Transcription
Welcome to the Estate Professionals Mastermind podcast, built for real estate professionals that want to work less, earn more, and make an impact in their community. For information on how you can become part of the Estate Professionals community, visit probatemastery.com.
This is the Estate Professionals Mastermind weekly um coaching call. Um, if you have ever missed any and you want to go back and listen or anything like that, um, you can go to YouTube, find us at Probate Mastery on YouTube. You can also jump into, um, uh, into, um, the Estate Professionals Mastermind podcast. That's the name of it on your favorite podcast if you guys like to listen while you drive.
Um, it's been a busy couple of weeks, guys, trying to set up our um, referral program, make sure that uh, make sure that ISA teams and everybody are trained, that uh, marketing is ordered. I'm proud to say that um, I got my final marketing pieces on um, Friday and I had to change things. For those of you that are familiar with the um referral um partnership program, I did have to change some um change some things away from my local um resources, guides, and and uh and marketing material into something that would fit more nationwide. And that is uh officially in my hands.
So, if you guys are completely unfamiliar with the referral program, I'm just going to mention it really fast. Looking for partners in different uh metro markets. um I can work with rural markets but uh partners in metro markets who are um certified probate experts. So this is uh one of those things that's really only available for people who have a a strong degree of understanding in the probate and the estate administration space. But, uh, if you're in real estate and, um, you're kind of looking for a little bit of a leg up where you don't have to spend all the cost of creating your own business, you do want to do it with me where we share costs and we share some of the revenue on the back end. Um, you guys let me know. Uh, reach out to Lou, you can book a discovery call with him by going to probatemastery.com. Uh, click on the discovery call link about a third of the way down that homepage and that'll land you on Lou's um, calendar. He can kind of walk you through that if you're unfamiliar with what it is. I'll have another um webinar sometime in the next week or so for anyone that wants to jump on a webinar and and hear a little bit about it. Um I'm doing another one. It seems like the last few there have always been little mistakes that have been made. So, uh by the time we put another one out, it's going to be without the uh without the mistakes, I hope.
So, um at any rate, um this call is for you guys. I want to hear um from you about your deals, about your um uh challenging conversations, about your wins. So, if you if you've got a win or something like that that you'd like to share, or just general um questions about the probate niche, prospecting, marketing, anything in kind of this estate administration or this probate niche, that's what we're here for. Uh, I know we've got some folks that have never been on our call before. So, if you'd like to engage, uh, please raise your hand and I'll let you guys know. What normally happens is, uh, we get going and I have to fill a bunch of space in the beginning of a call, which is fine. I just sit up here and ramble about a different technique or strategy. Um, and after I'm done rambling, I might get a question about 30 minutes in. And then about 5 minutes before we finish, 15 people raise their hand. and I can't get to everyone. So, if you can think of a question that you'd like to ask, um I want you to go ahead and uh raise your hand now and uh and talk to us. Okay? So, think of it as kind of a free opportunity to get a little bit of uh uh free probate coaching because if you were to hire me specifically for probate coaching, it would not be free. So, this is your chance to ask those questions that you've been thinking, hey, I want to book a call with Bruce.
Um, now I'm going to talk to you guys briefly. Uh, this is going to seem familiar to some of you all that are um that were on the discovery call, the webinar where we talked about the partnership program. Uh, but I am going to talk to you guys for a few minutes today as we wait for some hands to go up about the four different business models that I see people run. And there are little variations to each one of these business models, but there are about four or five different business models. I'm actually going to throw a fifth one in right now. I'm going to start with the one that I think all of us um aspire to build. Um and that is the referral-based business model where you go out and you build high-level professional relationships with uh with your vendors. Uh we talk a lot about this in the Probate Mastery certification course. You you build um you build your vendor network and that vendor network is going to be um comprised of everyone from the locksmith to the funeral director to the estate sale company to the estate administration and probate attorney um and a whole lot of people in between. And you go build those relationships. And this is something that even if you're building one of the other four different types of businesses that I'll talk about next, you should be doing this. You need a really strong vendor network for two reasons. Number one is because your clients that you pick up and you um work through the probate process, they need vendors. They need someone to cut the grass. Um, we're coming into cold um cold weather in a lot of the country. They need someone to winterize the property. The locks need to be changed. An estate sale needs to happen if there's any kind of belongings in the house that they're not keeping. Cleanouts need to happen. They need an attorney often times if they haven't picked one yet. So, you need your vendors so that you can connect uh the the families that you work with with the different professionals that they uh that they that they need to connect with. They don't come to a relationship with a list of all the things that they need to do. They come into probate going, "I don't know what I don't know. I've never been through this before. Um, I didn't know that I needed an attorney. I didn't know that someone needed to change the locks. I didn't know that I could have a consignment shop come in and take the belongings and uh and sell them without me having to have a big estate sale. I didn't know that someone would haul everything to the dump. I thought I had to do that myself. I didn't know that there were real estate professionals that specialized in probate and estate administration." They don't know these things. So, we need to form a relationship and actually be able to build up enough credibility and rapport with people where we can guide them through all these different uh relationships and connections that they need. Often times, the way that I describe the service when I'm having a conversation with someone is I want you to think of me like a concierge. And much like a concierge at a hotel isn't going to charge you extra for making your reservations for you, for getting you tickets to a concert, for telling you which what the best restaurants are going to be. Um, I don't charge for my connections and coordination of some of these services.
Now, I'm going to pause really quickly. That's what I say to prospects when I'm having a conversation. Um, if you guys want to charge for that type of concierge and coordination service, be my guest. I I have no problem with it. A number of people do charge for it. Um, I don't because it allows me to say now, how I put food on my table is through real estate um is through real estate needs. So, the only thing that I would ever ask is that I want you to call me and use me and use my connections and my specialty in probate that help you get through the administration process. I would also ask that if real estate is something that you guys have to deal with, you let me or one of my uh buyers potentially bring you an offer as well. Okay? And almost everyone uh agrees and understands and will remember you if you offered it like that. Now, I don't have when I have those conversations, I don't have boatloads of people that say, "I need these 15 different services." So, I'm continuing to offer that coordination for free because I know that most people aren't going to use me for everything that I could do for them. If they did use me for everything that I could coordinate for them and do for them through the probate process, I'd probably have to start charging. It would be a full-time job. I I would never make anything in real estate because I'd be coordinating estates and probate for everybody. They won't frequently use the services that you're offering, but they will remember that you offered something for free. They'll remember it. They'll trust you more. You'll have more rapport. They're probably going to give you the shot at the real estate when the real estate is needed. So, those of you that are like, "I don't have time to offer all these services." Um, I think that you do have time to offer those services cuz most people are not going to use you for it. So, that's that's how I do that. Occasionally I have someone that uses me a lot and then when I go on my listing instead of saying hey I have a 3% listing it's hey I have a 4% listing. All right, I know how much I how much work I put in. My listing price might change a little bit based on how much work the client has taken. So I do end up monetizing the effort that I've put in on the front end. Okay.
So, your um relationship-based business where you're getting referrals from the vendors that are that you are referring, you're also getting referrals from them. That's the first type of business that I think we should all strive to build. Um some people only do a referral-based business. Bill Gross, who's on here very frequently and hosts this call uh a lot. Um his business is basically only referral-based. He doesn't buy leads. He doesn't send cold mail. He doesn't do cold calls. He builds relationships with vendors and a lot of times he's interviewing them on his podcast and things like that. And so that's a good cheap, high-effort way of growing the business, but it doesn't cost a lot. Um it it takes some organization and it you're building credibility with the people that um that that make the connection with a family first. So that's the first type of business that you guys can build. And even if you're building one of these four other types, you should also build that referral-based business. So you can do it on its own or it can be an add-on to to one of the other four types of business.
So the second type of business that you can run in probate is going to be uh a mail-heavy probate business. This takes very little time. Uh cost a little bit of money though. So you're going to buy your leads normally. You could go get your leads for free if you know how to get that through the courthouse. Uh, but normally you're going to buy your leads. Let's say you're in a market where your leads are going to cost you $400 or $500. Um, you've got, let's say, 150 leads. Let's just ballpark it. Um, and then you say, "Hey, you know what? I I'm I'm I'm afraid of the phone or I don't have time for the phone or I don't know how to deal with objections. I don't want to call a grieving family. I'm just going to mail." Okay? So, you could mail. Um, if you guys are going to mail your leads, um, please do yourselves a favor and don't waste money by sending a single mailer. It's a complete waste of money sending a single mailer. Um, so it's one of those things where the middle ground is kind of the kiss of death to your probate business. Um, now I'm going to give you guys a quick exception really fast. The single mailer. If you're only ever going to send one piece of mail, it should be um hyperaggressive and real estate focused. Hyperaggressive and real estate focused. Hey, I see that you're uh in the middle of probate. It looks like 123 Main Street. It's part of the estate. Do you want to sell it? All right. So, if you're going to send one mailer, that's the one that I would send cuz you're going to catch a little bit of low-hanging fruit by sending that mail piece. Little bit of low-hanging fruit. It's not going to be wildly consistent, but you'll get the people that just inherited a house and they've been planning on getting this house for a while. Uh, they're looking at the loss of a loved one as their payday. All right? They're low emotion. Uh, they're just like, "I just got a payday." So, be be real estate aggressive if you're going to send a single letter. Um, you'll also catch the people that have inherited a property that have a mortgage that they can't afford. All right? So, one letter, that's what I would do. I'm kind of telling you guys that one letter usually doesn't cut it. So, if you're hyper real estate aggressive in the beginning of a mail campaign, that might be five or six or seven mail pieces over a six-month period. If you're really aggressive in the beginning and you say, "I see you're in probate. One, two, three Main Street's a part of the estate. Do you want to sell it?" You're going to make a lot of people mad. A lot of people mad. So, I prefer if I'm running a legitimate mail campaign um not to lead with real estate. Now, I will mention real estate in my mailers. I'll mention it, but I'm not leading with it. What I'm doing is I'm leading with a concierge type of service that helps with the probate process. That's going to soften the message up. Um, it's not great at catching the low-hanging fruit, but let's get real. Most people are going to take 6 to 8 months to sell a house in probate. So, it really softens your message and it kind of sets you up as the guide and not the shark that's just looking to capitalize on their loss. And that's that's how you want to position yourself. So, we've got a mail forward type of business model. Very few calls, no calls. Probably you're spending some money on mailers to all your leads and you're just letting a campaign run. It's not the best for a conversion rate, but you will get conversion. I'm going to tell you u tell you guys that are thinking about mail. Mail is uh unpredictable of when the deals are going to come. There have been times when I've run mail and not called for let's say 8 months. 8 months running without a single deal coming into my business and I'm running a lot of mail. And then all of a sudden in the eighth month I get three or four calls. Come list my house. Been getting your mail. Come list my house. So it kind of spikes and it bottoms. Spikes bottoms. Spikes bottoms. It's very inconsistent with where that business and when that business is going to come in when you're running an exclusively a mailing campaign. Um, so I do want you guys to be aware of that and uh don't if you're doing a mail-only campaign, don't get completely disheartened if you run several months without a call without a without a call on your mail. I don't like it. Uh, but it's it's not the end of the world. It's kind of to be expected if that's the type of business you're running.
All right, third type of business. So, just to recap, first is relationship-based, referral-based with your vendors. Second is mail-based where you're running mailing campaigns, kind of expensive but very low time effort. Third type of business is call forward. Call forward is uh by far your um most affordable type of business to run because it takes hours. It doesn't take much money outside of the um cost of getting leads. So you're going to call people and and start relationships. Um, some people call once a month. Okay? Some people like me call 10, 11, 12 times in a month. Okay? That's the way to create relationships is do to do 10, 11, 12 times in a month. So, you may not be able to do that month after month after month, especially when your leads compound. But uh but call calling um centered campaign um and business model is definitely a great way to go if you want to keep your cost a little bit low. Um put a lot of time in, but that time generally produces a pretty consistent and predictable result. So, when I'm calling, for every 100 um probate records, probate leads that I work, I'm normally expecting one to three deals per month. And it can be more if you're good on the phone and more consistent. It can be more, but I'm usually expecting a pretty steady and consistent one to three deals a month when I call.
Um, the fourth approach is going to be a combo approach. So, combo, call, and mail. So you call, you drop mailers either right before your call or right after your call. Either one. When I mail, it's usually a month after I've called them 12 times. So I've called you up to 12 times. You haven't answered the phone. You are now in my mailing campaign. If I've called you 12 times in a month, I probably got 40, 50, 60% of my leads to answer the phone, though. So when my mail campaign runs on this fourth type of model, I'm not mailing a 100 leads, I'm mailing about 50 that I haven't had a voice-to-voice conversation with yet. So I'll do a mail campaign in this fourth type of model, but it's not going to be um it's it's it's not going to be to everybody. It's only going to be to those that kind of ignored me on the phone. So I have a lot of conversations with this approach. Lot of conversations and then I'm just mailing the stragglers that wouldn't engage with me over the phone.
And lastly is the fifth model which is really close to the fourth model. Really, really close. Um, but I just automate everything. So, if you have very little time to work with or a lot of fear over making calls, um, or you have money and you're a little bit, uh, stingy with your time, then you might want to go with this fifth type of model. And that's where basically you run a a similar to model 4 approach, calls and mail, uh, but you automate it. You just hire it out. And that's normally what I do. Um, I'll hire an ISA to do the calls. I'll hire a junior agent. And I know there's no such thing as a junior agent, but this is this is kind of how I look at it. I'll hire an an agent in my market, and I'll teach them how to have a really good follow-up nurture call. Um, and then I let them have the uh all the phone conversations they want, set appointments, and then I go on the appointments. All right. Once we've gotten someone engaged on the phone, I start a really aggressive and substantial mailing campaign to them as a legitimate lead. We've engaged on the phone. You're now a legitimate lead. I'm starting a pretty aggressive high-value mail campaign to them. And if I can't get you on the phone, then I'm starting a less aggressive, lower-value mail campaign to the um to the people that have never engaged on the phone. So, I might spend $7 per lead on people that have never engaged. They ignored my calls for a month. So, about $7 on them to cold mail them. If you answered the call and I think you're a legitimate lead, I might spend 50 bucks mailing you high-value material packages, resources, uh, over time. So, that's kind of the way that I run my business. And I will tell you guys that it's expensive and I have a um big tolerance for business expense. Not everyone has my tolerance. There was a time um more than 10 years ago um I don't really want to get back to this point but more than 10 years ago there was a time when from month to month our marketing expense might run $30 to $50,000 on any given month. Um, if that gives you a heart attack, um, uh, you're probably sane. Okay. Uh, that didn't give me a heart attack, um, back then. So now my three or $4,000 to run a campaign every month doesn't really um, phase me a whole lot. Three or $4,000 to get a couple of deals. Um, just tell me how many times I can spend three or $4,000. Because if every time I spend $4,000, I get three deals. Great. I'll cut that check every day. Um, so so much of this is going to depend on where you guys are, what your tolerance for rejection on the phone is, what your budget is, but those are five different ways that you can run a business successfully in probate. You can be wildly successful doing mail only. It's just more inconsistent and unpredictable, but it does have success. You can be successful on a low-cost phone campaign where you're doing your own calls. Um, very predictable, but it takes a good bit of your time. You might spend 40 hours a month making phone calls, right? If that's you, then that's a great way to build a probate business. A great way. You might combo it. You might automate it. You might say, "I don't want to spend any money at all. I'm just going to go build relationships with vendors." Amazing. All right. All five of those are are ways that you can build a a business successfully and predictably in the probate space.
All right, so I rambled. I told you guys earlier it always I always go 20 30 minutes rambling before I see any hands up and I don't see any hands now. Do you want me to keep rambling or does anyone have any questions for me? Let's see if I can pick up any um any questions. Lou, anything in chat?
>> No. Um
>> at this point?
>> Nope. you you could click the heart and then uh
>> Oh, there we go. Hey, Joe.
>> Yeah, we got Joe. Thanks, Joe.
>> You're welcome. Can you be um kind enough to review your um one that you have just for the training?
>> Um, so, are you asking for a recap on the coaching program?
>> Yes, sir.
>> Yeah. Okay, perfect. So, coaching um it's best when you have uh mastery. So, you've uh you have um gone through mastery, you're certified probate expert, you could always get coaching before mastery and and and just watch at the same time. But when we coach um it's very much roleplay centered. So, I'm going to jump over to my um calendar here real quick and just show you what coaching looks like. and coaching is $3,500 um one time and you come to uh as many of these for as long as you want. So you learn the skill, you learn the best practices, you learn the technique, you get your knowledge of probate and your knowledge of marketing through probate mastery and an accompanying probate mastery 2.0. So probate mastery 2.0 know is kind of a class that comes along with this where there's some extra resources and extra conversation techniques, but when we coach it's heavily roleplay oriented. So, for example, on um Mondays, we roleplay a lead nurturing call. So, you've got a lead, you've had a conversation, they're not ready to do anything. Uh, what do you say when you talk to them? So, we roleplay that on Mondays. On Tuesdays, we roleplay cold calls twice. On Tuesday, we roleplay attorney prospecting once. On Wednesday, we roleplay lead nurturing again. On Wednesday, we cold call roleplay again. On Thursday, we're doing attorneys again. Uh Thursdays, we're doing appointment strategy. So, you're actually roleplaying uh an actual at the house appointment, listing appointment or purchase appointment. And then also on Thursdays we have an objection roleplay. So we're very concentrated on making sure that when you're in coaching you're practicing technique that you should already know the basics of through the class or through things that you've learned before. Uh, but we're perfecting it. So we're perfecting it through um through kind of the nuance nuances that you pick up through role play. So most of the time you're role playing with me and I'm playing a character for you and uh and then at a certain point I say, "Hey, let's let's stop right now. I've got three or four adjustments." And sometimes your three or four adjustments I'm asking you to change come in your opening. They come right in the opening, the first minute of your call, and I go, "Hey, you know what? You need to change your tone. Say this, not that. Um ask this question." And then other times you're pretty good and you can go through an entire roleplay session with me and I've got your three or four little adjustments from a a whole call. So that's what we're doing in coaching. So $3,500 one time and you guys get access to the the group um group coaching sessions and some advanced techniques through um through workshops and uh a class a separate class called Probate Mastery 2.0. All right. That helped, Joe?
>> So, so does that all the So, that 35 also includes all the other classes that are on your website and so on, right? Where it says that there's a fee attached to it.
>> Yeah. If there's if let's say you have not taken Earn, um I'll I'll often um throw in Earn. So, a lot of times I'll put Earn in. Um if you haven't taken Probate Mastery or anything, then we'll probably ask you to buy one of the courses. So, if you if you've done Have you done Probate Mastery?
>> Yes.
>> Yes. Okay. So, you've already got that. Have you done Earn?
>> What one's Earn?
>> Uh, Earn Attorney Referrals Now.
>> No, I have not. So, that's included. You were saying, right?
>> Yeah, we would we would throw that one in.
>> Okay.
>> If you've never done any of them, I'm probably going to say, "Hey, you need to do coaching, but at least get Probate Mastery along with this, and I'll make sure that we'll give you the Earn course." Most of the other ones are great. Um the other uh the other um uh courses are great. I'll throw those in. They're not high ticket courses. So Probate Mastery and Earn, those are our kind of flagship powerhouse courses. Um, so, uh the other ones I'm happy to put in there because they're just like little um short courses and and if you want them and you're in the coaching program, I'll grant them to you. It's not a problem.
>> Thank you. Y
>> um and then the other thing too is would I be able to have my business partner on the calls too or be on there when I'm not
>> Yeah. Yep. We have that frequently. We have a lot of people with ISAs that join the calls as well.
>> Okay. Yeah. It's it's my wife, but she wants to get more involved in the business.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
>> Okay. Thank you. And then to sign up for that, do I reach out to you or Lou or
>> Yeah, Lou. um book a discovery call with Lou or um or or Lou can take your information down, give you a call. Um Lou, how do you want Joe to handle that if he wants um wants to sign up?
>> Oh, yeah. And and there's a payment plan, too, right?
>> Yeah. Yep.
>> Okay.
>> Yep. We can do uh like three payments. A lot of people do three payments on on that.
>> Okay. Good.
>> Yeah. Cool. Joe, thanks for the question. Good. Good.
>> You're welcome. Thank you. Uh, if you want to keep dragging it out, there's no other hand. So, who
>> I've got a question for you, Bruce.
>> Yeah, please go for it, John.
>> All right, brother. Um, so I have tried ISAs. Um, so yeah, I was my question was I've tried uh two different ISAs and um I mean the purpose of an ISA is just to get a hand raiser and pass it off to you, right? um what are your metrics and and what is your you know what is your evaluation process before you bring one on and how do you find one?
>> Oh yeah. Yep. Um, so some of you guys know this. Uh I ran an ISA agency for a while. Um it was tough. It was really tough. Um in in some ways it was a mistake to run an agency because you're going to sometimes hire 10 ISAs to find one that's really good. Um, so two, um, if they weren't getting the the response, then, uh, there's three possible reasons that an ISA wouldn't get a response. Number one is they're just not capable of having that, um, natural fluent level conversation with someone in your market. So that it's just not who they are. They're not they're not going to be good at it. Number two, um, what you're looking for might be wrong. and then I'll go into hiring in a second. So, what you're looking for, it's possible that it could be wrong. I don't look for hand raises with my ISAs. Um, I look for a warm body that answers the phone and fits a specific situation. And that situation for me isn't always, yes, I'm selling a house. I don't need yes, I'm selling a house. I want to talk to someone. For me, they are the personal representative. They do answer the phone. and they said that I could send them some resources. So, that's my kind of minimum criteria for um getting uh getting a lead handoff to me. I can get a hundred of those in a month. Um, I didn't have to do all the cold calls with people that don't answer. I can focus on the answer. I I answer the phone people who do have a house that we know. Okay? They don't have to talk about it, but they said, "Send me some send me a package." Basically, um, so that's one area where a lot of people fail is they're looking for an ISA to be able to get someone to go, "Yeah, I'm selling a house." And it takes real skill and a lot of practice to get someone to admit to a stranger on the phone that they're ready to sell a house. They might be meeting agents today. They're not going to admit to it to a stranger on the phone half of the time. It takes it takes a skill set. Um, and then third is um uh third is the ISA needs to be in role playing and getting really good at that approach. I don't think that was my third point. I'm just making that up. There was a third point I was going to put in there and I've kind of lost it. I'll tell you how I normally hire. Um I look for experience and low accent. I I have no problem with ISAs from uh out of the country. no problem whatsoever. Um, look for a little bit of experience. Um, the more experience they have trying to close an appointment, the more they're going to struggle cuz they're going to try to close appointments that it's probably going to take me to close. Okay? So, I I have to do um I have to pull back on the reins of ISAs. The more experienced they are, the more I have to pull back on their reins. You shouldn't have asked for an appointment here. you are getting stonewalled and the more you try to push for an appointment, the harder it's going to be for me when I get on that call. So, stop asking for the appointment. If you're getting these types of responses or their tone says this, let me do it. So, I'm I'm putting uh putting that together. And then the other thing is I want to make sure that if they're performing uh they would never make any more money with anybody else than with me. All right? So, my ISAs in a country, let's take the Philippines as an example. It's not exclusively where I get ISAs, but in the Philippines, a,000 bucks for uh ISA services is considered pretty decent money. It's better than they're going to make with most agencies. Well, my ISAs are going to make 2500 or $3,000. All right. uh if they've worked independently before, they might have gotten up to $1,500. All right? So, $3,000, $2,500 is really good, but they're only going to make that by handing conversations over to me. If they don't have success, um they're going to quit. So, I'm putting them on a base that um that after a month or two, they can't survive on. And I I I don't I don't want to pay someone an unservable wage. Like that's that's not the goal. Um I also don't really want to fire someone that doesn't want to be fired. So they're making like $300 maybe in a month. And if they're not performing, uh they're going to give me two or three leads and I'll I'll probably have a good shot at converting those two or three leads. But if they are performing, every lead that they put in my system that I can have a conversation with, uh, they're making a nice little bonus and they'll make a good chunk of of money, a lot of money if they're performing. And, uh, because of that, uh, they're highly incentivized to practice. I also don't make them call 8 hours a day. My ISAs are calling about four. Um, now I want them working for 7 8 hours a day. Uh, but they're only calling for four. the rest of the time they're roleplaying. Uh, they're training, they're um um scrubbing leads, they're looking at different things because I think that you can only be fresh on the phone for about 3 four hours a day and and after that you just can't I can't be fresh anymore if I'm calling more than that, right? Does that help, John?
>> Yeah. Yeah. And I guess, you know, um I've hired two different vendors, um that were, you know, I think the language there was no language barrier, but I think it was maybe an expectation barrier, you know. So, so I think you you definitely helped in in that respect. So, you're saying um if I'm just to hear you correctly, you use mostly Philippines ISAs.
>> No, I I hire all over the place. Um
>> all over. So, South America, Central America, um Egypt, um the Philippines, um Pakistan, if you um seem like a good communicator to me, just generally a good communicator and your accent's not
>> um really really strong. I I don't mind an accent. I have no problem. As a matter of fact, half of our um agents and investors in this community that do really well have accents and they're they're they're in the states. Uh, I am looking at three of them right now. Okay? And I've told you guys you have accents. You live here. You know what you're doing. Who cares if there's an accent if you're competent at communicating? And so that that's the biggest thing that I'm looking for is I'm looking for um communication competence and EQ on the um on the phone. And then um everything else can be trained if they're given enough time to practice and uh role play.
>> Beautiful. Thank you, man.
>> Absolutely. Yep. Hey guys, I'm budding in here with a quick ask. Um, if you're getting value out of this coaching today, uh, I want to invite you to check out my Probatemastery trainings over at www.probatemastery.com. Probate Mastery is for you if you're an agent or an investor that wants to work with motivated sellers that have inherited real estate that they don't need and in many cases can't afford. Uh these sellers are more appreciative uh willing to trust your expertise and less likely to nickel and dime you over commission or price. Uh why is that? Uh they're often in the middle of a complex probate or an estate administration process. And this means that real estate is very often a burden on them and they they simply need the help. Inside of Probate Mastery, uh, I teach you exactly where to source your leads, how to establish value, and offer your service in a way that quickly makes you, as the professional, your market's expert in the probate space. If you want to know a little bit more, go over to www.probatemastery.com. Hope to see you you guys inside of the community. Thanks.
So, I'm a a huge believer in and uh building a team. Um, it is expensive. If you if you guys are just complete, if anyone here is just completely strapped for cash and you need uh you need a deal next month or it's over for you, I would argue probate may not be the spot for you. It's possible probate might not be the spot for you. But if you've got a runway and you have a plan to where you can um either put the time in for 6 months and build your pipeline or hire an ISA to build your pipeline for 6 months, this is this is a space that's absolutely going to give you many deals every single month moving forward. If um if you're putting the effort in uh or you're um you're building a pipeline, that's that's the biggest thing. You got to build a pipeline in the space and you're going to get your have to sell now leads. Uh, my ISAs get me, hey, I have to sell now leads. Uh, but most of the leads that an ISA gets, same as if I was calling, doing the cold call, most of the leads that I'm going to get sound more like this. You know what? I don't need anything right now. Yeah, we have a house. We don't know what we're going to do with it. Go ahead and send me some information on what you do, and I'll call you if I need anything. That's what a big chunk of my leads look like. And uh I reward my ISAs for handing a handing a lead over like that. Some of you guys would go, "This is a terrible lead. I think it's great cuz that's a seller 75 plus% of the time." And the conversation's already been started. And if I jump on it right away and I say, "Hey, you just spoke with my assistant. He told me I needed to send you some information on what we do. I wanted to put a voice with a name." Uh and then I can extend that conversation. It's going to go places. All right. Uh, hey Mike, what's up?
>> Hey, Bruce. Uh, quick question. Um, my my colleague, she's a showing buyer agent
>> on the phone. Two questions. She's licensed, but do they have to be licensed or is that not necessary in general? Okay.
>> Um, yeah, she is licensed. The other thing and this comes from uh not not that it matters. You said you uh you make sure they make good money so they don't leave or you know um what about like teaching them the business and then they leave? What are your thoughts about that? Is it would do you keep it limited in a way or not? Any idea or any tips? Are we talking someone local or
>> And she's
>> Well, local um I've I've had that worry too many times with local agents and um I I'll just tell you local agents usually leave. Not many people can implement. So very few people implement and I've seen people both on my teams and uh and other people's teams leave because they picked up all the knowledge and then they went out and they didn't implement and they really weren't competition for you.
>> So with that in mind um you're saying they are going to leave but they're not going to implement. Um would would you try to because she could be a huge help for me and very very valuable. She's good. I trust her in a lot of ways. Uh, is there a way you would customize to train her on certain things over other? Would you
>> I would keep rain maker strategies to myself. I would absolutely start someone like that on the phone. And and let me let me be clear. She may not leave. I'm not saying that she
>> I understand. 90% of the time someone does really good with you and they're a local agent on your team or investor on your team. If they're doing really good, they usually see grass is greener on the other side. It's usually not for them cuz
>> one thing to tell you, she did leave once and came back after two years and she couldn't sell one house for two years. Not there was a problem there when she left. It was on me as well. I did her wrong. But um but with that in mind, I don't think she will leave. But so just would you recommend me starting her on the phone and just warm up client?
>> Definitely on the phone to warm clients up.
>> Okay. Then and then Okay. I'll ask you more later than after that.
>> Yeah, absolutely. On the phone warm warm your leads up and then you jump on and kind of take it to the whatever next level that is. Um, I have a couple of ISAs that I don't need to take it to the next level with with people. They they can just keep the lead right right through to the appointment. And I make sure if they're able to do that at a level anywhere close to me uh that they can keep their leads and they get they get even more uh money. I I believe in rewarding uh performers on the team and making it really hard for them to leave. Um, agents are a little bit different because um because they're normally on a big commission split where an ISA is probably on a $500 bonus on their deal and uh there's a lot more meat on the bone when you're keeping the deal for yourself. So, an agent like her probably is going to co-work some of that business with you is my guess. We can talk about that. Um, another question.
>> Out of the ones that you're mailing and calling after four to six months, uh, how many of them are come and list me, just send me the paperwork, and how many actually still go and do a whole presentation or you got to do the whole A to Z process?
>> Wow. Um, that is a really tough question. I'm going to give you guys an example here real quick of why this is a tough question. I I don't know. And sometimes I I go to a house and I end up not having to do a listing. So they may not they may not say come list me. I think I'm having to present and then I don't. So, uh, last Friday I went on an appointment and, um, I knew that this this guy had met two agents and I knew that he was going to, um, he was going to meet uh, others. He'd said it, right? So, I go on the appointment and uh, I just wanted to see how how it's going. I hadn't been really on a listing appointment for a little while. Um, I'm trying to get get this market ramped up and uh and partner the partnership model ramped up. So, I wanted to see what what's the what are the resources doing. So, I go on this appointment. I talked to him in the yard for 5 minutes. Uh, we get in the garage and on our way walking through the garage. I said, "Oh, um, you're you're um interviewing a few agents, right?" which some of you guys that have taken a lot of sales training and maybe even do some some of your brokerage sales training are going to cringe at that question. So I basically gave him the idea of meeting with meeting with other agents. I knew he had. So I said, "Oh, you're meeting with a couple of other agents, right?" And he said, "Well, yeah, I have, but honestly, none of them really impressed me." He said, "I think I'm just going to go with you." I was there to pitch. I thought he was interviewing a bunch of people. He goes, "I think I'm just going to go with you." We hadn't done anything. All right. There's times when they don't even say that. Uh, but you're in and you're kind of walking through. And then I I would go into my pitch. I'd make sure that my presentation was 10 minutes long. So, I don't like presentations lasting too long. I'd rather spend some time um kind of building bond and relationship through the house tour and conversation. Um, and then I'll say, "Hey, if at some point I'm talking and you go, Bruce, I think we just want to work with you. Tell me to shut up and I'll grab the listing agreement." And I've had people
That said, "We don't need to see what you're doing. Let's just go ahead and do the listing agreement where I didn't have to pitch. I thought I had to." So, it's really tough to say what percentage you need to pitch and what percentage. I would go prepared to pitch and then tell them before you go into a presentation, say, "Hey, if at some point you want to just get started and I'm just wasting your time by giving you my 15-minute plan, just tell me to shut up and we can get started with the agreement." And you'll find people that you used to pitch are going to tell you, "Well, we don't need to see that. Let's just go ahead and get started." And you never would have known had you not given them the option to say, "Shut up. We don't need to see your plan."
>> Is uh is there a listing agree listing presentation in the >> coaching? >> In the coaching, how about the probate mastery? No. >> Um no, I have done workshops on uh listing presentations, but it's there's not specifically a listing uh actually Chad's listing presentation is in there. Chad's is in probate mastery. My version of it is in coaching though. >> Okay, cool. >> All right. Excellent. Who else?
Yes. Accept the low-hanging fruit when it falls in your lap, but build a business and develop your model and your system for the 6 to 8-month uh family. If you can do that, you'll go from getting a deal every couple of months if you're focused on the urgent sellers to five, six, 10 every month focused on the building the pipeline. And you can do that. We have we have people, not dozens and dozens, but we have several that are consistently at 10 plus deals a month consistently by building a pipeline. So, I just want to encourage you guys to keep that in mind.
Joe, uh, unmute yourself for me. >> Sorry about that. Um, you talk about like the vendors like for instance like cutting the lawn like, "Hey, you know, I got someone to cut the lawn, but you know what? If you run across that one and that person says, "Hey, you know what? I can't afford this cutting the lawn." Okay. Until something's done. I mean, I hate to have it where we're the ones that pay for it. How how do you cross that bridge when you come to it?
>> Um, okay. So, let's talk about the psychology of the person that can't afford to have someone cut the lawn. Can they afford, if they can't afford someone to cut the grass, can they afford their light bill and their tax bill that's coming up on the house? >> Maybe they can't. >> Maybe they can't. So, I'm assuming if they can't afford an attorney or a cleanout crew or someone to cut the grass or change the locks, if they can't afford that, they probably can't afford the house. So, they probably need to sell a lot faster. So, normally what I'll do is I'll say, um, hey, um, once we uh once we create a plan for the real estate, I'll just take care of the grass. I do that all the time. All the time. I'll I'll take care of the cleaning. I'll take care of the lock change. I've got a listing agreement. I know it's going to sell. Now, if they list it a million dollars and I know it's worth 700, am I going to spend money on those things? No. Absolutely not.
>> But if it's if it's appropriately priced, I will I'll cut the grass. Absolutely. I'm not going to do it necessarily before um I have an agreement in place, though. So, I'm not going to necessarily spend my money before I have an agreement. And I have and there are times when I will in the future. I might send a dumpster over for someone to use and clean out. I use that example because an agent that I won business from one time had I showed up to a house and there was a dumpster in the yard and they said, "Oh yeah, an agent that we talked to sent the dump the the big dumpster over, one of those big industrial dumpsters over." And I was like, "Oh, so you you're working with an agent." "Well, no, not yet. We're interviewing." and I interviewed and they signed the listing with me and uh I called the agent, not to rub it in because I knew they didn't want to call the agent and I said, "Hey, um I'm happy to reimburse what you spent on the dumpster. It's been a big use. I got the listing." And they were poed. >> Oh, I would have been I would have been mad, too. Oh my god. >> Yeah. Uh that's the risk that you take of investing before the deal. Did he Did you f the dumpster or No. >> Did he What? >> Did he Did you f the dumpster? Did you end up paying him? >> I paid it. Yeah. No, they didn't ask to me to pay it. I I offered to pay it. >> But you did pay it. You ended up paying it. He took it. >> Yeah, I paid it. Yeah, I paid it. Um, I offered to I'm not uh, you know, a lot of times we uh, sometimes tell people, "Hey, if you sign with me, I'll call the agent that you interviewed and tell them they didn't get the job." And what we're really doing is just wanting to rub it in their face. Okay? I don't like calling that other agent or that investor that didn't get the deal and just rubbing their face in it. Um, but I'll still call. It's an uncomfortable call for the for the prospect to call and say, "Hey, guess what? You didn't get the listing." Um, so I'll still I'll still make that call. In this case, I called and I offered to just pay the the dumpster fee. And the agent was still furious. That was my listing. Well, I mean, you want to look at it like that. Not anymore. I'm rubb now. I'm going to rub it in your face. But I did pay the dumpster. So, I will invest ahead of time sometimes. Um, I I need to know that it's a gamble. I need to know it's a gamble. Anything else that I'm investing, I want to I want to sign contract in place. Um, so Joe Joe, I probably if they can't afford it, I would probably say, "Hey, look, if if we uh let's meet, talk about the house, if everything goes well and we work together, I'll pay the grass, I'll pay the lawn care, I'll pay the cleaning." Um, I'll base it on our our working relationship. Uh, and most of the time it's not at two and a half percent. You know, if I'm covering that stuff, going to list at 4%, 4 and a half percent, 5%, 7%, up to you. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yep.
Camille. >> Um, hi. My video isn't working, so I apologize on that. Um, if you're sending out I've got a good list of vendors. I mean, I've got a good group of vendors that work with me on my rental properties. When you send out something to them, do you send out that list? I mean, it seems like once they get that list, they really won't have much use for you later on if they already know who to call for cleanout or lawn care and stuff. >> Sometimes, yeah. Um, you could send a list out. Um the uh you don't have to put their phone numbers on the list, though. You could say you could put your phone number on the list. So, I've got a list >> with a phone number that says to coordinate any of these, call this number. And when it calls, guess who answers? Me. >> Uh could they look the vendor up uh independently? Yeah, definitely they could look the vendor up. >> Um >> Okay. Um the question is are they um am I starting to be viewed even if they don't call me directly they call the vendor are they starting to view me as their um expert? Uh yes in a lot of cases yes they're starting to view me. I used your list. I called the vendor directly. Bruce, it was your list. You're the expert. So, I'm I'm I'm making strides in their mind and kind of climbing to the top of the competition heap to a degree. >> Okay, thank you. >> Go ahead. I would go ahead and send the names of the vendors. And if you're kind of worried about the phone ringing to them and not to you, put your phone number uh with the vendors or get some Call 8 phone numbers. They're five bucks a piece. Call K a ll the number eight.com. Call8. Uh $5 a piece per month. You could just get a couple of those and drop your um call eight phone numbers in and know when this number rings it's about home maintenance. When this number rings it's someone looking for vendors. Um that's how I do it. >> Okay, great. Thanks. >> Absolutely.
All right, we are at 3:00. I don't see any of their hands up. Um, really appreciate you guys being here. Thank you so much. We'll be back uh next Tuesday at uh 2:00 Eastern time for this call again. Please put it on your calendars and join us. Thanks guys. Appreciate you being >> for a minute. Can I call? >> Thanks. >> Yes. Yes, definitely. >> Okay. Bye.