A National Probate Referral Source, with Darren Findling of The Probate Pro

0:03 So, if you follow my podcast, you know that I often tell people that we don't want to just refer our business or take a probate case to any attorney because it's the ones who specialize who are going to get the results that our customers really want when we as real estate agents refer them or any of these professionals refer them. There's only one guy whose website is The Probate Pro that I'm aware of. And you go to his website and it says that they have distributed over and I'm going to put this on just so I'm not making this up over $1 billion to our clients. To our clients. I know if I ask the question, "How do you do that?" Darren Finling, you're going to tell me one probate at a time, but how do you end up getting a billion today?

0:40 Yeah, interestingly, that billion has been up for a long time and I know it's quite a bit more now. We're really proud of the breadth of our work nationally. And the short answer is that you have to grow a sizable firm to be able to handle that level of value. So, I know that probate practitioners who may be listening, there are probate estates that are quite small, $2,000, and then there are those that are quite large. In the millions. And so, we have to have enough volume to be able to start hitting the billion-dollar level. And whether it's one, two, or three billion, I don't really know at this point, but we do know it's a it's a massive volume of money that has now been distributed from those who have died to their family through the probate process that we've been involved in. We're a large entity, so we do a lot of work, a lot of matters, and a lot of cases, whether they're small or large, that we're handling. So, that's how we get to that billion-dollar number. You know what? Any business as it grows has a challenge, which is do you try to handle all the business that comes your way and all the varieties and sorts that may come in probate, small, large, contested, non-contested, conservatorships, guardianships or not.

2:03 Versus people who specialize in something. You know, in the 1980s, when I graduated college, there was a great book, In Search of Excellence, whose thesis was it was companies that focused on one thing and did it well, like at that time McDonald's. Well, now McDonald's has a whole menu of breakfast and lunch and snacks and vegetables and fruit. So, I guess the one question would be to build the business in your case, was it specializing in a narrow area that you got really good at, or were you able to apply, you know, custom solutions to wider variety of probate cases?

2:34 Yeah, so the word probate can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. It's an umbrella term that means somebody who has died, guardianship, conservatorship, trust work, special needs issues. It can mean a lot of things. It can also mean estate planning. So, in my particular case, I came into the industry as a litigation attorney in the probate and trust space, handling probate-related issues. And so, I wanted to be very focused in that space. I didn't want to bleed into other non-probate and trust-related issues. However, like McDonald's, our menu has expanded to cover that umbrella of issues. We really bill ourselves as a one-stop shop for probate-related issues nationally. So, we're addressing all of the issues that I just addressed and our portfolio or our menu includes french fries, milkshakes, and apple pies. So, we do it all here, and but we're not bleeding into other areas. We've been very focused on this particular area. In addition, our man our methodology of how we bring business into the funnel is very particular and strategic around our plan. We do know that going out and obtaining one client at a time is time-consuming and expensive. So, we really have built a strategy around bringing in cases one at a time, but also in large volume at a time, primarily from lawyers around the country who rely on us to do this work and refer cases to us. So, it has allowed us to grow into what we understand to be the largest probate coordination firm in the country.

4:18 When you say multiple time like one of the sources I think commonly comes up are class action where they can have, you know, thousands of beneficiaries, but unfortunately some percentage of them have passed and with they're going to collect money in the lawsuit, I guess their state needs to be probated somehow in many states in order to pass the money through. Is that kind of an example of what it might look like?

4:38 Yeah, so there are many situations where there's a class of people, maybe they've been in a mass injury, we call that mass tort. That is a common example of problems that we're solving for. There's also other examples that are in large scale where probate is needed because a certain percentage of the class of people have died or just simply died during the length of the case and we have built ourselves as a one-stop shop to allow those cases to come in and to be solved through the Probate Pro and the services that we provide. We also have really tried to flip all of the problems with probate lawyers on its head in terms of the frustrating experience that most people have with probate lawyers, the speed upon which they work. We know that unfortunately often probate lawyers don't have the bandwidth, the ability to move very quickly. Our mindset was we wanted to file anywhere within 24 hours of having all the information from the client. So, that's a pretty big commitment to make and in most cases law firms were waiting weeks and weeks before

5:48 Yes. Filing of things. So, our model, when I first broke in, I wanted to break that paradigm cuz I found that paradigm to be quite frustrating for the people that were expecting great quality service, whether it was the client themselves or the law firm that may have been referring the case. So, no different than Domino's delivering a pizza quickly, forget how many minutes, 30 minutes or less, whatever they were doing, we really wanted to be able to deliver that service very quickly. And then, of course, during the lifespan of the case, one of the big paradigm problems that exists in this industry is that once the file gets started, it's really hard to get a hold of the lawyer, the lawyers disappear, they're not great for responding, and we wanted to break that paradigm. So, our commitment is to call everybody back the same day, and if not the same day, by the next day, to ensure that all of the people that are relying on us are getting that really attentive, loving relationship. And that allows us to really stand out from the industry. It allows us to get passed from law firm to law firm, and clients rave about us. We really want to have raving fans when they're done with our experience. So, these are just some examples here of where we're trying to shift the paradigm of how services are delivered in the probate space to differentiate ourselves from all the other firms that are in this space.

7:12 And so, that's just a little bit of a taste of what how The Probate Pro has stood out from all of the others that are out in the industry.

7:20 You know, I talked to you maybe one or two other larger-scale probate operations, the thing that stands out is they always talk about speed where other attorneys don't. I think they mis- misunderstand speed as to mean necessarily sloppy or incomplete. But, I know in this space, in probate in particular, speed requires you to have systems, pro- cedures, processes, formats, templates, preferred vendors. You can't go fast if you have a plan ahead. And most smaller shops, they just don't do enough to ever really learn the shortcuts, the tricks, the process. And that's why I think when you talk to somebody who specializes you know, maybe not on the litigation or any particular county, that might be different. But in general, on a standard probate administration, I want somebody who tells me how fast they are, how quick they call back. That's to me that's the calling card of somebody who's going to give me the service that I want.

8:10 No question about it. Yeah, a chef once said to me, if you want to know how clean the kitchen is, go to the bathroom in the restaurant.

8:18 Yes. The bathroom is a sty, I promise you the kitchen's a sty. Yes. We really look at part of our brand as being great processes, great system, incredibly responsive to the clients and the people that are referring it to us. That's just the That's the bat the model. We think of that as the bat and ball to play the game of baseball. We don't think of it as something particularly special, but that is what is expected if you are employed or at the firm of A Pro, if you want to be affiliated with it, this is what you're going to experience. So it is about that level of service, and it's hard to do for a lot of firms because margins are tight. People work a traditional work week. And it's really hard to deliver that level of speed and level of service when it's you know, it's economically these are not high margin files typically. And so again, you know, we're a we're accessible 7 days a week. It's really hard to do in most enterprises.

9:21 Yeah. Responding all the time to the needs of clients and the people that are referring business to us. Again, I'm in no way being critical of anybody else that's doing it a different way, whether they as you started off this conversation, whether they're just focusing on a very narrow set. There's different ways to do this. This is just the way we've chosen and it's been really successful for us in growing and scaling to the size that we are.

9:47 Well, I mean I can tell you and I'm not here to disparage anybody, I'm here to try to raise the standards. 90% of my clients are 90% of clients in private court are dissatisfied with attorneys after 90 days. They love in the first 90, haven't gone there in person for years, and after 90 days they're not happy because of the service experience they're getting is not meeting what their needs were. And they can be fair and firm, but that's the result that really exists and why I sought to work in this space was to raise the standards and reach out to people like you who have those higher standards. It's interesting you talk about the bathroom. I was in college I interned for and then after college graduation worked for the Elon Musk of the 1940s and 50s was Howard Hughes at a salad manufacturing. I was buying state-of-the-art electronics, which you can imagine very complicated. I was trained to go to facilities and approve them for purchasing. And our manage our system, we had a system, started always going the bathroom because that determined if they have a process procedure for keeping the bathroom clean, then they have a process procedure for everything. If you don't, you don't. It's so it's funny you bring that up because to me that's always been the standard of restaurants is there's no way you have a great kitchen and a lousy bathroom. No chef would allow that to happen who was really first-rate I think and same with our business procedures.

11:02 You know, you're talking to the point about kind of the expectation and the 90 days getting dissatisfied with the lawyer. One of the things that I noticed earlier in my practice is that the lawyers were really good at selling at the beginning.

11:18 Selling what they're going to be able to do. And the lawyer is being hired by the client and then within that 90 days, the client's calling, you know, because they're emotionally deeply invested in their particular set of circumstances and all of a sudden this lawyer starts acting as if the client is working for them instead of vice versa. There's this weird thing that occurs and they get annoyed that the person that has hired them, that's paying their bill, that they have a duty to, that they have an expectation of great services, somehow they're annoyed at the client and then this thing kind of falls apart and there's a failure to realize the client is the client and this paradigm should not flip on its head. Meaning the roles don't reverse.

12:08 Right. If you're getting annoyed that your client is calling too much and you can't manage that's a that's a you problem. Right. Not a client problem. Cuz I actually understand that my clients have terribly complicated emotional needs and we have to be available for them. We have a rule in this office, we never complain about a client being needing, a client being frustrated. It's the nature of the work that we do.

12:36 Yes. Paying our bills, it's our obligation to meet their needs. Now, that's different than an abusive client. An abusive client is a different story. But a needy client, that's the role that we play. That's the job that we do.

12:48 Especially now with automation technology, I do so much less of the work on a real estate transaction than I used to that my standard reaction when a customer says, "I'm sorry bothering you again or sorry to ask you a lot of questions." I always say to them, "This is my role. This is what I'm paid for. I'm paid to answer questions so that you understand it. I have nothing more important to do and other than schedule appointments which you know I'm obligated to make good on, I'm available to you to answer those questions. I think that's where sometimes attorneys, you're right, they want to be the lawyer doing the lawyerly work, but if you're a business person, either the attorney or somebody, doesn't have to necessarily be Darren, but somebody who's competent, professional, and knows the file, knows the status, needs to be able to handle the customer's questions and deliver them. And that is the number one complaint of customers I deal with. And I'll say one other thing. I always try to explain to my customers to set expectations with the attorney. I'll say, "Look, I work in Realtor® time. Most attorneys work in attorney time." If you call me, I'm going to get back to you within the hour or two, at least with a text. If I'm not available, hey, I'll call you at the end of the day, or I'll kind of call you tomorrow. But always the same day, and certainly within the hour, almost always. I said attorneys are the only people who I leave a message for, and they call me a week later and say, "Hey, I'm returning your phone call." And I think, "What the heck did I call this guy for?" Cuz a week later, the property is sold, this happened, that happened. I can't remember. And that's just the difference, I think, of the temporal cadence of most attorneys, if you're not if you're not client-facing.

14:19 Yeah. And again, that there's not one way to do this. We just don't believe that the way you just described it is the way the correct way to do it. We believe that the right way to do it

14:31 Is to be responsive. And they you know, the most ethics rules require a reasonable amount of time. Our level of reasonableness is the same day, or the next day, or if you're in a trial or something like that. At the very least, talk Have somebody talk to the clients so that they can know that you're tied up. But to just ghost clients is unacceptable. It's the number one reason people lawyers get grieved is a lack of

14:57 Yes. Of effective communication. I just have zero tolerance for that. Zero. Now your business, as I understand is most is by percentage almost is mostly referrals from other attorneys, whether they be other types of attorneys, or attorneys, I guess, in other states that aren't licensed in states that you're in. So, let me kind of clarify a little bit. First, I know you're based in Michigan, in Detroit, and I'm not going to bring up the Michigan Wolverines winning the basketball championship, cuz we will spend hours on that and get distracted. But how what states are you licensed to do probate business in currently and are you able to effectively service?

15:30 I know you don't want to talk about the Michigan Wolverines, but I do and congratulations to the Michigan Wolverines on winning the national championship. A great feat. Love loved every minute of it.

15:39 Go blue. Okay. We are we are able to deliver probate services in every nook and cranny of the country. So, our firm has a footprint a physical footprint in certain states, but we are we are providing a one-stop shop nationally for probate coordination work. So, whether you're in Manhattan or a small town in South Dakota, we've got a system built out a network built out to be able to handle all of those particular needs. And so, I started doing this work state-based here in Michigan then we grew into Ohio and then into Illinois and then into Florida and then built out this national piece. And so, we're delivering it nationally for the referral sources to solve their problem which is they used to have to try to find localized lawyers

16:25 Right. All over the place and we wanted them to solve that. And you know, I think that you know, one thing I wanted to just mention about kind of growing and building the business. You know, we were talking a moment ago about some of the things that I believe are necessary ingredients of growing and scaling a business cuz some people that are listening to this may be interested in simply being a solo prac titioner like my dad who loved just the art of law and they had no interest in growing it. And there's a lot of people who listen to your podcast Bill who may be interested in building their business whether it's the real estate related piece or lawyers who may be listening to this. And before we went live here with the podcast, we talked about kind of the process of scaling and what it takes, how you do that. I'd love to spend some time there if you're if you do

17:20 Yeah, 100%. Yeah, no, 100%. I think I you really inspired me in my practice. I've been able to expand out my team, my footprint without, you know, throughout California and other states for I'm not national. I'm not anywhere near the size, but I think, you know, in order to grow, you have to really put some thought to that and get some mentorship and find people who've done it well and copy them. So, talk Let's talk about some of the key components that you see that maybe hold people back or that you've been able to work through in order to build your business out.

17:48 Yeah, terrific. And to your point, Bill, I remember along the way there were quite a few mentors as I was trying to figure this all out cuz I surely didn't have a blueprint. I was unaware of a another firm that had the scale and size of what we were trying to accomplish. So, I was really modeling and trying to model off of other large businesses, not law firms. The second thing is the mentor piece. I strongly encourage people to get mentors. And no different than if you were trying to learn how to play guitar, you know, learning on your own is one thing. Learning from somebody that knows how to play the guitar and is a teacher, the mentor, is another thing. So, I'm a big believer in using mentors. And mentors can be a one coffee meeting and it could also mean a regular rhythm of meeting. And so, early in my career, there were a lot of people that were answering questions for me, mentoring me along the way. Some of those were short-term, some of them were more long-term. And whether you pay or whether it's free, you know, that's your prerogative, but there's a lot of opportunities. And I would say that most people, if you simply ask them to have a phone call or a cup of coffee, are going to say yes.

19:02 You just have to be willing, if you're a young person, you know, growing, you just have to be willing to ask. Cuz people want to pay back and give back and will say yes. Some will Some will say but most will say yes and you'll learn a lot from the wisdom and the trials and errors that they've gone through. So, that's one thing I'll say. The other thing that helped me massively is I am a 24/7 guy. I don't spend a lot of time wasting time. I don't know. I'm There sounds like there's judgment when I say wasting time, but watching lots of television shows or you know, idle time. I like to fill my whole day up with things. So, I'm a 7-day a week guy. I don't waste a lot of time. I'm always building and creating. And I think that just that simple that differentiator of being putting in that many hours into your craft is different than most people. And I know that there's that example of Kobe Bryant. A lot of the NBA players around Kobe Bryant would talk about that you know, they'd get done with their workouts and then Kobe would spend multiple more hours. I wasn't a Kobe Bryant fan, but I've heard these stories that they'd spend a lot more hours doing more practicing and more practicing and more practicing. So, that's kind of That's my model. I'm a put in a tremendous amount of time because there are a lot of smart people out there. There are a lot of creative people. There are not a lot of people who are willing to go 7 days a week, 24/7 kind of mentality, all in to grow and build. And those people just simply the sheer number of hours they're putting into the work day and sacrificing some other things are going to produce greater results. That's just a reality. They also may become better shooters like Steph Curry or Kobe Bryant. That also happened. But, I have a lot of tenacity, grit.

21:04 You know, I'm going to outwork anybody. That's just even where I am now, I'm probably working more hours now than I ever have in my whole career and I love it.

21:13 Wow. Just commitment to the craft. Now, you said you said something at the very end there that you love it. And I think the thing that I found, tell me if I'm wrong or in your case, but generally speaking, when people say that, what it means is within the realm of the business, there's one or two or three disciplines that you really love working in, you spend extra time on. The other part you do what you have to do, kind of like Kobe Bryant, maybe lifting weights, he had to. But he I mean he loved shooting or whatever it was. I know for me, I've always enjoyed technology and so for me it's not it's not work, it's like, you know, a hobby. After 5:00, I'm playing on the computer with AI and trying to set things up. Is that work or is that play? Well, I'd rather do that than watch a basketball game, personally. So, talk a little bit about what areas of the law when you say you love it, what is it just the overall result you love or are there particular activities that you put your time in that you enjoy or does that change over time?

22:06 Yeah, no, it's a great question. And so, earlier in my career, I was the secretary, the receptionist, the janitor, the guy that went to Costco to get the stuff for the office. I was the biller, I was the lawyer, I was the in-court lawyer, I was the HR person, I was I was doing all the roles. I've done all those roles during my career. I didn't just step into the role that I'm in now. So, over time, what happens is you start looking at your day and you ask yourself, what are you genius at? What are you best at? What's the best possible attribute? And what do you like? Like, do you get joy and energy or passion out of it? And so, over time, as the business has grown and you can afford it, you then hire those people into those roles of which you either not genius at or that you may not be passionate about. And these may be areas that you're quite good at. In fact, at that particular period of time, I probably thought I was really great at it or the best at it. Not realizing that there are actually people who do those roles significantly better and with a much better result than I could have ever done. So, you hire those people to doubt you delegate and elevate continuously. And as your career goes on and as you grow, you become distilled into a very particular area, which hopefully is spent with most of your day doing what you do best at, your genius, and what you're passionate about. So, to your point, Bill, about enjoying AI and doing technology evenings, you're good at it and you like it and there you are doing it even in the evening. And for me, specifically, I'm good at the vision-related work and relationship-related work. And have me do that most of the time. I would really build and grow, and I get a lot of energy from it. I enjoy it. So, that is, you know, I think to answer your question, I don't think you can do

24:09 That when you're starting a business, though. You're starting a business, you often are the jack You have to do all of it. You have to sacrifice and you have to learn how to either Bill or QuickBooks or whatever it may be. And I was performing all those roles, but over a period of time, you transition those roles and keep distilling and distilling and distilling.

24:31 You bring up a good point, which is you can't do it all yourself, and I know that every business has challenges. The biggest one is hiring your first employee, and then it's your second employee, and then your third employee. So, talk a bit about kind of make making that jump. You must see attorneys who struggle with that. Maybe they have a you know, an admin, but there's a time they might need a an attorney who's of counsel or providing some of the legal work to delegate. So, talk about some of those issues. And when is the right time to hire people? How do you not over hire over spend, and make sure you're effective?

25:00 Yeah, so it's a really interesting point. There are people who are really good at building and scaling enterprises. And they love building, scaling, and they love managing and leading other people.

25:16 Yeah. And then there are people who just love practicing law. And they're growing so much that they got so much business, they think, "Oh my, I need to hire more people."

25:24 But when they hire more people, they don't want to manage those people. They don't like doing it. They don't like that part of it. So, those are big turning points. I had that early in my career where we hired my first person. When I did that, and I liked it. And so, you have to learn how to manage and lead. These are things that just because you're a great lawyer or great Realtor®, whatever you do, or a great salesperson, the moment you are hiring somebody, the next question is, are you a great manager?

25:57 If you're a great salesperson, probably not a great manager. You may not have been trained in it, and you may not be inherently good at doing it. Very different thing. So, all of a sudden, it's the typical example where the best salesperson becomes the sales manager. Well, that's silly. Let them sell. Let them sell like crazy. They may not be a great sales manager. A sales manager are different set of skills and talents that are inherent in that role. They're very different. And this dream that you're going to be the janitor, become the file clerk, file clerk to employee to the manager to the vice president, vice president to the CEO, that's Disney. That almost never ever happens. Cuz each one of those roles is completely separate and distinct, and very few people will ever be able to do any of those all well. So, that turning point, you have to ask yourself. Now, one option is, if you're getting busy and you don't want to scale and build an enterprise is rather than doing that, just raise your rates.

26:58 Yeah. By the lowest percentage of your matters Yeah. And just keep raising your rates. So, you're going to have a finite number of clients. You only have a finite amount of time because you can't keep hiring and hiring. Just keep raising your rates and do it that way. My model was different. I wanted to build and scale and you know, you keep hiring different people and then as you keep creating these foundational layers, then you need additional employees to perform various roles. And that journey has been I've been doing this for 32 years now. It's just a journey of growth that you face constant challenges and you're constantly trying to punch through another ceiling of drywall to get to the next level over and over again. And you have these moments of getting stuck and boom, you punch through.

27:47 Yeah, and I think also, you know, we change over time, too. I mean, I went through a phase where I loved building and scaling. And then as you know, I got married and then had grand now grandkids, I may have a phase in my life where I really don't want to manage people. I was great at it. But today, I don't like spending the time babysitting any of my grandsons, which I love, by the way. And so, I think it really gets down to you have to make sure that what you're doing even beginning, you have to get started. But at some point, in the long run, you better love what you're doing or you're not going to do it very well and you're not going to do it very often if it's something that is drudgery. You know, you know, when I was brand new like everybody, I started cold calling. But after a while, I realized I don't want to be that guy. It didn't feel good. After a while, I was able to change my business. In your business, it occurs to me that so much of it's coming to you referred by somebody. And I And I know that for me, my business is all referrals today. I don't do any outbound calling. I don't do any outbound advertising. So, everybody who comes to me is referred by an attorney or a fiduciary. And it just changed my business because I spend no time selling, you know, other than well, why do you think they're sending it to me? And if you want me to list it, great. If you don't, that's fine, too. But it but all that energy on the sales part, I can put into serving my customer. And so imagine in your business, so many large organizations are first sales organizations. I know you do marketing, I know you have a whole system of those things.

29:11 But your business isn't coming in the door, I don't think because you have a team of telemarketers or that you're primarily doing outbound mail. I think it's really you have these professional relationships where you kind of coming in, if not completely, at least partially pre-sold. Talk about how that changes your workload in your office.

29:27 Sure. So, my strategy was to build a business on what I call the annuity model and a relationship model. I wanted to develop relations with professionals, relationships with other professionals. In this particular case, primarily lawyers, but other professionals, whether it's title companies, Realtors®, CPAs, financial advisors. And my thought is that I'm leveraging one of my great strengths, which is ability to connect and spend time with you. I get energized meeting new people and developing those relationships. So, I had to go out and develop those relationships and have a value proposition such that people would want to refer business to me, not just that they're my friend, but that they're they enjoy working especially with us and I'm delivering a great value to them and they should trust sending us work. So, I'm out there still today. I go to conferences all the time developing and nurturing those relationships. Now, why is this my strategy versus going to direct consumer? Well, if you go direct to consumer, each time a file ends, you got to get you got to replace that with a client. It's expensive to acquire new clients, whether you're you know, in the old days, a phone book, the yellow pages, Google Ads, social media, all of that, or billboards. Those are expensive. The cost of acquisition of a new client is expensive, and every time the client's done, you hope your goodwill will allow them to pass your name to other people, but for the most part, you're out there trying to replace that client. With the annuity model, or the relationship model, I develop a relationship with a with a professional when I develop the relationship with that professional, the plan is for that professional to keep sending us work for the rest of their career.

31:18 So, even if they send one matter every 3 years, I don't have to go back to the well to replace that client. And hopefully they'll send you a lot of work, and then as they recognize the great work you're doing, they'll pass your name on to their friends and others, and the brand becomes quite strong, and you're spending your energy, your acquisition is actually in a relationship.

31:44 It's not a pure transaction like you would be with SEO or Google Ads. You're developing a relationship, and that relationship will then serve you for presumably your whole career, as long as you do great work. So, I'm out there developing relationships such that they will keep funneling matters into the firm and strengthening the brand. So, I'm guessing about 85% of our business comes in from other referral sources from around the country, and then about 15% comes in from brand strength, direct to consumer, just people that are generally aware of our brand because of our size and breadth, and they're contacting The Probate Pro simply because of that. Now, the marketing dollars are you know, much better. If I can develop a relationship,

32:37 Right. You know, and spend, I don't know how much it costs to develop a relationship, whether you're having a meal, a drink, a cup of coffee, or just a phone call. That's a lot less expensive than constantly feeding Google and feeding Facebook or other lead generation services to make your business grow. I'm not saying one is the right way or the wrong way. I'm just saying the way we've done it because we believe that in our business this was the most economical way to grow and scale. These are all different ways to do it. I know others who have and grown very successful enterprises going direct to consumer and paying the cost of acquisition per client. And they figured out a way to do it. Which is not the way we did it, and I like our model. I was much more comfortable with it cuz it fits much more closely to my strength, which is developing and building relationships.

33:32 Phil, exact same way. I also feel like the business is better because it comes in the door kind of pre-sold, at least a bit, where I'm not arguing with a customer over the value of the property or being compared to Zillow. Not to say that, you know, I don't explain myself, but there's a difference between a customer asking questions in a respectful manner, and another customer who feels they're empowered because they went on a chat GPT and they know as much as I do, and then they're entitled to feel that way. Just have somebody else as your agent. That's kind of my approach on that.

33:59 Yeah, there's a lot of credibility when it comes from a trusted another trusted professional versus Yes. Google or Facebook ads, and you don't really know, you know, who you're doing business with. So, you're right, Phil. You get that instant credibility, and often the clients are more ready to, let's say, close the deal and start working with you. They're they've been prepared. So, it's a model that we believe in, and those people who are listening to this podcast who are out, I'm just encouraging you. You cannot meet enough people. And to you know, to this point I always say play the odds.

34:39 You meet enough people and you're willing to get rejected by a certain percentage of them, which you will. They'll say no. They'll say I don't like you, whatever they may say, but a certain percentage of them will say yes. And play the odds. The more you ask, the more you talk, the more likely it is that they're going to be willing to do business with you. Now, we recognize that a lot of people just don't enjoy talking to other people. So, this model, this strategy just wouldn't work for them.

35:07 Right. But it works for us and meeting people authentically and having authentic relationships is the way we wanted to grow the business versus just a purely transactional strategy.

35:20 You know, I really appreciate your time. I've gone a little longer than I had committed to you know, you've been on a few times. I always learn so much from you. And I think one of the things I would say to any attorney in particular who's looking on this call or even a real estate agent looking to refer somebody nationally is not only can you refer business to a probate pro and Daren's firm with confidence and good service, but I think you can have a chance to work with a pro and learn how to work with your business and be more effective. And so, particularly if you're an attorney in your you have a probate in another state that you need handled, I think you'd be a great source for you. I think that's really the main reason I have you on here today is for the attorneys I work with in Los Angeles who have those deals. It's often hard to find somebody you know, Clark County, Nevada is one thing, you know, well, Carson City is another thing. And you know, people all over the place. So, I really appreciate your time today and you're educating us today. For those who want more, the probatepro.com is the website. Over billion dollars, and I'm sure it's much more than that by now. He's fun to watch on social media as well. I know you go to these conventions and you meet people. And then down below is your contact information. If you're listening to this on audio, feel free to reach out to me to get his information. Daren, thank you again for I think educating us. I think most importantly for raising the standards of your profession and challenging all of us to be more entrepreneurial as well as more professional in serving our customers. So, thank you so much.

36:37 I appreciate it very much, Bill. Great chatting with you and I love I love these conversations. Thanks so much. And for the rest of you, this is Probate Weekly. We get together every week usually with a probate attorney. Not often as big time as Darren, but certainly we talk to different attorneys around the country, vendors as well. If you're interested, let me know. If you have questions, comments, please put it in the discussion. Send me a note. I'm at Bill Gross Probate on social media. As always, make today your best day ever. Thanks so much.