Why You Need to Track Your KPIs

In this episode of Coaches Corner, Charles Lott Jr. and Nick Orf talk about why KPI tracking is the secret weapon for successful investors right now.

They break down a real world case study of an Alabama investor who stopped fighting for starter home scraps and pivoted into the mid-premium price range. The result was lower response rates but triple the profit per deal and an exit strategy that went from 70 days down to 7.

Whether you are a real estate investor working on your first contract or you are moving into your fourth year of business, understanding your ideal client is the only way to stay profitable as the market shifts.

In this video we cover:

Why tracking leads is mandatory for a 2026 market pivot.

How to find your ideal avatar by looking at your last 2 years of data.

The strategy behind moving up a price tier to increase spreads and decrease competition.

Why your company goals must be guided by data.

Ready to stop guessing?
📍 Book a strategy call with our coaches: REIPrintMail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

With tracking KPIs, you start to understand where you should position your business. 2025, there was a lot of changes in the market. Like all of it just kind of changed. But when you track your leads and your deals and not just what's most profitable and what's getting you the most calls, but really understanding who is my ideal client, what worked the last six months. Uh, is that still working? Like that's really important stuff. If you don't have it when the market does, a lot of people just get out.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

What's up, Nick? How you doing today? I'm good. How you doing? I'm doing pretty good. Today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about data and KPIs. So key performance indicators and uh and really the importance of them and why we use them in marketing, especially with the direct mail that we do here at RAI Print Mail. So, to start out, for anybody who's listening today, I kind of just want to go through KPIs. Um, sometimes it's a foreign term to people. So it's key performance indicators, and this is what's gonna help us drive decisions moving forward. But it's really important that you know how to do this correctly because you can make decisions too quickly, or we've seen it where people wait too long to make a decision. And you kind of have to find a little bit of a sweet spot. Uh, and another question that I get from a lot of investors is like, well, how do you guys even track this? Like, what do you guys do? And the simplicity of it is we simply just put a different phone number on each data mailer combination that we send out. And then a CRM has the ability to let us know how many calls are coming in from those data mailer combinations. And then we can analyze how many calls are coming in. But then on a little bit of a deeper level, we can look at, well, is it producing quality calls, appointments, contracts, and deals? Uh, because I know you've said this to me before. Uh, we've had very low volume in terms of calls on certain things we're tracking, but it's always producing a deal. So we keep it, we keep it going. And uh, I was thinking about a client that I recently talked to, and he was asking me how we're gonna figure out all this stuff. And after a three-month campaign where we send out one style mailer in month one, we switch to a second style mailer in month two, and then another mailer in month three, while using the same data set as the constant the entire time, how we're gonna know which mailer does the best. And I explained to him what I just told you, which is well, we're gonna use three phone numbers, one for each mailer while using the same data. And he said that made sense. And then, and then what we're gonna do moving forward is I'm gonna share with him after every 30 days what the results are. But the important thing I think, and I want you to talk on this as well, because I know you do a lot of data as well, is making sure we have a good sample size and finding that sweet spot on how many days do we let the mail stay on the ground before we actually make that decision to either change something or not change something. So when you think in terms of sample size and time, how long do you like to let it go before you make a decision to change?

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, that was a lot. But uh yeah, I think um it's relative to the market, right? So someone where a cost per deal is much higher, you know, the sample size will have to be greater. So it just needs to be relative to how much time and how much volume it takes to get a deal typically. You want to take that into account when you consider okay, how many am I gonna send, track, and will I see a good result. So in most markets on average, like something I tend to do is just if I can get roughly a good 5,000 pieces on doors and do it over at least a 90-day period. So you might have more than that going out total, but you have at least 5,000 per campaign or per segment that you're tracking, um, you're gonna have a decent sample size and you're gonna have a decent time on doors for it to you know circulate and people call in. And then you'll have a more true kind of like gauge on is this an accurate number that I can believe or shouldn't believe. So if you send mail out in too low of an amount and you check it even at 90 days, it it might not be true because you just didn't get through enough people. And same in reverse. If you send a bunch out, you know, five, six, seven thousand pieces, ten thousand pieces, and you check it in two weeks, like it still might be on the mail truck, you know. Or it's you know, it delivers in a market, it goes through different carrying routes, and some trucks deliver and some don't. So it's hard, you can't really game it. So you need to, it's better to be more accurate than trying to be, you know, get the stats faster and and you know, make adjustments that could really hurt your campaign, yeah, more or less.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

So and with that, I I think something that's popping into my head right now is we recently just had our big snowstorm. And there's a lot of mail that's delayed, it's getting held up. And with that, if you jump the gun, like you're saying, and you make a decision too fast, you may find out 30, 60 days from that decision that was premature that now we're getting all these calls. And if we would have stayed on that track, it would have produced even more calls and more deals, but we made a change and we unfortunately move away from good results. So, with saying that, you were saying about 90 days with 5,000 doors. Um, what's the longest that you've seen mail produce a noticeable call volume? Any weird ones where mail's been on the ground for six months and then we're like, wow, we got 15 calls from a mailer that went out six months ago. What are some examples that you have in that realm?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

I I think what you're talking about is like the long tail. Yeah, the long tail. So, like, yeah, what examples after we stop mailing, do you keep getting calls? Correct, right? I mean, we see this in, you know, it to be specific, like you can see it with really niche data sets, stuff that someone would, you know, go to the county every month and pull. We see it with certain types of mailers, like the mega mailers that we offer. Those tend to have a really good callback rate long term, up to two years, we've seen. I'm trying to think of any particular ones recent. But it's really it it also depends on how long you mailed up until that point, right? So if you have a phone number that you've a tracking number on a mailpiece and you mailed, you know, over the course of a year, you know, a data set and a mailer you sent that you were tracking and you were consistent with it, you turn that phone number off or you stop mailing, I mean, um, you could get phone calls for you know, you can I actually have an example. There's a a guy named Seth who paused a certain campaign um in Roanoke and that was back in August. And I just reached out to him yesterday, and he's averaging 12 calls a month up until February right now. So he's not sending any mail and he's still getting 12 phone calls a month just from that campaign. So now we're looking into it and seeing well, maybe it was just slow mail to your point. Yeah, you know, maybe it was other factors that wasn't really related to the data or the mail being effective or not. It could have been just you know, how long did it take to deliver? Certain lists, too. I mean, for example, if if they're extremely time-sensitive, motivated type situations, you know, delinquencies that are coming due, you got auctions pending, like you're you're kind of coming to a close, you got you got limited time, you got to do something. Those people tend to respond quickly when they get a mailer. But when you have systems that can find motivation that might not be so immediate, but they're still in a category that you know displaces them as like a motivated seller, you'll tend to see those kinds of lists that are mailed produce calls long term just by nature.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Yeah, if we hit hit an owner occupied and they're like you're saying high equity, less motivation. Things that I've heard is we'll we'll send somebody a mailer and like right now in February, March, and they're waiting for their kid to graduate high school, and then they want to get out of the area they want to sell, and they hold on to that mailer and then they call you in June or July after they've gotten their kid off to college, or maybe it's even August because they're waiting for their kid to go to college. And then you're seeing a call five, six, seven months later after the mailer's gone out. So, with that, I think it's important to point out that when you're tracking and you have these phone numbers, you need to keep them active long term. Like we're talking over a year. I know we've seen now these are more extreme examples, but we've seen calls come in almost two years later after a mailer's gone out. And if you shut off that phone number or if you choose to repurpose that number for something else, you're gonna be losing out on those long-term leads. So it's really important that you find a company or a system that will supply those numbers and they can kind of just sit in that CRM in a sense forever. And you're not in a situation where you're trying to repurpose them or need them and they can house there for a long time. And that that goes into the compound that that you end up getting with direct mail is as these new calls come in from new mailers hitting the ground, you get more and more of these old calls that come in. And they're typically the really high quality calls. When a person holds on to a mailer for three plus months and they give you a call, it's not to say take me off the list. It's they're ready to sell.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yeah, no, I agree. And I think so. That's that's one side of KPIs. That's tracking response rates and tracking. You should you should definitely. I think we covered what did we cover? We covered kind of sample sizing and timing, right? Volume, time. It is really just to tie that off. You know, it's very easy to overanalyze and underanalyze. You can make jump the gun and make quick decisions and pivot when you really shouldn't. So you got to be careful of that. And you could not track enough. A lot of folks, I think, don't. They'll use one phone number for everything. Yeah, they really just don't know what's working. They kind of have a sense for it, and they're like, okay, I feel like that works, I'll do it again. So that's under analyzing or under tracking. And so there's a sweet spot to it. You don't want to live your life one quarter of a time is really common. So that's a that's a good practice. Kind of moving on to what we're talking about response rates and you know how long calls can come in. That's just one side of tracking. It's probably the easiest, right? Appending a phone number to a mailing list and uh a certain mailer and seeing how it performs on that data. The kind of like next step too is you do want to be able to analyze your deals. You do want to be able to gauge if this high response rate mailer and list combination, you know, as it looks good up front, that stuff is very good during the first 90 to 180 days, you know, four three to six months. Because you need calls, period, you need action to build a pipeline, appointments and contracts and deals. So response rate is key, but over time you do want to evaluate, you know, what is my average call to contract? Like, how well are we converting on all these leads? Or you know, maybe you're getting a low response rate and you're converting really well. Like you want to see that too. So I think the initially you want to focus on response rate, and then okay, these are generating most of our calls. And then once that plays out, that's usually the first 90 days or so with mail at least. You do want to start looking at what is the quality of these calls look like, how long does it take to convert, how profitable are they, um, that sort of thing. So you can you can really start understanding, you know, who you should spend your money on and what you should spend your money on.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Exactly. And that and that leads to um, not that we can be in a perfect world or a theoretical world by any means, but it lets you start projecting how often you're getting deals, which then leads to knowing what your spend is per month to hit that goal. If you're trying to do three deals in a month, or if you're starting out and you're trying to do a deal every other month, it lets you project what your what your marketing spin is going to be. And when you optimize it and you have those those deeper uh metrics, it allows you to plan much better for your entire year. Yeah. And and that's when scaling can be brought up and getting you to that level that you want to be at. And maybe you want to scale forever. Maybe you want to be the biggest person in the state, who knows? Or maybe you just hit your goals that make you happy in life. And we know, hey, my marketing spend is going to be X per month. That's gonna make me hit my goals, pay everybody who's in my company, and keep everybody happy.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah, no, I agree. And like I this kind of relates to it, but with tracking KPIs, you start to understand where you should position your business, if that makes sense. Like, I think a lot of people or investors can relate over 2025. There was a lot of changes in the market, you know, days on market, dispositioning, wholesalers in general, acquisitioning, like all of it just kind of changed. And so we saw a lot of companies kind of revamp how they structured their business. You saw a lot of people go from doing it as uh, I want to make quick money to I want to establish an actual company and put new practices in. But when you track your leads and your deals and not just what's most profitable and what's getting me the most calls, but really understanding like who is my ideal client, you know, is the what worked the last six months, uh is that still working? Like that's really important stuff because if you don't pivot when the market does, as we saw in 2025, a lot of people just get out because they're like, it's not working anymore. No, it's not that it's not working, it's just what you're doing isn't working anymore.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Your your 2024 avatar compared to your 2025 avatar, if you didn't shift that and make adjustments, you probably struggled pretty bad in 2025.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Well, and and an example I wanted to give is like this is a very common call I'm having more recently than not, but it seems like in the past, most people or a lot of investors were focused on I'd say the the broader, like more the volume of investors out there. You know, this isn't everyone, but a lot of folks tend to wholesale and you know it's faster cash conversion cycles or the wholetail. And so I think even top down from different coaching programs and things of that nature, they tend to focus on like the entry-level housing and below, kind of like price ranges, you know, the uh starter type house. And I've noticed that a lot of the folks that did kind of restructure their business, they're tracking a lot more, they're starting to understand who their who their most profitable clients are. It's actually kind of like a segment above that. Like I have a client in Alabama who, after reviewing the last two years, and especially last year, he was like, Look, I was actually making more money focusing on kind of like that low to mid premium price range, you know, like kind of like the all right, we have our starter house, but we're growing a family, we need to move up because we need more space. I want something affordable, not in a terrible area, but something decent and get some extra bang for my buck, you know, because everyone's kind of looking for that with rates and stuff nowadays. So he found that when he pivoted to that, yeah, his response rates went down a little bit less. But his average spread per deal was three times that of having to deal with that kind of lower price range. Um the quality of you know, the the days on market were completely shorter. Like he was averaging, I think, 50, 60, 70 days in some cases on the lower price range stuff. And when he moved just kind of a tier above, I mean, he's like, dude, this stuff will sell within seven days. I just list it.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

And so you also don't have as much competition in that um price range. But what I'm getting at is if you're if you're paying attention by tracking your information and starting to see, like, okay, we get a lot of deals and around this kind of demographic or this kind of like avatar, but we're getting some over here. This one's taking a third of the time, the spreads are three times greater. What would it look like if we actually purposely went after that person? I don't think a lot of people do that. So tracking would help you identify that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

And it's a longer conversation than what we can have in a call today or like a talk right now. But we can go over that stuff with people. Um, we can break down, you know, what they did well with last year, what they did well with the year prior. And maybe you can find out that, you know, your strategy could change a little bit for the better.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah. And I think that kind of wraps up our conversation because we kind of started off with the basics of KPIs, what they are, how to do them, all the way into the deeper thoughts that you just talked about, and how, especially when you get into year two and year three and maybe even year four of your business, if you take the time to track this long term, it can really guide you in what's best for you, your company, and your company's goals. So I just think overall, no matter what stage you're in, if it's your first deal, if you're in year four, tracking your KPIs correctly, it's going to help you in whatever stage of your business you're in. And it's going to help you see that next step that you're trying to take.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

I agree. Yeah, so I think we covered a lot. We went from kind of basics and getting started, um, someone who's new, someone who's been doing it for a long time, uh, more in-depth stuff, and covered most of it, I think.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Yeah, I think so too. And like you said, um, we could go on and on about this and get even more deep. But uh, I don't know about you, but I do have some people who actually are waiting on some calls for me. I got some scheduled calls later. So I'm gonna go have some of these conversations with some real clients, and I'm sure you do too. So I do. Well, hey, good talking to you today.