Prospecting rarely fails loudly. It fails when a call block gets skipped twice and a promising owner never hears from you again. A pipeline you track weekly shows what is broken while there is still time to fix it.

This lesson pulls the course together: the CRM, your funnel, and a 90-day plan. It builds on The Prospecting Operating System, Choosing Your Farm and Cold Calling Commercial Owners. For the buyer-side version of a weekly routine, see Building Your Sourcing System in Course 09.

Set up the CRM before you dial

Any customer relationship manager (CRM) works if it holds one record per owner, lets you tag, and reminds you. A spreadsheet is fine for the first 100 owners. Every record needs a stage and a dated next step.

Use the nine pipeline stages from Lesson 1. Each stage has an exit test, so a record only moves when something real happened.

Stage	Name	A record is in this stage when
1	Suspect	Owner of record identified and the property fits your farm
2	Contacted	First touch made and logged (call, mail, email)
3	Conversation	You spoke with the decision-maker, not a gatekeeper
4	Appointment set	A specific date, time and place is on both calendars
5	Appointment held	You met the owner and gathered the facts, and your broker opinion of value (BOV) is in progress
6	Listing signed	Signed agreement with a definite expiration date
7	On market	Offering memorandum (OM) and marketing are live
8	Under contract	Accepted offer and signed contract
9	Closed	Deed recorded, with a referral ask made

An owner who is not ready does not leave the pipeline. Keep the record at its stage, add a nurture tag, and set a follow-up date with a reason, such as a lease expiry or a loan maturity window. Course 22 owns the work from a booked appointment through closing.

Required fields and tags

Group	Fields
Identity	Owner name, entity name, Sunbiz document number, decision-maker, verified phone and email, mailing address
Property	Address, county, DOR land-use code, building SF, land SF
Facts learned	Lease expiry, remaining NNN term, loan maturity (mark "inferred" if guessed), last sale date, motive
Product tag	NNN, small-bay flex, warehouse and distribution, industrial outdoor storage (IOS), light manufacturing, multi-tenant retail, medical office or land
Farm tag	Farm name, for example "Seminole small-bay flex" or "Polk single-tenant NNN"
Tier tag	A, B or C, from Lesson 3
Signal tags	Long hold, absentee, estate, owner-user, vacancy, loan window, 1031 history
Work fields	Stage, last touch, next step, next-step date, nurture tag, do-not-contact flag, source and date pulled

What to log after every touch

A touch is any outreach: a call, a voicemail, a letter, an email, a LinkedIn note. Log it within five minutes, while you remember it.

Date, channel and who: who answered, and whether it was the decision-maker
Outcome: no answer, gatekeeper, conversation, opt-out
What you learned: lease term, loan, condition, yard or power needs, motive, timing
Next step and date: never leave a record blank
Opt-out status: if they said stop, flag it the same day

Set a task for every record in stages 2 through 4, plus every nurture tag. Your morning starts with the task list, not with a guess about whom to call.

Keep seller information confidential

Owners tell you things they have not told their tenants or lenders. Treat that as protected.

Keep owner plans in the CRM only. Do not paste them into group chats, social posts or shared calendars.
Never put an owner's name or plan in an email subject line, a text, or a voicemail left with a gatekeeper.
Do not repeat what one owner told you to another owner.
Ask your broker of record when your duty to protect confidential information begins.

The weekly scorecard

Fill this in every Friday, once per farm and once in total. It holds the six numbers from Lesson 1 plus three activity inputs (owners researched, mail and email touches, and referral contacts). The sample targets below are examples of how to set targets, not benchmarks. Replace them with your own numbers after four to six weeks of data.

Metric	Sample weekly target	How the target was set
Dials	125	25 per day x 5 days
Conversations with a decision-maker	10	8% of dials, an assumption
Appointments set	1	About 10% of conversations: Lesson 1's 5% base rate lifted by mail and referral warm-ups, an assumption
Appointments held	1	Some will reschedule
Owners researched	20	Keeps tier A refilled
Mail and email touches	50	One wave per farm per week
Referral contacts	2	Coffee, call or site visit
Listings signed	Track monthly	Too lumpy to target weekly
Pipeline value	Track weekly	Sum of estimated value at Appointment held or later, until closed

Pipeline value is the estimated sale price of properties at Appointment held or later, not your commission. Count only owners who have met you.

Diagnose where the funnel leaks

Your funnel is dials, conversations, appointments set, appointments held, then listings signed. Find the weakest step and fix only that step.

Leak	What you see	Likely cause	Fix
Dials without conversations	125 dials, 2 conversations	Bad numbers, wrong hours, no mail warming the list	Verify numbers against the Sunbiz manager and the mailing address. Call owner-users 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mail tier A before you call.
Conversations without appointments	Good talks, no dates	No specific ask, or an ask for a listing instead of a look	Ask for 20 minutes at the building or yard, with two time options. See Lesson 6.
Appointments without listings	Appointments held, no signatures	Pricing gap, weak underwrite, no clear next step	Rebuild the BOV and net sheet before the appointment. Use Course 22, Lesson 4.

Two cautions. First, do not judge a leak on fewer than 100 dials or 5 appointments, because small samples swing wildly. Second, judge each farm on its own. Industrial owner-users and single-tenant NNN investors answer different questions, so they will leak at different steps.

The weekly review and the monthly farm review

Friday review, 60 minutes

Fill in the scorecard, the same Friday 1:00 to 2:00 review from Lesson 1, and compare it to the sample targets you set.
Find the weakest funnel step and write one change for next week.
Clear every overdue task. Either do it or move it with a reason.
Move stale contacts: no touch in 30 days gets a nurture date or a new next step.
Load next week: the 125 names you will dial (Lesson 1), the five best tier A owners to research, and two site visits.

Monthly farm review, 60 minutes

Contactable rate: what share of the farm has a verified decision-maker?
Conversation rate by farm: industrial against NNN, side by side.
Tier shifts: who moved up because of a signal, who dropped off?
Farm decision: deepen it, widen it, or drop it. Never widen before the current list is worked.

The 90-day plan

This plan is practice-based, not a promised result. Commercial deals often take many months to close, so a rookie should plan for no commission in the first 90 days. The goal is a working system and your first listing appointments.

Weeks	Focus	Deliverables
1-2	Set up and learn	Pick one industrial farm and one NNN farm. Set up the CRM. Read the cap rate comps and the market reports. Skim Course 17 for industrial and Course 13 for NNN. Learn your county's vacancy, rent and cap-rate ranges.
3-4	Tier A list and script	Pull, dedupe and score a 250 to 400 owner list from public records, split about evenly between the two farms, and verify contacts for your first tier A owners (Lesson 3). Pick your first five referral names (Lesson 6). Write one script per farm. Role-play them and make about 40 practice dials on tier B.
5-8	Call and mail blocks	Daily call block, weekly mail wave, first market note. Target about one appointment set per week.
9-12	Refine and prepare	Drop weak lists. Second mail wave. Referral coffees or calls at two a week (Lesson 6). Ask every conversation for a referral. Prepare your first BOV or listing appointment with Course 22.

A daily schedule for a rookie

This day sits inside the weekly blocks from Lesson 1. The afternoon changes by day.

Time	Block	Notes
8:30 to 9:15	Task list and CRM	Start from due tasks
9:30 to 11:30	Call block	25 dials, protected time
11:30 to 12:00	Logging and one-to-one follow-up	Hand-written emails only
1:00 to 3:00 or 4:00	Afternoon block	Mon and Thu research, Tue referral coffee or site visit, Wed outreach production, Fri weekly review, appointment prep and learning
End of the afternoon	Follow-up and tomorrow's list	Send what you promised, log it, retry no-answers at a different hour, and pick the 25 owners you will call tomorrow

The two-hour call block is the part you protect. Everything else can flex.

Common rookie mistakes

Mistake	Why it hurts	Avoid it by
No farm	Every call starts from scratch and nothing compounds	Commit to two farms for 90 days
No follow-up	Most owners need repeated touches before they talk	Give every record a dated next step
Over-researching	Perfect lists with no calls	Research 20 owners a week, call the rest
Skipping mail	Cold calls land colder	Send a letter or market note before you dial tier A
Quitting at week 6	Mail and calls are working, but appointments lag	Stay on the plan through week 12, then judge the data

The week 5 to 8 stretch is the hardest. You are dialing daily and the results have not arrived yet. In practice and experience, this is where many rookies stop, after paying for the work and before the payoff.

Compliance and confidentiality reminders

Prospecting touches several laws, and the answers are not always settled. Calling hours, hand-dialing, DNC scrubbing, opt-outs, recording, and exclusive listings are covered in Lesson 4. Email, advertising, and brokerage-name rules are in Lesson 5, and referral-fee rules are in Lesson 6. Confirm every point with your broker of record and a Florida attorney before your first dial. This is education, not legal advice.

Build the rules into your CRM so you do not depend on memory:

A do-not-contact flag that you check before every task, set the same day as any stop request
A source and date on every phone number and email
The licensed name: MaxLife's licensed brokerage name on file with FREC is MaxLife Realty LLC. Use "MaxLife Commercial, a division of MaxLife Realty LLC" in every ad, and have your broker confirm the exact format

Never claim a buyer you do not have, a closing that was not yours, or a price or timeline you cannot support, and never call a BOV "free." The full list is in Lesson 4.

When you land the appointment

Move the record to Appointment set and act within 24 hours. Here is one confirmation per product line.

"Thank you for making time. I will meet you at the building Thursday at 10 and walk the bays with you. I will bring recent sales and lease comparables for small-bay flex in Seminole County. If it helps, send me the rent roll beforehand, and I will keep it confidential."

"Thank you for making time. I will call you Tuesday at 2 about your single-tenant NNN property in Polk County. If you can send the lease and any amendments beforehand, I will review the remaining term and rent steps, and I will keep it all confidential."

Then hand off to Course 22:

Run the Listing Appointment Prep Checklist for the packet.
Follow The Pre-Appointment Packet for what to request from the owner.
Build the underwrite, BOV and net sheet in Lesson 4, using the Seller Net Sheet Calculator.
Bring the commercial listing presentation to the appointment.

If the owner says "not ready," add a nurture tag and a quarterly update, and never push.

A worked example (illustrative numbers, not market data)

Meet Dana, a rookie farming two areas. Farm 1 is Seminole County industrial, meaning small-bay flex and light industrial owners. Farm 2 is Polk County single-tenant NNN owners. Every figure below is an assumption for teaching, not a result from MaxLife Commercial or a benchmark. It uses Lesson 1's 8% of dials becoming conversations and 20% of held appointments becoming listings, and it assumes mail and referral warm-ups lift conversations-to-appointments from Lesson 1's 5% to 10%.

Phase	Weeks	Dials	Conversations	Set	Held	Signed
Setup and list	1-4	40	3	0	0	0
Call and mail	5-8	500	40	4	3	0
Refine and referrals	9-12	500	46	5	5	1
Total	1-12	1,040	89	9	8	1

The arithmetic behind the middle rows, using the assumptions above:

Weeks 5-8: 4 weeks x 125 dials = 500 dials. 500 x 8% = 40 conversations. 40 x 10% = 4 appointments set. One reschedules into week 9, so 3 are held.
Weeks 9-12: 500 dials x 8% = 40 conversations, plus 6 from referrals and mail replies = 46. Five are set. The 5 held are 4 of those plus the 1 carried over from week 8, and the fifth set slides past day 90.
Funnel from the totals: 89 conversations and 9 set is about 10%. 8 held and 1 signed is 1 in 8.

Pipeline value at day 90, using assumed sale prices:

Seminole small-bay flex, listing signed, 11,000 SF x $150 per SF = $1,650,000
Polk single-tenant NNN pad, BOV in progress, $2,200,000
Seminole 8,000 SF industrial owner-user building, BOV in progress, 8,000 SF x $150 per SF = $1,200,000
Pipeline value = $1,650,000 + $2,200,000 + $1,200,000 = $5,050,000

If the signed listing later sold at $1,650,000, use Lesson 1's assumptions: a 4% total fee, split evenly between the listing side and the buyer side, with a 50% split of the listing side. $1,650,000 x 4% = $66,000, / 2 = $33,000 for the listing side, x 50% = $16,500 for Dana. That is an illustration of the math. Fees are negotiable and closings take months, so none of it lands inside 90 days.

Dana's diagnosis: 1,040 dials produced 89 conversations, about 8.6%, which matches Lesson 1's 8%. Nine appointments from 89 conversations is about 10%, also on the lifted plan. The weakest step against plan is 8 held to 1 signed, which is 12.5% against the assumed 20%. Eight appointments is a small sample, so Dana keeps the dial volume steady and tightens the BOV and pricing work in Course 22 rather than adding more dials.

Key takeaways

Give every record a stage, a tag set and a dated next step
Log every touch within five minutes
Fill in the scorecard each Friday and fix only the weakest funnel step
Protect a two-hour call block and back it with a weekly mail wave
Stay on the plan through week 12 before you judge the results
Follow the calling, recording, email, advertising and referral rules, and confirm them with your broker
Move every booked appointment into the Course 22 packet within 24 hours

Next: Course complete. Continue with winning the listing in Course 22 and negotiation in Course 12.

Pipeline Tracking and Your First 90 Days