If it met my criteria, I’d create a list of 7-10 properties, hop in my car, and start knocking on doors. When homeowners answered, I offered my expertise in helping them avoid foreclosure. This often led to them deciding to sell, which is how I completed my first flip, earning $18,000. Shortly thereafter, I flipped my second house and walked away with a $10,000 check. I completed both flips in my four weeks and never looked back.

Since then, marketing to homeowners has evolved significantly. Nowadays, you can reach homeowners in countless ways, from direct mail to online ads (Google, Facebook), or my personal favorite—driving for dollars. This remains my top method for finding deals as I drive between projects and spot vacant houses. Other methods include door hangers, street signs, SMS, email, SEO, public records, and cold calling.

So, what’s the best way to find deals? Simply talking to people, just like I did when I first started by knocking on doors.

Now, we’re gearing up to start cold calling thousands of homeowners each month, focusing primarily on absentee owners. This is hands down one of the best lead sources. We’ve outsourced the work to a company that will pull 5,000 leads monthly and make 200 calls per day.

So, how do we measure our success? Three letters for you. KPI.

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that indicates how effectively an individual, team, or organization is achieving specific objectives. KPIs are used to track progress toward goals and help make data-driven decisions.

Let’s break down each of these KPIs and explore why they are vital to the success of our acquisition strategy.

Calls to Contact:

One of the first hurdles when targeting homeowners is simply making contact. Cold calling, direct mail, or other outreach methods are common strategies, but it often takes an average of eight attempts to connect with a homeowner. We will have a dedicated team specifically focusing on follow ups calls. Otherwise, we can get swamped pretty quickly between first contact vs follow up calls.

Tracking the number of calls required to reach a homeowner allows us to understand the effectiveness of our outreach campaigns. It also helps to set realistic expectations for the team. High contact ratios may suggest a strong list of leads or a refined calling script, while low ratios can signal the need for a better-targeted list or different approach.

For 100 calls per day, our goal is to connect with 15-20 homeowners.

Contacts to Appointment:

Once a homeowner is contacted, the next step is setting an appointment. This is a critical stage in the conversion process, as getting face-to-face time with the homeowner allows for deeper discussions and, often, the opportunity to present our offer.

Monitoring how many contacts turn into appointments is key to evaluating the effectiveness of the campaign. A high number of contacts but low appointment rates might suggest an issue with the sales pitch or a disconnect between the homeowner’s needs and our offer. On the other hand, a high appointment conversion rate indicates that we are on the right track communicating effectively and addressing their concerns.

Our conversion rate goal is 1 appointment for every 30 contacts.

Appointments to Contracts:

Once we have secured an appointment and met with the homeowner, we need to turn that meeting into a signed contract. This is arguably the most critical KPI.

Tracking how many appointments result in a contract allows us to gauge the effectiveness of the team’s negotiation skills and our overall value proposition. If our appointment-to-contract ratio is low, it may indicate that homeowners are not seeing our offers as competitive, or that there may be a misalignment in expectations.

Our goal is to convert at least 1 out of every 5 appointments into a signed contract weekly.

Our three month goal during the ramp up is to obtain four contracts each month. Thereafter, we can dig into the data to determine our average KPI’s, make adjustments, increase our budget and focus on setting our acquisition goals even higher.

We’re still unsure if our projected conversion rates will align with our initial goals, but I’ll keep you updated on our progress and gladly share the results in an upcoming newsletter.