Complete control of his motivated seller marketing
Complete control over his marketing pipeline with $100K+ deal spreads through systematic DataSift filters.
About
Gerald views DataSift as the cornerstone of his real estate business in Northern California, focusing on pre-foreclosure and probate markets. His journey with DataSift began with the First to Market (FTM) Challenge and the Sift Challenge, which fundamentally transformed his approach to real estate investing.
Operating market
Operating in California.
Favorite features
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The Challenge
Before the first to market challenge, Gerald ran bulk marketing across his Northern California counties. He calls it the throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks method. His spend was inconsistent because he was not tracking KPIs properly. Every month came down to one question: where is the next deal coming from, and what list gets him in front of that seller.
Direct mail made it worse. He was mailing code violations, inheritance lists, and evictions on top of his core niches. He could see the second, third, and fourth rehash piling up into a bill. Skip tracing ran through outside tools, Deal Machine among them. When he posted his KPIs in the community, Tyler flagged that his dials to correct numbers were way off. The data lived everywhere except one place he controlled.
What They Built
Five to ten county records a day, filtered to the T
Gerald pulls probate and pre-foreclosure filings daily across San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Solano, Contra Costa, and Sacramento counties. Every record gets tagged first to market on upload. Filter presets from the challenge run the whole flow: data in, clean, prepare, market, update the CRM. If a county portal cannot surface first to market data, he skips that county.
I have complete control of the marketing campaign.
Mail first, then the niche sequential flow
Direct mail goes out before the calling sequence even starts. Verified numbers enter the niche sequential prospecting flow on the dialer. Everything else keeps getting rehashed toward the six month mark. Verified probate sellers get a follow up task every 30 days instead of a quarterly touch. Records with an offer, or marked not interested or sold, never get mailed again.
One skip trace instead of two
He used to pay for a second skip trace location on every dead record. Then he checked the numbers inside the platform.
We found that at least 90% of our correct phone numbers had come from REI SIFT.
Now the second location only runs on records that surface in his deep prospecting presets. That is two to three records a day, not the whole database.
A deep prospecting pool he can actually finish
Every morning he opens presets like exhausted vacant, return mail, and skip twice no numbers. That surfaces three to five owners a week nobody else is contacting. Partners Joe and Darren work the leads on their own boards, and the leads round robin back as an extra revenue stream, mostly wholesale deals.
Before and After
Before DataSift
- Achieved Data Clarity
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Little Data Clarity
- Relied On Google Sheets
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Data Clarity / Organization
- Wholesales, Flips And Does Retail
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Didn't Understand Data Management
- Strong Real Estate Agent
- Wanted To Break Into Wholesaling But Didn't Know How
- Healthy Scale
- Data Driven Decisions
- Consistent Deals
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Inconsistent
- Little Data Insight
- Unorganized Bulk Marketing
- Strategic Focus on Niches
- Enhanced Lead Flow and Certainty
- Streamlined Marketing Process
- Efficient Use of Data
- Direct Mail & Deep Prospecting
- Broad, Unfocused Strategy
- Inconsistency in Results
- Dependency on Luck
- Marketing Clarity
- 6 Figure Months
- High Deal Volume
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Proper Data Management
- Weak Marketing Flow
- Poor Data Management
- Lack of Focus
- Manual Efforts
- Successful Scale
- Total Data Clarity
- Clear Marketing Approach
- Large Deal Spreads
- Improper Data Management
- Poor Marketing Method
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Clear Data Management
- Clear Data Management
- Successful Scale
- Many ways to close deals
- Large deal spreads
- Poor data management
- Unable to scale properly
- Poor marketing flow
- Smaller Deal Spreads
- Increased Deal Volume
- Platform Utilization
- Realtor Collaboration
- Funding Efforts
- Lots Of Deals
- Data Driven Decisions
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Poor Data Management
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Relied On Bulk Marketing
- Lack of Clarity
- Automated Acquisition
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Data Driven Decisions
- Structured Follow-ups
- Increased Lead Generation
- Achieved Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Manual Acquisition Processes
- Ineffective Marketing Flow
- Minimal Lead Insights
- Poor Follow Up Flow
- Inconsistent Lead Generation
- Lacked Sales And Marketing Clarity
After DataSift
- Tens of Thousands Spent on Masterminds That Never Fit
- Got Crushed Wholesaling Cleveland Virtually From New York
- Career-biggest payoff under agreement after a year of deep prospecting
- A 1,300-lead vacant property gold mine in two counties
- One shared database with his agent wife for three years
- Guru models demanded VAs and a big company he never wanted
- His investing and her listing business never connected
- Ten years flipping houses with no shared system
- One Call and One Text Found His Last Buyer
- A Deal About Every Three Weeks, Pushing for Two
- Eight Deals Working in the Middle of the Slowdown
- A $7,000 Mail Campaign Went Out at 56 Percent of Value
- Three to Five Active Listings in Every Subdivision He Underwrites
- Colorado Prices Down 9 to 11 Percent by May
- Callers Hunt Correct Numbers, Closers Take Over
- Returned Mail Tagged And Worked As Its Own Bucket
- 6 Deals In One Month From Year-Old Data
- Eight Months In Before Working The Data Right
- Bulk Dials On Call Tools Produced Nothing
- 100K Records Added, Team Spinning Its Wheels
- Mail, three call attempts, then the rehash pool
- 150 records a month, skip traced twice before dialing
- Full authority probates only, five Southern California counties
- 15 to 20 grand across seven months of last year
- Calling agents and MLS, never direct to seller
- No CRM, just a phone, a computer, and email
- $56K Largest Single Assignment
- A VA Pulls County Probate Data Daily
- $5,300 Total Expenses, About $441 A Month
- $210K In Fees From 7 Deals In A Year
- Every Conversation Started Cold
- No Pipeline, No Aged Database, No Team
- Random Calling On Whatever Records He Found
- Started September 2023 With No Probate Experience
- $95K Spread Closed In 21 Days
- All Four Questions Answered On Every Lead
- 120 Qualified Sellers In The Pipeline
- $1M+ Company With SMS As The Core Channel
- Tracking It All In Podio, Then Another CRM
- Doing What Everybody Else Was Doing
- Downloading Every Record Providers Would Give Him
- Churn And Burn Message Blasts
- One Contract For Every 10 Leads
- 100% Of Deals Sourced Inside The System
- $1M+ In Assignment Fees In 2023
- Almost All Deal Flow From Driving For Dollars
- Bouncing Between Tools Looking For One That Stuck
- Leads Tracked In Excel Sheets, Antiquated And Scattered
- First Flip Finished And Live On Market
- Partner Funding Instead Of 18-22% Hard Money
- Probate Cleared In A Week And A Half
- About One Deal Per 15 To 20 Doors
- Door Knocks The Foreclosure List Top To Bottom
- Severely In Debt, Couldn't Keep Up
- A Couple Of Years To Get In Gear
- Worked Hard For Two Weeks, Then Stopped
- 12 Years In Oil And Gas, Then Nothing Left
- $10K Deal From A Q3 Not Interested Lead
- Follow Up Brought The Seller Down $40,000
- Two First To Market Contracts In One Week
- Dedicated Caller Works The First To Market Flow
- Eviction Records Pulled Straight From Two Counties
- Outbound Marketing Completely Phased Out
- Credit Card Debt From Bad Marketing Advice
- Two Years Of Shiny Object Crash And Burn
- Absurd Data Subscription Costs Draining The Business
- $61,644 Net From A Lien List Rehash
- Tracks Wrong Numbers, Cuts Skip Trace Spend
- Emails The Township For Exact Lien Payoffs
- Rehash Filters: Mobile Numbers, No Response, Liens
- Next Day Follow Up Text Gets The Reply
- Lien Lead Silent Since February 2024
- No Follow Up Text After A Silent First Message
- Unknowingly Recycling The Same Data
- Pulling 10,000 Record Lists The Old Way
- 15 Heirs Signed, $37,500 In One Month
- Skip Trace, Upload To Sift, Call Fast
- Small Problem Lists Over Huge Data Sets
- Targets Deeds Of Trust 12 Years Or Older
- Checks County Foreclosure Postings Every Morning
- Bulk Absentee And Owner Marketing Dried Up
- 150 Mile Days Driving Project To Project
- Six Renovations Running At One Time
- Full Time Rehabbing Since 2015
- Sellers Now Calling In From Her Mail
- One Hot Lead Plus Tons Of Correct Numbers
- Mails Only The 54 Absentee Petitioners First
- Google Form Auto Formats Data For Upload
- Pulls Probate Filings Daily Across Three Counties
- Left A Company, Unsure She Could Pull It Off
- Tedious Copy And Paste List Formatting
- Struggled To Pull Data From Her County
- Years In California Trying To Figure It Out
- 135,000 Records Organized Into Buckets
- A Lead Every 10-15 Calls
- Pre-probate Inherited Niche, 60% Sell Within Two Years
- New Process Closed Its First Deal In 30 Days
- Thursday Deep Research, Offer Accepted By Monday
- PropStream Lists And Bought Probate Data
- Return Mail Dead-ended, Records Sat Dormant For Years
What changed
Revelation Through Challenges: Participation in the FTM and Sift challenges was a game-changer, providing a clear roadmap to success.
Shift From Hope to Strategy: Moved from hoping for leads to strategically generating them, eliminating dependence on chance for business growth.
The Results
Five to ten first to market records a day compounds to roughly 150 to 300 fresh niche records a month. Deep prospecting adds three to five untouched owners a week on top. That pipeline feeds a seven figure motivated seller business with consistent $100K+ deal spreads.
The before and after is control. Before: inconsistent spend, untracked KPIs, and mail costs piling up across five list types. After: one niche, one hub, and the ability to pull, pause, or ramp any campaign the day the numbers say so. Weekly deal flow is now repeatable instead of lucky.
With this, this has been the biggest piece of my business that I have most total control of.
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Common questions before you start
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I'm coming from Podio, REsimpli, or Go High Level. Why switch?
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