Real estate cold calling consistency, attorney referrals, and marketing strategy for probate leads

 Probate cold calling reluctance, attorney referrals, and marketing strategy for probate leads | Weekly Coaching | Episode 104

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0:00 Probate Workshop - Live Training (Live Events)

3:17 Daily real estate prospecting and consistency (Real Estate Coaching)

17:20 HELOC vs. Reverse Mortgage (Accessing Equity)

19:27 Pitching Attorneys for Real Estate Referrals - Perceived Value (Probate Attorneys)

28:10 Probate advance and guardianships (Probate Sales)

31:54 Real Estate Investing Referrals from attorneys (Real Estate Investing Tips)

33:04 Probate marketing strategy: Scrubbing lists, calling old leads, and market size (Probate Marketing)

43:25 Probate cold call objections: We already have an attorney (Probate Process)

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Transcript

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0:19

Hey, good afternoon. Welcome to the Probate Mastery Alumni Weekly Coaching call. I'm Bill Gross, and I am a graduate of the Probate Mastery Program, or a CPE, certified probate expert. and I, I participated with the program because I need this every week to improve my business. So this calls designed to help those people who are looking to build their real estate business in probate, whether you're investor or you're a real estate agent, and the idea being if you're looking at business every day, every week is about encountering new problems and solving them. And by working together, we both can refer business across the country as well. We can help each other along the way. So what I think are common problems I find regularly, kinda the same problems people run into. And by doing this call, I can assure you I do my own call on Thursdays, probably weekly, where it's more interview based, but the challenge is basically the same thing people experience over and over. I often ask them, can we share it on the call so we can grow together and learn together. Before I go on, I just wanted to share one thing was upcoming, an opportunity. If you go to the Facebook group, probate Mastery Alumni, um, or you go to the Probate Mastery website, you'll see a link for a new program, which will be live on Wednesday, on December 14th, so a week from tomorrow at 4:00 PM pacific

Time, 7: 1:38

00 PM Eastern Time. Chad Corbett is gonna do a probate problems workshop and the cost for that is a hundred dollars. But for graduates of the Probate Mastery program, instead of a hundred dollars, you get a coupon, uh, $90 coupon. The cost is $10. I think I got that right Katt, right? We got I that correct? Yep. That's the right pricing. But it's a one time workshop. There you go. It's one time. If it goes well, it'll be more than one time. I'll bet. So let's make it good and so it's more than one time. Yeah, we already have 48 registrants, so make sure you guys get registered. I imagine we might end up upgrading our Zoom so that way we can accommodate more people since we're already approaching. A hundred is much. Yeah. So, which is good because that means we should do more live workshops like this on different topics. I think you're right. Mm-hmm.. Wow. How about that? Okay. How about that news flash! Katt is right. Those you watching. Katt is right. Okay. So yeah, send Off the Wind Blinds is not a good look for me. I don't know what to do today. It's a little late now that I know that noon is not a good spot here. I didn't check the lighting ahead. Time. I, I have a new video set up to do more of these kinds of calls. I've got a new computer, new screens, new audio, all brand new stuff, kind of start at a great year. Wanted to enjoy that new desk actually. and I thought how nice in front of the natural light, enjoy it, but, uh, a little too much natural light coming through the shade. So we'll have to figure out how to deal. So, um, let's jump into the purpose of the call is to help us all do more business. I'd love to share some things around my business, but I was chatting before we started with Bud, and this is a common challenge people have and he was nice enough to agree, uh, after I twisted his arm to share with you guys. So be what's going on, how can we help you? Well, I'm trying to get serious about making consistent calls. How's that after six years and ATL is, I'm still challenged with consistency and, uh, I started their program with the three letters, sending out three letters each month and having them do it for me. And that's helped me get, uh, the onus on my back to make the calls to follow up after the letters get out. But I was just looking at my November and, uh, you know, in a month I only dialed 75 probate files and I talked to 22 and I got one appointment. And it's still outstanding. Some of these are two or three step type appointments, but you know, it's, uh, it's really not a problem with the system. It's a problem with me doing the system probably and being consistent on a regular basis every day. That's it. Well, and I think when you track your numbers, you know, I, I've done a lot of coaching my career with real estate agents in particular on phone call dialing. I feel like I'm an expert in, and I often feel like a doctor. You know, when you go to the doctor's office, first thing they do is check your temperature, your blood pressure, your um, heart rate, the basic fundamentals to be able to assess. And so with phone calling, keeping your numbers creates a possibility for improvement. So, but just real quick, you said 75 dials, how many leads did you have? Is that you had 75 leads you dialed once? Or is it 25 leads you dialed through three times. You know, it, at the beginning of a month I may have 71 filings and we scrub them and by the time they write the letters, uh, later this week we'll have 32 letters that go out. And then it's a matter of calling those 32 as quick as I can after the letter's out. So, and then I'll jump over to the ones that were, uh, sent out, uh, in the first part of November. And, you know, that's when from 80 to 40 to 80 to 40. And, uh, October 65, down to 32, down to 35. So I keep going through'em until I, you know, I've eliminated the ones that weren't gonna sell or, or never reached, you know, and yeah, I've, I've got a massive file of people I never call back the second time. I can tell. So just the numbers you gave me, you have a hundred something, total piece of data, not, I wouldn't call them leads. You have a hundred something contacts, of which you've only dialed 75. So you do the math, you have a hundred contacts, you've dialed 75, you haven't dialed them all each even once, let alone twice or three times. Yeah, you're right. So from a business point of view, and again, the thing that I want to emphasize, the word I wanna emphasize is for those of us who wanna build a business, you know, I'm not looking for a job. I'm self-employed and have a business in real estate. If you just chase a commission check over and over again, you're really just a high paid perhaps or no low paid commission employee, paying yourself maybe, or being paid by your broker. But when you create a business, you have both. Economic value and long term equity that you're building in your business. And so one of the things you're building, if you build a business, is that the population of people who aren't yet have not yet done business with you, but are going to. And so you have a hundred and something people that you've spent the time to mail, you haven't called 'em all once. I would say you should at least dial through those, you know, make a minimum three attempts per contact. So let me ask you a couple questions. Also, when you dial them, how many times has you let the phone ring and do you leave messages every time? if they have a message machine, I'll leave a message. So, which means you're letting it dial until it picks up. So you're letting it dial sometimes seven, eight, and nine times. So here's what I recommend. The fundamentals of phone calling would be hang up before the fourth ring and never leave messages. I would attempt the same data three times. If it's somebody you know now that, not these calls, if you're calling your sphere of influence, I would leave a message after the third attempt. Okay. But, but on these calls, I would not bother ever leaving a message. Yeah. I They never, they never do call back. But I, well, I, I'll say this, that I've gotten more callbacks in my career, from people that I didn't leave messages for than I ever got business from leaving messages. Mm-hmm. of strangers. Now again, we're not talking about people you know, sphere of influence, past clients.. But for strangers, so you'll get more dials per hour in and more contacts per hour if you only let it ring three times or hang up before the fourth because. I don't about you, but when you run to the phone and you pick it up after the fourth or fifth ring, if it's a cold call, you're never gonna be interested. But If I'm at my desk and, and I've got nothing else going on, or I'm just sitting there watching something, I'm watching my grandson and I, whatever I'm driving, the phone rings, I might be interested to talk to somebody. But if it's ringing four times, it means by definition I'm not really interested. Mm-hmm., so, so of the money you spent, and if you have a hundred and something piece of data you sent, spent at least a couple hundred dollars in mail, three, four, $500 in mail, sure. But you're not getting the maximum value by contacting them. So I would definitely urge you to, and this would just be the fundamentals. I mean, you're gonna call, call, make three attempts you might consider changing when you make your attempts. Like you, if you dial Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at nine o'clock. You never get anybody who's not available at nine o'clock on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Maybe they play golf on Mondays, maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Maybe they play tennis. Maybe they, they go to school then, but they're waiting for your phone call at five o'clock. So you might consider dialing them all through and then maybe once a week, have a afternoon session or once a week, have an evening session or once a month, have a weekend session to capture all those. You never got to, to recycle the data, but I definitely encourage you to hang up before the fourth ring, not to leave messages and to get to all of 'em. The same time you spent 75 dials, you could probably get 150 to two hundred dollars. You talk to more people. But look at the numbers. 75 dials, 22 contacts. So I'm gonna guess 22 contacts use about four or five hours total for an appointment. Now did that appointment turn to a contract or was it something you met with? It's, uh, you know, so many times with the probates here. e I don't get a commitment. Usually they're gonna have to deal with their family. They're gonna have to get somebody kicked outta the house. They gotta, then we gotta help'em through the estate sale process to clean out, you know, uh, and sometimes these drag on for several months before we actually, from first contact, before we ever list the house. So what will happen is, cuz this is another mathematical issue, is we look at these numbers and say, oh I got nothing out of it. Well that's like, that's like taking land Now I've never farmed, just to be be clear here, the only food I've ever eaten I buy in the store. But it'd be like the equivalent of taking a piece of farm land and tilling it and throwing in the seeds and pushing the dirt over the top. Maybe watering it one day and going, well gee that didn't grow any corn. I'm gonna give up on it. Right? Farmers make money because they know the cycle and they work that cycle time. And so I'd say to you is the, here's a good question. Anybody would put the chat box, what do you think the average lead time is for somebody who decides they wanna buy or sell a house for the time they start the process? And this is track book cuz we have data now where people go into a website, you can capture day one and then if you close a deal with it, you put the closing date. Now we know when they closed an actual transaction or companies have studied this, put the chat box if would. What do you think the average, um, you know, gestation time period is of a lead from initial inquiry until close sale. Go ahead and put it in the chat box what you think that is. If you're watching on their replay, go ahead and put that in the chat box as well. I'm gonna give you guys just a second. Put it in. What's the average time buyer or sell? It turns out, interestingly enough, they're about the same. And so we're real estate people. We assume we hang up the phone with them. They're ready to sell a house. 18 months, two, three years, two, three months, three months, six months, four months. Okay, well, thanks for the answer. So the average was a great study done by Boom Town, which is one of the top cRM products, customer relationship management products designed for real estate agents where you would advertise, these come into their system, they contract day one, and then you'd use it and then you'd end up closing up the transaction in that crm. And they did a study of their customers and the average was two years. And here's the other point is obviously it skews short because any day you count, there are other people in your pipeline who are gonna buy next year. So it's, it's only longer. So that's a problem if you're an employee, but if you're a business, you're building the equity value of your business. So in Bud's case, 75 dials, 22 contacts is about, I'm guessing, at his pace, probably five hours work. If we put it all together, probably. Mm-hmm. be, but if you, you know, now it would be only three hours work if you followed my rule, hang up for the fourth ring, no messages, and then recycle date every 90 days. But look what happened here. In five hours, he has one appointment. The next question is, what percentage of appointments become money or a contract we get paid on? And if you tracked it over time, you'll know your numbers. My numbers are, uh, two appointments, one closing. Mm-hmm.. But it, but that takes a year because I'll go into appointments a year ago that I'm now closing. I'll go to appointments this month. That won't close until next year. But here's the thing. If my average commission is, say, $20,000, two appointments is one closing. So he has $10,000 of commissions, perhaps, and his numbers are different than mine, but you need to know your number. So, but what's your average commission on your deal? It's about 6,000 around here, uh, Omaha, Nebraska, because again, these are Joe lunch bucket houses. They're not the top of the line, you know, market average prices. So usually, They're about 200 grand type houses. They get about 3% about, uh, 6,000. Okay? So 6,000. So I, I use personally, when I look at marketing budget, I look at about 25% to 30% of the gross as, as the sales dollars. Cause you have other expenses in your business. So $6,000, maybe it's 1800 bucks, $1,800 for, for one appointment is half of a closing is $900. So in my calculation, he spent four, five hours for about $900 of commission. And with all respect, he's not that good at it yet. Meaning if you did this day after day after day, your skill would go up, your product per hour would go up. So five hours instead of $900 might be five hours to two or $3,000. So, so let me ask you a question. Nine hours to buy, I'm sorry,$900 divided by five is. Gosh, but you know, look, uh, four 50, uh, $45 an hour. No. Is that right? What's hundred $80? A hundred? So is $180 an hour a good gross revenue number for you? Sure. I think, yeah. What if you could double it to 360 per hour? Yeah, yeah. By getting more productive on this. So you see how these numbers start to work in your advantage when you track 'em. You know, one more thing I wanna bounce off you is a thing that slows me down, and I do it intentionally because I'm dealing with people going through warning or an estate is i'll, you know, with two screens, I'll pop up the county assess or the MLS and the, uh, ATL data, and I'll take a look at all three, figure out the neighborhood, kind of the value, what's the house like, and then I'll call. So it takes me a few minutes and I'm probably, you're gonna probably tell me I'm wasting time. I might as well just dial blind. I don't like dialing blind, you know, it's like I, I'm not making an emotional connection with him. But, uh, you know, if this is a South Omaha house or is it a West Omaha house? House? I don't know. What do you think? Just quit. Get off that crap and, and just dial You said it. Okay. You know the answer. I think, I think the answer is, look, that's why I have a new fashion computer with three screens. I'm, you know, if I'm talking to somebody on one, I've got data on both sides. Uh, as I'm talking to 'em, I can look things up real quick, but the, a relationship has to start somewhere. And it doesn't, you know, it doesn't start by knowing everything about the person. It's part of the process is discovering them while you talk to them also. So I would say no. Make the phone calls again at 180 an hour. Is it worth making phone calls? Well, what if you were better at it and it was three, six an hour? How many phone calls would you make? You know, another thing I wanna throw in here, I get lazy. 90% of the stuff I sell are direct referrals from attorneys, you know, after being in this several years. Mm-hmm. the same attorneys will refer people to me and I get lazy and spoiled. So that's why I don't sometimes don't have to make calls cuz stuff's coming in anyway. And that's, that's not a good way to operate, is it? Well, I think it's, I wouldn't just judge. I think it really gets down to you and what your goals are and if you're happy with what you have, then I wouldn't worry about it. I, I don't think I'd feel guilty that I'm, I'm successful. I mean, the things I don't do now that I used to have to do. I don't cold call for three hours a day cuz I don't have too much, I have enough now incoming leads that I'm, that I'm scrambling to service that I don't make as many outbound calls, uh, as I used to and as aggressive as I used to. And, and, you know, frankly, I'd rather have the time off and spend, you know, I, I work a good, a good work effort, but I, you know, I don't do that. But I also structure my business. I don't have to, again, it depends on your goal Here, my goal is have a business, so at the end of the day, a business you could sell and still get revenue from it or have that equity that I can invest and get paid from that. Okay. Well I appreciate your time, bill. Thank you. Thank you bud. Thanks so much. Okay, next up I see is Alex. Alex, how can we help you? Um, actually, I was wondering if, is it possible for a senior citizen widowed, um, making a low on a fixed, on a low fixed, uh, income, is it possible for someone like that to access the equity in their property that they already own outright, maybe like their, uh, HeLOCK. Well, like reverse mortgage. Um, I, I don't know how much about reverse mortgages, but I was like the home, uh, home equity line of credit, if that's what fits in there. Yeah, well there's, there's several types of home equity line of credit when you qualify for when you don't, and similarly, there's several types of reverse mortgages. Some are loans and some are lines of credit. But I would, but the, a reverse mortgage by definition is somebody gets approved for a mortgage, they don't have to make payments on it if they don't have the income, that would be the right fit. So I would urge you to take a look at reverse mortgages as a, as a tool that might help your client. Alex, what do you, where do you sell real estate? Texas, and the client right now is actually my mom. I figured I'll, you know, if anybody else come across, you know, something like this, that they, you know, something they can have in their pocket and. Yeah, no, I guess I work with reverse mortgages a lot. It sounds like the perfect tool for you to investigate. If there's anybody in the call that has reverse mortgage contact information, feel free to share with Alex or Alex. If you wanna go on the Probate Mastery group afterwards, I'd be glad to put my contact info there. Reach out to me. I'd be glad to introduce you to a couple people I work with. But that's the nature of the product is designed for seniors who have equity and have no, have no source of income or very limited, and they'll have to make payments and they can advance some of that money and use it to move, use it for healthcare, use it for whatever they want. Investments. Exactly, exactly. Okay. Awesome. Thank you very much, bill. My pleasure, Alex. Nice meeting you. Okay, who else do we have next up? I see Eddie. Eddie, what's going on? Let's get you un muted. How's it going, bill? Uh, great man. How you. I have an, I have a meeting on Thursday with, so when I go through the record, like my leads, I look at who the attorneys are and who handles a lot the probate cases here in Kansas City. And so I have a meeting with probably one of the largest or most common, probate attorneys this week. I haven't taken the class, uh, how to get referrals from attorneys yet. Uh, last week I had asked about it. I just haven't had time to get on it. But in the past when I've tried to get attorney referrals, I've given them business and when I'm like, Hey, look like we talk about what I do, they're like, oh, you're, we by ugly houses people. That's all you do. And they won't even gimme the time of day to. Describe that. Last week on the call, you said maybe they would give me education, which I see valuable for a little bit of time, but I'm, I mean, referrals are what I'm going for, and I didn't know if you had advice on what's, you know, I got 30 minutes. So what specifically is gonna be important to share with them, to be like, Hey look, this guy can give referral, you know, is somebody that we trust to want to give business to. I say a couple points I would focus you on. One of my frustrations has been that it takes so much more to get business from attorneys. Than I've given to them. Um, now, frankly, if you go through life judging relationships that way, life becomes very, um, painful, right? I mean, you, I, I don't feel that way about my daughter. I've given her a lot more than she's given me. But it's worth it cuz in the long run, by giving my daughter, I've helped make her a better person. And that's what I have to take value out of. So that's the nature of relationships, is we make more deposits than we get out of it. And we have to understand that going in, that the relationship is a, is a process. It's not a destination. And I say second, when you start the relationship, um, you have to start it with, you know, what can I do to help you so that we can do more business together and look for those opportunities. Um, I, you know, when you start with, well, how can I get business from you? How can I get referrals from you? Would nobody, nobody, everybody, when they have referrals, feels good they can give it to, to benefit somebody. But another request for referrals just becomes one more stress for my life. But when you can solve a problem, um, then all of a sudden I'm more interested in doing business with you. I give a couple title orders to a title company. I'm looking for a title representative to help me build my business. And so I've talked a couple people, a couple different companies. I'm not ready to commit to them yet, but in the process, I gave one to one and one to another to say, look, I'd like to get started with you. I'm serious. I have business to refer. Um, and I'd like to see what you can do for me. And if they respond, great, and if they don't, I suspect I'll go. Five or 10 to find the one that I'm looking for. That's the nature of the business. But for the business I've given out to tell companies the last couple years, I would think I would get more support on my businesses in return. That's the nature of relationships. You're always working together to try to improve your own business. So I don't have a short answer for you. I think, you know, it can be frustrating, um, but you need to focus on what you can do for them such that they'll want you to work with their clients. Right. I had a client for me, a lead the other day and not giving me a listing. They're giving me a, a lead of somebody who has to sell a property and this particular person was taking advantage of. I talked to them a couple weeks ago, uh, and they didn't make a strong referral then they just said, you know, I'll have this guy call you. And I called him and, and she was kind of valuing with the other agents. Three weeks go by. Outta town. She discovers that some, somebody didn't squat her house, but they leased her property to somebody illegally without her permission, because nothing got done. She didn't really pay attention to what was going on. And as a result, now, um, she has a problem and she now she wants to talk to me and needs my help. So I think the goal here is for you to talk to the attorney in a way that makes them appreciate the value of working with you. So let me just ask you, what can you do? Imagine I'm an attorney. What can you do for me to help me with my business such that I'd wonder for you my probate clients? Well, the, there's a lot of uses that I've had reasons to refer attorneys is, you know, People come to me before they even get started in probate, need a probate attorney they needed to trust after they're done with it. They need their title cleaned up, they need a quiet title. Uh, those are all reasons that I would refer it out. But the, the reason that I've seen my business be valuable to attorneys is that the attorney doesn't have to deal with little things that these clients need. And the way that I've created my company is like fully concierge. So the way that Bud was talking, you know, getting a 3% commission, like I charge more commission, but then handle everything and charge. So like, set up that estate sale, do the clean out, do the cleaning of the house, have maintenance done on the yard, all those things. It's like the full service. So their client doesn't have to go to each individual place, to do that. And then stop for a second. Stop for a second. So notice what you're saying is the client doesn't have to, often the attorney doesn't care. I understand that. And the reason is because when I make all these calls to these people, they're like, oh, my attorney has everything handled. And so when, that's how a lot of these people assume it is for the first part of the, the sale. And then they're like, wait, the attorney doesn't have everything handled. Now I've gotta do something. And it goes from the attorney to back on the people's plate, and the people are like, now what am I supposed to do? And now you have an unhappy customer attorney relationship. I agree with you. But from the attorney's perspective, you have to focus on what do they, what do they perceive the problem to be? You might be. You might be right, that they're, they, they wrongly expect the customer to handle it. The customer wrongly expects attorney to handle it. And three months after they picked some other real estate agent, the customer's the happy attorney and vice versa. That's a common experience. But you're talking about presale the attorney has to perceive. Why should I wanna work with you presale? that's the opportunity that you wanna get their attention at. What can you do before the client signed on with me to help me get that sale or that, you know, that new client signed up and what value do you create From my practice, I don't perceive the customer's frustration really being that important to me. That's the reality for most of them. I've never had attorney say to me, we take a concierge approach and handle all that for our clients. And our clients appreciate it. You and I know they should. That's just not my experience. I've never, I don't see it in their marketing. I haven't seen it in their videos. I've never heard those words uttered from the lips of attorney in my experience. I'm not saying they don't. I'm just saying I don't have that experience. So don't sell what they don't appreciate. My question to you is, what are you, and I know you do, I just don't think you've really thought through. What value do you create for the journey that they should choose to work with you and that they'll perceive as v aluable? so I'll give you a couple hint. So a couple areas we have to ask questions of a prospect. When we go in with a toolbox and we start lifting each tool, here's a hammer. Here's why you should use me. I have a great hammer, I have a great screwdriver, a great set of PLIs. That's kind of boring cuz they only care about one tool in your toolbox. So first thing I would say is you need to ask them what they're looking. Ask a lot of questions, and in your toolbox they might identify one problem. Gee, I wish I had better screwdriver. Oh, I have a great screwdriver Of all things you do, that's the one they care about. You're looking for the one they care about in a selling environment. So I would say, number one, you'd ask more questions. And the second of all, you might have clues when you look at their practice, like one area is marketing. If you, if they're doing a lot of marketing, they're gonna appreciate closing sales, lead follow up, you know, helping them with lead conversion. All those are things they're gonna appreciate. They're spending time and money on that already. You can help in those areas. I, I, I don't disagree with what you're doing is valuable but you need to make sure it's valuable in the eyes of a prospect at the time you meet them, or else they're not gonna give any business. Does that make sense? Yeah. I would just ask the question. I would ask them questions. What are you tell about your business? What challenges do you have? Don't say where, what challenge do you have that I can help you with? Of course you're looking for that, but what challenge do you have? This talk about what, you know, what's your plan of prepp looking to do more next year? Less? What's holding you back from doing more? What would help you accomplish more? And it might be simple things like marketing or it might be simple things like, and so staff intensive with all those resources we have to deal with, you could say, well what if somebody could offload that work off for staff? Would that be of benefit to you? Now you have your opening. Does that make sense? Yes sir. Okay, good. Well come back, let's know how it goes. Okay? Okay. Fantastic. Thanks. Next hand up Courtney. Courtney back for more. Right, right. Can you hear me? What's up? I hear loud and clear, man. Oh, awesome, awesome. Yeah, I got my first, uh, probate related contract in this morning, so I'm off to sell some land in Durham County. Woohoo. Absolutely. All right. All right. I'm meeting with an, I took the, uh, I grabbed the earn course, uh, and I'm meeting with an attorney this Friday, so I, I'm pretty excited. I do have another question about that, but I want to have one question that, uh, that I know you all may be able to help me with. Uh, she got a phone with someone before the call. She, uh, she's a guardian, um, for a person in the estate, and she's wondering about, uh, funds. She's running back and forth. She's losing money, paying the water and utility bills for the person she's in charge. I know there's probate cash advance, but I wonder what does that look like and if it's a guardian or, if there anything else you can point me to so I can, um, you know, maybe help. Oh, and also how to support her along the way. I don't wanna just throw her a link, I assume, uh, Wanna walk her through it? Or, or, yeah, so, so, um, uh, one of the tools I use a lot is probate Advance. Now I use a probate advance. In, in, in California guardianships, and conservatorships are litigating probate court, probate's, a division that covers that. And so oftentimes in a guardianship you'll have, illiquid assets. Maybe the, a guardianship is somebody who is created for somebody who isn't able because they're not old enough to make their own decisions. So usually children, let's say common case car crash, mom, mom or dad, both pass away and some family member, uh, has been appointed to maintain things for the minor child. Pay for expenses and such, and they may be left assets house or things like that, but not cash to pay for expenses. And so same with a probate. If you have illiquid assets, if the plan is to sell property, That's an easy one. Uh, you can sell a property and before you sell it, the uh, probate advanced company will be willing to advance you some money. Minimum, usually $10,000. usually you get the money within five days and, you know, pay it back when the probate's settled, it's expensive money. Usually it's 50 or a hundred percent. So if you borrow 10,000, you pay back 15 or a hundred thousand dollars. Three months, six months, or a year later as non-recourse. I actually have a class Wednesday mornings if you want more information on that is, get probate.cash is the website. get probate.cash be glad to go over that with you in more detail. I do that every Wednesday, 8:30 AM Pacific Time. The challenge is in a guardianship, oftentimes they're not selling any asset. The people, the child lives in the house, they don't sell it. So if you don't have any assets to sell, the probably advance isn't gonna be a solution. and the minor child's not gonna be able to borrow money. So it just depends on the estate. If there's enough money to borrow, there are companies that will lend money to estates if there's guardianship, they eventually move the money into a trust. The trust can borrow money. If the trust has assets, there's lenders that will lend them money. So once you get out out of the guardianship, oftentimes you can create the guardianship where they create for the minor trust, and then you can borrow the money there through specialized lenders who will do that kind of work. I can't speak for Durham, North Carolina specifically, but I know we do it in California. So take a look at that. Are they planning to sell any property that you. I don't think there's really property in here. I'm just going through the, she does have a vehicle she wants to sell. But, uh, not a real property. That's challenge. Some of these guardianships, there's no assets and so if you don't have any assets, it's hard to come up with the money to pay for things. So the, it would work if there was a house and they were either investment property or the residents, they were gonna sell it, or this way you can borrow against it and use a probate advance to cover that cost. Right. Okay. What's your first, what was your second question also? Um, it was sort of, um, related. I think, well, it just, I, I'm not an, an agent. I assume I'm gonna have to pick up my license so that I can, you know, serve at high level. And I definitely think I would combat that by, you know, just letting them up just like it says in the course, letting'em know that I wear many hats. And so that's the angle I would go, I'm gonna go in when I talk to attorneys until I get my license. But any suggestions for folks out there who don't have their license? How do you position yourself as a professional? Um, when you're talking to attorneys or other professionals when you're, you know, offering referrals or having conversations, uh, with them? Yeah, I think it always gets down to you wanna focus on selling, on helping the customer and so what's their problem and then what's the solution. Sometimes people don't know what you do. I, I often get people who assume I'm a probate attorney, I'm not an attorney, but I'm solving their problem and at the end of the day, there's property sell and I sell the house. People often say to me, well, how do you get paid? Oh, I'm a estate broker and if and when we sell your house and I can get paid then. So I think the goal is to focus on how can you help the prospect then, and if you, if, if you have to describe what you do, you're probably not focus on what they need. Thank you. Okay. Let's see. Kyle, see you have your can up. What's going on? Can you hear me? Alright. Yep, I'm clear. Great. Um, so I've, I've got some more beginner questions. revolving prospecting to, personal representatives. So in my market in Lansing, Michigan, it's about 45 leads a month, for about 300 dollars a month. And I just wanna know, do I need to be investing in doing mailings and, uh, the, all the leads Property Plus and building website right off the bat? Because you know that that kicks my dollar per lead up to almost $10. And I just wanna know, um, what should I be prioritizing, um, off the bat if I don't have, you know, a a thousand dollars a month to be investing in this? Great question, Kyle. So, and, and it applied you for even asking the question cuz so many people just jump into it and assume, uh, and it realtors, are you a real estate agent or investor or what's your. I'm an agent right now. Uh, you know, if the opportunity presents itself, I'd like to become an investor, but right now I'm, I'm just an agent. Yeah, no, no. I was gonna say, just in general, I think real estate agents are often seduced by, you know, buy this and we'll solve your problem. Well buy this, work hard, be patient, you'll solve your problem. So you're actually a great question, and I think that you have to, when you build business, you do business development, you're investing two things, time and or. Right time would be the phone calling the door knocking and talking to people on the phone. And of course the money, the investment up front. You have all your other services, your realtor, your license, you have your mls, you have your business cards, maybe a company fee of some sort, everything else you have car, phone. And then now you have these leads you're buying and you have, I I've called data really not leads. Uh, and you pay for website and do you pay for, um, mailing? You need to budget that out. And, and I would say that the mailing, if you're calling them all at least three times, is still about six months before you get see your first deal. Uh, and it might be longer for your first deal, the close you get paid on it. So I can't really answer that question. Cause I know your finances. But I think you need to think that through. And when you do it, you do mailing well, you're gonna mail every month's new data and add it in, or you gonna mail just the newest ones each once, or you just buy one month's data. Mel to them six months in a row, deleting out the ones, you know, they're bad when you're making your phone calls. So you have to budget that out and figure out how you're gonna go there. And, and I, I would say in general, again, I don't know your personal finances call. I'm glad to discuss them if you want to, but obviously this is on the internet and such. But what I would say is that generally, um, the answer is not to spend much money, but to invest the time. And then that becomes your proof of concept. Meaning if you can't, without spending money on the mailers, convert phone calls into some contracts, and then use the mailing to increase your conversion ratio, you're probably not good enough on the phone to do it when you also do mailers. And so I would urge you in the beginning, because you know, you know, in business we start. The money you have in the bank is your runway. You know, you're like a Navy seal behind an enemy lines. You only only carry so much ammunition when you're out of it, you're dead. And so you have to make sure that money lasts, plus whatever other responsibilities you have. So again, I don't know how to answer your question specifically. I would budget my money out for, you know, those, all those expenses. And how long can you go before you, you run out and is that if it's, you know, shorter than six months, I'd say absolutely not. If it's shorter than, you know, a year, you have to really think it through. But I would basically cost you, I don't think you need the website, especially now with Google, my Business being free and Facebook pages being free. You could start with that. You could buy Domain for about 10 bucks a year and point to your Google My Business or point to your, your, um, Um, uh, Facebook page. If we do that for free, I would, I wouldn't spend money on that as far as mailing. Um, I would be very cautious to spend money on mailing. It's not gonna generate business. It might improve your conversion ratio. Okay. Now, where do you do business? Lansing, Michigan. So Ingham County. So I don't know as much about Lansing in general. Larger metro cities, Detroit. Atlanta for sure, LA for sure are extremely competitive. And mailing is a very competitive venture. And, and I can tell you that everybody who, everybody who does a probate in LA in Atlanta, they get 30, 40 pieces of mail and as much as you're gonna mail monthly for six months, nine months, you're wasting your money. I don't know as much. I know that's the state capital, but I don't know much about how competitive the probate. You might wanna do some research and find out, ask as you talk to people on the phone, ask'em how many mailers they get. Ask attorneys as well. If they're not getting any, maybe there's an opening there for you. But my guess is there's a couple and it's a very competitive space, I would think. Okay. Okay. All right. That helps me out. I have, one more quick question, if that's right. Yeah. So, I spoke to the representative at all the leads and I am able to get past probate filings up to I think six months, for significantly cheaper if I buy them with, the current months. I just wanted to know what does that look like? You know, is a, as a probate piece of data not a lead? Is that less valuable if it's six months old? in comparison to a brand new one? Cause I, I know some people in this group have spoken about, they don't start their campaigns until the probate's six months old. So, I want some guidance there on, on what you think. In really competitive markets. The few agents that do well with mailers and calling in really competitive markets, LA Atlanta for example, always want the first leads that get, they're using the fastest data source they're calling the first day they can. That's important to them. In smaller markets, I would say more rural markets for sure. It doesn't matter, it takes long enough. The people who are gonna move quickly already have a plan and the ones are left at the end are more valuable I think you have to, you have to figure that research out in your market area. Again, I don't know, know a little bit about Lansing but I don't know enough to give you any input, but it, there's a spectrum and it depends on your market and I think you wanna be to learn that spectrum Now if they're cheaper. Um, it depends how much cheaper they are. Generally cheaper to me. Sounds good.. Um, and yeah, I think they're about a third of the price. I would say that's without buying the property plus, which was another question I had. Yeah. The, the, the, uh, to me the advantages of the third of the price, if I, but three times the leads, I'd rather call through, and then those that say we already sold find, you can move through that. Because when you get the first leads, they're gonna say, we already have a plan, and that plan hasn't fall apart yet. You don't get a chance to compete for that business yet. So I would definitely buy the older leads, the cheaper leads if I was gonna do it, if I were you rather than the, um, the more expensive, just the newer leads. Okay. And would you, um, would you go ahead and purchase, I, I think all the leads version is, um, property plus, but some sort of scrubbing, uh, service so that, you know, I, I'd have a couple hundred of these old leads. I could probably cut it at least in half by, by uh, finding out which ones have already sold real estate or is that, is that not worth the money? Well, again, it depends on your time and, and the value I think. Are you, I'm, I'm guessing here, so I should ask the question. How long have you been in real estate? Uh, like four months now. Yeah. So not long. So you newer in real estate. You, to me, to a new agent making phone calls is like lifting weights or running stairs. When you play football, there's no wasted effort running stairs when you play football. Right, or, or there's no weights, there's no wasted time lifting weights. When you play football, you may not that week could be stronger, but in the long run it's gonna work. And I think that for newer agents, I'd rather you talk to more people and if some have already sold their house, I don't think it's a big deal. You need to be talking to as many people as you can. Even those that sold that, the prob. Own other property and they know other people. And so I think that there's too much emphasis. I think if you're older, experienced, look, I have a pretty big business, so my time is more viable, no offense than yours. So for me, I'm, I, if I could just talk to people who are ready to do something, that's my goal. But I got there because when I started off, when I was at your stage, I, I talked to 40 or 50 people a day, contacts, not dials, contacts, and over time got good at talking on the phone to people so that when I now talk to somebody's ready to do something, I'm more effective. So I think that, that I wouldn't spend too much money. Avoiding talking to people. I would wanna talk as many people as I can. And the reality is whether they sold that program or not, there's still people you're talking to. It's, it's better than a cold call, you know, but it's it Even cold call. I know agents this day who cold call circle prospecting three hours a day and make a fortune. So it's not it, it's even better data than that. It might not be as good as the hot probate lead, but I wouldn't shy away from that just because it might be older. Thanks a lot. Sure. Good luck. Come back and report back to how you do. But I was saying to you the key, just like Bud did, you gotta count your number, you gotta track your numbers. Mm-hmm., it's a business and if you track it, you can get better at it. As a coach, I can help you for free, but I definitely, you always wanna track your, the dials isn't as important. Uh, I, I, he asked that, but the contacts you make the hours so I can go hours, contacts and appointments set and the appointments kept over time. You'll set some appointments that cancel and reset two months later. So you always wanna track at a minimum your, the hours you dial, the contacts you make, and the appointments you set. Okay. All right. Thanks a lot. Yes. Now you do. Good. Thanks. Thanks Kyle. Thanks so much. Okay, I think we have time for one last question. I see Terry Hunter's hand up. Terry, what is going on? Just a, a tip. Don't assume that your attorney has a guardian for minors. I did that and I found out the attorney and the PR colluded, his attorney told the pr, oh, it's gonna take three years and extra $20,000 for us to get a guardian. So it blew away about almost $20,000 worth of my commission for me. But the other question I had is one of my more successful things had no attorney at all. It had a $5,000 do it yourself probate company. And I, I think you're familiar with it because you mentioned the name of the program company to me after I already used them and it was super good. So those are my three points. Well, the first one, yeah, uh, uh, maybe Cat has the link on the website where, where Chad goes through that. Um, and in your question there was again, uh, how do you present to attorney the services you offer? No, my question is what is there some beginning list? So if we want to, um, you know, basically call up. Prs and say, well, a lot of people think that attorneys do this and this and this and this and this, but most attorneys don't do that and that and that and that and that. Right. And, um, so I'm trying to get knowledgeable on what the attorneys won't do. I mean, obviously they're not gonna do the, the real estate sales, but, um, so that's number one. And then number two is, um, well let's start with that one. Okay. So if, if you're talking to a, to a prospect, a prospective, uh, post representative, and, and they say, oh, uh, I appreciate your offer for all these services. My attorney does all that, you know, I say, really, Terry? Um, that's fascinating. Your treat is that, and I notice your attorney is so and so. Are you sure these are services that they provide regularly? Cause I'm familiar with 'em, I haven't seen attorneys do all these things. Are you sure? So just put doubt in their mind. Is that what you're saying? Well ask questions. You always wanna be asking questions and, and I think sometimes people say things. You know, it is not that they wanna be dishonest, they just, you know, have a, have a plan of their head at how these things, things are gonna go. And I think rather than really get into detail sometimes, sometimes the best thing when a prospect says something to you, I'm not, um, hold on. Um, The best thing to just ask the question, are you sure about that? Really, you know, so they said they would do this, this and that. And then you, you, because you don't wanna argue with people, you just wanna ask to confirm, um, and, and, and get, all you're looking for is a crack to get open to talk about some of the things that they do. Um, in this case, you're talking about an attorney is training oversee estate cell, is it training over seat, the junk out? Probably not. And and if they do, it's because they have somebody like you who's overseeing those things behind the scenes and presenting as though they are. But if that's the case, so you run into a dead end, but you wanna ask a question, I think they kind of get them off at that point because they're not that sure about it. Nobody's that. Sure. The service, the attorney's done cuz they haven't done a probate before. They don't really, they're not a past client on that, on that matter before. Right. By definition. Right. And then the other one, as far as needing an attorney or not, you're right, they're technically, those services have an attorney at the head. So the service I've promoted for years is easy hyphen probate.com. They're purchased by Trust and will.com if you've got a trust and will.com. They're the probate division on that website. And so I've been referring clients. I always ask a client, can you handle on your own, going online, filling out forms and such? You can save a lot of money and they have a do it yourself version. They have a concierge version and they have an attorney version, which is $5,000. All those are tremendous savings for a customer on a typical probate. That's trust and will.com as the service. Thank you so much, Terry. Terry, thank you so much. Okay, so I think we're up against the timewise, so I think we're gonna have to wrap up here. Sorry about the spooky um, uh, lighting with. Blinders. I, I kind of didn't figure this out as I am, uh, uh, remodeling my home office to accommodate, um, more Vito going forward. Um, but again, cat, if you wanna put the chat box the information, and then I'll put it on the screen. I wanna give you guys an opportunity next week on Wednesday the 14th, Chad's hosting probate problems and solutions. He's even gonna put a jacket on a local formal like that. I don't know if he is or not. That's a joke. Uh, so one hour live workshop, 7:00 PM Eastern,

4: 47:44

00 PM Pacific Time. And the idea is to bring your probate problems there and he'll solve them for you. The program normally costs a hundred dollars, but for graduates of the Public Master program, uh, CPEs, he. I'll give you a $90 coupon, uh, and the cost is only $10. So, um, Cal put the chat box those details as far as how to get, there's a link right there. Wow. There's a coupon code and don't share the link publicly, so I'm not gonna say it out loud because we don't want the YouTube people or Facebook people who aren't, um, alumni to get that. So it's in the chat box. If you don't see the chat box, you can go into Private Mastery in Facebook group and, um, put a question there and Katt or I or somebody will get back to you on that. All that said, thanks for being on the call. If you're on here regularly and some of you are, thank you so much. I really appreciate, just poor if you're new to this. Thank you for being on. We do this every Tuesday, noon Pacific time, 3:00 PM Eastern. We also live stream it, I'm sorry. We also record it, put on YouTube and on the website, probate master.com. I'm Bill Gross. I'm a real estate broker associate in Los Angeles. I have a national probate team. Uh, I also host my own program, probate Weekly on Thursdays at four o'clock Pacific Time. Love to have you join that as well. So thank you so much everybody. Look forward to seeing you guys next week. Thank you.