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
- 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
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.
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