Driving For Dollars vs. Purchased Mailer Leads

[Ben Valentin]

I've been driving for dollars the past few days, and I'm really curious about a few things. 

I definitely see the benefit of driving the streets and getting to know the neighborhood. I also see the benefit of "quality" when it comes to leads, and how leads generated via driving myself will most likely not be mass-mailed by those purchasing lists off the internet.

Neither of the above facts need to be argued, because I 100% agree. 

My question has to do with time. Is it more beneficial to spend all my time driving the streets to gain free leads, only to later spend the money on the mailing campaign of maybe 100-500 leads over a few weeks? Or is it better to raise $5,000 from an investor for a 5,000 piece mailing campaign and spend my immediate time negotiating deals?

My personal opinion is with time saved and money spent on a good mailing campaign - but I've been wrong before. 

I drove a few hours the other day and averaged 4 leads per hour, and drove today averaging 10-12 leads per hour. Obviously depends on the neighborhood, but the point is it will take me weeks to build a list that's worth mailing, and I'll still have to spend money to mail letters. 

I could go to friends, family, local investors and offer a deal in exchange for a mailing campaign, and have 5,000 mailers sent out this month instead of waiting multiple months to get that many leads. 

In the long run, I could obviously have interns or bird dogs driving for dollars for me. But in my opinion, it's a waste of time for me currently. I'm 100% efficiency driven and hear a lot from role model entrepreneurs like Grant Cardone and others talk about spending your time on the things that make you money (Like negotiations). But like I said, I've been wrong before.

I'd like to know everyone's thoughts!

[Gabriel Amedee]

Have you considered knocking on the doors you find driving for dollars? If they're vacant there's two neighbors you can ask for info. Try to find the owners information through the neighbors and if not do a little skip tracing. If you still can't get any info I would email a letter the next day, why wait till you come up with 100+ so that 80 of them have already been viewed by other investors?

In reference to time and efficiency I understand your frustration 100%. Ironic I was reminded of the rule of 80/20 by one of the podcasts on here a couple weeks ago. If you have the funds to do mail outs I would definitely consider it while also exhausting other options. Understand that DM is a very long game and you need to make a thorough plan of attack. There are many factors attributing to your results in DM and have yet to find myself in a position to be comfortable with 6 months of DM not paying itself ten fold when other tactics far more cost effective have worked great for me.