$100K+ from pre-probate data and return mail
$100K+ deal from returned mail in 30 days using the "lazy investor" deep prospecting approach.
About
Brian Johnson buys houses in St. Louis with his business partner, a two-person shop built on direct mail. Two years into DataSift, a purchased pre-probate inherited list turned his return mail into a deep prospecting pipeline.
Operating market
St. Louis, Missouri, where county data is labor intensive to pull yourself. Brian buys a pre-probate inherited list instead and rotates five metro zip codes of bulk mail each month.
Favorite features
The Challenge
Brian Johnson had been a DataSift user for over two years before deep prospecting clicked. His St. Louis operation ran on direct mail, inbound appointments, and buying deals from connectors. He and his partner gave up on bulk dialing and texting a couple of years back. Returned mail pieces got marked and forgotten. One record had been sitting dormant in his system since 2020.
The data side was the wall. His lists came off PropStream, and he bought probate data for a while. Pulling fresh county data in St. Louis is labor intensive, and the two-man team had no VAs to grind it out. Earlier CRMs did not help. Podio kept his records in the dark, and other systems piled on auto responders and campaigns he never touched. "I'm not a techie data nerd and a lot of this stuff just goes straight over my head," he says.
What They Built
Turning returned mail into the prospect list
At the start of the year Brian bought a pre-probate inherited data set and began mailing it. Instead of writing off the pieces that bounced, he made returned mail the trigger for deep research. His filter stacks the signals: pre-probate, vacant, high equity, returned mail, all on one record.
Let's just focus on the return mail that we're getting back. There's got to be gold in there.
Finding the heirs the file left blank
The deal record listed no known relatives. Brian pulled the probate case on the state site, found the personal representative named in the letter, and researched the family through Ancestry and county records. The person he contacted was a relative who never appeared on the original mail piece.
Skip tracing the decision maker in one attempt
His partner's agent license came with access to Forewarn, a skip tracing app they compared to IDI data. It produced the right number on the first pull.
Got his number right away, got ahold of him like the first contact and booked an appointment and yeah, the rest is history.
Trading bulk volume for 5 minutes per prospect
Brian now works a small, boiled-down niche bucket instead of dialing thousands of strangers. He budgets 5 to 10 minutes of research per record and works the list in one-hour blocks.
You're doing hundreds and thousands of texts to get a lead. Since we've been doing this the past month, I think like every 10 to 15 calls is a lead.
Before and After
Before DataSift
- No Deep Understanding Of His Own Data
- Gave Up Bulk Dialing And Texting Years Ago
- Relying On Inbound Leads And Bought Deals
- A Contract Per 12-13 Qualified Leads
- 10,000-record Niche Lists, Filtered Monthly In Sift
- Focused Down To Indiana And Ohio
- Owns The Operation Now, 50-50 Split
- $300K In Spreads In His First 90 Days
- Almost $600K In Contracts Ghosted Or Backed Out
- Five States At Once, Spread Too Thin
- All The Profit Going To Someone Else
- Running An Agency For 14-16 US Investors
- Homegrown Closer Converts Over 20% Of Offers
- Text Blasts First, Smaller Call Lists After
- Whole Philadelphia Metro Recycled Through Rehash Campaigns
- Sequences And Lists Fully Dialed In
- Over 50 Deals A Year Across Two Companies
- New Construction Plans Stalled By Rates And Costs
- Deep Prospecting Alone, Before Any System
- Two Cheap College Duplexes, Bought With A Partner
- Everything Done By 6pm
- $1,500-1,800 A Month Total Marketing Spend
- 150 Dials A Day, First To Market
- 200 Probates A Month From Weekly Courthouse Runs
- $800K A Year Running Solo
- No Online County Data In His Market
- Long Hours Getting The Business Started
- Years Of Flips And Contractor Headaches
- Tuesday At 2 Hunts Generate His Own Deals
- 4 Deals And $330K Equity In 30 Days
- Sales Leader Owns Leads, Casey Tunes Systems
- 325,000 County Records, Scrubbed Nightly By VAs
- Full Operation: Acquisitions Agents, Sales Leader, VA Data Team
- Team Waiting On Leads To Come In
- Doing Well, But Knew He Could Do More
- Watching Every Lead Himself, Day To Day
- Callers Grinding Through Manual Data
- Two-man Team: Casey Plus One Acquisitions Guy
- Cutting edge 1-1 sales and marketing integration
- Improved accuracy when making offers and estimating rehab costs
- Leak proof communication between clients, buyers and contractors
- Thorough marketing and acquisitions from anywhere in the world
- Real estate companies that want documented communications with contractors, clients and buyers
- Wholesalers who want to enter into new markets
- Investors looking to have leak proof marketing and acquisitions
- Anyone looking to wholesale virtually
- A significant boost in confidence to create a great life for you and your family.
- Tips and tools to maintain a steady flow of income, regardless of external circumstances.
- Knowledge of how to succeed in any market condition.
- An understanding of how to achieve long-term success with solid marketing processes.
- A big boost in confidence to make a great life for you and your family.
- Tips and tools you can use to get a steady flow of money coming in, no matter what's happening out there.
- Learned how to succeed in any market condition.
- Understanding of how to achieve long-term success with solid marketing processes.
- Anyone, regardless of budget, looking for a strong start to avoid common mistakes.
- Business owners who want to have simple processes for their VA's to follow.
- Investors willing to create a steady monthly income to secure the future of their family.
- Those who tried many ways to succeed but still aren't seeing good results.
- Efficient KPI Tracking
- Enhanced Follow Up Process
- Data Driven Decisions
- Fully Integrated With REISift
- Streamlined Sales & Marketing Flow
- Enhanced lead management
- Unorganized Data
- Expensive/Ineffective Tech Stack
- Basic Marketing Approach
- Poor Data Management
- Unorganized Processes
- Refined Direct Mail Strategy
- Clarity In All Business Operations
- Enhanced Team Management
- Strong Lead Management Flow
- Advanced Data Tracking
- Effective Marketing Flow
- Limited Marketing
- Targeting Constraints
- Poor Lead Management
- Difficult Team Management
- Reactive Marketing
- Ineffective Marketing Flow
- Empowered Data Management
- First to Market Strategy
- Automated Processes
- Strategic Focus
- Improved Lead Prioritization
- Enhanced Data Tracking
- Low Level CRM
- Successful But Hitting a Wall
- Missed Opportunities
- Poor Data Management
- Data Driven Decisions
- Full Data Clarity
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Lacked Marketing Clarity
- Difficult Marketing Flow
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Strong Lead Management Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
After DataSift
- A VA Works Every No-Contact Lead in DataSift
- Daily Follow-Ups Run From the Sift Line Tasks
- Nine Deals Under Contract After the Stacked Niche Switch
- Cold Callers Sent KPIs by Hand Outside the System
- Expensive PPC Spend With No Return
- Follow-Up Leads Vanished Into an Abyss in the Old CRM
- 60,000 Records a Quarter Feeding His Bulk Callers
- Four Contracts Signed in 10 Days
- Three Deals a Week, Two Weeks Running
- First Direct to Seller Push in 30 Years of Business
- A $10,000 Mail Campaign That Produced Nothing
- 15 Years Buying Only From the MLS and Wholesalers
- New lender agreed 12 days after the first collapsed
- $105,696 net profit after closing costs
- Nine properties contracted at $360K, sold at $450K
- Hard money lenders would not lend on rural portfolios
- Local title companies refused assignments and passthroughs
- Seller would only sell one house, priced far over appraisal
- Still Runs on a $500 Monthly Budget
- An $85K Deal Off a 50-Name Stacked List
- 13 Contracts in Six Weeks From 250 Prospects
- About $40K Spread Across Six Months, Still Behind
- Five Contracts in a Row Fell Through
- Shotgun Lists Across Too Many Zip Codes
- One Contract Per 25-35 Leads, Half the Typical Ratio
- Each Caller Brings 16-18 Leads a Week
- 50,000 Free County Records Called on a Four-Month Cycle
- Two Partners Dialing Everything Themselves From 2017 to 2019
- VA Cleaned Every County Download by Hand in Excel
- Another Blanket ListSource Pull Whenever the Pipeline Ran Dry
- Same county-data system expanding into Texas and Miami
- $800K in revenue from six or seven deep-research deals
- About 20 people across data, calling, research, and sales
- PropStream tax delinquent lists arrived after owners had already paid
- Two years hunting a golden list that did not exist
- Bandit signs at intersections, cold calling all day from a coffee shop
- Four deals closed faster than his first three
- 8,200 dials and 25 leads in one November
- Four VAs running one calling and texting protocol
- Generic YouTube advice with no sequence to follow
- Back at a sales job four months after going full time
- Spent $35,000 on marketing with zero return
- About 35 Leads Per Deal Across 347 Total Leads
- $253K In Cash And Equity From One Package Deal
- 40 Properties Wholesaled In Under Four Months
- 12-Hour Days And A 45-Minute Commute
- No Deals Found Through Realtors, MLS, Or Craigslist
- Cold Calling From A Printed Spreadsheet In The Parking Lot
- Pulls Nearly All His Data Straight From the County
- Runs Jacksonville Virtually on $1,000 a Month
- Locked a Contract Four Days After His January Restart
- Scattered Across SMS, Facebook Ads, and a Website
- Partner's $2 an Hour Caller Hit a 1% Contact Rate
- Called Lists Three Times Then Trashed Them
- 50,000 sqft warehouses in negotiation, one to two leads daily
- $59,000 spread on his first big wholesale deal
- Every eviction filed in New Jersey, worked daily
- Old CRM buried callers in highlight and right-click drama
- Phenomenal months, then crickets for months
- Overnight pharmacy shifts, 84 hours in a single week
- Knows the playbook works and is replicating it
- First off-market contract four months after starting
- $250,000 assignment fee on deal one
- Weak cash position after funding ground-up projects
- Questioned whether real estate money was even real
- Two years spending on development deals, not making much back
- $40,000 month tracking with fixed costs
- Five first to market deals since April
- Probate filings pulled daily in multiple counties
- Two mail campaigns, response rates he did not like
- Costs fluctuated month to month with list spend
- Custom Podio build, broad absentee and vacant lists
- Owner buried beside her son after two years unclaimed
- Runs every heir search solo now
- Five heirs found, contacted, and signed across Texas
- Needed a specialist for her first deep heir search
- Paper records only, fathers listed by initials
- Probate leads dead-ended with no findable heirs
- Every No Recycled On A Two-Year Rehash Cycle
- Three VAs Clean Data Before A Single Dial
- Three First To Market Niche Filters Worked Daily
- Loose Onboarding And Under-Corrected Bad Hires
- Team Swung From Large To Small To Solo
- Broad Marketing Across Every Niche At Once
- Mornings and evenings back with his family
- 8 person crew handles whole projects in sets of two
- 40+ properties across three portfolios in about six months
- Afraid to take on payroll and a crew
- The bottleneck on his own projects
- Software job eight to five, real estate five to midnight
- 55% Answer Rate On One-By-One Click To Call
- Free County Data Replaced Every Paid List
- $45K Fee Closed One Week After The Callback
- Podio, Slack, And Multiple VAs, No Traction
- 30,000-Record Lists Dialed Two Or Three Times Through
- At Least $40K Wasted On Lists And VAs
- Four Marketing Attempts on a Couple of Lists
- A Three-Person Team at About $1,800 Cost Per Contract
- Almost Two Years Nomadic Across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East
- Behind a Jacksonville Desk 95 Percent of the Time
What changed
Brian's shop runs on direct mail; he and his business partner quit bulk dialing and texting a couple of years ago. This year they niched down to a purchased pre-probate inherited list, data showing 60% of those owners sell within two years. Their new deep prospecting process starts with the return mail that comes back from it.
The first record he worked had sat in his account since 2020, tagged driving for dollars, dormant after return mail. He pulled the probate case, found the personal representative, and reached the relative on the first attempt Thursday. Friday they ran the appointment and left an offer, Monday the offer was accepted, and the deal closed 30 days after the process started. Deep prospecting now turns up a lead every 10 to 15 calls; bulk texting took hundreds of messages to get one.
So what if you spend five, 10 minutes on each prospect? I mean, if you got your niche boiled down to like, I got a hundred prospects here, one of them is gonna sell me their house. It's worth the extra time to go into it.
The Results
One week into the returned mail process Brian had an accepted offer. Thirty days in, the deal was closed. The property was bought at $141K and sold at $245K net after renovation. That is a $104K spread on a single returned mail piece, the $100K+ win.
The record tells the before and after story on its own. It entered his system as a driving for dollars tag in 2020, bounced as returned mail, and sat dormant for years under the old process. Under the new one: deep research Thursday, contact and appointment on the first attempt, offer left Friday, accepted Monday. Brian says roughly 50 calls across the niche produced that first deal, against the hundreds of texts a bulk campaign needs per lead.
Just keep it simple guys, like follow up with your cold leads.
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