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
- 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
- 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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