A $1M+ business run on a daily first to market routine
15 years in real estate. Success is a daily routine, not a marketing hack. 3 VAs run the data pipeline.
About
Kevin Davis has wholesaled and flipped houses around Baltimore for 15 years, through big teams, small teams, and solo stretches. Today he runs lean: himself, three virtual assistants, and a short sale team on referral. His daily first to market routine keeps a seven-figure business moving.
Operating market
Baltimore, MD
Favorite features
The Challenge
Kevin Davis has spent 15 years wholesaling and flipping around Baltimore, on a footprint he describes as running from Baltimore to Tennessee. The years were not a straight line. He built a large team, shrank to a small one, and at points ran everything himself. Marketing followed the same pattern: broad campaigns across every niche at once, with easy downloadable lists thrown in to pad the data.
Two problems kept surfacing. First, unfiltered lists buried his team in junk records: $2,000 shells in neighborhoods he no longer wanted to work. Second, monster companies in his market were throwing far more marketing money at the same sellers. On top of that, this is his second or third team build, and the earlier ones ran on loose onboarding. He gave underperformers the benefit of the doubt for too long and paid for it. The business needed to get narrower and more disciplined at the same time.
What They Built
Narrowing 15 years of range down to three niche filters
Kevin calls himself a transaction engineer who can do most deals. He niched his lead generation anyway. Three first to market filters now feed the funnel: pre-foreclosures and foreclosures, probates, and tax records. Every record also passes a value filter, so low-value shells never reach a caller. Vacant properties get pulled into their own bucket. Anything that hits one of the niche lists jumps straight into his record process, first.
Putting three VAs on the pipeline so records never wait
One VA pulls the data. Two more run outbound and inbound outreach. Records missing numbers get skip traced, and anything still showing no numbers after two passes is routed to mail. Kevin admits the immediate mail step has been lagging, and he calls that out himself. VAs purge and clean everything before it lands in the ready to market bucket, and only then does the dialer run.
So my first job is to make certain everybody else can do their job.
Being first in the door before the lists get crowded
Kevin is not trying to close on the first call, although he will when the seller is ready. The goal is contact and rapport before anyone else has the record.
But I'd rather be the first in the door to make contact at minimum. Because once the data gets out there, we have so many people contacting them that people get very turned off very quickly from calls that they don't know.
Recycling every no on a two-year cycle
Nothing gets thrown away. Not interested records enter a quarterly rehash of ringless voicemail and hand-picked texts, offset by quarters, out to a two-year cycle. Cold leads get 45, 90, or 180 day follow-up tasks depending on temperature. Warm leads run a staggered 3, 5, 7, 10, and 14 day sequence. Fully exhausted records get a deep dive for relatives, then a wiped attempt count and a trip back through the funnel.
Before and After
Before 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
After 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
What changed
The clicking point for Kevin was treating the size of his team as an edge instead of a handicap. Big-budget competitors in his market outspend him on marketing every month. He stopped trying to match them and got narrow and fast instead.
I have a small team, so I know I have, you know, in our market, there are monster, you know, companies that have a lot of money they're throwing at marketing, but they're not able to get as nimble as I can.
Three filters, three VAs, first in the door. The daily routine is the strategy, repeated without exception.
The Results
The routine now carries a seven-figure business on a three-VA payroll. One first to market flip shows the math. An out-of-state seller in Southern Maryland, contacted first, with the contract handled before they ever came to town. Purchase at about $250,000, resale at $403,000, and about a $50,000 profit split after the renovation and a flaked first buyer. About eight flips this year are sold or in the process of selling, with the wholesale pipeline running underneath as it always has.
The before and after is simple. Before: broad marketing to every niche and crowded lists worked late. After: three niche filters, cleaned data, and first contact, repeated every single day. Same 15 years of skill, pointed at fewer records.
If you can't train them to do the job, and most of the jobs are trainable, I've done all of them and continue to do some, if you're not the right person, you just won't pick it up. It just is what it is.
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