How to get probate leads from the courthouse: Weekly Probate Expert Mastermind #85

Opening remarks from this episode:

Good afternoon. This is Bill Gross, and I am hosting today our weekly probate mastermind call. We do this every Tuesday at 12 noon Pacific, 3:00 PM Eastern time. And whatever time it is in Hawaii, I think 9:00 AM in Hawaii and all times in between in front and back. And we talk about all things probate real estate related. For those people who have taken the Probate Mastery program founded by Chad Corbett. It is meant to be participative.

It is meant to be a place where you can come ask questions, share challenges, update on progress, and share best practices. And you can do that by raising your hand in the zoom app or putting a question in the chat box. So, love to have you take part. You can get more information on Probate Mastery at ProbateMastery.com. And, again, this is meant to be participative. It is not meant to be kind of like a thank you for buying and going on with your life kind of program.

I wanted to share two topics and then we are going to go into a real-life agent who is in the process here. Two quick topics that came up to me this week.

The probate niche and probate data vs. leads (Probate Niche)

Let’s talk about micro probate niches and the difference between probate data vs. leads. And I think that I would say that unless you are in a small, you know, rural market, most of us who are in urban areas, probate really is not a niche. It might be like a, a genre or super niche. And the people who are successful in this business go into prob. And find within probate their own niche or their own path or their own lead generation method.

And the misnomer comes from probate data companies that sell what they call probate leads. I would just call it data. And a real estate business might take the data and convert them into leads and then sales. And there are various processes or niches or systems you can use to do that. So, if you follow me, you know, that I started going to court every day.

That was my niche; I was the probate expert in court in LA county. And then over time, I built a great probate business; I relaunched my career at 60 years old from scratch in a year and a half. We built a great business. Of course, COVID came and shut the courthouse down. I had changed my business format to another format.

But what I want to say is there are multiple ways to skin the cat on this call and on Chad’s interviews. He interviews people that specialize in senior living; he is talked about probate advance work; he has had reverse mortgage lenders. There are a lot of different niches within the probate niche. I had a phone call today from a guy who I want to show you shout to Aaron if you are on the call, he was a bond rep I guess you would call him.

And he sold bail bonds, but the same companies that do bail bonds also do probate surety bonds, and the bail bond business went through some changes instead he moved into probate surety bonds. He has used that to build relationships with attorneys and is now selling real estate because of that.

Focus on the niche within the niche and find your path – the method that works best for you. Do not just buy one from a company that tells you what to do.

Chad has recently offered the EstateExec as a great tool, and I think a unique niche. In most markets, one to consider. But find that one.

But the other part is, number two, you must get into action. What I admired about Aaron was he gave me a phone call. We talked a little bit about what he is doing, and we are going to actually work on some programs together. And the reason I think he will be successful is that you got to get into action.

There is no program that I am aware of where you can just buy data- not leads data- mail it out, or hand it to an ISA and sit back and have listings pour in. I do not think it is quite that simple. Maybe at some point in time, it gets that simple. But to launch a business needs more work, more strategy, and a more precise approach than just that.

So those are two things I wanted to share today were number one, find your niche within the probate niche. And two, let us get into action now.

How to get probate leads from the courthouse free.

Speaking of that, one of the people who has participated pretty regularly for a while is ClaireMonique.

We are bringing her in because we were talking about how to get business from attorneys and one of the homework assignments was to go to your local court. So ClaireMonique, how you doing today? I am good bill. How are you? Great and quick, where are you from Arizona?

And so, what is the county courthouse. What county are you in? I went to the Pinal County courthouse. It is not Maricopa, which is the bigger county, but you went to Pinal County, right. Which is nearby. Right. And so, what inspired you to do that?

Well, you challenge us last week. And I said I would, so I had to.

Wow.

Wow. You know, if my wife would ever do anything I asked her to do [laughs], I am just kidding. She cannot hear that. Thank God. Okay, so I challenged you to, and you did it. So, what was experience like?

It was interesting. All The Leads cannot supply me probate information for Pinal County. But I, by going to the courthouse, I was able to speak with the court clerk who gave me the link to, or the website to go and order all the cases that were filed in that county for probate over the last five years.

Boom! I just sent my request in last night, so once I get my list, then I will start working it.

What are they charge for that? Nothing. I am sorry. More time. Did you say it is free data? Nothing?

Yes. My favorite price, my favorite price. I love anything that is free. I am a little on the cheap side. Okay. So that is exciting. I will tell you I would love if you do not mind, if you are able to share the data and do some analysis with you, and maybe report back to you, what I learned by looking at, if you’re open to that.

But you have a unique opportunity because I would imagine 99% of the real estate agents at Pinal County, would have stopped and given up.

Right? Right. Including you up until recently. Yes. Okay. So, congratulations for getting over the hurdle. Now look behind you. There are very few competitors. Mm-hmm. So, let us talk about, what else did you learn while you are there? I learned which court rooms the probate hearings are held in and what days they are heard. Interesting. So what days are they heard? Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Mm-hmm . And, and where, what rooms are your top floor? First floor. No, on the first floor. Interesting. So, do you think if you had a customer who is filing probate to get letters of authority and they have a hearing date set and they were going to go to court, do you think you might be of benefit to them as a result of knowing where to go?

Absolutely. Is there a coffee shop there or a little? There is no coffee shop. There is no food in this courthouse at all. Are they allowed to bring in coffee? I do not know. I did not ask. So, you might want to find out and if you have customer going, you might say, and by the way, I’ll meet you there; I’ll bring a Starbucks because they don’t sell coffee. Would that become a nice thing to keep a customer, a little? Who might otherwise be nervous? Keep a client kind of calm or appreciate or connected to right. Mm-hmm Okay, good.

What else should you learn while you were at court? That it is not as scary as I had anticipated it would be. Oh, not as scary. Why would it be scary? You look like a grown woman. What, what, what do you think would be there? My experiences in courthouses have not been pleasant. Okay. Okay. There you go. Whose has?

I am not, I am not going to talk any details if you are not, okay? But I will say as a kid, my father was an attorney, and I did go to court with Dad. And that was kind of boring, right? If you are an eight-year-old kid, you are probably laying on the floor and the judge yells at you. That is kind of my memory of it.

Going as an adult, we are not going to talk about that. Okay, ClaireMonique. We are not going to discuss, at all. So, do you think other customers of yours might also think it is scary to go to court? Of course. And what can you tell them? It is not that bad. It is not as bad as you think.

How valuable is that? Pretty valuable! Yes, it is pretty valuable. And if an attorney has a client, you think they are, they are concerned there, their client might be nervous? Yes! And how, how might they think about you as being there with the client, meeting them in court, having been there before, being able to assure them it is not that scary? I think that would be valuable to an attorney. I think so. Now, not all attorneys have the smarts to appreciate that. Many are too busy to appreciate that. And our job is to cut through the noise and help and give me opportunity to appreciate the resource you can bring.

Okay. So now we have data, we have learned where the room is, so we can be comfort to our customers. We can better help our attorneys. Right. Mm-hmm. Did you learn where to park? Where do you park at your courthouse? Right across the street from the across street. What is the cost? There is no cost.

This is a tiny little county. So, did you know is free when you went there? No, I did. So, there you go. You can tell your client where to park. Yep! Did you know where to park when you went? I just followed the signs.

Okay. But might ahead of time, if somebody told you, “Oh, by the way you park right across the street on main street and first,” would that be helpful? That would have been helpful. Yes. Or maybe a map you sent a Google map ahead of time. You showed them where to park. Right? Right. You could meet them there and walk in with them, perhaps. Yes.

When you walked to the courthouse, did they have, metal detectors and armed sheriffs? They do. Is that a little intimidating? No, not really. Okay. Let us if you have a client maybe on a walker or wheelchair, they might appreciate some help? Yes, there is a ramp. Okay. So, some other things we learned now where to parking, and how to access the building a little bit.

Yes. While you are there. Do you do any social media? No, I did not.

Extra credit next time. And for anybody listening, and one of my team members, Patricia Castillo went to court in LA county for the client was getting full authority. We knew they are going to get it, but that is not the point. The customer’s still nervous.

And she went and then she took a video on the way in, and she showed where the parking lot was and where the courthouse was. And when you come, here is where I will meet. You know, in LA they charge to park, of course, we are Los Angeles. But now she has a video to send to her customer to say, oh, here is where you park.

And here is where I will meet. So, it gives ’em a little more certainty. And then afterward your customer got the authority and she, she did a video with a customer saying, oh, she got a lot of authority, and she is all happy. And thanks for your help along the way. So next time for extra credit, if you do have a client going or not, use your time by doing some social media where you are there and posting it, okay? Okay.

What is the number one thing that you got out of going to court that day? Well, so far, just the fact that I can request all the probate data, all the lists, all the probate cases that were filed in the last five years. And I can have access to that. That is unbelievable considering that from everything that I have learned from the course and from you and from Chad, that it takes about 18 months to maybe two to three years for a probate case to be completely settled.

So that gives me plenty of opportunities to find the personal representatives and reach out to them at no cost. At no cost. Now I was just saying in Los Angeles, the average time of a sale of the house is two years from file date average, which means half sooner, half longer. I am in escrow right now closing close one from nine from 2016. Six years old.

So, what was your face like when they said to you that probate leads are available, and it is free? I wish I had a camera at that moment. What did you look like when she said that? I was shocked. I was really shocked. Yes. She just, but the thing, what, what I found helpful was that the clerk was just welcoming and free with the information and the guidance.

Now I want to tell who is watching this either you are live, or you are on, on YouTube. They are not, it is not all like this. The point of this conversation is not to say, go to your county court because it is free to park and they are nice and friendly, and they are going to give you all the data for free. That is not the point.

The point is she learned that by going and the value is the process, not the result. Because they do not sell the data, but she was there. There would be some other manner for her to get the data. Maybe there’s a computer or there’s a research room, or there’s a person that you can hire. There is some answer to the question and your job in your county, where you do business is to figure that out.

And she did that for her case. And that is how it is. And maybe some of the data hast to be skip traced and you know, the phone numbers. Okay. All that is true. She can do that on her own. She has data. She can get the phone numbers by there are probate data companies with which she can work. But the real power is going there. The real power is taking responsibility to learn how to solve the puzzle, not just taking somebody else’s word for it.

So, ClaireMonique, I just want to tell you how proud I am of you, and I appreciate you sharing it with us.

I think a lot of real estate agents would have just run off and celebrated and kept it to themselves. But you know that by helping other people behind you, you are going to be uplift to yourself. So, wish you continued success. I would love to see the data. Thank you. I would love to search it and who the attorneys are the different types of data available.

If you are interested, reach out to me, I would love to see if I can help you with that. Get some ideas what to do with it. Okay. Fantastic. Thanks so much. Okay. Larry says that. Is she going to have to skip trace the leads? We will find out when she gets the data.

And maybe that is the answer she’ll have to figure that out, but that’s a lot cheaper and easier to skip trace the phone numbers if that’s the way she wants to go with that. And then Brian asked, how are you reaching out to the personal representative’s phone, email or email? Brian? Is that a question for her or a question for me?

Claire. I do not think she, she does not have a data yet, so I do not think she can answer them. And so typically the filing forms do not have the person representative’s phone number, it has the attorney’s phone number and email. And then you have decided how you want to approach it from there.

So, but when she gets that, she will figure it out. And then, uh, Larry says, had to put it into Excel format. Skip trace the list for sure. Maybe, you know, there’s a lot of ways to do that. Larry, I would say, you know, one way would be to skip trace and phone call; one way would skip trace and email; one way to skip trace and send the mail.

Another one would be to see who the attorneys are controlling the business and reach out to them. Another one might be look where the properties are and go to the properties. So, there is a lot of different ways to work the probate business. But if you have the data and this is the other thing, I want to tell everybody, I do not cold call petitioners, but I get the data.

I use the data to help me understand who is doing business. You know, when I get a case, I work with attorneys. I work with vendors who gimme referrals, but I still need the data. So, it may or may not. It is important to skip trace them.

And yes, the value is the process, not the results, you know, that is the key to our business.

We as real estate agents focus so much on, “if I do this, I get the results.” And that is why tell agents, when you start out in business, maybe not starting out in this probate niche, but you start in business, the best ways to start is cold calling on the phone and door knocking. Why? Well, one is just the process of cold calling and the process of door knocking gets you talking to people, and you must get good at talking to people no matter what process you are in.

In my case, I generally have inbound referrals, but I still have to be good at talking to people on the phone. Then eventually you must be good at meeting them in person. So, the process of going to court’s not just what, again, it is a gold mine that she got the data for free in her county.

That is not true in most counties. But the process of going there is even more valuable. I do not think she realizes yet, but my guess is a year from now she will really appreciate that even more. Brian says first stop is the probate office at the courthouse. My challenge to all of you is you shall go if you are, if you will not be a probate expert, at least go once. And while you are going to go shoot a video of the parking lot, shoot a video of walking in, what that is like, shoot a video. You cannot do video generally in the courtroom or photos, but you can do one going in and you can do one going out.

Okay. A lot of love for ClaireMonique. Congratulations. Fantastic. Okay. Good Claire. Thank you for sharing with us. Appreciate it.

Easy, No-Face Social Media Post Template for probate court

That is not Pinal County, just a random courthouse photo. [Laughs]. Yes. Oh, okay. You can show that I made a quick social post template. So ClaireMonique said she did not get to record anything on social, but you can accomplish a social post without having to record a video there. So, there you go!

Right? So, here is a quick template I made in two minutes. It is not Pinal County. I just put “courthouse” and that picture was there. But put three tips, customize it, upload it to your social media platforms and then write a description talking more about your court visit. And obviously if you have any questions, if you are going through probate, contact me, your Certified Probate Expert!

Well, I will tell you what also, if you Google search Pinal County courthouse, you are going to find pictures of the courthouse. Yes. You can just throw any like whatever your county is, whatever your courthouse is, put that in there for the familiarity, right? People will stop scrolling as they are going through their Facebook timelines because they see a picture of something.

In most counties, the courthouse is somewhat iconic. Like in LA, the, Stanley Mosque courthouse is somewhat recognizable. Movies and TV and things like that. I am sure it is true in other counties, people who have been there for marriage licenses or divorce proceedings or whatever are likely to recognize it.

I would say, it is easy to get actual photos of your own county. It is not even hard. And they are, generally speaking, they’re available for reuse. So, but a good job Katt! Of course, within two minutes she has a social media post you can all use. That is fantastic.

Yes. You just got to click. I think that there should show a little tiny pencil at the bottom toolbar. It is not that visible, but it should be there when you click that template link so anyone can customize it quickly. It is a simple picture with some text. So just get creative, and put your brand colors in it.

I am not a big fan of always slapping a logo everywhere possible, but if you feel like you need to do it for brokerage compliance, go ahead and do that.

Please follow all laws. Whether you want to follow them or not. Just, yes. Good making fun. I am sorry. It was a joke. A little real estate compliance humor. Sorry about that. I will just say this, in California at eXp Realty, we should put our logo on any social media on our business page. It should be there somehow. Now your page can have your logo and your private, real estate number on it. Then every post does not have to have it. But it must be somewhere in your process. People who post stuff on their personal page, will not work. If you are posting on a business page or business channel that has that marking on it, then yes.

I think you are compliant there. Yep. And that is a good point too. You guys, if you haven’t really launched your social media wings, you don’t have all your channels set up: it’s a good consideration to make whether you want to set a profile that’s going to be personal where you talk about your business, or business where it’s always got to be business branded.

Yes. That is the whole thing. You know, personally, I had a YouTube channel for years ago when I came to launch, a YouTube channel. I had been, I have been doing some live stream on Facebook for a while and said, I want to put it on. And YouTube would not allow me to put up more than 10 minutes or something at the time, but my old YouTube channel, was personal.

I had already done it for a while and so they allowed me to. So really my YouTube channel is my personal Google account, which is a little backward, but I was able to do some things and now I have built it and it is kind of late. If you are going to start over, you want to do it the right way.

Lisa says, Katt, you are rad, you did that in two minutes. No, I am sorry. Lisa. It took her two and a half minutes. Katt’s not quite that good [laughs]. I am just kidding; she is pretty amazing. Okay, put her template back up. Yes, it is a Canva link, and then you can edit yourself if you want to do that. And yes, and logo and MLS number, I believe. Yes.

Again, that is all personal, follow your rule. Make sure you follow your state rules and make sure you follow your broker’s rules. Cause we all want to be compliant. Nobody is going to visit you in jail. Okay. That has been kind of fun talking about going to court. Any, questions, challenges, comments, who is in process here, work on something that we can work on together.

Katt Wagner Marketing Coach Reviews

Larry. Let us keep you unmuted here. How is that? That is fantastic. What’s up, Larry? Hey, I have a victory. I did a marketing consultation with Katt last Friday. That was well worth it. If you have not done it, I would recommend it. Oh, he had a lot of homework.

I am still working on your homework, and I still gave you high grades for that still. Um, and I will tell you that her Katt concerned me because while we were on the call on the Zoom call, she was not taking any notes that I could make. I am taking notes. She is not doing anything but talking and giving great advice.

And then about an hour later, I get this email beautifully formatted with all these action items. And it was good! That was good. And I just got 115 leads from All the Leads today. So now the real work begins working a database, making the calls, doing the follow-up, all that good stuff. Just following the process.

Nice. So Katt you know, I know that I set up one day and you did coach for me on brand. Katt did a great job of kind of helping me clarify some branding issues and definitely worth looking into, so she’ll put the link in the chat box with that.

Book a marketing strategy consultation

Good, So, congratulations. And now the real work begins and Larry, remind me, where do you do business? Dallas Fort Worth, Denton County primarily. Denton county.

So, what is your probate marketing plan? That was the subject of the phone call. The strategy was Tuesdays and Thursdays are cold calling personal representatives; Wednesdays are going to talk to probate attorneys and other service professionals.

And then I am leaving Mondays and Fridays open to go to the probate properties and look at the houses. And if I need to Saturday morning for an hour, I will catch up some phone calls. The more people you talk, to the more money you make! So, let us get action.

Attorney Prospecting Ideas & Listing Success Story

Hi everybody. I just wanted to say I had a small probate win, but it was a big win to me. I went to a probate attorney. Well, I sent a video talking to the attorney and I called her to tell her I am going to send it, and she was very friendly.

She had written an article in a senior forum, which is a newspaper, a little thin newspaper for a senior citizen. And she wrote a probate article and that is what I was calling her to let her know that it was very well written. I enjoyed it. It would help a lot of people and we could get some coffee and talk about it.

So, I thought I finally took some action, and I was not afraid, and I thought, you know, I am just going to start with women attorneys. I think, well, they could be mean, but I think, oh yes, I could get along with oh yes.

Just FYI. Yes. They can be! I also had an ancillary probate property listing and the owner now he lives in San Diego. So, he had to come back to Ohio a number of times to get stuff straight. And in the meantime, I was like the project manager, you know, I am getting the people to clean the house and for somebody to take the trash in a dumpster.

 I am not getting paid for that, but I will get a commission.

Nice! Okay, so you are in star county, Ohio. So, um, have you been to the county courthouse in star? Yes, we do not ha it is not in the courthouse. It is like in the, um, city building or something. There is another building, but yes, I have been up there, and they are, our process is totally different.

They told me that they do not have regularly scheduled stuff. You must wait until an attorney is coming there for a certain reason. I spoke to the magistrate, and I did not even know what that means, but anyway, he is the guy in charge. And it made, he made it seem like they, they do not do it as your county does it in California.

Like there is nothing ever going on that. You cannot just go up there randomly. You must go when they are actually having something. Wow. Well, nobody has anything like Los Angeles. We are very, that is a whole different world. Yes. Um, anyway. Okay. Well, I, I would say just, you know, go there and learn and meet the people.

Maybe take ’em out to coffee or lunch or bring ’em a gift or something, but if you know those people, you are going to have the inside track on it. So good job. .

Yes. I have been to the probate office where the ladies work, back there and they are helpful. So good. Well, I would be their best friend if they let you go back there and talk to, ’em. See in LA they have like these dividers and there’s plastic and there is this. Yes. And they do not talk to you. And it is very anonymous. But if, I mean, like when I was a mortgage officer, when I started the business, and you go to real estate offices and often the front desk would keep you from going to the back.

But if you can get into the back area, I could spend all day in a back office, meeting people and talking to ’em and chatting ’em up. That is how you build business. So, I would be their best friend. So good. Good for you. Good. Thank you. Congratulations there. Good job.

Okay, so somebody asks, and somebody asks a question, it is not self-promotion, but I have a program tomorrow that I run called GetProbate.cash. And that is I do Wednesday morning, tomorrow morning, 8:30 A.M. Pacific time. I am going to do an overview and a presentation on it. And then the coaching program, if you wish to continue with a small group mastermind, with all the content.

That is four weeks starting on Thursday. Getprobate.cash. I will go over all those details with you. 499, 10-person mastermind. I will do an interview and my goal is to bring in vendors and talk about the product on that Wednesday call.

So hopefully that will be of value for everybody who is involved with probate again tomorrow, 8:30 at Pacific time. Getprobate.cash. Hope you can join us. Okay, good Deborah, fantastic. ClaireMonique, fantastic. Larry can. Fantastic. Who else has something that with share victories, or wants to share any questions?

So, Larry asked, can you talk about how you use estate exec software to market with I am not using it currently. I have looked at it like to add it in my system. Not sure how I am kind of still learning the process a little bit about it. So, I cannot, if there’s somebody who’s using it, I know Chad talks about it.

There are some interviews on the website. I would look at that. Um, but personally, I cannot really add anything to that at this. I am not sure if Brian Wilson’s on the call right now, but I know he just spoke with Chad today. He acted at once after going through the EARN course and immediately started reaching out.

I am not sure if that pertains to using the Estate Exec software, I do not know if I see him on here still. But in any case, that should be publishing Friday. I try for Thursday, but I am probably going to publish it Friday. Great. There you go.

ClaireMonique says, I could not get on. I do not know what happened. I had, we had big turnout. So, thanks for all those who supported.

We will do it again tomorrow and it was recorded. If you sign up for it, you get an email of the replay. So, hopefully you will get it tomorrow. Or if you email me ClaireMonique I will send you back a link directly. Okay. Bill, I think that the reason I may have been locked out is because I tried to log in while I was at the office and mm-hmm and there are certain parameters that are locked.

So, the dot cash might be one of them. I will try to log in tomorrow from home. OK. Sometimes I try different browser, you know, I use a Chrome browser. Sometimes the thing does not work, most computers have preloaded the edge browser on it, or safari for an apple. I have Firefox.

So, someone is just a different browser will get you through. Sometimes there’s simply different settings, that one program does not like for whatever reason.

So, I see a question here from Nina she is asking, does anybody have a go-to bond company for removal of liens?

So that is more of a general real estate issue. Oftentimes you will have liens on.

Sometimes you will have on a title report, and it will have an old lien, something was not paid off, they had a small loan, personal loan judgment, and they cannot find the person to reconvey it to clear the lien. And so sometimes you have a bond company, people will bond around, you put money up and they will clear the title and then they will solve the problem after the fact.

So, if you know, if somebody there go to a Probate Mastery Facebook group and you can answer that and then, let us see. Evan gross. My namesake. No, no relation. I am aware of: “who else is in St. Louis, Missouri and would like to meet up and discuss real estate?” He is visiting from New Jersey this week.

So, if you are in town, hit him up and that is about it. We can keep it short. If you are busy, you busy,

Bill’s probate investing deal from a YouTube lead

I am busy. I got a new listing yesterday as an investor. I will share a little story also. So, I had a listing yesterday, which is great, and that is my basic business. I had a listing; it was a small property. It was a friend through my company. The broker referred them to me because he needed some help because it was probate, an overly complicated one and I was the listing agent. And it is turning into a short sale, and we could not get an offer, which I was surprised at the price we had because it is not in the city, it is in a more rural area, but I think it’s a great deal.

And I said to the seller, listen, this is not normal. It has been on the market for a week now. I would be glad to write an offer. I cannot represent you I would have to resign as a listing agent and write the offer. I represent myself as a buyer’s agent. You have somebody else you would like to replace me with and let me present an offer.

So, I got my offer accepted a short sale on a good deal. So, in addition, I think, I think the market in some places that were red hot, the markets are already moving in that direction. You will see some foreclosures; you will see some short sales or see some distressed properties. If you are watching my YouTube at all, I do not think we are heading to a crash or crisis, but at the margins, there will be more deals and more investor opportunities. And I think for all of us. I am a real estate broker first, but at the same time, I have my investor business card in my pocket.

As soon as I find the opportunity, I will whip it out. In my case, I did want to make sure I disclosed fully. I talked to the broker, make sure they are okay with it, and follow all the rules, sign papers, and all that kind of stuff. There will be more of those opportunities. Truly, there is nothing special about the listing being probate, but it is a trust sale, there are two trusts for the sellers and some complicated issues on the land, and an agent out of state who is related to the sellers. She referred it to me. So, she saw me in my YouTube channel. So, what I tell people, so the question Larry asked is, was the listing for probate?

Probate real estate referral systems and SOI marketing

What I tell people is my lead generation is exclusively probate. My business about half is probate and half are not because when people know I am an expert in probate, they call me with other problems. I had a real estate program call me about two years ago. He had a, he was a litigating, he the civil litigation and they were considering likening a property and he asked.

To do a broker’s price opinion on two properties. And I mean, I will bet you, I do this for free to try to get listings. So, I gave him a about two-page report. I had comps on both properties. It was the same property, two times at the time of the incident and then current. So, like one 10 years ago.

And when now, so I had to pull the old data up and run it. It took me an hour. I have not thought about it and the, because he is an attorney who is giving me other business. So, I am glad he called and said, hey, we settled, and I need you to submit me an invoice for your work. And I said, what? I know, what are you talking about?

You sent a broker’s price opinion. We pay you for that. I said, well, how much he goes, I do not know, what do you want to charge? I said, you know, the probate referee would charge 1% of the value. So, it was $454. He said, great. I emailed and he paid me. So, I made $454 yesterday. You know, I did the BPO and an invoice.

So, when people ask is my business, how much of my business probate? I would say, you know, half of it is probate listings where the disclosures probate, yes. But all of it is because of my probate marketing, I met that attorney in court. I guess three and a half or four years ago, just walking down the aisleway we had met socially, I had met him.

He knew who I was. We walked by each other. I even know his name. I had forgotten his name or did not remember it or whatever. And we chat a little bit and I got his card and I put him in my marketing program and reached out to him and called him. And as a result, he has given me three or four listings.

And then I got this $40, you know, free thing yesterday. So, uh, it is not about the probate. It is about serving your customers. And I really believe that the money we get paid reflects the value we create for our customers. And if you focus on creating value for customers, the money will come at you, you must worry about it.

And, in working too spiritual, it comes from my spiritual beliefs that we are here to support each other. The system was created for us to be financially incentive, to support each other. When you focus on that, you will have more money than you ever need. So, and if you are chasing the money, my experience is you will never find enough, but if you are chasing people’s problems to help them and comfort them and serve them, you’ll have more money.

They never need more, more love and appreciation. You have. Um, okay. Another question from Larry, Larry, thank you for the questions here. Are you getting business from PRS and errors that you worked with on their real estate? I have gotten referrals from PRS and errors. Yes. I do not get as many because I think the nature of probate, at least in LA skews lower.

Lower-income people have less business to refer you to. Also, I do not really spend my time on. Consumer referral marketing. I just do not enjoy it. It is not, it is not good. And I know people love it. You know, my, one of my team members, she has, you know, parties every holiday season and she invites people to things, and she posts on social media about herself and her family, which is great.

And she loves that. I rather, I really enjoy working on the hard probates more than I do, uh, and it all works out. So, to answer your question, I think you can get a lot more business from PRS and errors than I am getting. Um, but that is just not my focus and I I would much rather work on attorneys and, and vendors and referrals from other agents than the PRS and errors.

That is just me. Are they in database? Yes, I put everybody ever meet everybody I talk to is in my database. I email everybody. If you gimme your email address, you me, for a reason I am going to email you. I do not scrape emails, but when I talk to you, and you give it to me, or you email. I am going to email you back.

And as such, I send out a weekly email to everybody in my SOI database, uh, about 12 or 1300 people. I also, because I am building a national team of real estate agents of probate agents, uh, nationwide. Um, I email to agents, and some have joined my team because of that. So, I email them that I also emailed probate-related stuff, and I promote my probate channel through my email database as well.

So, but I email a lot and I think I will tell you guys a cute story. The other day, uh, I was in the market and a real estate agent who never, you know, we are, we are cordial. He is one of those guys who do like a deal a year. He is not really engaged in the business. He would always come to my office when we had parties, I think for the free or DS, whatever, he is a nice enough guy, no harm.

So, he walks up to me and says, bill, I talked to you a second. I said, yes, he goes, you know, I gave her emails. I go, oh, okay. Thanks. He says, well, no, no, you send way too many. and, and of course you think about it. How would you know if I, if you are getting too many, if you have not unsubscribed, right? Like you could always unsubscribe, so you would not get too many, but also, they are too many to him because he hast want to do business with me.

That is okay. I mean, my open rates are phenomenal compared to most real estate agents. Because there are people who want to do business with me and those who do not have unsubscribed, I am finding the way like my job in life is not to convert people to want to work with me. My job in life is to find people who want to work with me and give them value.

And so, I think as agents, our social media needs to be really on point to engage with people and understand not everybody is going to work with you. Not everybody is going to appreciate you, whatever. Um, I will tell you another cue story since I am on the. Cat’s listening in. She is really a social media expert. But so, when I do, uh, video, you may remember, I used to have not have the headset and I have these, um, kind of fancier earbuds that go come like newscasters.

They go up behind your back and they go into your ears. You cannot see them. You would look like you did not have any headset on. And I would take the microphone out of the picture. And one of my real target referral partners. One time. I was like wearing a headset because those earbuds get a little tiring on your ear.

And so, I had it on, he goes, I love you with the headset on the microphone. He said, you should go that way all the time. So again, uh, you know, people who think of me as being high tech. People in my world, if you were a headset and have a microphone, your high tech to high tech people, not having headset and not have a microphone’s high tech, but that is not my audience.

My audience are impressed that I even have a microphone and have a headset. So, um, yes, so definitely I would put everybody to answer your question, Larry, everybody I ever meet goes on my database. Some of you got my email. Some of you have been subscribed. I get nasty emails only from realtors threatening to Sue me because they claim to unsubscribe twenty.

I personally unsubscribe everybody who sends an email, even though they could have hit the unsubscribed button. I do it myself gladly. That is my price, but I will not tell you do not let it bother you. Do not let it stop you from serving the people you love and care about. Uh, the other people do not appreciate you.

Okay. Other questions? Comments. I do not see any hands up. We had everything in the chat box. Anybody else have any victories losses questions? Oh my gosh. I am just lost. Help me anything?

ProbateMastery.com is a program. If you have not taken it, sign up, take it, come here. This the student mastermind. We get together and share along the way, how to get over those challenges and push through the obstacles. We are going to push you to do some business for those of you who heard Claire Monique’s story. I challenge you go to your courthouse. Just go. When you go there, take some video, take some notes, take video beforehand. When you park your car, take a video.

When you leave, share your social media, come here and share what you learn with a team. That way we can all improve ourselves. Otherwise, everybody, thanks for being here Tuesday, noon, Pacific. Appreciate you. Love you all. Thank you. Very helpful. Reach out to me if I can help you in any way and have a fantastic week. Thanks everybody.

Resources for Episode 85

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