Pipeline development and pipeline management are two of the most important aspects of your business, if not the most important aspects of your business (other than cash flow management, but that is a function of pipeline management). You can fill your pipeline to the brim, get stuck in fulfillment mode, then completely forget to continue prospecting. Once you're out of fulfillment mode, you look up and realize your pipeline is completely anemic and you don't know where your next project is coming from or when the next check is coming in. Having a pipeline so full that it's bursting at the seams should be the goal of every single business. We do this by constantly adding new people to our outreach sequences, adding new relationships into a nurture campaign, and reaching out to multiple different layers of decision makers inside of every ICP company.

1. Start with a phone call. Email and text are very impersonal and oftentimes lead to no response or very low response rate. While you may have a lower initial outreach output with calls, you can speak with a prospect directly, gain valuable insight, and create follow-up workflows after. 2. Pop ins. Pop-ins are arguably even more impactful than calls, but are extremely time consuming and you run the risk of people not being on site or being completely unavailable. 3. Email. Email is a tried and true method of prospecting for B2B and B2C businesses. It’s extremely effective for shotgun approach lead generation, but very impersonal. Response rates can be low and responses can take a very long time. 4. LinkedIn. Direct messages and comments on LinkedIn are a great way to network with prospects, but with the flood of LinkedIn scrapers and auto-messengers it is getting much more difficult to get to the top of someone’s inbox and pique their interest enough to elicit a response. 5. Networking events. While sometimes costly and time consuming, networking events are a great one (you) to many (owners/managers) outreach tool. The only issue with these is competition. Oftentimes decision makers are bombarded with multiple companies inside of your same niche within a few minutes and for hours on end. 6. Direct mail. Low response rates and price make this a low tier outreach method. While it can be effective when paired with other forms of outreach, mailers by themselves are not a preferred way to generate high quality leads or relationships. 7. Text. FTC regulations make texting harder to do at scale and even harder to do well. There is truly nothing more impersonal than sending a text as a first outreach attempt and many people view texting as more personal than calling. Avoid this until you have permission and have established some type of relationship with a prospect.

Here are a few touch points for: 1. Prospects 2. Current leads (in a sales phase inside of your pipeline) 3. Long term follow up (monthly emails to decision makers) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/searchresults?st=Roofing The FRED is Federal Reserve Economic Data and can be a major source of quality information for both current clients and prospects that show you as an authority figure, someone who is looking out for their best interests, and honestly as a way to justify bids without having to justify bids. The link above shows 37 different data sources that include roofing labor statistics/costs and material costs involved in the roofing industry. These are updated monthly and can be embedded onto your website, email follow up campaigns, and other marketing materials. Although it is pretty boring info, having data like this helps build trust and authority with high level decision makers inside of those companies with $100m+ in assets under management.

I'd recommend everyone try out clodura.ai I've been using this to find the direct contact information for facility managers, property managers, C suite executives, etc. etc. etc. for a while now, but I was convinced the service sucked because of the low price. Now that I've been testing out multiple different AI software on my own, I've realized how powerful this tool is. For about $50 per month, you get an absolute metric sh*t ton of information. Let's take Plymouth REIT as an example. On Reonomy, you can find all of the properties Plymouth owns in your market, but segmenting the correct facilities managers and property managers to speak with is dang near impossible. With clodura you're able to find those people's direct contact information - phone number and email address - and begin the outreach process with very little time spent on finding the correct information. Sure some of the phone numbers and email addresses are crap, but that's part of it. A system like this allows a sales rep inside of your business, or someone like me, to create targeted prospect lists in a very short amount of time and start developing long term relationships with potential clients immediately. Another GREAT source is bounti.ai It's currently being used by a few extremely large property management companies and a few fortune 500 companies. It's a little more intuitive from a marketing perspective, has AI writers for outreach, and a few other components that clodura doesn't, but it is also more expensive. I'll personally be using both for the BD business, but I think the majority of people could utilize clodura if the goal is to keep everything in house. Test them both out when you have a chance! You should be able to get a 2 week trial on both platforms.

1. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs): publicly traded companies that have financial information readily available. example - https://s1.q4cdn.com/498755859/files/doc_financials/2023/AR/MAA-2023-AR-Final.pdf page 36. These annual reports are also a great way to get a pulse on the market. From 2022-2023 MAA experienced a 15% increase in costs related to capital improvements, with a 13% decrease in net income, 7% increase in EBITDA, and one less complex. With inflation, MAA essentially stayed the same year over year with increased development and cap-ex costs. It will be interesting to see what the 2024 annual report shows, especially since we are moving into a new presidency and likely a very different economic environment moving forward. 2. Public Non Listed REITS (PNLRs): large real estate investment companies that typically own and manage their own properties under multiple different entities. On the residential side of the business a great example is Cerberus Capital Management (ownership group) and FirstKey Homes. These are great target clients, but information about them isn't as readily available as it is with the publicly traded REITs. 3. Private REITs: large real estate investment companies that typically own and manage their own properties under multiple different entities, just like the NPLRs. The problem with them is that they have even less information readily available than both public REITs and PNLRs. 4. Property Management Companies: there are an absolute metric sh*t ton of commercial property management companies and they all need jobs completed... regularly. I would suggest finding a niche within the property management space and attacking it hard rather than using a shotgun approach if you're just now beginning your BD journey. Niches by property type: multifamily (Class A, B, C...), single family (mom and pop investors, private equity, REITs), healthcare, office, industrial, HOAs, etc. There are a few other ways to categorize these companies but we'll stick with this for now. 5. Facility managers and building engineers: these are typically the lowest hanging fruit to get into sales situations. They are directly incentivized to ensure the building doesn't have issues, tenant satisfaction stays high, and aid property managers as needed 6. General contractors: new construction, tenant uplifts, etc. Can have long sales cycles, but can also be a great source of recurring business. Install a new roof for these guys and sell the maintenance plan right after. 7. Insurance agents/brokerages: commercial and residential property owners respond to property damages in very different ways. Oftentimes, residential property owners immediately file a claim online or through a 24/7 call center. Other times they wait until a roofer or another service provider to convince them to file a claim, and still have no interaction with their agent. Commercial owners on the other hand, tend to have much better relationships with their agents and will reach out to them first. Being the first call from these agents carries a ton of weight with commercial property owners/managers and will give you a great warm sales opportunity. 8. Real Estate Agents: they're constantly in contact with commercial property investors. Likely a slow burn relationship, but beginning to network with them will pay off in the long run.