Water shutoff list

[Lawrence Croom]

Hello! Today, I received a copy of the water shutoff list from my county clerk.  I have 57 pages of information. There are few different categories on the list. There are "shutoff for nonpayment", "shutoff", "seasonal", "shutoff at meter", and "involuntary termination." I know the obvious one "involuntary termination." My question is out of the three: shutoff for nonpayment, shutoff and shutoff at meter; which ones should I market? Thanks in advance!

[Jerryll Noorden]

Quote from @David Ramirez:

When I first started marketing, I used to put a lot of focus on filtering lists and looking for what I thought had the most motivation. However, with time, I learned that it's all about timing and the number of contacts, rather than how much you filter the list. I would use the entire list, follow up, and retarget several times.

Your observations are correct, but the conclusions are wrong, and this is something I have been preaching about for years.

The reason why you are observing that "there is no difference in motivation" is not because it is equal, or "it doesn't matter". It is RANDOM.

None of these lists, or filtering, target "motivation". 

Let me say this again as loud as I can.

NOTHING CAN TARGET MOTIVATION! You can not target motivated sellers. You can not adjust your filtering to increase the quality of your list. IT IS RANDOM!!

So the answer wouldn't be "filtering doesn't matter because the results are the same". The correct conclusion is, "Filtering doesn't matter because nothing, no list can target motivation". I hope you all see the difference.

Think about it.

How long have people been investing in real estate? Decades! And by now, NOONE has marketing figured out?! The norm is STILL less than 1% conversion rate!? 

No list, no software, NO AI !!!!, no NOTHING can target motivation.

Gang, there is no magic pill or formula

There are no magic filtering criteria that will give you more success.

The larger your sample audience, the more normalized your graph gets. 

It's like going to the casino.

You play 3 hands, and you may come ahead, but if you gamble all night, the house ALWAYS wins.

The larger your sample audience,  the end result will always normalize to one constant. Mathematics!!

So, no, it is not about timing, and it is not about number of contacts. Yes of course, if you send every single person in the USA a letter, you are bound to get a deal or 2.

But then what you should do is plot a graph between your expenses, vs profits, and you will see that the only time, your profits surpass your expenses is when you spend a small fortune on marketing.

You can't simulate motivation, because motivation has to do with the mindset of someone.

It is uniquely different from person to person.

EXAMPLE:

Someone that is stubborn never gives up, has an ego, in forclosure... will NEVER sell their house and they rather see the house go, to the bank than admitting defeat and sell at a discount.

Someone that is passive doesn't take action, and is unmotivated, in foreclosure... could possibly contact you to sell their house.

So what happens? They make a deal, and then conclude "See, the foreclosure list is a great list".

And when no deal is made... nothing. People see what they want to see.

It is all chaos and randomness. If you decide to do lists, DMM, cold calling, and testing, it is utterly pointless to reason, color of postcard, font of postcard, time, day, year postcard is sent. It is complete randomness.