Small list worked to death versus wide list mailed once, for someone with ten hours a week

Question

I'm setting up sourcing around a job and I keep going back and forth on where the ten hours go.

The narrow argument: you can only have so many real conversations a week, so the constraint is attention, not records. Pick 60 owners you've actually looked at, call them, call them again in three weeks, send something handwritten, and be the person they remember when the decision arrives six months later. This is supposed to be where the highest assignment fees live, because you got there before the list-pullers did.

The wide argument: response to any single touch is small enough that you need volume for the math to work at all. 60 names times a 2 percent response is one conversation. Mail 3,000 and the same rate gives you 60. You can't relationship your way past a sample that small, and the hours are better spent on a repeatable mail drop than on remembering names.

There's a third position I hear, which is that neither is worth it for a part-timer and the ten hours should go to attorneys, property managers and the people who already know which owners are stuck. That trades money spend for time spent, and it's slow to start.

Cost isn't neutral either. 3,000 pieces mailed twice is real money before anything comes back. 60 names is skip trace change plus your evenings.

What I can't resolve is whether the narrow approach only works for people who are already good on the phone.

megan_doyle15 · Answer

Voted wide because I'm terrible on the phone and I know it. Though writing that out, maybe the answer is I should get less terrible on the phone rather than pay postage to avoid it.

Rena Guide · Answer

A couple of definitions first, since the thread uses them as shorthand. A touch is one attempt to reach an owner, so a letter, a call, a text, a knock. Response rate is the share of owners who reply to a given touch, and it's usually low, often well under 2 percent for a single mail piece. Conversion is the share of those replies that become a contract, and it's low again.

The reason the two arguments in wren's post both sound right is that they optimize different steps. Wide lists buy you more replies at the top. Narrow lists with repeat contact raise the share of replies that turn into something, because an owner who's heard from you four times treats you differently than an owner who got one letter.

The practical thing for a part-timer is that whichever you pick, follow-up is where deals actually come from. Most owners on any of these lists aren't ready when you first reach them. They become ready later, and the person they call is whoever stayed in touch.

rigging, the phone question is worth separating from the strategy question. Being uncomfortable calling is normal and it improves with reps faster than most people expect. Choosing a channel to avoid a skill tends to cost more over a year than the skill would have cost to learn.

One caution on channels: rules on cold calling, texting and mailing differ by state and by channel, and texting in particular carries requirements that catch people out. Confirm what applies where you're working before you start.

carlos_nunez · Answer

Voted narrow, with a caveat nobody's said yet. The narrow approach only works if you keep records. 60 names and four touches over six months is 240 events and you will not hold that in your head. I lost a deal last year because I called a guy I'd already spoken to twice and opened like it was the first time. He told me so, and that was the end of it.

On the phone question, rigging, my first two hundred calls were awful and it didn't matter. Nobody remembers a bad call from a stranger.

Small list worked to death versus wide list mailed once, for someone with ten hours a week

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