Building a Probate Real Estate Business, with Texas Broker David Pannell

0:00 Okay we're going to start in about 22 seconds there how you guys doing welcome to Probate Weekly we get together every Thursday at 4 pm Pacific time 7 PM Eastern and all the times in between and after we also live stream this onto YouTube Facebook LinkedIn and I just want to thank you guys so much for your support and by the way we're watching this live if you're on YouTube Facebook or LinkedIn live feel free to put comments in I'll pick them up along the way and here is a comment oops we got a little technical issue let's get that removed that's fine Matthew price David good point of calling folks before the update to the DNC with a tcpa now you have to have a lead and they're going to opt in how do you handle that let's talk about that in just a second but I want you to participate live if you're there ask questions say hi put your contact info in let's Network let's get business together I am all about business I not s on coaching data or any program I'm real estate practitioner based in La I have a team across the country of real estate professionals are building my business and like to do it with you and help you and as I say all the time if just us on the call got all the prob Business America we'd all make a fortune so let's work together and build our business so m price we take couple questions here before we get started Matthew had a great question about the DNC do not call list and I want to share kind of an interesting conversation that I had on that subject oops I about to get off earlier this week I actually had have been a administrator for a probate one of the legal services I use said hey you know the customer can't do the paperwork and in California you can file on behalf

2:04 Act as a fiduciary on behalf of the customer you can do it once you the license twice you're only licens three times in the license in California some states most states don't require licenses so I did it and it's interesting I got a mail I'm putting together kind of a presentation on what that looked like phone calls texts so I you know personally don't like getting do Robo calls and I was just curious and I happen to see a an attorney who advertises that he sues for the Do Not Call List and so I called him up and talked to him a little bit he's a national attorney well known one of the things he said to me was pretty much they can only Sue if it's their mobile phone or personal phone and also if the if the customer says don't call me again and they call back again now that's why it's so important to clean up your database when you call somebody and they say put me a do that call list you need to put him on but he was indicating to me and I'm not in favor of therefore coold calling I'm just saying I'm sorry I'm not in favor of co- calling the Do Not Call List numbers I'm just saying it was an interesting position by attorney that law is only enforceable if you call somebody after they say stop and only if you're calling their personal mobile phone not the landline I found that fascinating for what that's worth from an attorney who's bus business is suing violators of that business okay so Dave's question is I'm sorry Matthew's point was that Dave Peno had a good point about making those calls now before the laws change I don't know I would do it anyhow but you know I'm going to step out of that conversation talk to your broker if you work for a company make sure you follow the law in your state as well as your broker's policies Matthew price also says I close an probate tomorrow woohooo Matthew great I have a listing Presentation tomorrow online I'm excited about so we're doing good Angela McLoud welcome from Los Angeles

4:07 California I don't think we've met before Angela but thank you for coming in and sharing your contact info and for anybody who's doing that feel free to put your phone number your email address let's make sure we Network and do business together if all possible I have a guest I'm not sure where he is he was in the promo but you know we all have our issues and I texted him again the link so maybe it's a technical issue so what I do always is I have a backup plan just because that's the kind of guy I am and what would I talk about hopefully that will be of value to you and might have been a topic that I would have talked about had I planned ahead so one of the topics that I get asked about regularly is building a YouTube channel I'll share with you statistic I actually got a list of the top real estate agent you YouTube channels now top recommended by a great source and it was interesting when I looked at them and how many subscribers they have and how many views they have one the top was Ryan sirant Tom Ferry is another one that I've chased and seen for a long time and watched my numbers but I want to share with you guys thanks to your support those of you who watch YouTube live as well as those of you who watch the Youtube in particular on recording that we had more views last 30 days is then the next two competitors which are probate coaching companies combined and so thank you for your support I hope it's because we're putting out content that's of interest to you and more importantly helping you with your business because I'm not doing this to sell coaching I don't really have it not really sending a program I have a small email program that's more for people I'm trying to help let's see relle Ernest from Better Homes and Gardens in I'm not sure what state from Augusta Georgia well welcome relle and hey Cy Bill Gross thank you guys thanks for the love okay so I thought I would do today is talk about building or using YouTube to build your probate

6:08 Business so really building a YouTube channel to build your probate business now you might say well Bill aren't you then you know creating your competition or training competition the answer is first off it's hard work if you're willing to work harder than me good luck and two I think your best success will be at least starting in your local market where you can corter the market with good information I'm in Los Angeles it's a big Market here in La there's a lot of other competitors here but in your Market locally if you're going to the court you can become the expert courtne n Rollins I believe has built a whole business by being the expert in his Market which I think is in one of the counties in Virginia so we're gonna talk a little bit about YouTube my coach Grant Cardone Uncle G those of you who recognize it see the 10 Tye 10x flag there behind I've read his book I've been to a seminar is fantastic I met him when he was expired listing here in La he said even if your service is by far or your product is by far the best and if you give it away for free now I'm not listing houses for free I'd like to think I'm the best probate real estate agent but hard to distinguish but even if I was clearly the best and if I did it for free he says it's 10 times harder to sell than you would ever imagine I just let that think in for a second even if it's the best service by far we all want to say we're the best agent and even if it was for free it's 10 times harder than you ever would imagine now for some of you for those you watching live on the YouTube or Facebook put in the chat box what's your reaction to that it's going to be 10 times harder than you imagined is that good news is that bad news we're not in Zoom as well we're only on YouTube live

8:12 We moved off of Zoom because we get better video here we don't get the watermark on than YouTube we had more people watching after than live so Peter asked the question are we on Zoom as well the answer is no we've moved off of zoom and we're only on YouTube so again how does that make you feel when I say to you it's 10 times hard than you wouldd imagine right when I when I was a manager at C 21 and the owner kind of recruited me in to be the recruiter and we went through some numbers of what I'd have to do to recruit certain amount of people to make the money I wanted to and after I worked there 30 days two things were true I found out one nobody was making anywhere near the money that he had said we would for that work and number two it really would take I think it was 10 to 20 times the number of cont tacts to achieve the goals I had set out than I had planned on now at that point I was already working there like what are you going to do and I just said well how do I figure it out and I really sat down and for those you who know me back when I was the coach and later Executive Vice President at C 21 Masters I came up with a plan to build a phone calling event he had kind of had it but I really made it much bigger I said well what I have to do to get 10 times the people on the phone and get them to show up in the office and built the phone Blitz in the Walnut area and Irvine and umbrea and that was result of 10 times thinking I didn't know it at the time now I think the common threat of successful people is they're willing to pay the price other people won't they're willing to pay the price other people won't it's just it's hard to have great success financially and personally I make really good money I've got money in the bank I'm trying to wire transfer money and my daily limit in as much as I have to wire out like that's a good that's a good problem to have you know I work 35 hours a week I don't work 40 50 or 60 anymore but I've worked hard to earn that and I

10:17 Think when I listen to people like Elon Musk is a perfect example like him or not he's obviously successful financially the thing he talks about is how hard it has been to build the car company and the space company when you listen to him talk you feel the emotion if you want to be a real estate professional I believe you've got to be confront the reality it's gonna be hard now it's not as hard as you know mining coal a coal mine in the 1920s it's not as hard as I don't know running from Lions while trying to find something to eat in the jungle but it's going to be hard emotions it's going to be setbacks it's going to push you it's going to force you to be a bigger person and I believe that's the point is to force you to be a bigger person so that when you have the success you're more able to do use those resources properly I just believe that's how the game was created that's how the game was set up next game was spiritual but the reality is it's hard work you got be prepared for it so what are we going to do and I see a guest so I'm going to kind of wrap up I'm give another quick five minutes one advantages of YouTube is you obviously talk to a lot of people at once when I was recruiting real estate agents for my main business I have 40 contacts a day many of you come through systems like Mike F and you have to contact 40 people a day and I think that's great but I can tell you I had 9,000 views on my YouTube channel last month the last 28 days and even if a view in YouTube isn't as much as a contact on the phone I don't think it is maybe it's worth 110 that's the equivalent of 900 contacts in 28 days and those average views on average time on in my case is about five minutes that's longer than contacts on the phone typically so I don't know where the metrics are you need to find your own I found my own metrics and I generally try to shoot for a 10 times

12:20 Multiplier for each hour spent on video I want 10 times view time to be worth my time that's kind of the metric that I use as build my channel out and I worked with a coach Casey eart networking riches and put together the plan of the video and I'm just going to share with you real quick some quick overviews of what we did but I want to say that what got me started was a challenge on a networking call he challenged us those of us who said we wanted to build a channel to put up a video of something one a day every day for 30 days I remember I went to Grant cardone's event in Florida a couple year three years ago and I' had been doing a video a week and I thought I was all that in a bag of chips and Grant said well whatever you're doing do 10 times more and I thought how do I do 10 videos a week and today I'm sure I do I do way more than that if you add the pieces and the shorts and the this and that and the Facebook and the LinkedIn so it's a numbers game you got to find a process to do it and but you want to track your contacts you want to track the views you want to track how many people see it and so share with you the power of one to many with video there's really four main things to think about when you're building YouTube channel one is it's lead generation right you're talking to people that otherwise you're not going to see I have people call me all the time who saw my YouTube they're already somewhat interested in talking to me and they already get that I know what I'm talking about in some area at least because of the YouTube very powerful number two it demonstrates your expertise to your current database and this is overlooked by most people one of the main reasons you send this out one of the main reasons you post the content is for people who already know like and trust you because they maybe know that you're a nice person they don't know that you are an expert in something probate real estate EST State planning avoiding probate whatever you have a chance to show your expertise it's kind of like auditioning for the job before

14:22 You have the opportunity for the job number three is the ultimate lead follow-up tool whenever I get a lead or set an appointment I always hey by the way here's my YouTube channel where I talk about probate hope you find it interesting I've had sellers call I've literally had sellers call me or I call them and they'll say yeah we're interviewing you know six Realtors® we'd love to work you and on Wednesday and I've said thank you if you have five others sounds like you're taking care of you don't need me if I can help I have a link to my you my probate Channel you have a question feel free to call me anytime I've had two call me back and say you know I your channel I get it your next we want you to list the house it's the ultimately followup and you don't need thousands of subscribers you only need the video and the link to it to send your customer the fact is on YouTube it's kind of like it's on TV and the last is a referral power tool that you send the interview when you want your customers to work with your lender your insurance your attorney if you've interviewed that person ahead time you say oh by the way Joe's a great mortgage agent and here's an interview did with him and it just makes it easier to tie the customer to the person you want to do with you want to work do business with so what I would challenge anybody who wants to build a YouTube channel if you have a Google account you have a YouTube channel already it's already established and we all have phones right and if you just go to YouTube on the bottom there's a little plus sign all you gotta do is hit it'll ask you something about your photos and hit the record button and I think by default it looks back at you got one and upload it and just talk if you're not comfortable you'll get comfortable do it once a day for 30 days by the end of 30 days you'll be better every expert I've seen on YouTube channels has said the same thing just do a 100 and then start improving from there do 100 and then start

16:27 Improving from there okay let's see Matthew suspicious are free a hook okay Delissa was depressed I'm so sorry Delissa don't mean to make you depressed I do mean to challenge you it's going to be hard work I want to help you I want to be next to you while you do the hard work Delissa and I want to hold your hand through it if I can and Tobias says my podcast helped you that's great glad to help if I can any way hey I'm really excited today to introduce a colleague and a friend and a I don't know what else just a good guy smart guy I pay attention to expert in real estate expert in building a successful real estate business also expert in probate real estate Dave penel from the great state of Texas David what's up hey thanks for having me on if I remember you from Fort Worth area yes Fort Worth yeah talk everybody thinks I live in you know you say Texas they say Dallas or Austin or Houston it's we're left out right an hour from Dallas so but you had the classic Fort Worth accent like I can tell right away I here you're from Fort Worth very good how long you been in real estate oh gosh officially since I was 29 years old so I'm 46 now so 17 years yeah and did you start as an agent or investor wholesaler how did you start the business I started when I was 21 buying houses in remodeling not making a dime on remodels probably my first house I remember 2500 bucks after doing all the work myself but I learned a lot and I was headstrong that I could do better than any contractor in the very beginning so now it's all about hiring people so I don't have to waste my time or use my time in that aspect of the project so you started as investor and remodeler when did you start becoming a real estate agent around age of 28 10 years old so he about seven years of buying only

18:32 Bought four houses in seven years played around with it read some books was still trying to get into law enforcement still trying to take a career when I got my degree in criminal justice and it until the job applications wen't just being accepted seemed like nobody wanted to hire me that I got into sales one week and my brother told me to go show some houses and you don't technically have to be a licensed a agent to show new construction technically I guess but that's what he told me at least so you know you get into it and then you figure out you can make some money at it and I never wanted to be a Realtor® I never wanted to be a broker but it just it grew it grew over 17 years now we sell 80 90 homes a year and it's just a small shop you know fantastic and what percent of your business today is real estate agent sales versus investors fix and flips and buying properties as investor it's definitely 7525 75 Realtor® or 75 investor 75 investor 75% of yeah we'll do we'll do close to 40 or 50 probate deals or you know deal machine stuff or C you know driving for dollars that we find on a when I go on probate appointments or whatnot it's really unique skill after you do this so long and I know you interviewed a lot of a lot of people but you know when you have a it's such an advantage when you know how to work just as well as what your Title Company's going to do for you and you could get all that information up front or figure out the loopholes that you have to jump through to get that title clear and probites taught me that going through every situation in Probate is just that experience level is just we've done close to 21

20:38 Probate deals that were in Probate that's nuts I never thought that would happen it was so hard to get our first probate Deal or No I mean the best investment houses that I ran into were always probate they're always the best margins on the flip the remodel whatnot for you know whatever reason the family didn't have an emotional attachment to the property so they could sell it for cheaper based on the condition but so you run into a few of those as a Realtor® and you're like oh I'll just list these for a four or five $5,000 commission check and then you start buying them and you're like oh gosh I can make this out of it's great it's amazing you start learning more appropriate I guess well you know it's funny you say about the investment because I've heard you say this over and over again and I've been a little lazy as an investor and just recently a month ago I had a guy call me up and say I have a problem blah and the buyer backed out I said well how much is the you know what was the price again he told me and I knew the area I said well I'll just buy it yeah I'll just buy it and he goes really I said yeah I got money the bank and I can afford it and I'll fix it up and do something I'll figure it out and they want some money right away and I said I can write your check today it's not a problem so I think I think I think that all of us who are in real estate now this is not a lead where I approach the seller as a Realtor® I think the only issue I have is you can't approach as a Realtor® and then be the principal and argue against them on the value that's hard in this case it was an agent who brought it to me not to list the property but just talking about it complaining about it and so I had no relation with the seller at all other than he's I'm the buyer and he's the seller so it worked out really well okay so let's talk about you started from being investor to being an agent in probate real estate what were the steps that you started what got you started in listing property as a real estate agent and probate specifically and or what would you do today to Accel accelerate that

22:42 Process well you know we're going through a time that it's everybody's calling the probate people now you know we're getting we get you get wholesale people you get people from YouTube that take weekend class I call the PRs now you got we're not seeing a whole you know I love making the calls and reaching out to people but people are just simply annoyed you know maybe they're not getting a call on their probate anymore they probably are but they're getting calls from people with all these Medicaid calls all these other spam calls these death benefits these and you know it's what guess so what I'm saying is that I probably would not go after the PRs as much the personal representatives in Probate I would start immediately going after anybody that was in the process that title companies or attorneys or estate planning people we're going to sponsor one of the associations as a Realtor® to be in front of more attorneys that have the better leads you know we're trying to get away from and I would never said I was going to do this I never thought I'd go after attorneys as heavily as we are now and I'll give you an update next year how it's going but right now we're sending out our we've sent out mail every quarter to attorney so they know my they got my letter they got my business card they knew who I am this month we're sending out a the mailers cost me $14 for the mailer and I don't know if I could bring it up on but it's a it's a letter of endearment to the attorney that I'll take care of the relationship and the their reputation I'll will treat everybody honorably and I'll either list the house or I'll make advice on how to make repairs and I tell them what my

24:44 Experience all is but I also sent him a I got this from one of my coaching members a tape measure that says I'll measure up and then I'm sending a you know a postcard that we send for I'll sell your house in 29 days it's a full package of stuff that cost me about $13 per mailer including the stamp and the letter and the paper and we're doing that we're doing that to a thousand attorneys in the Dallas Forth area yeah so that's $133,000 in just one mailer that we're doing it to that's nuts huh well I don't know it's nuts I think I would say that you know the opportunity of those of us who are working hard and have been successful this is the opportunity to really make progress over the competition and if you're if you're focused where the money goes I wouldn't just buy a bunch of Zillow leads today but you know I've started doing postcards to attorneys now I only send postcards to attorneys that I've already talked to on a deal or met on a deal so I have about 250 that I've you know done something with sometime in my career and I try to call them every 90 days don't get to all of them anymore I'm just not that active on the phone but I there was time I was up until maybe last year and so and so you know I mailed on postcards and I never really did that before but you know I make a good money I can afford to reinvest in the business and let the money do a little bit of the work rather than me have to you know grind it out all myself and so that's right kind of part of it I know my competition sponsors you know mixers for the associations and things like that and those are great I don't know what the return for the investment is I think that it's a lot of time you got to go to those events you got to pay for the events they're not cheap if you're the sponsor so but you got to do something but the key is to watch your return for investment I know you've talked about that in the past as far as your mailers that there's a there's a math equation that you're following and it either works for you and it doesn't and if it does you do more and if it doesn't you don't do it talk a little bit

26:47 About that how would you make you know I don't know that decision is relevant to too many people in the call other than you or maybe me but in General on decisions to make direct mail and I get asked by agents all the time and I don't really do it how do you decide in the past what's worked for you how do you decide when to send direct mailers either to petitioners and or attorneys well the first mailers we ever sent I never really followed the plan of mailing somebody we always sent mail but the first people we sent mail to the ones that we connect with on the phone and I had a bunch of callers isa's inside cell agents or agents too calling them so if we connected and we had them in a followup program we'd call them we'd send them a letter too and we keep them on like a maybe five letters if I had no if I had no money and I was broke and I and I was starting probate or I was is if I wanted a source I hate to say if you're a new agent to do probate because once you get a deal you have to know how to work through you need to partner up with somebody the first couple and figure out or you need to read you need to there's like 22 books on Amazon that you could read about process of probate and what it does and what a family goes through I think someone really needs to do that get off of YouTube read that content so if you're if you're a new agent or you're expanding into probate and you have idea you have a idea of the closing process for a buyer and seller it's very similar but the Title Company's going to have so many roadblocks of when that title or that schedule B or C comes back or at least in Texas we have a schedule A B C and C gives them instructions how to clear the title and if it's an attorney state if you're in an attorney state they're going to clear that title and if you could help them with it that's even and we run down everything we need to do we I drove up to two hours from here stayed in the hotel for two days to track down a doctor that didn't

28:50 Sign his name correctly on a trust or it wasn't dated or something but he's the one that sold it to the family and the title company wasn't going to provide a title policy a clear title because the guy didn't really sign out of he didn't divest from the property correctly over 10 years ago and I had to find the guy introduce myself in a two-day period and get a doctor analytical type mind person to sign something that he know they screwed up 10 years ago so things like that you got the but those deals that was a $40,000 wholesale fee that's crazy you know it's like it's worth those two days well because nobody else is willing to do that number one it's worth $4,000 you're getting paid for that time number two nowadays you probably have to do that type of work less with technology it's easier to find people you know you can f express some documents you can find somebody local to send it to Federal Express I know for me I used to go to court all the time to pick up documents now there's a legal service I use that does that for me and delivers them to me so technology has really extended if you know the business the technology is kind of like your arms and legs you can have eight or 10 arms working at once rather than just one or two so it sounds like really just a hustle muscle as something to develop and some you make money on some you don't some you make a lot of money on and it's a numbers game yeah you talk to like I do a lot of brand new agents who are experienced who are looking to jump into probate what would you recommend them to do or what would you tell them to avoid doing to build their business in Probate if they're already an established agent there struggling a little bit but they want to do more business what would you recommend to them just read the books understand the process of probate and what the probate process is in your state yeah why is a family have to go through it and somebody stop right there for those watch stop right there for those watching do you see how a matter of fact he is on that answer do you see I asked the question he's almost like assuming I should know the answer and he's right it's obvious the answer if you're

30:54 Experienced you should know the business so many of us and you want to learn the magic marketing technique and I just asked David for the second time and his answer was know the process so you can be service your customer I'm sorry interrupt David but I just thought it was compelling just an example I got a call at 3:30 today and the guy said I've talked to several Realtors® and they just don't want to they don't get back to me they don't get back to me and the guy goes to forcl Tuesday his brother passed away owing 118 on a house the house is worth 350 and you know in less than 5 days I'm going to try to get a investor to pay that replace the mortgage so I'm going to go and just replace the lean on the property maybe if there's no other leans or title issues we're going to run a title search in the next three business days Friday Tuesday Monday and Tuesday by 10: a.m. And the courts here when they foreclose on the property I have I have two and a half days to figure out how to replace his mortgage if I do that I'm at risk because he doesn't actually own the house the deceased brother the house and the sister in the and his there's a granddaughter that he adopted so that's going to be another that's you know when someone calls off your letters or you make phone calls to appropriate you have to be ready with that knowledge and that does come with experience 70% of that knowledge comes with other transactions and I didn't know that in 2014 when I started probate a lot of these probate deals just fell in my lap because I was heavily on listing side I got coached early on in my career to leave buyers alone so I've never bought a buyer lead I've done SEO to attract buyers from my listings but I've probably out of 1,400 sales I've I was buyer heavy the first three years as an agent because it was new home

32:56 Construction 07 08 09 and it died out I figured out how to get foreclosures and short sales I became a full-time listing agent and then that and that just created opportunities to find or the probate houses just came up they just you just start hearing about them or you run into one and you got to figure out how to close it and I leaned heavy on my title company at the time to do that and I then I leaned heavy on like a traditional Title Company one that doesn't really do invest stuff so they got lost in the mess too they just waited for someone to do their job for them or they did their title work but they didn't know how to do the stuff with the probate right took four months to close some of these probate houses or longer or longer I got some longer you know I'll tell you I have a list appointment tomorrow where I've already prepackaged to the customer they're out state so in California they'd have to get bonded they'd be need Court approval we're g to use a professional fuer to step in for them they need an attorney to file the paper and handle probate they need to borrow some money to bring the loan clear Pay Advance some of the expenses so I'm bringing three or four parties and oh eviction there's a there's a family member who's not an air they need to get noticed and so I have an eviction attorney so I'm putting together four pieces of a puzzle but it's all package like if you say yes here's the four steps I'll man I'm the I'm the conductor of the orchestra you do this you file the probate you get the eviction notice you get the advances but that's what these deals look like right they're more complicated but there's also less competition if you know what you're doing so that's so true yeah now phone call one of the things I get and I'm sure you hear this also one of the agents on the call today saying that when I call people say they're getting so many phone calls sure it's true with mailers they get so many mailers so is you just try to avoid pick niches where you're gonna be without that or is that just part of the

34:59 Business and you're going to be competitive no if you're if you're if you're if you're blanketly calling the probates I would stop that I don't like to call the ones that have the same address where they the spouse in the house that passed away and I rarely ever call the one that's local now if you have a sister brother have a local you have a an address within like an hour of that probate house maybe two hours I really if I if I'm on the if I pick a day to make phone calls now I really don't have to with the letters and attorney referrals now and it's a blessing and tell you it's a blessing but it I'm going to call the out of state probate no matter I'm gonna get my probate leads I don't care if they're probate plus I don't care if they're pre- probate I don't care if an affidavit list I want I'm going to call the people that are out of state and I'm going to wear them out I'm G to call them until they call me back and I'm going to send them letters a handwritten letter a five six S8 nine letters and it's a list of probably 80 people maybe after you buy three or four or five months of probate leads it's not that many people and I guarantee you 20 of those 80 are GNA sell and they're gonna they're gonna call you right so if that's where you're at in the business of probate that's where you need to focus on real quick just some housekeeping if you permit me Our Guest today's Dave pel Marine he's on his website I think some false advertising says nice guy he's not a nice guy he is a marine I learned that it's not that he was a marine he is a marine when he what a marine and broke I went on a listing appointment yesterday end up making it something we're gonna buy and the guy said I only called you because you were a nice guy I said no I'm a little aggressive too yeah he's not I can say for the record this is on the internet so it's now true he's not really a nice guy I'm kidding he's nice guy there's a cell phone number if you want to get more information with him City's real estate is his compy company in the Fort Worth area cities realestate.com and you can find them

37:00 There today we're on Probate Weekly we do this every Thursday 4 pm Pacific live and then live streaming on YouTube Facebook and Linkedin if you want to register for reminders per your email address there also scroll down if you want to get it in audio format we're on all the all the different formats Spotify I'm the top 20% of Spotify podcasts imagine that or watching on YouTube and then Facebook we can continue the conversation a Facebook group called Probate Weekly 3,700 members there a couple things resources is one put your probate content there to get more views and more likes more engagement number two and I offer this all time and very few people take advantage of but I'll tell you one guy who has is Courtney Rollins and he's just killing it link your YouTube there and then people will see your video and you get more YouTube views that's just unnatural I do that internally with my company as well but here's a resource I'm Mar for you guys put any probate related don't give me your open houses don't give me your Plaine listings but any probate related content love to promote that for you here as well as referrals you need an agent out of the area or attorney out of the area put your questions in there and we'll try to track it down separately I do an email Mastermind class now I have a link tree Link tr. Bill Gross with all my contact information if you scroll down Master Class uhuh on that note I went on vacation I missed most of that course that I paid for so if you ever do it can I get back in it you can get in for free once you taken it once you can come back in for free forever okay good I'm not doing this to make a living I'm doing it to work to the funny part is you're amazing you and Bill Bruce Hill and just y'all taking this by the horns I love it you know I the thing is when I coach real estate agents whether on my team or people call me for help always the breakdown is they don't have a database and they're not doing anything to connect with people they've already met and I just got so sick of coaching the same thing I said you know what I'm going to do it once a month I'm going to record it I'll charge for it if you take it once you can have it forever I do a one-h hour call and then we do 4

39:04 30 minute follow-ups on each of the four topics so that you can do that and once you pay for it once you're welcome to come back anytime you want for free as long as I do the program so yeah it's this really is not a money maker for me I just need to get the time to cover as well as pay for my assistant in the admin time so I do that if you're interested in that love to have you join that but that's just not what the whole business is about so and again I get asked all the time why do I this call number one reason I do this is I get to talk to Dave panel you know could I call him and catch him H he's a busy guy he calls me back I'm busy we're talking I learn about this business from experts like Dave penel why do this number two obviously lead generation people around the country see me and I get referrals like I got a referral this week from an agent in Santo Texas as a matter of fact we listing appointment tomorrow so's hope they get that so all of you are welcome to Network for free I don't need a referral fee I'm not charging you put your name in contact your email your phone number let's do some business together and educate and then if you know somebody that you think would be great for this program particularly attorneys National Vendors related to probate or a superstar real estate agent love to have them on the program as well okay so Dave how is the business obviously you're more you have more momentum just because you've been in the business longer you have more past clients you're stronger in your knowledge base but I do believe the business gets tougher every year as well and so if we don't improve more then the market gets tougher we fall behind if we improve more we go ahead what do you see 2024 and what are you doing different this year maybe than you did last year I'm moving away from the personal Representatives which I'll still I'll still buy the data and the leads and I'll still put them in my CRM and I'll still do the weekly email if I have an email to them or I'll we'll still send letters to them because it does trickle in good calls but I want to build I want to use the attorneys as a good like a SOI type I want to get good referrals and I build good relationships with other professionals that are in the

41:09 Same lead Source that you know y'all could try it in your area but the same thing that Zillow did to all of us agents they took our leads on our listings right I remember the day when I used to get calls on my listing signs and I would sell the house and you know give it to one of my Buyer Agents to be the buyer agent or you know assign it whatever now I hardly get any leads that way because all the internet activity I think it's the same thing doing with the PRs too we're losing that but if you could somehow what I'm trying to figure out is how I could be a reference or referral source for other attorneys that I build relationships with and if I can mayor and match the personality first of all get the get a frequency cons where they call me instead of an attorney if they're trying to look for someone to probate and then match it with an attorney that would be helpful in their price range their budget they may not personality style personality style or budget MoneyWise or language structure yeah language Spanish speaking or Mandarin speaking or whatever so next year and when we do this again I'll update you guys but that's you know that's the secret sauce I think in this business and also being in the same realm in the world of people that are in their six you know people that are in their 60s 70s like Bill I'm just sorry I'm just kidding I am 65 I am this how it works I was hoping I didn't know if you're were like 52 or something I was like I wish just kidding I know but you know if you target that age group and that mindset you're going to get those deals of mom's and dad's house right so think about think about doing some research on the 55 plus communities and becoming a buyer agent for those type of buyers right you know or the living assistance places and stuff like that so

43:12 Try to get in between what I'm saying it's not about pre- probate or buying probate leads or attacking the attorney list on your phone day just build solid relationships and build solid content where they find you well the flip side younger people you know when I started in this business I was much younger; now I fit closer to attorneys in age and similar sty style and values if I were starting out young I'd be targeting perhaps the children of those elderly people and because they're stuck doing the heavy lifting of helping Mom and Dad move or downsize or go to senior care or they've passed now the it falls on their shoulders and make cases they never bought or sold a house before so if you're the agent that can help your cohort that's the key is helping people and it's easier to help people who are like you so I would say that make sure you find your Niche you know I have my Niche because it works for me I didn't pick it because it works for anybody else I picked it because it works for me and also the other thing I just want to caution everybody is Dave's business is different because Dave works where he works mine's different because I work where I work and I think if you listen to him what it's not that he's giving you the right strategy he's given you the right mindset to think about how to build your strategy in your market area that's the key it's not his you're not Dave you're not as nice as he is yeah right yeah you're not in Fort Worth it's a different Market where you are for most of you so that's the thing is make sure you're right sides to where your business is so Dave like me you talk to I'm sure a lot of Realtors® both in your local market I know you're you on some of the other you know networking groups that I see you on from time to time what do you think the biggest mistake made by real estate agents who are struggling in this business in this market right now is wow swap somebody to get them out of that mistake what would you oh my gosh yeah just fallowing gosh buying leads shoot I think people need to build their business they need to build their content and have people find them

45:17 Instead of them finding the lead it used to be speed to the lead right now you got automation that does that for you so it looks like trash online I think it looks like garbage if I'm being frank I think it looks just same with probate if you're going to buy a probate list and immediately text message somebody yeah fine you could do that but you're G to get trash reception trash responses on that note if you want to text message older probates fine you may find something diamond in the rough which we do but if you're just going to slap something together and not have any content like build us I don't make as much videos as you Bill but I do make enough for to drip people and to make to bring in those type of people finding me so you just got to build a business where people are gonna find you right where you find the people we G find you not find somebody else and everything's a little a little different people you know to slap you out or whatever people think they need to follow these people selling 100 homes a year really you need to sell 36 houses in a calendar year to make a really good income as a real estate agent if you're if you're going off a $7,000 commission so it's really easy to get to 36 and if you're targeting the right person and building the right content half of those are going to be referrals you know then the other half of that's going to be your target source which is me probate and then the other small seven or eight deals are going to be you know things that you actually have in your database where they where you fall up with somebody and you get the deal just to go back a little bit in the questions relle ask a great question about books Dave you mentioned you have a number of them I know for me I tell anybody who's in California get the probate code book it's on Amazon it's about 30 40 books but has the code you don't have to read the real estate

47:19 Section but it has the actual it's like the rule book if you play football there's a rulebook or baseball there's a rule book get the rule book probate and that way most attorneys have not read through the code book like they you know you'll know the rules it's and it's all written in English not difficult what book would you recommend for people Dave one or two books on probate specifically that you've covered that would be helpful do you think oh man let's see Medicaid anything to do with Medicaid you know I literally of probate here's a good one this is from you know paying for long-term care just understanding what they're going through and their mindset that's a good one yeah that's not probate but that's like if you get if you're making content in videos you can make content and videos about this topic and you'll bring in the people in that stage of life you know that's what you it that's funny when people see you on YouTube as a celebrity and you're talking about what's in their stage of Life whatever you think that is whatever wide net you want a cast that's what you got to think about it's not about hey how do you sell a house in under 10 days or what is staging or some stupid topic about selling a house nobody cares they could Google that stuff try to do stuff that you know people could Google this but if they see you talking about this stff they know that you're knowledgeable about it you know and for those who listening this is gold because when I talk to agents about building a YouTube channel they always say what do I talk about I say probate is a is a mega Niche with many minor niches right there's the minor niche of personal Representatives there's a minor niche of attorneys there's a minor niche of senior housing there a minor niche of probate advances there's another Niche on Medicaid lead there's numerous me minor niches within the big Niche that you can focus on create content but once you pick your area you could literally do a video there you go what's that called the unexpected sale

49:22 You literally could just do a unexpected sale unexpected sale you literally could do a video on any one of the number of topics in those minor niches you should have more cont you should be talk about it every week for the rest of your career it's really that difficult see this is the Realtor® in Seattle though Bill and he wrote a whole probate book and has every single paragraph could be a video and this one say establishing I got this from the guy that owns viral marketing he's his name is Alex lar L HR L it's a executive administrate for estate these are the books you want people I need to write my own book I how to convert probate but it's a it's every paragraph in here is gold for to making a video about probate and I still haven't done it so I need to a viral marketing vrl is phenomenal I remember when he started his business I watched his videos been a customer of his he's fantastic they do a great job somebody asked about one particular book that I can definitely vouch for that I bought and read probate real estate sales 101 in fact the author a to rep I've worked with Kevin sales sa white Lees and I actually bought the book online as I started I bought everything I could find and then met him and then I think if you're with foreclosures daily by the prob day they give you a copy of his book for free I already had the book so I gave it to somebody else but I got him to sign it so but that's one yeah he's a good guy okay so let's just comes out of the knowledge I it if you're a reader you know that your language changes in the period that you're reading that book definitely so if you're watching videos your vision and your goals and your you're going to for a period of time of watching that video and for about three hours after you're going to think about that video same with reading a book The a book not on audio a book takes maybe a week to read so you're thinking about it all week long just make some videos while you're reading the book just cut

51:24 It right there into pieces and just really you just can give over what you learned you learn one thing record that as a video you can do shorts you can do three four five minute pieces 100% literally today I was talking today I was talking to a banker who specializes in working with trust and Estates and he referred to somebody as the dead guy and I said I think you should use the word deant because when you read books they use the right language and the right language becomes natural when you talk to the customer you don't want to say your dead mother of the Dead Guy you want to say the decedent is a it's a polite way it's respectful term that works it also shows you know the language when you talk to attorneys when you use the right terms are going to be respectful of you rather than thinking you're an idiot okay so let's see here Matthew says 7,000 commission never had one you know can I say Matthew my average commission is probably about 12,000 so it's different by markets again different numbers different Market numbers and just do what's appropriate for your market area he set some goals that work for him and you should set goals that work for you I make that's off about a that's off of like a 250 sale so that was our average price range in forward now it's about 380 for an average price so now the average commission check is $10,000 for us there you go that's just goes to our Market if it's less than where you're at you know that's fine your cost of living is going to be a lot less and shamak asks what book was it was real estate sales let me bring it up on last time I close it real estate sales 101 if you look into Amazon sorry probate sales 101 and what's funny is it's by a author sales but he spelled his last name sa y Lees on Amazon probate real estate sales 101 by Kevin sales great book I read it like I said I

53:27 Bought it before I met him there's 4.5 ratings 145 4.5 rated so definitely Sol okay so last question we have five minutes left here I think I'm up to date on the on the chat Bo go a little longer if you want bill it's fine well I also don't want people listening to get burned out on this so I want to keep them coming back for more thank you though okay you know I've talked to you know we've done two or three episodes of this together maybe three or four I talk to you regular you know irregularly but once in a while on other formats you always seem engaged focused moving forward what is that keeps you in your mindset focused forward productive I don't know that I've ever seen you jumping for joy or screaming out loud or laughing out loud but I've always seen you in a productive forward moving you always have plans you've launched you're always in process how is that you keep your mindset in that direction man just come from a broke childhood I guess I don't know just come from a you know I'm proud of where I've come and I'm proud of the lifestyle that this has created I'm proud of the knowledge that I've got on a daily basis them I get to you know I tell Liz every day we're so grateful to actually we used to have an office and go to work every day but now having the kids it's nice we spend two hours in the morning getting the kids out to school and then I any day I could randomly get a good call from a pro someone selling a house either for a listing appointment or wholesale you know you got to be as a as a Realtor® in this business as a broker in Fort Worth I am open to helping anybody I can and some of that help is not me forcing a listing or marking their houses where online or whatever and taking that listing agreement with me to the appointment sometimes they just need some advice sometimes they want to sell me the house you know but I'm going to do it do my job and help them I kind of random there

55:31 But yeah that keeps me in so yeah I'm definitely focused I'm I think about this stuff 100% every day and my wife has to has to snap me out of it all the time yeah well I will say I do think that if you can make your business your hobby right so for me personally I launched a YouTube channel I've made a hobby how to do a better job I've really worked at trying to make this better I'm not a full-time YouTuber so I can't do it all day long but I work at trying to make this better you know every week and same with you know other techniques using the sky slope the forms how to be better at you know communicating my customer more efficiently more effectively quicker easier for them if you if you make that your hobby then the business becomes more fun because it's something you enjoy doing and I think that's part of it you have to find a piece of this business and I think you started earlier on this thought David you got to find a part of this business that you love to do and then you'll do it because if it's a If It's a Grind I'm not I've called four hours a day I'm not gonna do it anymore I've door knocked I'm not gonna do that anymore at this stage of my life I don't have to I G be more productive than that but to get started and to come up that's what you have to do that's what you have to do so hey David as always I always learn so much from you thank you so much for being on the call today thanks for sharing your information and again if you want to get more information from David you can go to cities realestate.com CI realestate.com if you go to the under the about part there's this goodlooking handsome guy and his name his name and Marine and some false advertisings say nice guy and short in there's his contact info his cell his office his social media and all that good stuff so David thank you so much for being on the call today I really appreciate it you're welcome if anybody has a referral for worth let me know or Dallas area the Metro DFW area very good thank you so much and for the rest of you this is Probate Weekly we do this every single week Thursday 4M probate

57:36 Weekly.com if you want to sign up to get reminders put your email in at Probate Weekly.com we bring you this page also we have the audio versions and on YouTube channel if you want to sign up from more there Facebook group to continue the conversation go to the Facebook group Probate Weekly.com we have 3,700 members and growing post your you your probate related content there to get more views that's free also look for referrals for agents attorneys around the country if you want more of me I'm on Link treeb Link t.bil and I have an email Mastermind program you can just scroll down here and click on it will take you right there somewhere on there I'm missing it there you go real master class and all my Social Media stuff you can connect to as well so thank you so much everybody being on the call today appreciate those you submitted questions in the chat box if you have a question feel free to reach out call me text me email me I do my best to return all the calls and make time for you guys I'd love to help you I appreciate your support again thank you've made me the number one probate YouTube channel in the last 30 days last 90 days and actually more than the next two combined so thank you for support I really appreciate you as always make today your best day ever thanks so much