Hard is slow, but slow leads to smooth. Smooth leads to fast, and fast leads to easy.
Everyone broker wants a fast way to find sellers.
But the fast way and the way that actually works are often two different things.
I run two direct mail programs geared toward generating listings — one for lot owners, and one for landowners.
The lot program’s pretty straightforward. Every lot is different, but they’re not that different. I just pick the subdivisions, remove the ones with houses, and I’ve got a list with everything I need.
Raw land is a different story. Getting an accurate list takes real work.
You can pull a quick data list of owners for an area, sure. But here’s the problem: the way land is handled on the tax rolls, one owner might have multiple tracts — some touching, some miles apart.
So yeah, you can get a list to mail to. It’s fast, it’s cheap.
But it’s also obvious you don’t really know what those owners have. And to them, it looks like every other “We buy land” letter out there.
I tried it.
Response was terrible.
Those lists are fine for “Just Listed” or “Just Sold” postcards. But for an actual letter asking if they’d like to list? It just doesn’t work.
I talk a lot about how local knowledge matters. If you’re not dealing with someone who really knows the ropes, you’re asking for trouble.
So how do you canvas an area and sound like you actually know it?
Simple — you make sure you do.
For me, that means manually creating the list while I build a custom aerial and drive the area.
That way I know exactly how many acres someone owns in a given spot. If they own more than one tract, I know that too. If they’ve got property under different company names, I can see it right away.
When they call, I can pull up my aerial and know exactly what they’re talking about — and odds are I’ve been out there recently myself.
Yes, it’s slow. But it’s the only way to really succeed in a relationship business.
And there’s a compounding effect. Once the work’s done, it doesn’t change much. You benefit for a long time.
And people notice when someone actually puts in the effort.
A younger, more technical client once looked at my system and said, “You could do X, Y, and Z and get the same results way faster.”
Maybe.
But to me it’s not about speed — it’s about actually knowing the ownerships and boundaries. Without that, you’re just another database user playing a numbers game.
Maybe I’m missing out on something big.
But I think the results speak for themselves.
Besides, that same client still uses my brokerage almost exclusively. So I must be doing something right.
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Is it crazy to want to deal with someone who actually puts in the effort — instead of throwing around buzzwords to sound like it?
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I don’t deal in pressure, but is it ever a bad time to talk to an honest expert?
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