How to get probate leads for your Estate Sale business

Whether you’re a solo estate sale organizer looking to generate estate sale leads or an estate liquidation company looking for a lead source that works in any market, probate leads might be your answer.

Probate leads are valuable. People in probate will need a house cleaned out, and you’re the person to do it.

This quick guide covers 4 ways estate sale businesses can find families in probate that are likely to need estate sale services.

1) Probate lead lists done for you

The easiest way to access probate leads is to grab a list from a researcher or probate lead list company. Rates and features will vary, and these services will obviously cost more than doing the legwork yourself. But if your time is better spent doing something else, outsourcing the data collection is certainly in your best interest: There are dozens of companies and hundreds of individual researchers out there, but this list summarizes some of the biggest names out there: Guide to the most popular online Probate Lead Companies

2) Free probate leads via public record

For estate sale companies that are willing to do the legwork, probate lead generation can be done in-house. This involves traveling to probate hearings and reading probated wills, court orders, etc., grabbing records online where courthouses allow access and checking local publications for public notice of probate. Ease of access varies by county – some courthouses make it easy to grab multiple records online or in person, whereas others have a tedious process. Some courts create barriers to access with nominal fees or other criteria for access.

Guide: How to get Probate Real Estate Leads Fast & Easy

Probate records can yield enough information for you to begin marketing to personal representatives. Depending on your marketing strategy, you might want to do additional research to find more complete contact information for probate petitioners and other heirs.

3) Probate leads from referral partners

You can also leverage partnerships with attorneys, agents, and investors that work probate and trusts (which can end up in probate!) in your market. 

Probate attorneys are often the first point of contact for families in probate, but they don’t handle property cleanouts and related tasks. They simply handle the legal process, and can also help families bill the estate for the necessary services required to sell probate property. Building relationships with probate attorneys near you will put you in the position to receive referrals when your services are needed.

You should also build relationships with real estate agents and investors in your market that work probates (Hint: You might be able to find some in our Facebook community, Estate Professionals Mastermind). These people are already spending time and money to market to probate leads, and likely already have probate lead lists complete with multiple contact fields. In fact, a commonly-asked question from real estate agents and investors that join our live probate training sessions is where to find an estate sales company to add to their network. Probate agents and investors in your market should be handing this work off to you and educating the personal representatives on how your services can be billed to the estate so everybody wins.

TIP: The Probate Mastery approach of offering value is tried and true across any professional title. Whether you offer in-house services beyond estate sales or not, the goal is always to understand people in situations and be able to connect them with the solution they need. After all, happy clients and happy business partners can send you referrals for life.

4) Inbound marketing and probate leads: Google My Business and hyperlocal SEO

One last suggestion is, how heavily are you using Google My Business and local SEO for your estate sale business? In other words, what are you doing to make sure people searching online for estate sale help near you can actually find you?

Probate usually happens because a family had no plan in place. When a family member who owned home passes away, one of the first things live-in family members or beneficiaries tasked with settling affairs have to take care of is personal belongings.  These are the people that haven’t spoken to attorneys or even thought about selling the property yet. And what do most people do when they begin to plan or research something? They search online.

In other words, leveraging Google My Business and local SEO strategies can get you upstream of probate filings. If you have little competition locally, it is extremely easy to get started and see results. In a more competitive market, more time and effort will be needed, but the return will be just as fruitful.

Inbound estate sale leads from local SEO marketing are not only direct opportunities for you, either; they are opportunities you can walk into a B2B partner’s office with. Don’t underestimate the power of reciprocity.

Continue to grow your estate sale business each day.

To summarize, probate and probated estates can be a significant source of business for estate sale companies that do the legwork. Figure out your preferred probate lead list acquisition method, build more relationships with probate attorneys, and invest in building a web presence with Google My Business and local SEO strategies.

If you want more probate marketing training, visit probatemastery.com/podcast to check out our podcast and video library, or follow Probate Mastery on Facebook to stay in the know about probate news and marketing opportunities!