Leveraging EstateExec software as a value add | Probate marketing without cold calling – Episode 80

Learn how to use the EstateExec software benefit from the EARN program, launch your probate marketing strategy without cold calling, and more.

In this episode, Bill Gross of ProbateWeekly.com coaches students of the Probate Mastery program on marketing, lead generation, and business best practices. Probate agents, attorneys, and investors share ideas for securing probate property, leveraging cash advance programs, and marketing the EstateExec software to improve both the customer experience and referral experience.

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Episode #80 [Live Real Estate Coaching]

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Resources & Additional Links for Leveraging EstateExec software as a value add | Probate marketing without cold calling

RESOURCES:

• FREE TRAINING WEBINAR: Probate Fast Track
• Take Chad’s Probate Mastery Course and get Certified in Probate Real Estate
• Sign up for EARN – Earn Attorney Referrals Now
• Facebook Group: Estate Professionals Mastermind Group
• Probate Mastery Alumni Group (For students of the Probate Mastery Course): Probate Mastery Alumni Group 
• Probate and Pre-Probate list providers
• Try Propstream Free
• Book a marketing strategy consultation
• Book a coaching session with Bill Gross
• ISA and voicemail courier service for probate calling
• Try All The Leads automated Probate Leads & Marketing System
• Bill Gross’ Probate Weekly Content: ProbateWeekly.com

RECENT CONTENT:

1. Episode 79 Live Real Estate Coaching: Probate cold call objections, vendor teams, and content marketing
2. Marketing and Copywriting Tips: How to get more reviews from clients: https://youtu.be/bY_1HXEzZxA
3. Probate Cold Calling Tips: Best way to cold call probate leads: 3 lists, 3 offers, 3 scripts https://youtu.be/Wx1hkGHZurg

FOR THIS EPISODE:

1. Affordable resource for Estate Planning: TrustandWill.com 
2. Student link for EstateExec software: Available in the EARN course in the “Resources and Handouts” module at the end of the course, as well as the “EstateExec” lesson.
3. Companies that offer property preservation, securing, and maintenance services for property protection (USER SUGGESTED)
   1. Chat recommends: NFN, 5Brothers, Guardian Asset Management for REOs
   2. Winston Covington recommends Cyprexx Services or Safeguard – for non-REOs and REOs
   3. James recommends DAWGS – Door and Window Guard Systems

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Leveraging EstateExec software as a value add | Probate marketing without cold calling

Probate marketing without cold calling |Software as a value add | Weekly Real Estate Coaching episode 80

1) Tips for giving and sending good real estate referrals

Hey, this is Bill Gross, the LA probate expert. And I’m the host for our probate mastery mastermind call. We do every Tuesday, 12 new Pacific time, 3:00 PM Eastern time. And the primary goal to call is to, for those of us who are in this business, whether you’re newly launched into it or experienced in it is to get together and share best practices.

 Work on problems together, encourage each other. And the idea being that together, we can go further, and that teamwork makes the dream work. This part of Probate Mastery by Chad Corbett where he has a coaching program, a basic program called Probate Mastery and then another program called EARN for earn attorney referrals now. That’s probatemastery.com and he has a great website with these sessions recorded on there and then snippets and pieces of it that will help you along your way as well. And then all these are put onto YouTube.

I’m a practitioner. I’m not a coach.

I do. I am available to be hired as a coach from time to time, but it’s not really my business. I’m not really looking to build a portfolio of coaching. I want to sell more houses in California. I’m a broker with eXp realty, but I’m probate focused on all my lead generation.

And I’m building a team of agents both in California and nationwide. But I am here to answer any questions but I’m, I’m not here to sell anything. you know, probate mastery is a great program. I’ve taken it. I’m in the EARN program. I’m part of the curriculum as well as I’m taking the program and I’m about 95% done.

 I’m a student as well as a coach on this. And really, I think the reason why I think Chad and I had a discussion and he realized that this is important piece of the puzzle for agent success, investor success, as a weekly community, but it wasn’t something he was prepared to do. And I said I’ll do it.

I do it. I do weekly my own show probateweekly.com on Thursdays at 4:00 PM. And I said, I make this more of a question and answer. And my other channel is more about me interviewing, vendors and practitioners.

If you have that question, rest assured on this call, we usually get 40 50 people and then it goes on to YouTube and people see it. If you have a question, other people do too. So, we want you feel free to participate.

So, here’s a first question from Terry.

You’ve been through earned training, but can’t find the link or code for estate exec. That’s a more technical issue. I would say Katt or…

Yeah. You can find it right in the Estate Exec module, in the description, the text right below that video. We also, this morning just added it to that module that’s at the end of the course where you’ll see all resources and handouts, we’ve added it to the text description in that all in one module as well.

That’s my ventriloquist act where I didn’t move my mouth, but you heard some information. No, that was Katt, thank you Katt.

You just have, you’re a good voice actor.

Thanks, Katt! So yeah, there you go. So, the link is for, it’s in the EARN program and can gave the details and you have questions, I would say that’s best handled by email. And again, the EARN program is a module that got added on after Probate Mastery for people who’ve taken Probate mastery, want to do more and build specifically their business by getting referrals from attorneys, which I think is most common request that I’ve gotten in my time in this field.

Pre COVID. I went to court every day and I think that when you have the chance going to court is a very powerful marketing opportunity.

I recently went last week. It was a court confirmation sale. I’m the listing agent. Didn’t expect any over bids, we’d priced it properly. Didn’t have any over bids, but there was a contest with the objectors. I went not because they had to, but it’s a great opportunity to be a better service to my client.

 My client was there, the attorney was there. It was a great chance to build a relationship with attorney. And I think business is about, especially more now than ever, is building relationships. If it’s just about price or if it’s just about marketing gimmickry, I think Google and Facebook and Amazon are solid in business. But what they can’t do is take our relationships.

So, I think it’s really important to, when you have those opportunities, to go and know what to do properly. So, just a short version of that is I, in the module talk about how to make the most, if you’re going to go to court and be productive. And I went last week, it was a great experience.

Okay. Question from Christopher. Christopher, is there anybody on the call in the Atlanta area that focus on probates? Somebody who can offer appropriate attorney referral.

Christopher, I may have something for you on my team as well. I know, me, if you want to email or text me, I’ll respond back.

 Paul Cooke in Athens, Georgia, but I know he knows people in Atlanta, which is your major city, I think about an hour or two, maybe away best. And so, we want to make this, referral here’s Winston jumping in. Great. Nice to see Winston.

My vision of this is – what we don’t want to do not want to do… I don’t know about you guys, but when I look for referral, I can go into Facebook groups, even in my own company.

And I’ll say I’m looking for a probate attorney. I’m really looking for somebody to say, I work with Joe. He’s a great attorney. And he focuses on probate or, a little more information. Everybody knows an attorney somewhere or can look up and find one. But the key, I think, is the relationship. And so, the goal here for me as a practitioner, why I participate in this group is to develop some relations with people who are practitioners and actually have somebody they’ve worked with.

And so, I can always sell and make that referral stick and give the customer really good service. Same with the agents. I think sometimes people are quick to refer to any agent, and I think it’s important to find the right agent that’s going to really give your customer a good service.

 I see a lot posts, I work in this area, work in that area and I think that’s great. I think that you want to bring value when you’re looking for referrals. What can you do to bring value? And so, in a niche group like this, you might want to bring market information about the cities you’re in, the area you’re in, pricing information, just even a quick link.

If you’re interested more information, I see a post for somebody asking about a certain area, North Carolina, just a quick post to your normal marketing saying, here’s the market snapshot in my area. I think that’s the kind of thing that when somebody wants to refer your business, makes ’em feel more comfortable.

2) Probate marketing and the EstateExec value add

Okay. Lynette, how can we help you? Hi, thank you. I did the majority of EARN, and I appreciate everything that was done around that.

The Estate Exec App and software platform. I’m excited to see it. First of all, And I found something similar that I was uncomfortable with and tried to reach out and get connected with. And then just with gratitude and appreciation that Chad worked it out.

Okay. So that said I actually bought a test estate for myself to see, and I made sure I was a taxable entity to boot for my state, because I wanted to see what it would do.

My question is, and we may not have gotten this far, but my question is how I leverage this in the best way and with intent. I get that we can present a trial to clients directly. What I’m looking for is how do I plug in my own set of referral partners when I, and I don’t know if I can, frankly, when I send the link for an Estate Exec my, my vision is it’s their software, their platform, and all the public links.

And then I have my own special version on the side where if they got the link from me, not only do they have the platform’s referral partners, but they have mine directly. That I’m not sharing all my hard work and relationship building everybody around me and I intend to share, but I’d like to do it with intention and, have a metric around it.

If I send the link, what I’d like to see is they get the link from me. And if they need an attorney, there’s a list of our preferred, attorney partners.

There’s a list of our property cleanup partners. There’s a list of insurance agents for vacant property. There’s a list of all that, like the whole, like the team. Am I off base with how, what the intended use is? I’m delighted just to send a link. I’ve got, I think I’ve got the answer to this one.

So, with EstateExec, they are purely a business to consumer platform, and the license with the relationship that Chad has, it, you have to be going through this Earn course to be getting what it’s not exactly white labeled. That’s why everyone can see if they were to go through your portal, they’re still going to see all the Estate Exec branding, but they won’t have access to the discount fee that you’re able to provide.

as the EARN affiliated agent or investor. Okay. So let me let me back up a little bit. So, I think what I’m hearing is I can send them the estate exec platform and then I know they’ve linked. They it’s. Okay. So, it, it sounds to me that you want your vendor partners to all be aware that this is another value add that you are uniquely able to provide.

But if somehow one of your vendor partners gets a consumer to get to will you be lost in the sauce? Will you be missing from the link? But the difference is if they don’t send them to you to get set up with Estate Exec, they’re not going to be able to get that same pricing package that’s available to you as an EARN student.

 Your vendor partner should know that by extension of you by proxy, by working with you and being able to offer something that you, as their partner can do for the consumer… if they have a direct conversation with a consumer, a potential client, they can indirectly offer that same benefit that nobody else can offer, because they’re one of your vendor partners, so the communication that needs to be clear there and for everyone else when Chad’s back in the United States, so really expecting it to be the first week of September, they do have a tentative Ask the expert episode scheduled, where it’s going to be Chad and Estate Exec doing an interview, breaking down one, not just what the software can do in greater detail, where Chad comes in, Chad’s going to be educating you on how to educate your consumers and how to educate your vendor partners on how to this product when they speak to the consumer directly. That’s about 30 days away for you.

The value, whether you’re communicating to the consumer or you’re communicating with a vendor who’s going to be communicating with a consumer, is always that Lynette is so great, and she has this access to this program that’s going to make this so much easier for you.

So, you’re always going to be an important piece of the puzzle where this value add comes into play.

It’s not really, I would even take the weight off the shoulders of the vendor partner. I would say all the vendor partner needs to know as far as how to describe the estate exec software and they don’t even need to call it that, all they need to say to the consumers they speak to directly and might be bringing back to you is that: Lynette has a tool that’s going to make getting all your documents together, getting all your ducks in a row so much easier.

If not going to feel overwhelming, just get in touch with her. Cause the goal, the ultimate goal, what you want your vendor partners to do for you, is to get people back in touch with you, right? So, keep it simple. Keep it so simple with your vendor partners. You’ve got the tool. All you need to tell them is this is going to make gathering all the documents you need.

All the headaches so much simpler. I’m going to set you up with Lynette.

I got it. And I think I, I’m sure I made it more complicated than I easy needed to. So Katt, what what’s available in inside of that platform is a link for resources and the good news I’m in Colorado. Are the current resources being very generic, meaning like NOLO law.

It’s not like directly to the estate planning attorneys that are local here. So, there’s.

Sounds like you have a reason to loop your vendors in!

An incredible opportunity. I guess what I was looking for is. If I sent them the link to EstateExec because I sent them the link and I know this is a software and app kind of thing.

That link would just show my preferred advisors or partners versus all of them. And I’ll work this out. There’s a work around here. There’s plenty of opportunity that solution, why not make a page on your whatever website you use or whatever section of your real estate website that you use that’s probate focus or estate planning focus… Why not make a page that parallels what your Estate Exec link and preferred partners will look like. So have something that’s public facing but doesn’t use an EstateExec owned URL and the content doesn’t need to be that in depth or crazy. The ultimate goal is here’s what this can do for you.

And if this can help you, here’s your call to action, which is going to be either a contact form or shoot you an email, or maybe even downloadable. But it also sends you an alert to your system that someone filled out some type of opt-in form. That’s demonstrating an interest in what the estate exec software can do.

Now, this page on your website doesn’t even need to mention an estate exec by name, right? So now your gate keeping it a little bit more. At the end of the day, there’s always a way that you can maintain your position as the center of the hub of service wheel. Your vendor partners need you because they don’t understand what this tool that you have does, but they know that you have access to it, and you can get people a great discount on it that they can’t get themselves.

So, they’re going to, they’re going to readily bring a potential client right to you and hand them off to you and be like, Lynette’s so great. She’s going to explain this and get you set up. You’re solving the vendor problem.

Then for the consumer, whether they find you directly or they come to you from the vendor, you’re the one that’s directly connecting them to this great tool. That’s going to help them. I didn’t consider that. And thank you. so Katt I.

How do I reach out to you to take this offline? Because I’m in the middle of, I’ve got a substantial investment around the platform. Digital deliverables and directing traffic into funnels, et cetera. I just send me an email it’s Katt@Magnumopusproject.com or if you have me on Facebook, I just won’t get your messages unless if we’re not friending already, you’ll have to connect with me. Otherwise, it goes to some weird folder, and I never see it. Okay. I’ll do that. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, no problem at all. Hey Katt if I can jump in, this is, yeah, this is Terry. I’m the one that’s had the previous question.

3) Estate attorneys: Paralegal services vs. case management software

Okay. Hey and maybe it’s a question that Bill can chime into as well. From a. A probate attorney standpoint. is it common for these guys to have a platform that they utilize to manage their probates? Or is this, what’s the situation there may maybe the bigger ones do the smaller ones are just kind of Willy nilly?

Oh, that’s the golden CRM question that real estate agents always ask, like the same,” should I use Podio or KV core or, all those different CRM companies. The same platforms are out there, the same agencies are out there trying to create software and systems for attorneys.

if that question was relating back to EstateExec specifically, what’s unique about EstateExec is It’s a tool, not just a guide or free templates, like what you could find on legal zoom.

It’s an actual organizational tool that’s designed for consumers. So, in that regard it’s more unique than anything we’ve really been able to find out there. Because it’s, again, it’s not meant to be used by a business professional. It’s just something valuable, a business professional like us as EARN students can offer to the clients that we’re working with or hoping to work with.

I’m not sure if that, if your question about software that attorneys use meant do probate attorneys use something like estate exec? Not currently, no. What Dan is developing with us is the first time he’s really done an enterprise level development.

I would add to that there is software for attorneys who process estate planning programs, obviously that’s how they create their documents, and they have different features. There’s a number of them. It’s competitive marketplace. This is more about consumer facing.

So, they can take that to the attorney in an organized fashion. This is not meant to be an attorney using this to process. This is more meant, so that when you’re, when you make a referral to an attorney, or introduction to attorney the client has their items organized. So that, this is all discussed in the EARN program, so that referral is better for the attorney and better for the client, because there’s a better experience for customer that’s prepared and such.

I’ll share with you guys literally this morning in a conversation with, I think the number one probate attorney in LA county in probably Southern California, I’m creating a software like this for probate attorneys’ attorneys. Attorneys really for the most part don’t use any kind of software other than form fillers. There are legal document form filler programs, but they don’t really manage…. There is really no software for probate attorneys, to manage the process. There are services, there are paralegal services, EZ probates an example, but there’s no software that attorneys might have.

And so, this is interesting kind of gap filler on the estate planning side. That, again, this is not meant to solve the “I need an estate plan, how do I get one?” this is more to get the customer lined up so that when they introduce themselves to the attorney, it’s the same thing they have to go through with almost any attorney.

It’s the same gathering of the same documents and information. Follow up bill then, or, and Katt as well as I’m, trying to look at all this from all angles. Let’s say we have an attorney with a relationship. Does it make sense for us to actually, I don’t know if there’s any benefit to actually setting up an attorney on their own platform so they could, I don’t know.

Could they have, could they an attorney? I don’t know. I probably need to wait a month or. So, a lot of questions, lot of, a lot of opportunity. Yeah. I think this is going to be a bigger, I personally, as far as content, like what we want to do for YouTube and educational content for you guys, we’re just waiting on EstateExec to be able to have… We want them to be the primary resource where they can be, we want them to be able to speak for themselves, especially be able to explain the software. I’ve looked at it, I’ve gone through the demos, but it’s not like I’ve actually helped anyone manage their case paperwork through it.

So, they’re going to be able to provide insight that I’m unable to, there’s going to be a lot more of this type of material and marketing ideas incorporated from that point forward. But if you have a client that could use it now, don’t be afraid to lean on Estate Exec for support. Get them the link, get your client set up in it.

And if you run into any roadblocks, they still know how to help you once your program. Don’t let your fear of the system stop you from using it if it can help your customer move forward with the case. Your client moves forward.

I would think as well that the video that’s in EARN that the representative, or maybe it’s the owner of EstateExec has in the training on the program.

A download of that video could be very useful in an attorney meeting. Be to help them understand what the software would do without us necessarily having to walk people through. Not that we don’t need to know it because we do, because we’re going to be getting a lot of the questions. It would seem to me to make a whole lot of sense to have that in a download that you could put on your computer pull up when you’re in an, in a meeting with an attorney is a benefit we could provide.

Yep. And I think Chad, with that Estate Exec ask the expert episode. He is going to be laying out the exact value proposition for what you would tell vendors and the value proposition that you would present to prospective clients. So that’s where that’s all going to come into play for you, where not only is he pitching what the problem is and how this software can address it, the same three types of objections that an attorney might ask you if you present it to them, or a consumer might present to you if you ask them. He’s going to be handling those for you. Cool. Okay. And again, you just want to think about the main thing to focus on is I think the customer experience, I literally today had a client who needs a probate bond. This is the first time my attorney asked me to get involved, which I was glad to do.

Bond company, and even I gave ’em the case number and I gave ’em the documents they would need. They just send a form for the customer to fill out with their name, address, phone number, or state name, attorney name. And again, it just seems so 1960s, why not send a form to customer pre-filled out? You can make it easy for them as well as harder for them to go with another company.

And I think that the goal of this is to make the customer experience better. Yeah. How can we lock them in, for our real estate opportunity by providing, and you can’t tie their hands per se, you’re just so good at what you do. They’re not going to go anywhere else.

I think as realtors always look for the lock-in versus the earn-in, and I think the whole point of this is we can earn our way in by being so good. Sure. That if they go with somebody else that you probably don’t want to work with them because there’ll be some other problem along the way.

Okay.

4) Marketing to pro-se, pro-per probate leads

Geo sees your hand up for next. How can we help you? Hey, Bill. The first part of the question is related to those leads that come in pro-se, pro-per.

And the kind of composition of these particular leads in your experience, are these folks typically that eventually hire an attorney or are these scenarios where they basically don’t need an attorney? And then the second part of the question, if these folks are at least initially unrepresented, would offering the software be kind of a significant value-add to these folks that are unrepresented?

So, your second question, offering software on probate. I do that, I send the attorney a file with the information to make it easier for them. On your first question. I think you’re asking, do people who start on their own without an attorney in probate, end up getting an attorney and I’ll say I don’t have a way to track it mathematically. Some do. And I don’t know the number if I had to guess.

I would guess about a quarter do along the way. And I would say of those that don’t, probably two-thirds struggle and that’s where I try to come in and offer them assistance and some shortcuts and, or direct them to EZ probate or paralegal to help them with what they’re stuck on because usually there are things they’re stuck on and somebody has to do it.

I mean I would love to just upfront get the listing, pay for the service and do it for ’em it actually be cheaper for me and faster for me to get paid. So, to answer your question, I don’t have any statistics. I don’t know how you would measure it like that. Maybe you have an initial filing pro se and then count the percentage that are closed with that attorney.

But I don’t have that data, and I’m in LA county and that would vary by area. You’re in San Diego County. Correct? Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I also happen to be LA interesting fact about LA county, I think is the poorest county in America by average income, by the percentage of the local poverty rate. And so, San Diego, I think you’re better off, you probably have less probate by percentage or have more attorneys by percentage.

So, LA probably has more pro-se by percentage than other places do, I would guess. Okay, great. And in regard to the, maybe not the exec, because I know it’s not applicable, but a similar intake that could be developed, a one up on anybody else that might be, entertaining trying to help them in this process.

, I think it’s a great idea. Could you have software Estate Exec can fill it in and put in the heirs and the names and their addresses and the rest? Yeah, I think that’d be great. To be honest. I think I do so much more than the average agent to this point ahead of time, I send the property profile, I’ll send maybe my Salesforce, CRM contact report with my notes and it and such.

But I think you’re right. I think that would be really valuable for referrals. The challenge is, know, this, is related to the EARN course, it’s not as easy as getting referrals some back from attorneys as you would think. Meaning could you do this to make better the intake for the attorney? Yes. As I can refer to as a result and you getting a lot more business, I don’t think a lot more, not as much as you would think.

Attorneys are tough nuts to crack. They’re not salespeople. They don’t control as many referrals as you would like. I’m not saying I wouldn’t do it. If there was a product like this, maybe I would pay for its profile. But there’s a limit to how much I’m going to spend. And I think I already exceed with others, because I know the right questions to ask, I already know to ask about marriages and prior marriages and other kids and who’s alive and that kind of things, if those questions just a write-up on that is so much more valuable than the average Realtor just says, Hey, have probate, how are you going to pay for the probate?

I think that’s the other key question. Do they have money to pay for fees? Or is there, equity in the house that they can do a probate advance on? Then usually what I do, I have my own probate advance company. On this channel, Chad interviewed Probate Cash, but I’ll pre-qualify the estate with my company.

So, I’ll know we can advance them the money. I’ll speak. Rough number, your fees are going to be about, full statutory would be 20,000 or whatever you want to discount, and we can advance that money to them. And he’s set up and expecting that. So, what the customer’s expectations are in fees and how they’re going to pay for them, I think would be the main thing on a probate.

Got it. Thank you bill. Sure.

Jim Lloyd answers as an attorney, he uses a practice management program called Clio, which I think is probably one of the industry leaders for attorneys, and a platform called wealth counsel.

And that’s an again, and I think also a, probably a leading, estate planning software. So, he thinks most attorneys would use practice management more than CRM. And I think again, so on one level, we have like the processing of the customer service of the estate planning or probate practice management.

… and the other one, you have a CRM. Most attorneys aren’t going to use a CRM, but when a lead comes in, that’s where the friction is. And so, what we’re talking about is how do you make that referral when they’re not in your system to bring all the data in? If the attorney has a bunch of questions. If you give them the information in a transferrable format. Then they have a chance to get it. If not, then they’d sit with the customer to interview them. And that’s the whole point we’re trying to reduce that friction.

The question is how I refer to a customer who has EstateExec, so it can be effective in making a referral. You there, Jim?

Yeah, I’m here. I’m not I’m not a hundred percent sure. I know that Cl would integrate with a number of other programs, either directly or with a Zapier kind of situation maybe.

Yeah.

But I have not been familiar with an estate exec type of probate management. And Zapier’s going to take in some basic fields, I use Zapier all the time. It’s fantastic. But that’s only taking some basic fields. This is not going to get each individual heirs’ bank account numbers and dollar amounts and things like that.

Yeah. Cool. Thanks. Welcome. And you’re an attorney as well as an agent, right? Yes. Very good. Thanks. Thanks for being on the call.

5) How to start marketing to probate real estate leads

Okay. Next up I have Elvis is in the house. Where’s Elvis?

Right here. Hey Bill.

There you are Elvis what’s up?

Hey, so pleasure meeting you, Bill. So, I come from MTI education and, I thought I was well versed, at least somewhat in probate.

And as I come here and I’m listening to everyone’s questions, some of it is like over my head, so you guys are, you guys have a great program here that I know I’m going to learn a lot about. So, I just joined maybe less than a month ago, and maybe I just wanted to know some tips of how to get started.

I signed up because I wanted to learn Chad’s approach on how to call probates. That was the initial reason why I wanted to do it. Cause I wanted to do something different. I want to make phone calls. I want to call them and contact them. I’ve in the past six months I’ve gotten two probates using the MTI approach.

But I just didn’t feel that I was being educated to the next level. That’s why I’m here. So, any tips that you have on what type of letters, emails, or where to go? I know it’s on the platform, but what should be my number one focus? I’m going to give you a little different answer than Chad would, I think.

And again, with respect to Chad, I would always tell an agent to start with your current COI. We’re talking today about the EstateExec, which is a way to make referrals to attorneys more effective. But before we make ’em effective, how about make some? And before you can make some, I think the first step would be to learn a little bit about estate planning to avoid probate.

You can be a probate expert and help your customers avoid probate. And then what I would say is make sure you market to your current clients on the importance of avoiding probate and all the other advantages of planning ahead. And then some of those customers are going to need in estate planning resources, whether it be lower income, straight online resources, like trustandwill.com

or an estate planning attorney in your area that you work with. And I think that positions you with your clients, not just the business you get out them on estate planning, but I think it’s effective marketing with your clients to say: Hey, I’m a knowledgeable agent, I’m a probate expert. I’m here to be of service to you. And then you connect them with an attorney, that they know that you’re doing, that I think are important. So, to me, that’s where I would start.

And I always would I tell every agent that the mistake is… MTI, is an example. I think, and other companies do the same thing. They sell you data so you’re off to the races, prospecting strangers.

When you normally have a hundred, 200 people, you already know that know and trust you and you like, know, and trust.

You should contact them and let them know. You’re a real estate expert in probate. And I think there’s more business there for the next 90 days than in talking to strangers. That’s what I would focus on.

Okay. Now I know I sound like a broke record on the topic to everybody, whoever listens to me, but because I don’t really care if you listen to me or not, I’m not selling you or you’re not going to not buy my data when I’m not selling you any data. I’m just trying to help you as an individual. And as a fellow real estate agent.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Does it help? It did. Yeah. Good. And I would say, come on this call, I host probateweekly.com on Thursdays as well and learn and learn information and share information that you know with your customer. Okay. Okay. Thanks so much.

6) Property protection and security for inherited homes

Lynn Gunther is so good. We’re going to go twice.

We’re going to double dip on her. How would your hands back up, Lynn? How can we help you? Thank you. I, the, I wanted to know if this is a secured property company a thing. Do you know what I’m talking about? So, if somebody passes, there’s a vacant property, is there an industry out there that goes in and secures property? I know they do it for HUD and like foreclosures and stuff like that. But is there anything out there that would help families?

So, if I’m going to go out there, I’m going to drill out the box. I’m going to stick a no trespassing sign on there, I’m going to put a lock on it. I feel like I’m suddenly responsible for that entire house because I’m the one that, you know, and I can refer to the locksmith and things like that. But aside from what I can do to broker those services one at a time, Meaning, a referral partner.

Is there an entity out there that handles that? And I think you’re asking specifically in Denver, Colorado, right? I am I’m asking from a nationwide perspective. So, if they have homes out of state, That’s even more important because nobody’s here. I need to give them 10 seconds to grieve a loved one before, we’ve got 17 squatters with no trespassing.

As a former REO agent, I can say that’s what the customers expect me to handle when I’m the REO agent, to handle all that.

and they reimburse you but need to put a fence up and monitor and all that. That’s really, most commonly done by the agent. Is the perceived risk accurate or is it just not, I don’t know what the risk would be. Like anything else, I have insurance and I do my job and I can’t stop criminals from climbing fences or cutting wire. Cutting. Okay. So, they don’t go directly to you, and I’ve never to just, I’ve never heard, but again, I, who are you working with? And I think you’d be careful who you’re working with.

If you’re working with an REO company and they have a portfolio of these houses, trust me, they have a bunch of houses being broken into all across the country. That’s just part of the cost of doing business. If you deal with an individual consumer and you offer that, you be careful who you’re doing with and on what basis you do those things.

But as the agent, I tell them, I’ll advance you the funds you’re doing it. I let them store stuff, but it’s in their name, but I’ll advance on the credit card, the payments, but it’s really them. When I piecemeal out those pieces, I’m doing it for them, but they’re doing it from a legal point of view.

So, I’m not going to hire the fence company. I’m going to arrange the fence company and put it on my bill, but they’re the ones who are getting the account with the fence company. They’re going to sign in agreements and forms and things like that. Okay. All right. and then you said you do some probate advance.

 In Colorado, it’s a deed of trust against the property, are you securing the money against the estate?

The advance inheritance is against the estate, not against the property. No, it’s not a, it’s not a loan against the property. It’s not due to trust. It’s a contract with the error.

They’re advancing their rights in heirship. Okay. Yeah, that’s it. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for coming back. No extra charge for the second price there. Thanks, Lynette.

Christopher asked, I may see an uptick in appropriate properties that had equity pre-pro filing and are now short sales or otherwise underwater.

I don’t know about uptick..

 I got a listing recently that I think is a short sale. The first one in a while, it was an area that I’m not surprised… It’s very rural where those things are probably more common. But I don’t know if there’s an uptick, I would say stay tuned because housing prices have jumped up so much the last couple of years.

And if you see places where prices coming down, you’re going to see more, but I’m in west LA for the most part. I don’t say anybody here, when answer, do they see an uptick in probates that are underwater or short sales? Seeing any…

Okay. James, nice to see you. Hey, Bill. How’s it going? I just want to answer Lynette’s question. Cause I had a property in Detroit and it’s a rough neighborhood and those that invest in Detroit, one of the puppies there is. When your property gets vacant, chances are they’re going to come and do your furnace.

So, there’s a company in Detroit and I think they might have other areas it’s called door and system. DAWGS, you could a, on that, they will come, they’ll take out your windows. They’ll do whatever it takes to secure your property. I think that’s, if you’re asking about company helped you secure.

They’ll do that. I know that’s very typical in Detroit. I don’t know if they do it in other states. I’m assuming they probably do. I just wanted to throw it out there. And that’s appropriate because I’m like, okay, I’m not dog the bounty hunter, I’m not going to go in, armed depending on what neighborhood I’m in.

And it happens. Anyway. Thank you. I got it. It does. I would say these things are more common and they fluctuate. I think you’ll find those vendors come and go with the market in that area because, other areas were hot. There were companies like that, years ago they don’t exist today and probably ramping back up or they’ve been told there’s going to be a foreclosure wave.

James, thanks with the update on that. Appreciate it. Nice, always. Nice to see you love your background. Thanks, Bill!

7) Probate and divorce cash advance companies

okay. Sheri Lund has her hand up. Let’s bring you Hey bill. I was just wondering this, talk about the cash advance. And, wondering since some of the people in the probate space are moving over also to incorporate people that are going through a divorce, would that company also work for divorce cases?

I happen to have an investor I work with on my probate advance, and they do a number of similar… the concept is called factoring where you have a stream of income expected.

They’re going to advance you a percentage of that based on the risk and return. I know there was a time when I was young and I had an electronics contract with a major corporation, Burroughs Corp, since they merged were buying electronics in Korea and were selling to them in America. We had a contract for $200,000 that we could buy the stuff for a hundred thousand.

The company advanced us a hundred thousand and they took, I think 25. And it’s very common in the clothing industry where you’re buying… you’re manufacturing things with a lot of expense front, and then you’re selling it to big corporations, and you get paid before the company pays the bill. So, it’s an, it’s a way to advance.

It’s like a paycheck advance if you think of that. So, in a divorce case, I’m sure they would look at, if they for example, if there’s spousal support, then it would be ordered. They would have the formula to determine the value of that. If there’s equity in the property they’re going to get, they would advance based on that.

So, it depends if there’s a stream of income that’s secure, the part of the advance is they’re underwriting it, that money will be there and then they’ll advance a percentage of it and make a fair profit. So, I would say the answer’s probably yes, depending on the case. But definitely, if you have a case like that, I’d be glad to take a look at it and send to my underwriter if you’re interested. Yeah. Great. Thanks. Sure. Thank you.

Okay… Probate workflow software seems to be primitive at best. Yeah. Lynette. I would agree with you the attorney probate workflow software is primitive at best.

And I literally was in a conversation with an attorney today who’s thinking of underwriting his own, fascinating.

8) Old probate leads and using historical data

Okay. So, Becky asked a question: I use probateleads.com for leads. Some are quite old filing dates, 12/18. I’m a little lost on how to parse the leads or if there’s something I should know about those leads.

Thank you. Becky, if you’re there, let me see if I can. Yep. I’m here. Oh, good. Hi. So, when you say the leads you’re getting from them, you’re accessing the whole database or you’re pulling the most recent ones and that’s what they’re giving you? Or they’re sending them to you and that’s what you’re getting.

I’ve never used this before. So, I had just selected my state in a certain area, and I could, I could get like 500 leads. Got it. And so, a majority of these are, fairly old. So yeah, I don’t know, what they sent me and how I should approach these are still good or anything like that.

So, I don’t know specifically about probate leads. I do know that for example, MTI, so I think that’s probate data.com. So, they promote the idea that the old leads are as good, the old filings, they crosscheck them. My experience is like literally today, an older case I was falling up on with an attorney I know. She had sold the property two years ago and the information the data was wrong.

I think I would say that the older cases for the most part, and then Becky, where do you practice real estate or invest in real estate? Sure. Yeah. I’m in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I’m in LA, which is a much more competitive market. We get more data. I imagine Fort Wayne is smaller, less, and more valuable.

And so, tracking which ones are closed and which ones are open but old would be really valuable to know. I’m literally in escrow for a probate case that was filed in 2016. And by the way, I double-ended it, and it was like a 2.3 million sale. So how good is that? How, who would like, who else besides me would like more of those?

So, I would definitely not run away from the older ones. Of course, you want to sift through them efficiently and I don’t, but I don’t know the answer to your particular data source. I’ve not worked with appropriate leads personally, so I really can’t answer unless somebody else can, I don’t know how to answer that.

 One comment there is, if you’re in a smaller market, I think you’ll find a similar pattern across all probate lead providers. It’s just that some might sell you by quantity. So, they’re going to say you can purchase 100, 200, or 500 leads. With all the leads.

For example, they do it by month. The number of leads you’d get on a 30-day basis, every 30 days could vary. I think probably about half the lead providers offer you the option to purchase historical data specifically, and sometimes at a cheaper price in bulk, if you want to go a year back and purchase old leads. And just to echo, I used to run a call center. Calling older probate leads was a gold mine to me. And that was only with cold calls. I had no branding to my own name because I was calling on behalf of another agent or investor.

But in Bill’s shoes with old leads, if you keep them in the contact list and you have some warm touches here and there, they’ve had the chance to see all of your content marketing after you’ve been doing this for 3, 6, 9 months, Bill’s position is even more powerful for older leads.

They’ve had time to build trust and time to forget about everybody else who marketed to them the first week that they were a probate lead. So, five hundred’s a lot to work with, I don’t think you’ll be bored anytime soon. Definitely believe that it’s worth it to sift through and then find the gold in your list of leads. And use her analogy.

Gold mines are mostly dirt. So, most of your phone numbers going to be dirt, but you got to sift through them to find the gold nuggets or the diamond nuggets. And so, I think that’s a good analogy for it definitely. And I also would say really quick, those of you have a keyboard. I’m going to ask you a question.

Let me know what your answer is. How many months on average do you think a lead is from? They start thinking about doing something to close escrow. Let’s say seller leads. What’s the average seller lead from? I want to sell to closed escrow. Anyway, put in the chat box. What do you think the answer is? I’m just dying to know what you guys think the average is.

Six months, 66 months, question mark, 10, 12, 2 years, 18 months average. I, the only, most reliable data I ever saw was from BoomTown which sells leads and as a CRM product. And so, they could take the leads coming in and average it out… average is over two years. And I think that skews low because most customers only buy leads and they’ve only had ’em in the pipeline as long as they’ve had ’em. I would say on average longer. And probate’s probably the same that I can just tell you in Los Angeles, when I take the real estate sales at court, the average is two years. So, I would say for you guys who are not staying in contact with those customers on average, for two years all the money is on the table.

In my book, the money is in the nurturing and the long-term connection. And then somebody said why might the case take so long. You know, this was litigation. This was two parties fighting or several parties fighting. And at the end, they had to force a court confirmation sale, which is my specialty in LA county.

So, they had to sell it, but they needed an agent who knew how to handle getting court confirmation. And in fact, I think I played a pivotal role in getting it approved for the attorney. At least he feels that way and the customer does. That was great. Definitely.

I would definitely say, older leads to me are greater than three-quarters old.

Okay. But I think you have to have a strategy. I would say if they had property, whether they want to sell it now or not, it’s irrelevant. They’re going to sell it someday. Everybody sells their house someday. They want to sell it, or they’re going to die and have to sell it. So, I would say it’s worth staying in contact with them until they’re no longer in possession of the property.

Okay. Hey, I think we’re at the end here really quick. Okay. We’ll wrap up. Hey, you guys feel free to participate in the probate mastery alumni Facebook group. If you’re a probate mastery alumnus, I go there all the time and I see.

I see leads, and referrals. I see good questions. I try to answer and, Katt answers questions there. And I see Chad as well answer questions in there. And then Estate professionals mastermind you don’t have to graduate the class to be in there. So, feel free to jump in there as well.

Two great resources. And then again, I’m Bill Gross. And I host probably at weekly and Thursdays at 4:00 PM, Pacific 7:00 PM eastern for your live call. And there, I tend to bring in, I guess I interview and make this more of a working call where we ask questions. So, thanks so much, everybody have a powerful week.

We do this again every Tuesday, at 12 noon, 3:00 PM. Eastern. It’s also on the website, probate master.com. Make it a great week, everybody. Thank you.

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