead comes in, what does that inconsistent follow-up actually look like in a typical mortgage shop? Speaker 4: Well, you know, mortgage is one of the most communication heavy processes there is there can be dozens of interactions between the original inquiry and a funded loan. You have the initial contact, the qualification, client outreach, re-engagement of borrowers who are. who are, you know, not ready at the particular time. It's really an industry built around conversations. The problem is, is that many of these conversations are repetitive and high volume. Loan officers are being asked to help borrowers structure loans and then close the business, but they're also being asked to repeatedly dial leads, leave voicemails and remember to call somebody back three months later. Those are two very different categories of work. One requires experience, trust, judgment, and licensing. The other one requires speed, persistent consistency, and process. Mortgage businesses often use their most valuable people for both, and we feel that's a very inefficient use of talent. Derek Simmons: So you're saying loan officers are spending time on repetitive dialing and follow-up when they should be focused on the actual relationship and closing work? Is that the inefficiency you're pointing to? Speaker 4: Absolutely. You take a hypothetical mortgage company with 20,000 leads sitting in its CRM. Let's say the company wants to properly work those leads three times a year. The math is simple. 20,000 leads multiplied by three outreach cycles. Goals multiplied by about four and a half attempts which in age leads that's what you should do if you break all that down and that's about 22,500 calls every month just to work your age lead database then you add new leads in so suppose the company wants to generate 2,500 new leads per month the follow-up required on new leads is approximately 17 follow-up attempts throughout the month and that creates another 42,500 calls When you combine the age leads and the new leads, you're looking at approximately 65,000 outbound calls per month just to work your CRM the right way. Most companies do not see that full number. They see 2,500 new leads in a database. They do not see the total operational workload required to work those opportunities consistently, and that's why so much follow-up gets missed. Derek Simmons: That's a staggering number, 65,000 calls a month just to work the leads properly. If a mortgage company tried to handle that with actual people, what would that cost them? Speaker 4: Well, if you just use a simplified example, suppose a US-based caller costs approximately $250 a day when you include the full labor cost, and then you can suppose that that person can complete about 350 calls a day. So to handle 65,000 calls per month, the company would need approximately 130 caller days. That's roughly six or seven full-time callers. That direct labor expense can exceed $32,000 per month. And that's before management, training, benefits, turnover, all those kinds of things. You know, an offshore team can reduce that cost, but even then the business still has to manage staffing, scripts, training, turnover, quality supervision, all those things. So the important takeaway is not that every mortgage company has these exact numbers that you cannot coach your way out of a math problem if the volume requires 10,000 monthly. attempts, the business needs a system capable of handling that workload. Derek Simmons: So you're saying the infrastructure problem is being masked as a people problem. When mortgage companies look at AI calling tools to solve this, what Rachel Thorne: What makes 2X different from just buying one of those platforms that's already out there? Derek Simmons: Well, most AI platforms sell technology. They give a mortgage company access to a tool, a workflow builder, a prompt box and a dashboard. Then they leave them responsible for making that system produce revenue. The customer has to decide what the AI should say, how it should qualify, how many attempts it should make. make, when it should make that call, what happens after a missed call, how is spam handled? And that's a lot of responsibility. Most mortgage owners don't want to become experts in prompts and voice models and telecom infrastructure and workflow design and number reputation and AI conversation analytics. They want more qualified conversations and more revenue. So 2X is not positioned as a do-it-yourself AI calling platform. We are the AI revenue partner. We are hiring a dedicated person to help that company. Do all of that infrastructure and calling and manage the process between the lead entering the system and that lead becoming a real revenue opportunity. I think the simplest way to explain this, Rachel, is most platforms give you ingredients. 2X takes the responsibility for continually improving the results and we have a guarantee to back it up. Rachel Thorne: When you say continually improving the results, what does that actually involve on your end? Derek Simmons: Well, we continually review what's happening inside the conversation, you know, why the borrowers are possibly disconnecting, what opening is creating engagement, what objections are occurring most often, is the system trying to transfer too early, or qualified leads reaching the loan officers. We also manage the technical and operational side. Our phone numbers being labeled as spam and then we need to fix them. Our integration is failing or has a model been updated and affecting the quality of the conversation. AI performance is not something you configure once and then forget. The conversation, the workflows, the prompts and the technology all need ongoing attention. Rachel Thorne: You mentioned spam labels and number reputation. Why is that such a major issue for mortgage companies specifically? Derek Simmons: Because a calling campaign can look like it's operating normally even while its ability to produce revenue is actually failing. The system looks like it's making calls and the dashboard may show that thousands of attempts are being made, but if the number is showing up as spam likely Nobody's going to answer the phone. That means contact rates fall. When contact rates fall, quality conversations fall. When conversations fall, then applications and closings eventually fail too. So number reputation is not simply a telecom issue, it's a revenue issue. Somebody needs to monitor answer rates, number rotation, registration of those numbers, and potential spam flags. so that you can fix it immediately, and that's what we do in real time. Rachel Thorne: So it's not just about the calls being made, it's about whether anyone's actually picking up on the other end. You mentioned earlier that one of the biggest mortgage opportunities might already be sitting inside the company's CRM. What did you mean by that? Derek Simmons: Well, mortgage companies a lot of times have thousands of records that they already paid to acquire. They have aged internet leads, past clients, pre-approvals who've never purchased. People are not ready yet at a specific time, but the company will not know unless it creates a consistent process to reengage them. You know, that's why we talk about database recovery. The company doesn't only need a system for processing new leads, it needs a system for recovering opportunities for the leads that it already owns that are sitting in that database. That turns the database from a storage system into a revenue producing asset. Rachel Thorne: How important is speed to lead in mortgage? Does it matter as much as people think it does? Derek Simmons: Well, absolutely. And it's not only mortgages, it's every business and it's extremely important. Responding quickly gives the company a better chance of reaching the borrower. While that inquiry is still fresh, but speed without persistence is just really incomplete. You know, a borrower may submit a form and then step into a meeting. They may be driving. They may be with their family. They may not recognize the number. One instant call does not solve the problem. It helps out tremendously. But a strong system combines immediate response with a properly managed follow-up cadence, and that includes calls and texts and voicemails and, you know, all of those things. So the cadence has to be optimized based on actual results. Rachel Thorne: When the system is learning and improving, how involved should the sales team be in that process? Derek Simmons: What we like to get them involved immediately, you know, the sales team should be part of an ongoing feedback loop. The loan officers are the one receiving the call after we transfer it and they can tell us whether the borrowers are properly prepared or are they qualified enough so we can possibly change that? Do they understand why they're being transferred? That increases loan officer confidence, acceptance and productivity. It also prevents the AI system from becoming disconnected from people that are actually closing the loans. And I think this is a big opportunity for a lot of mortgage companies, because if you can transfer leads and hire better loan officers because they don't have to dial and try to track down people all day long, you're just going to get a better group of people or group of loan officers, you know, in your. In your organization, I think it's a great hiring opportunity for better quality loan officers that don't want to dial all day. Rachel Thorne: That's a smart point about attracting better talent. When mortgage companies think about implementing an AI system like this, they're naturally concerned about compliance. How should they think about that? Derek Simmons: Well, you have to take it very seriously from the very beginning. You know, you have this high volume outreach that can't be treated casually. The workflow needs to account for calling windows, opt outs, do not call handling, record disclosure, abandonment controls, you know, data security and TCPA retention requirements. So compliance has to be built into the system and that revenue process. It shouldn't be added after a campaign is already operating because you're already breaking the law. You know, this is another reason why buying a tool and trying to manage everything internally can create a lot of risk. At 2X, trust and infrastructure are part of our proposition. And that includes things like SOC 2 Type II security, TCPA controls and active spam remediation. So to us, the objective is to help the company scale communications while protecting the business as much as possible, the borrower experience, and the ability to continue to generate that revenue consistently. Rachel Thorne: Do you have examples of the kinds of performance? Performance improvements, 2X has actually seen with mortgage companies? Derek Simmons: Yeah, you know, on Trustpilot, we have fantastic reviews and people are giving feedback on that all the time. But I think one proof point we use is a company that moved from approximately two connects per hour per rep to over six connects per hour. And this result in the end was about a three and a half, four times return on investment within the first 90 days. So when you improve contact and consistency and qualification, the economics can change very quickly. The power is not simply the AI making more phone calls. The power is that a managed system can produce more useful conversations from the same lead volume. Rachel Thorne: That's a significant lift in just 90 days. What's the one thing you want mortgage owners to take away from this conversation? Derek Simmons: Good question. I think I would ask them to stop assuming that growth requires more people doing more repetitive work. Calculate the actual workload required to follow up with every new lead and age lead properly. Look at how many attempts it takes to reach somebody. Look at the monthly call volume. Look at the staffing costs. Look at how many opportunities are falling through the gaps. Then ask a more important question. How much of this repetitive communication work should humans be doing? still be doing. You know, loan officers should advise, build trust, solve problems and close, most importantly. Systems should respond instantly, follow up persistently, recover old opportunities, qualify interest and create a predictable flow of conversations. Most companies are trying to solve a systems problem with labor, in my opinion. That's expensive, inconsistent and difficult to scale. 2X provides the infrastructure to change that. We don't just help businesses make more phone calls. We continually improve what happens between the lead entering the system and the company making money from that lead. The platform makes the calls. Rachel Thorne: Kevin, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on and walking through how mortgage companies can actually close that revenue gap. I really appreciate your time. Derek Simmons: Thank you, Rachel. Rachel Thorne: Thanks again, Kevin. That was such a great conversation with Kevin DeMeritt. Kevin DeMeritt: I know. What stuck with me most was that stat on outbound call volume. Loan officers stuck dialing and following up instead of closing deals. Rachel Thorne: Right, and it ties directly into three points he made. One, compliance concerns companies have up front. Two, the actual performance results 2X has delivered. And three, the sheer cost of building a human calling team to replace. Replace that work. Kevin DeMeritt: The cost comparison really hit home for me. When you break down salaries, training and turnover, it's staggering compared to an AI system running consistently. Rachel Thorne: Exactly, and he backed it up with real performance numbers, not just promises. That's what makes this credible. Kevin DeMeritt: And honestly, the bigger picture he painted about the mortgage industry sitting on a massive opportunity, that's the takeaway I keep thinking about. Rachel Thorne: Same here. It's not just automation, it's unlocking revenue that's currently just sitting untapped. Kevin DeMeritt: Such a compelling case for rethinking how the industry operates. Rachel Thorne: Definitely some valuable insights there. Let's wrap things up. So, if there's one thing to take from today's revenue gap talk, it's this. You don't fix a broken system by just hiring more callers; you fix the system first. Kevin DeMeritt: Right. And Speed to Lead plus smart AI follow-up is where that fix actually starts. So subscribe, drop a quick review, and share this with the person who owns your compliance. Rachel Thorne: And hit 2X.ai or email us at podcast@2X.ai with questions. Kevin DeMeritt: Thanks for listening. See you next time.