A 7-figure company built on SMS at scale
7-figure company with SMS as core strategy. $95K spread on single Q4 deal.
About
In the heart of Central Florida, Kevin Hernandez embarked on a journey that would redefine his approach to the market. Known for his ambitious strategies and a knack for high-volume SMS campaigns, his path took a pivotal turn with DataSift, reshaping the way he viewed data-driven marketing and lead management.
Operating market
Central Florida's vibrant real estate scene became the proving ground for innovative strategies, where he leveraged his deep understanding of the market dynamics to carve out a niche for himself.
Favorite features
The Challenge
Before DataSift, Kevin ran volume. He downloaded as many records as data providers would give him and blasted 5,000 to 10,000 messages a day through Smarter Contact, churn and burn. More conversations meant more deals, but that was what everybody else was doing too. "I knew there was something missing. I just didn't know what it was." He tracked it all in Podio, then another CRM he cannot even remember now.
He found the platform almost by accident, through Facebook groups he joined as a Smarter Contact ambassador. He is honest about the start: the learning curve is steep, and he thinks that is why so many people give up quickly. He was doing fewer deals then and had the free time, so he poured himself in, worked the automated lead gen challenge, then the Go No Go challenge, and took it step by step.
What They Built
SMS as the core channel, integrated instead of bolted on
Kevin was already an SMS specialist when he arrived; the platform organized what he was doing. The Smarter Contact integration filters wrong numbers and not interested records out of future sends, and smrtPhone and Aircall carry the call side. Hot responses push straight to him.
You keep the hottest leads closest to you. You can just click a few buttons, boom, boom. Here they are.
First to market lists plus every uncontacted record he owns
The operation runs first to market probate weekly plus what he calls a Frankenstein list. It also works exhausted and uncontacted records by list: bad credit, driving for dollars, out of state absentee, undelivered mail. When people ask which list gets deals, he pulls up all of them.
Get a divorce list as an absentee owner. That's vacant. That's tax delinquent. That's going through probate, that has had a code violation, that also went to jail. Like, how are you going to find all of that?
Time bound follow-up on a weekly to yearly clock
His cold callers ask not interested sellers if they can circle back next week, next month, or next quarter, and the answer sets the follow-up. Nothing gets discarded; one caller's board shows 117 not interested conversations still visible and scheduled. The only constant, he says, is change.
Direct mail on autopilot with drip sequences
The direct mail beta gave him the channel he had put off for years. He funds the budget a month ahead, sets drip sequences, and points his data manager at first to market records that stayed unreachable after enough touches.
Before and After
Before 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
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
Discovering DataSift through his role as an ambassador for Smarter Contact, he sensed the revolutionary potential almost immediately. Diving deep, he embraced the Go No-Go Challenge and Auto Lead Gen Challenge with open arms. At a time when deals were few and far between, these challenges offered not just solutions but a new horizon.
The biggest benefits were clear: unparalleled clarity in outreach, advanced data tracking, and seamless integrations that elevated his operations. But beyond the technology, it was the personal connections with the DataSift support team that truly resonated. In their hands, he wasn't just another investor; he was part of a community, a family that was as invested in his success as he was.
The Results
The company runs at seven figures with SMS as the core channel and about 120 qualified sellers in the pipeline. Every one has all four questions answered: timeline, price, reason for selling, condition.
The deal he shows on camera makes the process argument. The lead came off a bad credit list from a $50 a month data site. PropStream's List Automator formatted the raw file, Smarter Contact skip traced it, and it landed in the account in April. Over a year later his VA worked the uncontacted bad credit filter in August, and the deal closed September 28, about 21 days from contract. Purchase at $280K against a $375K estimate: a $95K spread on a lead that cost next to nothing and waited in the account the whole time.
The churn and burn version of this business would have blasted that record once and moved on. The organized version closed it.
Just stick to a process. It doesn't matter what it is, and the list doesn't really matter. Whether it's bad credit, probate, first to market, whatever. It's just consistency, consistency, consistency, and your processes just have to reflect that consistency.
Get results like this. Start your free trial.
Related Stories
.avif)
What our users have to say
Get results like this. Start your free trial.
Common questions before you start
Is there a free trial?
Yes DataSift offers a 7 day free trial. In those 7 days you’ll receive all necessary materials to learn exactly how to leverage Sift in your company.
How much does DataSift cost?
Our lowest plan starts at $149 a month and our highest plan is $1250 a month.
How long does setup take?
Your account ships with the lead management default build already wired. Boards, statuses, tasks, automations — ready on day one. Add your team, import your data, and your lead manager can start working leads the same afternoon.
I'm coming from Podio, REsimpli, or Go High Level. Why switch?
Every CRM needs someone to move leads where they belong. The difference is what catches the misses. Most CRMs hand you an empty box and tell you to build it. DataSift ships with the workflow assembled — boards, statuses, tasks, and 26+ automations already wired. You're not paying for a database. You're paying for the system that already runs your lead management.
How do I migrate over my data from another CRM?
Contact our support team through our support chat and they will give you all necessary materials and information to make sure you get all of your data uploaded exactly how you want it.
Does DataSift work with my dialer?
Yes. Ready Mode, Smart Dialer, Call Tools, Smarter Contact, Aircall and Kixie connect directly. A wrong-number disposition in the dialer flips the phone status in DataSift in real time. A new-lead disposition fires the full Call New Lead sequence. Other dialers connect through CSV upload or Zapier.
