Two years nomadic on a 3-person team and a $600K goal
Runs his entire $600K operation remotely while traveling the world. Systems do the work, not geography.
About
Jacob Bluestein wholesales the Jacksonville, FL market with a three-person team: himself plus two VAs in Egypt. He has run the operation nomadically for close to two years, working from Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. A kidney transplant at age 25 in 2018 sparked the real estate career that now funds his software startup.
Operating market
Jacksonville, FL
Favorite features
The Challenge
Jacob Bluestein's first real estate business ran out of New York City. He tried wholesaling Cleveland, Ohio virtually because the houses were cheap, and he got crushed. He did not understand the market or its street by street dynamics. He also paid tens of thousands of dollars for masterminds that never fit how he thinks about money. The lesson stuck: cheap markets and borrowed playbooks do not replace knowing one market cold.
He rebuilt in Jacksonville, FL and found himself behind a desk 95 percent of the time. Jacksonville sprawls, and he refused to drive 40 minutes each way to appointments. So he closed over the phone, and the desk became the business. Then he wanted to travel the world full time. The fear was real: older sellers who distrust a phone voice, an investor community he would stop seeing, time zones far from Florida. By his own admission, it was more scary in his head than in practice.
What They Built
One market, a couple of lists, four attempts
The marketing engine is deliberately small. DataSift is the core: sales, marketing, and the CRM in one place, with boards for the pipeline and for lead management. Sequential marketing carries 98 percent of the workload, run on only a couple of lists and cut from seven attempts to four. Every quarter he asks one question: how do we get more out of this without spending more.
It took about a year or so to really get dialed in on our virtual SIF line with just those couple of lists and just the Sensei flow through four attempts.
Two VAs in Egypt covering the phones
The whole team is three people. A cold caller and a lead manager, both based in Egypt, plus Jacob on acquisitions and dispositions. Culture is the hard part of a virtual team, so he spent a week of his first trip with them in Egypt. If the team hits its revenue goal this year, he has promised a week long retreat anywhere in the world they choose.
I met up with them, we were together for a whole week. They toured me around the whole country.
Closing every deal over the phone
Roughly one seller in 10 to 15 will not sign electronically. For those, wholesaler friends in Jacksonville take the in person appointment and earn a $3,000 to $10,000 commission. Probate deals with multiple siblings get a conference call so every decision maker hears the same offer at once. A local contact, paid per visit, shoots photos and walks inspections on the rare deal that needs eyes on site.
Quarterly trips to keep the network warm
The investor community in any market is tight, and being gone weakens it. So he flies back to Jacksonville once a quarter, hits the events, and meets his lenders and old friends. The relationships stay fresh, and the deals keep coming from a market he knows block by block.
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
- 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
The click happened at a desk in Jacksonville, before any of the travel. The metro is so spread out that he refused to drive 40 minutes each way to appointments. So he stayed behind the desk 95 percent of the time and worked the phones instead. "I started locking up houses over the phone. I was like, well, if I can do this from a computer here why can't I do it from anywhere else?" The first test was a one month trip to the Middle East. It worked, and the better part of two years abroad followed.
The Results
The target for the year is $600,000 in revenue. His model math is simple: 20 deals a year at $30,000 per deal is $600,000. Cost per contract on the sequential flow runs about $1,800, and monthly overhead sits between $3,000 and $4,000. The team is still three people, and the flow still stops at four attempts, not seven.
The before and after is geography. His first virtual attempt, New York City into Cleveland, failed outright. Now he has been nomadic for the better part of two years across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East while the Jacksonville pipeline runs. In Asia that meant working 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. to catch the Florida day. The $600,000 goal is not banked yet, and he says so. If it lands, the team picks the retreat destination.
The business exists to serve my lifestyle and goals and my employees goals, not the other way around.
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