More Leads = More $$

We've all been there. Or maybe it’s just me. But it's the eleventh hour, and you're scrambling to hit a capital raise or funding deadline. Your heart is racing, your palms are sweaty, and you're making desperate calls to potential leads like a contestant on a game show trying to win the grand prize. I remember those days all too well. It is like a rollercoaster of emotions, and I often found myself stumbling and falling over the finish line, gasping for air.

I kept telling myself there had to be a better way to do this. There is no way you should be waiting to get the proverbial gun to your head to race around and get the deal over the finish line, There has to be a way that businesses do this consistently and predictably.

Turns out, there is, and it's called cold outreach. Maybe you've heard of it referred to as lead gen, lead flow, or your pipeline. But basically, it's the ability to target your specific deal/client and, based on your efforts, reach out to them and connect with them consistently. Investing/Sales is just a numbers game, meaning you have to put in enough reps (calls/mailings/texts) that you connect with the right fit enough times to land your deal.

As I have researched and started to develop our deal flow it really broke down to a formula that applies to almost any business. You can do this if you are looking for off-market multifamily deals or targeting investors to partner on deals with.

In about 5 mins I’ll break down the process that we use.

Step #1: Nail Down Your "Investment Criteria" Before you even start reaching out to potential leads, you need to know exactly what you're looking for. Things to dial in include:

• Target market and property type/size (be very specific)

• Buy data list via sources like Propstream or subscribe to Reonomy

• Filter out deals that recently traded (last 3 years)

• Now you have a data list of properties to potentially connect with

Step 2: Skip Trace the Data The goal here is to get phone numbers, mailing addresses, and emails for the true owners.

• Check your tax assessors and public records to crack LLCs or opencorporates.com is a great resource. It's important to get good data.

• I like to pull from multiple sources because I think most data sources aren't great, but when you collectively can get multiple sources, you can start to combine them and get slightly higher quality data.

Step 3: Clean Data and Upload to CRM 

Which CRM doesn't really matter (Podio, LeadSherpa), things you'll need to:

• Upload property and owner mailing and phone information

• Make notes on the outreach and follow up reminders

  Remember, your CRM becomes the lifeblood of your business.

Step 4: Prospecting (Cold Outreach) Now you have a dataset of the properties/clients that fit your criteria, you have got contact information for them, and now you get to start prospecting, just like gold mining . Ways to reach out include:

• Direct mail: handwritten letter, postcard, FedEx letter.

• Cold calling: we do about 10k-15k cold calls a month, and that generates 1-2 leads a day and gets us about 1 great deal a quarter.

• Text Messaging (SMS): Texting has different rules than cold calling but can be more effective for a younger seller/client since it's hard to get them to answer a random phone call.

• Ringless Voice Mail (RVM): This just sends the prospect a voicemail without the phone ever ringing. As I loathe voicemails, it would never work for me, but it works for some people.

• Cold Email: You can just send the prospects an email. Beware, there are a lot of technical challenges with cold emails as Spam filters have got really good at blocking emails from random people. Use programs like instantly.ai if you're wanting to do this at scale.

When you connect with a prospective seller/client, take diligent notes in your CRM, schedule follow-up reminders, update the CRM, and then start consistently dripping on those leads. Some of the best deals took me 1-2 years of consistently reaching out until the seller was in a position to sell. The goal is to be top of mind when they do decide to sell.

Step 5: Repeat The Process This depends on the size of your investment capital, your plan, and how many deals you want to do. A list of 1000 properties in your local area might be enough to last you a year or two. Or it might be enough for a week of prospecting depending on your budget and how aggressive you pursue them. Remember, this all applies to any business. If your business is to sell surgical devices to doctors, you would do the same exact process. Data, Contact information, Clean and Upload to CRM, and Prospect and Repeat.

Ready to Take the Next Step? If you want to learn more about the exact process of how to develop a passive income investment plan, shoot me a message with the term "investment plan," and I can share the steps to build out your very detailed investment plan to help start pulling data for your ideal investments.

Until next week, enjoy your Labor Day Weekend

Jake