---
title: "Building a real deal pipeline, How to Buy a Pool Route"
url: https://poolroutemarketplace.com/learn/buying-a-route/deal-pipeline
description: "Serious buyers don't evaluate one deal at a time, they run a pipeline. A healthy pipeline at any moment looks like:\n\n- 15–25 routes you're tracking passively (m"
lang: en
---

# Building a real deal pipeline

Lesson 8 of 12 · 8 min read

Serious buyers don't evaluate one deal at a time, they run a pipeline. A healthy pipeline at any moment looks like:

\- 15–25 routes you're tracking passively (mailing-list level interest)
\- 5–8 in active conversation with the seller
\- 2–3 under NDA reviewing books
\- 1 under LOI

That ratio matters because **70% of deals die between LOI and close** for reasons that have nothing to do with you: seller's spouse vetoes the sale, financials fall apart in diligence, a key account cancels, the seller decides to "wait one more year." If your pipeline is one deal deep, you're one bad day away from starting over.

**How to build it.** Spend 2–3 hours a week on sourcing forever, not just when you're shopping. Subscribe to broker email lists. Join 3–4 regional Facebook groups. Set Google Alerts for "pool route for sale" + your metro. Cold-email pool service owners over 55 in your county, many are quietly thinking about retiring and have never listed.

**Track in a CRM** (even a spreadsheet works): seller name, route size, asking, recurring %, last contact, next action. Buyers without a tracking system forget to follow up, and most routes sell to whoever stays top of mind for six months, not whoever offers the most on day one.

## Quick check

\1. Roughly what % of deals die between LOI and close?

\2. What's the danger of evaluating one deal at a time?

\3. Why does staying top-of-mind matter for cold sellers?

\4. Healthy LOI-to-close conversion expectation?

\5. Why does pipeline depth lower price paid?

\6. Order the deal-pipeline stages.

1. 1 Closed
2. 2 Qualified conversation
3. 3 Sourced lead
4. 4 LOI signed
5. 5 Diligence complete

Earn 42 points

Mark this lesson complete

← Previous lesson: https://poolroutemarketplace.com/learn/buying-a-route/buyer-mindset
Next lesson →: https://poolroutemarketplace.com/learn/buying-a-route/remote-vs-local

## Structured data

```json
[
  {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Pool Route Marketplace",
    "url": "https://poolroutemarketplace.com",
    "logo": "https://poolroutemarketplace.com/favicon.png"
  },
  {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "WebSite",
    "name": "Pool Route Marketplace",
    "url": "https://poolroutemarketplace.com",
    "potentialAction": {
      "@type": "SearchAction",
      "target": "https://poolroutemarketplace.com/browse?q={search_term_string}",
      "query-input": "required name=search_term_string"
    }
  }
]
```