Marketing Strategies for Reaching Pre-Probate vs Probate Leads

Welcome everybody to the weekly probate mastery group coaching call. Josh, go ahead and ask your question again. We’ll start with that. No, I just was going to ask you, what do you see for your podcast? You know, how much activity do you get on your recorded podcasts that you’ve published? Oh, this one’s relatively new.
We started this back in the summer. What you’ll find when you start podcasting is until you get indexed on certain platforms, the growth is pretty steady, but not rapid. So we use Buzzsprout to produce the podcast and syndicate it. Getting the podcast accepted on iTunes is one of the biggest thresholds to reach a lot of folks and, start ranking.
But it’s probably how I would say the same amount of watches on Facebook and YouTube as the downloads on the podcast. And we try to maximize these calls and get it to people, you know, cause some people like to take it on their phone. Some like to watch it on Roku TV at home they’re in their office or whatever.
So we try to put it in multiple places. So I would say if you combine all of the weekly watches between this episode and the next one, you probably have 600 unique people consume it. Awesome. I’m promoting it in my office!. And I know, I think you picked up at least 10 or 15 subscribers. Cool. Well, I appreciate it.
I mean, that helps if you guys, if you get value from me, you know, jump over into iTunes and, you know, give us a rating there that’ll help, help us reach more people for our community. And that’s honestly my favorite part about this. Just the constant discovery of new, new, like people who are fired up to do good in this space.
So, I did a call yesterday with a student that I have not talked to in a year since she took the class last October. And I’m so freaking proud of her. I’m so happy. I can’t wait for to, well, we’ll get that out probably early next week, I’ll try not to let the cat out of the bag, but that’s a really cool part. So the more people, the more altruistic entrepreneurs that are doing good things that you can introduce to the community, the better off we all are.
Right. So, thanks for doing that, Josh!

If you haven’t seen it already, Katt drop a link to your great work in the notes, Kat published a post late last week on digital door-knocking, on really cold prospecting to build your pipeline, both vendors and clients, customers, and clients. And if you guys, if you haven’t read that be sure to take a look at it. It’s something that can help you across all areas of your business.
All different lead sources. You know, pretty much everything we teach in probate mastery is applicable across every list and every person that I’ve come across in real estate, since I started doing it this way in probate, I just started doing it that way, period. So Kat did a really good job kind of showing you exactly how to make the most of your time on social media. Like when you’re on those platforms that grow your network and grow your, your pipeline. And otherwise, we will open the floor to those who need help.
How can we serve you guys?
How’s it going? I’m new to the calls. My name’s Dan, I’ve taken your class. It’s been a couple of years and I’ve implemented everything possible. And as far as personal relationships with attorneys and stuff, it’s predominantly what I actually, I’m kind of bet on to get referrals when possible I do a part-time, I’m a cop full-time and I do real estate.
Part-time at least locally what I found with the attorneys, my area’s a very affluent area and everyone needs an attorney to do a probate. So I started just calling the offices and be surprised how many of them are willing to meet it has worked that way. And also I went through my Facebook, like punched up all the attorneys.
I went through my Facebook, so we have friends in common. Then I reached out to the friends in common, ask how well they know each other. And if they say, oh, we went to high school together. We’ve been friends ever since I asked them to do a soft intro. And this way, the gatekeepers you pass by them without having any problems, it’s easier to get with.

The other thing I found was the sales directors of the nursing homes, which we have plenty of in Florida. Yeah, they’re always willing to talk to us. Always. It’s surprising how, when I call and I say, Hey, I’m a local realtor before they even know what I’m doing because they see potential business.
And once you tell them what you’re doing, it’s very well accepted. And they also recommend you to other people in their groups. My question is I spoke to a couple of attorneys. One of them pretty much broke down the numbers and said for every referral I give you, technically, he says, not that I’m keeping count, but he keeps count.
I need three referrals back. So.
[Laughing] Take him some criminal law cases!
Right, right. Well, you know, the people, I know they Rob houses, they don’t buy them and sell them. But the one, the thing that I ran into when I re when I present to attorneys, I say, you know, I can help lighten your load, make some phone calls off your desk, off of your, off of your paralegals.

So one of them stopped me dead in my tracks and said, but those phone calls made me money. How do I circumvent that it doesn’t seem like attorneys and not all, not are all created equal or are very receptive to helping their clients. They have a mission in hand, they have their clients and they have the probate to do, but they’re not necessarily.
About helping in other spheres, which they actually can, but they don’t want to because then it’ll take away revenue for them. Yep. So thanks for being here. We don’t see you regularly, so thanks for coming and participating, but as you, you know, as part of the community, you’ve probably realized that there’s a common thread that runs through all these faces on camera, right?
And that’s that they’re, they’re serving at a different level and you probably also noticed we don’t have the pretentious self-promoting as part of our community. And, you know, they’re present in real estate. You’ve, you’ve done deals with them, right? Those people don’t show up here because they’re threatened in an environment like this.
So the point I’m getting at is there’s a certain type of person that will prevail. And, in this space with this methodology, your attorney should match that because you’re one of those people, right? You’ve got a servant’s heart, you’re dedicated, you know, you’ve dedicated your career to serve it so thanks for that.
Sometimes it’s just the wrong damn attorney that you’re talking to. Right? If they’re one of those self-interested, revenue-driven, people who like to Rob the clock for billable hours, we’ve had students get inbound calls because when they sent a letter to the attorney, the attorney charged the estate, the full billable hour for opening the letter and invoice the estate.
So they got a $250 charge for that attorney, opening the letter and throwing it in the trash. So they’re out there and I would venture to say that it’s, it’s the wrong side of parados principal. It’s probably 80% of them are more interested in revenue than they are in service. Now, the ones I don’t see John Fraker here today, if you haven’t connected with him, he’s a good influence.
He is. He’s a good example of what it looks like when an attorney actually is doing this for the right reasons and doing it well. And what you’ll hear John say is he will never let a family go through California probate with limited authority because it’s damn foolish. Now it cuts down on his billable hours, but it also immensely cuts down on the stress and the expense to the estate.
He’s doing the right thing. And in 25 years, he’s never had to go looking for a business. It finds its way back to him. Right? So what all of that and not send too many words. I’m trying to say, just don’t worry. You can’t work with the mall. If they’re that kind of person, what do you think? How do you think they’re going to honor the relationship at some point or another?
You’re going to get screwed by him too. Right? Well, and this is the reason why I have liked this group for many years. And like I said, I’ve been a little bit more paralysis by analysis. It’s easier for me to talk to people than to do any of the tech stuff. That’s one, but I’ve spoken to several members of this group and John Fraker in particular, he probably doesn’t remember.
It’s been well over a year. He took the time to talk to me on the phone for 45 minutes to an hour. And I’m nobody to him. I’m just a member of the group he could have just said, listen to the calls. So I’m grateful that ha to have that in the end, the problem, when you go out there after you used to a community like this, and then you see the other part.
It’s a little bit discouraging when no one is aligned with servicing. I asked the attorney, I said, at which point do you think you stop bringing value by milking the clock? You didn’t necessarily go over? Well, I think we talked about we’re going to see each other again, but it’s probably not going to happen, which is what it is.
And they don’t have a good answer. So, you know, once you see the difference and you know, when we strive for what we are all here for, yes, we would like to work less, make more, but at the same time when I’m there to shaft anybody and trying to milk anybody for every dime that they have for our services or just to help them.
So, as I said, the part where you meet people that are not like-minded, it’s a struggle to work against because you know, the repetition of that being more of a reality than being imagination. But I appreciate the answer and I thank everybody for this. No. Thanks for, thanks for the update. There are a couple of things before we go to the next person.

It’s a couple of things I want to touch on. One thing is you said you’re in an affluent area. So I imagine you probably, you know, are, you know, associated with already or frequently meet affluent people who don’t have an estate plan. So if you do want to generate referrals, if you feel like the guy just wants you to prove up and he’s not necessarily a selfish sob, he just needs proof.
Remember that idea of finding somebody, because anyone who has more than a hundred thousand dollars net worth is going to benefit from establishing a living trust period. Probate is going to cost you four to 8% of the gross value of your estate. Trust is cheaper than that. So if you can find those folks in your community and take them back to the parties, open that relationship with the estate planning business.
If they expect you to bring two more before they’re willing to talk to you, you’re in the wrong damn office, take the referral to the next guy. And you have a law enforcement background from what I do remember, and you should know that cops are super cheap. So when you tell them, and it’s hard to explain to them that they should invest the two grand or three grand that they need.
Cause we, you know, we all have kids and everything in the profession, we’re in everyone, for the most part, things that, oh, I have a will or the house will go to the kids and it’s hard to convince them. So, you know, I’m trying to explain, Hey Dan, Hey Dan, how much money, how much money you think those guys have spent on firearms and protective gear?
Oh, man, buddy, they have goals on speed dial. They buy the newest of key cause it’s our economy. Right. And you know, like, you know what the odds of them getting into a firefight are astronomical. Right? So they’re planning for something that has a minuscule chance of happening. Just speaking their language, like there’s, there’s, there’s you know, most thankfully, most LEO’s will go through their whole career and never be engaged in an active firefight, but every one of them is prepared and they’re armed to the teeth, right.
Because they’re, they’re leading with fear. So you can use that psychology against them and say, you know, listen, you’ve planned for something. And that was a one and 250,000 chance of happening. What about the guaranteed thing that’s going to happen? Or what do you mean by guarantee your ass is going to do.
You’re dying right now, just really slowly. And I hope you’re around for a long time, but when you do, it’s going to be more expensive than it would be to do proper planning. And for your family, it’s going to be way less stressful. So would you rather pay tens of thousands of dollars in fees to some attorney who’s going to ride a route, a clock, and work up his billable hours?
Let me tell you, I met with one last week. The only thing he’s interested in billing hours to these families, and you know, you tell me if I’m out of bound or when I’m out of bounds, but I feel like it’s part of my duty to let people who are standing in their own way, let them know like I get, you don’t know what you don’t know if you’ve never done it, but it’s going to ultimately cost you multiple times more.
If you don’t have a proper end-of-life plan in place for your family. So listen, man, I know I’m not the biggest fan of attorneys either, but I’ll pick up the tab. If you can just give me a commitment, you’ll sit down with my guy and at least understand your options. You’ve got a plan for everything else.
Why not plan for the inevitable?

I approached one of the attorneys who was amicable. We were starting on this relationship and I asked if he thought it was a good idea to cross advertised to first responders, young first responders, pros and cons question and answer on a brochure or whatever that I can circulate for them to have any it’s just targeting first responders and the importance of how beneficial it is to any family to have a proper estate.
So I think we’re going to have to try to run something like that. And, but I will have to figure out how to get. The addresses in that mail are allowable in the firehouses and Sheriff’s offices, police stations, whatever, because of union issues and all of that, but we’ll figure that out.
I want to go back to an idea. We’ve talked about it a few times in the last several calls. This is a great application for building a community group, or are you on Facebook? I was having a hard time finding the link. Like I said, my tech is not very up to speed. So I’m going off the public profile.
And I do, I have a, I have a business page and a public profile that I don’t know how to manipulate to my advantage. That’s something that if you want to learn and the article that I referenced at the beginning of this will help you, but building a community group for it, even if you isolate that just the first responders, they can give you a, you know, a singular voice and a captive audience.
And it could be bigger than just, you know, public services, planning for their death. Like you can think much bigger than that and, and have like a, you know, public service community group, whatever, whatever that is. And our first responders, community group, first responders, you know, family planning, or you could go bigger and just build a community group where you can talk about life transitions and you, you bring attorneys to the group, let them talk to the community.
This is more difficult for most of us than it will than I think it will be for you because you have that bond and that camaraderie. That’s present everywhere I’ve ever worked in law enforcement. Like when a guy says hey man, listen: I’ve learned a lot in, in the real estate, in my side gig, what I’ve learned in real estate, we’re all doing something wrong.
And I’m in the process of setting up a living trust. I’ve got an attorney coming to a group that I just started next Wednesday night. Just see if you can show up. And if you can get 10 or 15 guys to come to that and at least listen, allow that attorney to present himself in the best light in front of a group of first responders.
That could be the way to seed your group and get some momentum quickly. And you know, the next week they’ll go tell everybody about it and they’ll tell the EMT and they’ll tell the firefighter, he’ll tell the medic. And he’ll tell, you know, the process server, whoever, but you can start the community with, with the influence that you already have in, you know, in, in your career, just to get more people in quickly for those first few meetings, bring an estate planning attorney to the first call, right? You know, an insurance guy, like a guy that understands index universal life and whole versus term life is bringing things that, that they can consider. And I realize you guys have good life insurance, you have union benefits.
So that might my, you know, life insurance might be a bad example, but things that will bring value and allow your vendors to pitch in front of your peers. From there, what we want to do is branch outside of our peers and bring our actual prospects. We want to bring the families in probate and trust administration and build a community group where that conversation can happen and you’re in control of it.
So you have a captive audience. I know you said you’re, you’re not, you would prefer that to look a man in the eye and shake your hand. I’m going to say. But it can be a really good way to get around the limitations that you found as we were talking like, ah, I got to figure out what the union will say about me, mailing letters to the houses.
Like they can come on their own, you know, through, through the social media platform. So that might be a way to get some momentum quickly.

I met with a funeral there, right there, and I won’t monopolize anymore of the time.. I’ve met with a funeral director today and I brought up short videos with question his questions and answers.
He was all about it. I mentioned it to the attorney. He was all about it. So they are, they look forward to doing that. I have a robotic arm. Yes. They are eager to do that. And it works for them and a little tip for the guys that live in mid to smaller or mid towns, whatever, a lot of the firefighters, because they have a lot of free time on their hands.
And you know, we work they watch us. They have, they, they have their businesses. A lot of them have their businesses and they do anything from sheetrock to pest control, to whatever. And they’re reliable contractors because they’ll show up and they won’t clean out the guy’s house. They won’t steal stuff out of their garages.
So if you guys want to kind of go wild, they’re not going a couple of doors or have a couple of firefighter buddies to connect you with some of the other fire guys that are in the house. They have their businesses. They’re more reliable to come up with smaller jobs because they can’t have something lingering for months upon months.
So there, the guys to respond to some that it’s needed like a small rehab or, you know, whatever something repaired or whatever it may be. They’re reliable. So that’s what I’ve been using for mine. When I offer it to families, I kinda, you know, Keep it in-house because those guys, you can trust them, they’ll show up because they don’t want to embarrass you they’re buddies.
Yeah. So that’s great advice. We had one of them, the guys who took probate mastery early on, I met him at a real estate convention, triple play in New Jersey. He’s a New Jersey firefighter medic. And he runs a seven-digit real estate company predominantly off of the probate strategy on his off days.
And during his shifts, like he’s a firefighter and gets, you know, full salary benefits and building his retirement. But he has built it as a side gig. He’s built a seven-figure real estate business. They have comfortable recliners. He can take it.
Thank you guys very much. I appreciate it. Well, Dan, thanks so much, man.
I want to go back to the beginning of Dan’s contribution, yeah, I’ll come right back, John.
We haven’t talked about this in a long time, and one thing that he started with, he took and we teach it. This is in session two of the course, we talk about approaching those program administrators, directors of sales, vice presidents, of admission, whatever their title might be. It varies from facility to facility, but. You have to understand nursing homes like they’re competing for business. And it’s a pretty fierce competition, especially in areas like Florida. It’s usually a small salary with commission or a bonus structure.
So they have a strong incentive because one of their biggest challenges is somebody needs into their facility, but they have assets and those assets need to be liquidated for cash, or they need like, they need to be liquidated so Medicaid will pick up the bill. So you are the quickest path to a head in the bed, to these folks in the nursing homes and this family, actually not getting stopped at the front door saying, oh, sorry, until you deal with those assets, you’re not welcome.
So you can accelerate a more comfortable living situation for the family while getting that person paid and taking a lot of stress off of the family. So I just wanted to go back and underscore that because it’s something we haven’t talked about in a while, but you’ve got social workers, nursing, home employees managed care workers.
Even like even certain insurance professionals, my sister, for example, I mean, she spends all of her time visiting Medicare and Medicaid patients to make sure they have what they need and they’re not abusing, you know, they don’t have what they don’t deserve. And she’s constantly interacting with people in the community who are at that end of life phase.
A lot of times when it comes down to they’re intimidated by other people, even though she’s just kind of checking in on the insurance front, they seek advice from her. They’re like, well, what would you do? How would we sell this house or this or that? And so there are lots of folks in the community who deal with family at this end-of-life phase or after death.
Don’t forget. It’s not always just about attorneys. Your vendor network is all of those people.
All right. Sorry, John. I wanted to get that point out before I forgot it again.
Sure, what I was going to say, just in your conversation with Dan and I have a lot of clients who are union, a lot of clients who are first responders, my approach is knowing my clients and targeting my advice, my conversations back to them and reflecting their values to them.
What I’ve experienced in getting to know them over the last 20 years is these are people whose word of their bond. They take their commitments extremely seriously. They never ask anyone to clean up their messes. They take responsibility. So what I say for estate planning, I don’t talk a lot about the court system or other kinds of esoteric stuff.
I say this is a mess that you’ll be leaving for somebody else to clean up for you. If you don’t get this done. So my emphasis to them in a first responder, anyone like we’re talking about, that’s what I lead with. You take responsibility in every single aspect of your life. This is just one more you to do your job you’ve had to contemplate you know, end of life stuff to be in a firefighter law enforcement, so forth. So I get that. But if something happens to you, you’re leaving a mess for your wife and kids for other people to clean up your mess. And so I try to find, you know, I try not to hit them over the head with the hammer so hard, but I try to bring that home to them.
Cause that’s something that resonates, you’re taking their values and reflecting them to them. So this is something I see in every aspect of your life. This is one extra aspect. It takes a little bit out of the theoretical, estate planning after death stuff, and brings it home to us we’re just keeping our commitments to our loved ones and make sure they don’t have to clean up any mess that I’ve left behind.
That’s awesome. Thanks for that, Dan, anything you want to. But that had to give you ideas. Oh, wait, it’s giving me plenty and I’m going to have to start chipping away at them. So thanks again. And John, I think you may have come in late then was expressing his gratitude for you giving almost an hour of your time, but the invoice never showed up in the mail.
So be sure and get his address before we get off. All right. I’m not sure if Stephanie or fed whoever was up first. You guys how freedom you join,
what a gentleman.

Okay. So I had a meeting with an attorney today and he immediately steered me towards smaller attorneys, which is fine. I’m cool with that. It wasn’t necessarily his bag, and that’s fine. He had a couple of objections that I was not sure how to overcome. So the first one was that he did not necessarily give his clients referrals because it would make his other clients that were real estate agents mad.
And the second thing was that everybody already has a guy. And so I know everybody already has the guy, the way I overcome that is I’m different. I’m a different guy, right. That’s how I overcome that. And then the way that he doesn’t give her referrals the way that I would combat that would be what you kind of talked about with social responsibility, right? Like I’m going to send him or this, not this person particularly, but the next attorney that I meet with is he a, that person had another objection that he doesn’t do or referrals or, you know, whatever. I would just kind of try to feel them out and send referrals to get referrals.
Is that kinda how you would handle that? I want to go back to the beginning of last week. I remember at least two pieces of advice. One is dropped the titles, right? To get clear on your offer and that’s exactly how you can help these families. Now, what I want you to do is take number two, take both of those, drop the title.
When you walk into an attorney’s office, you’re Stephanie, and then just quit talking about being a realtor until it’s appropriate. That will differentiate you. They’re isolating your skillset to one of the skills that you bring to the table.
It’s your job to expand that out and let them see that, as you said, I’m a different man, like this, this is a different conversation. So don’t let them pigeonhole you into being just a realtor. And I don’t know if Rosie’s here, but we gave, I think we gave her the hashtag first, but you’re not just a realtor.
Like you, you bring so much more to the table. So when they try to pigeonhole you into that, well, I don’t want to piss off the realtor friends. It’s like, well that I do at least two dozen things for these families. Interestingly, you isolated just down the real estate. Do you perceive me as a selfish person?
That’s just here to try to make a commission or do you believe what I said to you? I’m looking to help you scale your business and take some load off of me to help these families. And then just be silent, put it on the table. The other thing is getting really clear on your offer and as, as just as important in the vendor’s office, as it is in a client’s home or a prospect’s home.
So understanding exactly what that means and how that translates into your small business, helping their small business. So you handling the non-legal redundant non-dollar productive aspects, of a case that might just be emotional conversations. Just, listening to a widow, talk it out until she finally says, and I’ve got to do something, I’ve got to find another place to live.
I just can’t keep up with this place. Like they don’t want to sit around and have those conversations that are non-legal. Right. So, and there’s always, there’s always a chance that you were just like Dan, you know, you might, you’re gonna find yourself in the wrong attorney’s office. You’re not going to go meet John Fraker every time you knock on the door and that’s okay.
There’s, there’s plenty of folks. Yeah, the two or three of these relationships can be a lifetime of fulfilling business and collaboration. So don’t, don’t feel like you’re so invested in any one attorney just because he or she is busy or has a nice office location, or that does not judge them on their character more than anything, but that’s the two things I would say to you.

You can come up with your objection handlers, if you’re clear on those things that you know, no, no, no. I’m going to set a boundary. You’re not going to put me in a box and call me just a realtor because of God. That’s disrespectful.
I’ve worked hard to educate myself. I hold myself to a higher standard of ethics, a higher standard of education. And as an attorney, I would think you, you would appreciate that. And put it back to them for the affirmative comment back to you, it starts to change the tone. They’ll respect that. And then you say, okay, so here’s what we do.
Like I’m not just a realtor. If you look at my business card, it says that on it. But I have a social enterprise here in the community that helps families going through this process and my whole point. And coming in here today, I want to connect with attorneys whose values are aligned with mine and that I can help make their business more efficient and therefore more profitable.
Because at the end of the day, we’re all done. That’s to get paid. I most typically get paid from a real estate deal. Sometimes I do put my realtor hat on. Sometimes I buy the house. Sometimes I pass it along to, you know, to do another buyer But I just wanted to stop in and let you know that there’s someone here in the community that I can take all of the things that you’re not necessarily going to get paid for.
We’ve already vetted all of these professionals throughout the community. And I know that you said everybody has their guy, but we have a team. We all communicate. And we built a system around that. So when we deploy a team, every other vendor knows what each is doing, what the timelines are, and what these families’ needs are.
And we’re very transparent about it. So I’m happy to answer any questions you have to do whatever you think it might be for me to prove to you that I’m not just a realtor, but I appreciate you not putting me in that box next time we talk.
They’ll never forget that conversation. Then find a referral to take back. And they’ll respect you more from there, but if you can find an inbound referral for them, if it’s a family, you’ve worked with a past client and you did a hundred deals last year, you know well-capitalized buyers and you know, which ones of those have too big of an ego to have a death plan in place because they’re never going to die.
Like go back to those guys and use that estrogen to get in there, chat them to their knees and be like, you’re going to go sit down with my attorney because I said, so
you’ve worked with high net worth individuals. So you’ve got, I mean, just last year you sold a hundred houses to the cash investors. Well, there’s your list. Go find out which of those guys have not properly planned for the wealth that they’re creating and call them to the carpet. So, you know, you’re, you’re serious about building wealth, right?
Is that. Is that just for you? Or is it multi-generational wealth? What do you mean they’re in a whole nother state? Unfortunately, I just relocated. So now I feel like I’m gone, starting from scratch, which is fine.
I do, I do.

And the other thing last week, we talked about some videos in front of the courthouse and I want to go, I’m going to the courthouse Friday. I want to do this video, but I need some tips on how not to sound happy in the video. So like, I know I’m trying to emotionally connect with people.
Hey, I’m here to help you. I’m here meeting with a Pope probate court clerk, getting a list of families that could potentially need my help. And then what comes after that? What do I say?
That’s not, Well, I prefer to do is get them off-platform where they can see a longer-form video, like a three-minute video of me explaining just like if I got a referral, the way I would speak to that person and explain what it is you say, you know, listen, I understand that that does might sound too good to be true.
And you may not trust it. Feel free to look around the site. We have reviews. If you would rather just talk to me right now, you can call the number below or click the button. Then you’ll land right on my calendar and I’ll call you at a time that works best for you. If you have a couple of minutes stick around and I’ll kind of tell you why I, I drove out here today to make this video, and then you go into talking about what your service is.
Don’t be afraid of being cheerful or happy You know, we’re always we’re as humans. We’re, we’re psychologically attracted to that right? Now, you can’t be over cheerful and be like, Hey, I understand you’re the representative of an estate. It’s a good day. Ain’t it? Yeah, there’s a line. Right. But if you’re on an emotional level here, if you’re vibrating at a healthy, positive level and they’re down here and grieving, it doesn’t always mean that you’re wrong to be happy.
What’s more likely is they want to feel the way you do, and you’ll convey some of that energy to them. I mean, there’s a time to slow down and talking in a voice, but typically that’s in person. When you’re getting a read, you can hear the tone of their voice, or you can see their body language.
So I would just operate under the assumption that this person has already to an extent processed the loss to the extent that they’ve also gone to that building, they’ve sat down with a probate clerk, it’s become less emotional and more logical. Now that doesn’t mean it’s not emotional. It’s still very emotional, but it’s less emotional than they were when they walked out of the funeral home because I’ve had time to process.
And because of their, their unique role, they’re expected to be more logical about it and more black and white. These are, this is the list. These are the things I have to do. I need to carry this out. So don’t be afraid to be confident and to be cheerful. Like I said, just operate on the assumption that they can do good by feeding on your positive energy.
Don’t feel like you have to bring your energy down to match their situation.

Okay. And since you said it, that brings me to one last thing, and then I’ll go. I promise. So you said it’s become less emotional because it’s been some time since everything has happened. Is there any news for any progress on the new system that is pulling death certificates as opposed to probate or do you have any ideas as to how I can do that in the interim, the new system launches?
So I’m no longer associated with all the leads I support them. You know, Jim and Tim are still good friends of mine, but I, I wanted to move in the direction of this uh, and not, not be chasing leads and the logistics and all that. So I believe that there’s a very specific way to work pre probate or leads that are before the probate filing.
I always felt comfortable with probate. And what I’ve found in pulling data is there’s a median of 68 days. If you look at the entire file across the country, all the data, the meeting of 68 days from the date of death until the date of probate filing. In most families, there are obvious outliers in both directions.
Some people wait 10 years and others go the day of the funeral, right? On average, like in the middle there, most people wait about two months from the death until they get to a point where they’ve processed it, they’ve at least become aware of the probate process and know what their responsibilities are.
So they go petition to begin the process. So there are things we know about families in probate. In pre probate, if you’re calling off of death records or scraped obituaries or wherever you might be getting that data, you don’t know who the decision-makers are.
You don’t know through a skip trace. If you’re even getting the right Jane Doe. You don’t know if you’re calling a minor, you could be calling a 12-year-old with a cell phone that happened that, you know, you don’t know this stuff. So. I do not believe in direct marketing, in outbound direct mail, and cold calling these lists.
I just don’t. And I probably never will, because I think you have a greater opportunity to harm your reputation than you do to grow your business. And that’s just, that’s my candid opinion. Now. I believe there is a way to do it. I believe that there’s, there’s a softer methodology and it’s the inbound methodology.
So you created a community group like Dan and I were discussing. And like, we’ve talked about on these calls before you. Host at you create and host and maintain a safe environment where these folks can learn and can benefit and earn their trust. And you can skip trace them, put them into a Facebook custom audience, and put ads in front of them without, without them knowing that you’re directly targeting them, they will just think it’s the magic cloud.
That’s, that’s, you know, somehow knows that grandma died and they’re the executor, or, you know, you don’t even know if they’re the executors, they’re just an heir. They’re suspected to be in the line of succession. So it’s a way to broadcast market to the people who are likely to be the decision-maker, but you’re not foolishly assuming that you know who that is, or you’re not embarrassingly calling minors and people who were very close to the decedent a week after they died. And for me, my reputation is everything, and I’ve never been willing to risk it over a damn paycheck. I think what you’ll find with a lot of companies out there that are pushing these lists. If they don’t teach the right methodology, they’re going to mess up a lot of people’s careers.
They’re gonna destroy a reputation that takes a lifetime to build one in one phone, call, lose it because right now someone can take a poison pen to the internet and they can haunt you the rest of your career. So that’s my soapbox rant, but be careful, be careful. Be careful if you’re going to do it, I would recommend you do it as an inbound strategy, not as an outbound strategy.
I intend to build a course on inbound pre probate marketing, where you can do it and you can do it safely and you can do it effectively. It’s just whenever I get around to doing that. But I know there’s a lot of folks out there that will disagree with me and they say, hand me the damn phone, it’s a number’s game, half of them know, some of them are going to want to sell, go get it.
But that’s not me. The risk seems greater than the reward. If you ask me Well I think those are good thoughts, I think it’s good to hear a different perspective on it. I hadn’t considered, I hadn’t considered any of that.
Nobody does disagree with me. I mean, this is a safe forum. You disagree. Step up. If you have the advice to give, to give Stephanie please do. That’s just, just me. I’m just. Chad question when you say no cold calling are you referring to just a random cold call list or — Understand where this originates, so when somebody passes away, the funeral home will notify the social security. Social security keeps the death database and for a long time that had a lid on it.
It was only accessible to government entities and nonprofits. Loopholes have been found and people are including that data in data sets using it for skip trace and append processes. However, we all know how good what’s your best skip trace percentage. Like maybe 60%. Like when you skip trace as far as accuracy.
So it’s not, it’s not science, it’s more art. You’re making calculated guesses who the right John DOE is. And if this is the right phone number, some companies are better than others. But there’s a good chance that at least 40% of your data is flawed. It’s wrong because of the nature of how it’s being aggregated.
So 40% of the time you’re going to be picking up the phone, confusing people, calling people who are under age that don’t have the authority. You don’t know if they’re going to have the authority, you’re guessing at it. If they haven’t found the will and they want to, let’s say they’ve got malicious intent and they hated their sibling because she was so responsible.
A little miss goody-two-shoes, dad’s going to give her everything. And you call that person and start treating them like a decision-maker. And they say, I got, I got one on the line. I’ll tell him that he can take him. So if they decided to make themselves the decision-maker, even, even though they don’t, and they won’t have that authority, you’re just muddying the water for the family.
So that’s what I mean there are so many unknowns and so much uncertainty. You have no damn business stirring around that right after a loss, playing a bunch of guessing games. You should earn the business and you should put something out there that makes them come back to you. Make it a complete inbound strategy.
I won’t name the company, but when, when predictive analytics became a thing back in like ‘11 or ‘12 when these companies were starting to show up, one of them was VC- funded by a very big tech company. And they were giving real estate professionals lists of people who are recently married, recently divorced, recently had their youngest child graduate high school. These real estate professionals, especially the realtors because they’re held to a code of ethics and have more to lose an investor.
They were calling these families and just making them fools out of themselves or the family. The immediate response was you violated my privacy and I’m coming after you. So they sued the cold caller. They sued the technology provider and by God, they won. And that changed the business model of these predictive analytics companies.
They had the data, but they wouldn’t show it on the front end. And then they would send postcards for you and they would run Facebook campaigns for you. And that’s why that happened. Like we, and that was even in a less contentious, less emotional space than what death is.
That was high school graduation. That was a marriage or a divorce. So I’ve had those experiences and see in that, you know, litigation that was in high eight figures over this exact thing, like a violation of privacy. So what happens when you call someone’s 12-year-old kid and they just lost their father in a motorcycle accident, and they’re an emotional wreck; they’re failing at school and they come running home.
The mom said, mommy, mommy, this guy named Fed said it was something about Dad and I don’t know what it is. How is mom going to feel when, when your phone rings, she’s going to be like a mama bear, and she’s coming at you and you have been in a litigious state? So that’s what I mean. Like, I just feel like there’s way more risk in outbound marketing to pre probate than there is reward when we can still earn the business, but we EARN the business.
We don’t go out and beg or demand it. We created a safe environment where they can find value and eventually they find us and they see the value and they ask us to help them. And it’s harder, it’s longer-term, but it’s organic growth and real service to your community. Um, Let me check the notes.
I haven’t even had a chance to look at the chat.

The question for John, if he’s still on, he is.
When you show up there’s fanfare in the chat. That’s funny. It’s just really simple, how would you like to hear if, if one of us walked into your office looking to create a relationship with you as an attorney, what would you hear that would say yes to them?
[Laughing] “I brought donuts!”
Coffee. Yes. The donuts. Honestly, what I would recommend is I mean, a lot of it is just why I’m here in the first place, right? It’s your overall approach to your business and the fact that you put your clients first. That’s what uh, Chad’s putting together as a group of like-minded professionals that just put their client’s needs ahead of their own and their commissions.
Like for me, that’s like 95, 90 8% of what I want to hear from somebody. And if I get the sense, that’s not the case, it doesn’t matter what else anybody says, right? If I get somebody come in thinking only about commissions or whatever, then, you know, I mean, there’s the place for everyone to get compensated for their hard work, but that’s not what I’m about.
And that’s not what, you know, my referral partners are about. So a lot of it is just communicating to them, you know, the extra steps that you do to take care of your clients in and around what we’re talking about, having that a much more holistic approach that for me is everything. But also that you’re a serious business person, right?
And that you can bring business. It’s a two-way street. I’ve had people come to me that it’s obvious that’s a one-way street from me to them in their mind. And that’s a non-starter obviously for anyone growing their business. I can probably tell within two minutes of a meeting with somebody if it’s going to be productive it’s, it’s a blessing and a curse because you have to sit there politely for the rest of it.
When it’s clear that they’re not a serious person, but a lot of it is even what I said, going back to the video I first did with Chad, like two years ago being able to bring your clients to the attorneys, sit there and say, this is my client. I have a relationship with them. We’ve been talking a lot about trust or whatever.
They were scared to meet with a lawyer. I’m here to help them get over that, for me, it’s like I said, that happens all the time with CPAs that happens all the time with financial advisors. At the highest level, they never take their hand off their client relationship. If it’s a valuable client to them, they never just say, oh, you know, talk to an attorney.
And I don’t hear from them. I hear from them first and last, or, you know, kind of a bookend to the relationship. And many times they’ll walk into the office or set up a meeting with me. And that’s something, as I mentioned before, like that never happens with realtors. It never has. I’ve met with some high net worth or some realtors to approach, I know with clients and so forth, but it’s never, they don’t have that relationship with the client and it’s obvious.
But that is something that would catch my attention right now because it never happens with realtors. They’re never the person who walks the client, it’s the CPA, the financial planner. And if, you know, in, in my, you know, my advice to the realtors and the other professionals’ groups, if. You know, the highest level CPAs and financial advisors are doing that for their best clients.
Why aren’t you, right? Why aren’t you walking your clients in to meet with the attorney or the other professionals? Cause that’s, that’s the best way that you can elevate yourself to their level of, you know, client care, client concern. I’m a valued advisor to this, you know, you’re following me to the meeting, right.
They trust what I have to say about this. And also I go above and beyond. I’m not just for a commission, I’m here to, you know, help this family get over a hurdle of procrastination. That’s kept them from finishing their estate plan. And all of that is stuff that catches my attention. It would catch the attention of 99% of attorneys.
Yeah. And then the conversation I would have had with my client to say, these are some to let you know, as the attorney, these are some of the things I recommended to my client around what they can. Invest in. So those will be things that they may want to include. Just kind of an opener. Yeah. Meeting them, like even calling you the attorney first and saying, I’d like to interview you to see if you would qualify to represent my client and in building their estate plan.
And if so, if I find that you would work out, I’d like to then go ahead and book an appointment with you. And I would come to that appointment with my client. So I would have already checked with my client the time and date and day of availability to be able to book it. So that sounds good. The follow-up to this is what unique service and Chad’s gone over them.
But I’m curious from your perspective, what unique service that we as probate experts provide is the most valuable to you in terms of being an estate planning attorney. Backing up one thing, the one thing I would not, I would only tweak the one thing in your introductory phone call with them. You’re not qualifying them.
You’re seeing, is, is this a good fit? Right, right. Cause they’re going to say, how would you know whether or not I’m a good attorney or I have the right experience? It’s more like, I want to make sure this is a great fit for my client. These are very important people to me. They even trust me with this task of ensuring that their family’s estate plan.
I want to make sure it’s a good fit for everybody. I want to make sure that you’re a good fit for them. And that this is a good relationship. When we do business the same way. It’s a slight tweak that makes it less adversarial. That was bad. Choice of words. I have not used that in all of my, my digital door knocking.
I have not used qualifying, but I agree. Sure. But it is what you’re doing. You’re qualifying them. You just say it slightly differently, right. As far as what you know, from your other part of your question, what’s most valuable to me. Honestly, somebody who gets things done stuff people would take work off.
And our, our what’s the word. I mean, they have to be authorities right, as realtors in this area, because if they’re not, I can’t be training them as like a third or fourth job I don’t need, you know, I have, I’ve had a handful of cases where, you know, something was coming up and the realtor I chose was somebody who was going to be able to be an expert witness or at least stand in front of a judge and explain why we sold it for what we did.
If things go sideways with litigation or probate. So there’s, you know, the competency level is critical, but also somebody who has solutions and can come up with, with big solutions in short order. And the example I gave in my video, I did with Chad two years ago, you know, we had probate is like way back 2005, 2006.
And it was closing that week. It was closing on Friday and Monday, the real estate sale fell through and there was no money to pay. And so the entire probate was kicked out three months. I was going to get paid. Our law firm was going to get paid, you know, in three months, the executor is going to get paid three months.
If this thing gets continued and from the deal falling through fall falling apart on Monday, the realtor, we had said, oh, I have some backup offers. These are cash buyers. They’ll come in, offer all cash on the same deal. And he got them in and replaced the original people and close in 48 hours. It was that fast.
And so from the attorney’s perspective, we no longer have delays. We no longer have angry beneficiaries threatening, you know, to do the executor for being whatever incompetent, even if it’s not their fault. So that was somebody that was, you know, you know, for the longest time I kept calling him the magician.
When I talked to Leon, my business partner, I said who’s the magician? And he’s like, what? I’m like the guy that did that. He’s like, oh, that guy. And so that’s something, you know, a Swiss army knife approach, I guess, to the business, someone with a solution for everything and a solution for the things that you don’t know are going to happen, but they happen back people.
Yeah. But people who over-communicate like when I serve the role of the realtor in a probate case, I over-communicate to the title company. Right. So I’m, I’m on the phone with them religiously daily. Like, do you have what you need? Do you have what you need? You’re not going to get this. This comes at that point in the process, you know, the notice of proposed action doesn’t come until we have an offer.
So I’m continuously communicating and I never let that stuff go down to the wire. I’m sorry. You said title company. You’re referring to the closing company. Yeah, because we use escrows here. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In California they just call it the title companies and they do that, that portion of it the closing and all that stuff and their requirements and the underwriting and everything that goes to.
In LA county weeds, escrow companies. That’s the thing we use. We use S do we don’t use title attorneys, sir. Title companies to close. Yeah. Yeah. I see what you’re saying is being…. Whenever I’m in escrow, I’m communicating with my escrow officer who I love, who loves investors. I talk to her literally daily.
And that’s what you want to communicate with the attorney is that you’re, you know, you have these other relationships. These are people who are critical to the success of our project. Kind of getting it done, right? The number one thing that keeps people happy as beneficiaries are getting their money fast.
Right. And not letting the process get de-rail the longer it goes on, the more likely people are to get grumpy about it. And so from the attorney’s perspective, they’re trying to keep putting away fires, putting out fires, avoiding other fires, and getting this process through with the least amount of hassle.
Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much for your feedback. Yeah. So Nina, in other words: Don’t be typical.
John. I want you guys to watch this recording and watch Fed’s body language when John said no realtor will ever do that. Fed was like up in the chair, like on its chin, like, oh yeah, never. So he non-verbally accepted your challenge. We all saw that. It’s all on the recording. Everyone’s gonna see it.
All right, man. Hey, listen. Thank you guys so much for your contributions. And we always have such interesting conversations. Here we go all over the place. I love it. So thank you guys for being part of this community for contributing and to believe in me to show up every week and give me this much of your time.
That’s awesome. We’ll see you next week.