Executorium, a Free Resource for Executors, with Founder George Compton

0:15 All things program real estate live stream it live streaming facebook in there if you're there watching and if you're there watching them will your comments catch them and they're going to catch them and make the production if you're on the no zoo oh this is the be particular is the more you participate the more you participate in your business the more money you make the more you help other people when you have other people the more valuable so and this topic business in georgia George Compton george he'll tell you how i got to this yesterday exciting i think there's an opportunity i think this opportunity for you to create some great business for yourself business for you to find some people find something like-minded or like help you with your business your local your business you give you a tool to help give you a tool to market your business a marketing tool too okay hold on a second i see somebody playing around a little bit

2:18 I know this game right now that is sussex county new jersey sussex is is that a picture yeah no those are those are real trees if you think about new jersey you think about the flat top of new jersey making a border with new york and then the western border of new jersey bordering pennsylvania being the delaware river sussex county is the county right in the corner there so we've got new york city about 50 miles that way sun setting over your state about three thirty one hundred miles that way it's a very nice part of this very nice part of the state used to say there's more there are more cows than people but that's no longer the case i'll tell you how you've been interested i'll tell you how big you think you think you're industrial cities so much more so thank you for bringing that so thank you background how did you get into the space how did you get into the space of Executorium well i grew up here in sussex county made my way around and about even into california from time to time was a director executive director of a not-for-profit you know following college and it was a not-for-profit a 501 c 3 of heavy construction

4:24 Professionals pile drivers and geotechnical engineers very technical stuff international very interesting work and then about 15 years after being in that i was packing up my desk to start a marketing firm ready to turn the page when i got a call from my mother that she was going to the hospital could i meet her there and she died that night so that was a kind of a you know not to be entirely too heavy but that's that's the story it was 15 years ago and that was a bit of a turning point because i was the executor on the will with my with a couple of my sisters i'm the youngest of six and it wasn't an easy estate and i think with my not-for-profit experience i went looking for something that would help me tender all the different concerns and subjects that i came across not being new to business but being new to the world of probate and estates and selling properties and selling you know personality having appraisals done finding an auctioneer etc all the way down the line went looking for some kind of resource didn't find anything in that space so you know i blame this on my mom it's been a lot of work and i've had to i've had this itch to scratch to create something that i've just been putting meat on this bone for the last 10 to 15 years more so in the last five years so that executors would have some place where they could

6:28 Find service providers find answers to various topics across the board be aware of the local state and federal bodies and resources that were available be aware of curated resources that are available across the internet so it's it's a repository really and it's designed so that not just the content informs but you know a quick wander through it's a simple site i talk some questions and provoke a an executor say well why do i need to know about this why do i need to know about mediation why would i need to know about selling gold why do i need to know the difference between an appraisal and you know just finding values on ebay and so on and so forth so the itch is scratching is it's important for us it's important for us both as professionals those of us realtors or attorneys realtors or attorneys again that's what this tool is again that's what this tool is designed whenever you work with something whenever you work with somebody what's their goal what's their goal and how can i help them how can i help them solve their problems so it's a website just to the website the website but the website executorium.com that came across this enrollment that came across as a right of way from this opportunity tremendous opportunity for as a resource as a resource director for example government resources for government resources executives and so one thing you have is that so one thing you have directory so by counting if you're put in here different types of appraisers donations no we're a business social media social media back touring

9:23 Yeah all that all the marketing that they're doing marketing but there's more different things as long as i can link that as long as i can link that page professionals that want to have professionals or anybody in this call opportunity has the same opportunity and then you can just click right then you can just click right there checking me out once they're checking me out when they see my facebook yeah beautiful picture yeah but the eye candy put the eye candy on your facebook page so let's talk about how this organization the organization professional from a professional vendor point of view vendor point of view who thought of here who's here and what does it cost well we launched last year so you know i am i'm the creator of this site i've i've gone through a lot of different synthesis of how to approach this and [Music] my goal and my priority is to build the directory of estate service providers for executors so that there is an asset and that there are complete listings and complete counties throughout the united states when executives go to find service providers there is no cost to get a listing that that listing you just showed bill is a is a full listing it takes about five minutes to complete i have to approve it there's no reason not to approve it unless you know you're you know unless it's nonsense from some shady source somewhere we know they're all out there so there's a little bit of vetting that's you know just to keep some qaqc the motivation for just having no charge is to build up the resource ultimately i would like to charge for listings but part of the motivation is to build the resource it's free right now i don't know how long it's going to be free i

11:26 I assume it will be free for the for foreseeable future but time will tell this is a young site right now if you're signing up you would be a founder i'm grateful to people that are signing up now because i've put a lot of work and frankly my heart and soul into this so when i get a sign up i actually get very happy so there have been a lot of people signing up and so i've been pretty happy over the last few months it's it's it's been interesting to develop this and see it come to fruition and then you know you've got the relationship building piece so that's that's where i'm at right here and i appreciate this opportunity so just to probably everybody's like well how do you make money there is a column on the right-hand side you might have seen it where if you want to amplify your listing you can buy an ad and the ads are well here in sussex county they're 20 a month and out there in la county they're twenty other thirty dollars a month so they're you know like i said this is a young site we're building up traffic and you know those rates will change as time goes on but right now there's introductory rates to get advertisers they're 10 free months if you buy a year i think the rates are extremely reasonable so you know i'd encourage anyone to consider that and come and grow with us but more important than the advertising is building the assets so that executors have a have a resource to turn to and find good service providers it was important to me as an executor you know we have had good service providers you know frankly our dumpster guy was a

13:30 You know just a jewel he was a great guy then i had other service providers that you know i probably will never do business with again you know there are there are all sorts as everyone on this call is aware we're not going to attempt to vet the listings but we will encourage the executors to do their own vetting and you know consult you know better business bureau and google list you know ratings and referrals etc etcetera make imagine down the road you can imagine down the road comments from members comments from members within your site license checks and license checks and things like that it's a young site and all these things money and more money and time become possible what i if you know when i my channel don't know my channel but i called before those you know they've probably heard this number one way to build number one way to build a product real estate people you already know then you're if you're in your agent an agent who's been in business donation services donation services donation services all these categories all these people are in your data people are in your here's a chance for you to give us a

15:53 Chance through our mission is to be a resource for executives so well you know this is phase one and i have other ideas with other tools that executors can use they will come when you know it's a project in the black it's taken quite a bit of resources to get it to this point and it's a great question it's it's it's it's a fun question because now that the dirty work is done the coding and the programming and all that fun stuff you know getting to think about you know things like what did i need when i was an executive did i need checklists and i need you know you know a way to distribute the personality fairly throughout my family should we think about educating different categories of service providers about the particular needs or sensitivities of a probate client that's on my head i don't know if that's really feasible but that's you know just speaking extemporaneously but the real answer the question is flesh out the information that executors are going to need because like i said at the tip top this is a repository you know it's it's very encouraging to see everybody on this call and i do encourage everyone to take a listing it will take five minutes

17:56 And then you'll be in front of executors and i think the only criteria we're going to have for founders is as long as you can respond to our an email check that you're still in business we'll keep you on there this would be the time to get in i think we're also going to have founders discounts for advertising if that's interesting but fleshing out the articles getting better writing from guest bloggers once we start to increase our profile and just finding more curated information around excuse me just more information around the internet that we can curate on behalf of executors and really be that resource that we that we set out to be flesh out that that service providers directory and just keep working on that directory of government pages is the mission and on this call everybody who's here if you're an agent if you're an accountant if you're an attorney these are free listings if you're a real estate agent and you want to generate business i am telling you the easiest way to get business as a real estate agent is it go through your database look at that list of categories of providers that he's created for you call your database of current people in some cases you have clients who are married and you don't even know what the spouse says if you call and ask you're going to discover the spouse is an accountant and they love some probate business or state accounting business or you're going to discover the husband is a owns a storage business or the general manager of a storage company or you knew that and forgot and didn't think it was important and what i'm going to tell you is with the rise in interest rates what's happened in our market with this transition period the last couple years a jellyfish could sell a house the last few years you could walk on a boulevard with a pancake sign without what they're

19:59 Called sandwich sign and you get business but the business now is going to turn back to like it is normally it'll be a premium on relationships and a premium of bringing value to your customers and when somebody says well you say you're appropriate expert or you're appropriate certainly what does that mean that's because you haven't created value but if you invite them to participate in a network of people who are involved with probate business you're showing them the value you're helping them with their business and everybody i'm just quick showing hands who here would like help generate more business for yourself anybody would like somebody else to help you yeah we all would right everybody loves those phone calls including george so i just want to ask you all beg you all go on if you're an agent and you want to participate in probate business you've been certified by chad's program or mti or one of those paul horn's program you know the basics look you go on there if you don't know much and you're scared you can get to listen call me i'll walk you through what to do i'm glad to help you but let's fill this up and then more importantly let's go through our rolodex and find good vendors leave the bad ones off send the bad ones to craigslist but the good ones let's put them in this directory and fill it up this is an amazing opportunity to make differences in people's lives nationally and so i'm really excited to somebody had their hand up i'm sorry i just missed that went up and then what did i answer the question or somebody i'm probably listening for my mother no i was just raising my hand that yes i want more clients okay good okay well don't you don't be missed because i might want to start handing out clients and if your hands on up you're not going to get any so good job and so okay and so gus is asking it's an interesting question so he says when you first started the idea was it because you were forced to have a probate listing when she passed what was in particular that what was the itch that caused you to do this what was the problem that you felt

22:02 That you experienced that you assume other people are experiencing that cause you to launch this well i that's a really interesting question you know i would assume like most if not all the people on this call experience occasions when you're just you know in over your head you know you're you are all professionals who are you know experts in your field and you have a you know a vast sea of knowledge and you have a professional experience and you know you know your way around your industry backwards and forwards and you know i was i was an executive director of a heavy construction industry and i thought it was pretty hot business and you know i guess pride goes before the fall so you know getting into the to the executor business you're thrust upon it you're grieving you are or at least i probably should say i was in a realm where everybody has a high level of expertise attorneys and accountants notwithstanding they deal with it every day they're talking a mile a minute and you know i'm just having trouble catching up with everything even though i'm you know you know i'm not probably not the brightest guy in the room but i'm probably not the dumbest guy in the room either and i just felt you know at a disadvantage i felt overwhelmed and i was missing things and i just said i need to go look for something for help i didn't want a program or a how-to or something like that all that stuff is helpful but that can be an executorium too just to know that those things are out there but

24:05 You know just there's no magazine for pro for executors there's no like you know just you know make me feel comfortable about going to sell my gold not that there was a ton of gold but you know i went to 47th street in manhattan and walked down there and like went to the you know a bunch of booths and just you know waded in and that was an experience my people down there and then i had a dirty water hot dog on sixth avenue that's like a fun day so ellen says this is this is my ex my response ellen or my reaction you said that she's working with a third estate client congratulations and they're always asking for providers and you have some but you provide more options i think that's what's here is it's not that i don't have a deep role index i think i have a great role in dex but to find one more great provider for me is the difference maker something that gets me excited and so you know i think you're right on this is really for professionals as well as amateurs right the executors by definition are amateurs they're doing it once maybe and yet there's also is a class of professional executives called fiduciaries they may also find this helpful because they tend to take on large projects multiple states multiple counties and again for you guys to fill up this list is to give you a chance to participate as well i saw another question so here's a question claudia asked i don't know if this if it's personal feel free to pass on to george but how are you marketing the website what are you doing obviously those of us who are on it are gonna help expose it and i'm i'm determined to personally to promote this on my social media and facebook groups and such but what are you doing to market this well it's it's young in the process it's a great it's a good question you know we have we've developed a you know a facebook group we obviously have social media channels out there outreach to the different not-for-profit bodies i'm a

26:06 Not-for-profit alumni i don't even know if that's correct terminology but anyway i think you get my drift that's a great way to reach you know these you know beds of pro professional categories appraisers probate attorneys you know elder care attorneys even estate planning fiduciary professionals there's this there's a you know there is the others you're probably aware all of you the brokers association of east south east oshkosh you know there's an association for everything so as an old association guy you know press releases and reaching out to those organizations just to spread the word and it's and it's and it's trickling in you know it's it's coming you know it's it's it's it's i'll be honest it's it's harder work than i thought that's why i'm so grateful for this opportunity i am i my i won't call my day job because i have moved a lot more of my time and resources to executorium recently is i am a marketing consultant for the heavy construction industry so you know last tuesday i was on i was in a deep excavation in queens taking photographs and you know doing you know photography studies and preparing a case history for a geotechnical contractor in new york so you know marketing is my bailiwick i haven't golden full on this is such a great opportunity and then bill inspired me to start a youtube channel which i was really embarrassed to tell them i did not have already so i was fooling around with adobe premiere today to prepare us the 90-second video of how to register for executorium i'd hope to have that ready this evening but then my son came home and man plans and god laughs life

28:08 So you know somebody mentioned here in this you know this is so true kim says my cousin's been executive four times for family members my wife and i unfortunately had four such experiences and actually it was a full-time job you know kim in california i'm not sure where you're located in california the probate code actually has you know compensation for the executor caps it on the million dollar state at twenty three thousand dollars you think about that you know in this the gross estate not the net meaning a house worth a million dollars with a six hundred thousand dollar loan it's not it's not based on the 4 000 equities on the 12 million because it is a full-time job the court recognizes there's time involved in energy involved in doing these things sometimes though that that money family members look at that as their money and if you if they charge the fees and there's multiple errors the other errors can sometimes feel cheated so it's a it's a delicate balance between not wasting your time doing a good job and then not getting paid for it or getting paid for it and how that works out so and then claudia says that she recently completed two probate cells for the same errors and it was a nightmare for them yeah it's a challenge you know something i think everything in life is harder than you imagine when you start i heard grant cardone the other days talk about business these are my business mentors he said even if you have the best product in the market by far and you give it away for free it's 10 times as much work to get people to buy it than you would imagine now how's that for our thought even if you live yeah even if you're the best by far and you give away for free just to get over the noise that people have in their lives and so when you talk about executives they have the normal life and now they have the noise of the whole estate they got the car the gold the personal property the junk the squadron the this the that the fence the mortgage the taxes insurance of somebody else's house on top of their own and so that's where this program

30:10 Comes in okay let's see here thank you michael great referring executive site so kim asked would you refer executives to the site and i would say my thinking is you have two options one is yes right you can you can share that but more than that it'd be for you it'd be for you to i think the way i see this myself as a professional is i'm gonna be on there i'd love to get referrals and then i'm gonna talk to my providers to get them on there to help promote their business as another excuse to contact them and reach out to them then i'm going to call the providers that are in my area on there they i know don't know try to market to them and try to create a sense of a market i was talking to george i love to create more of a sense of a of a network within this group and that all those things can happen it just takes time and money and so if enough of us sign up we drive more traffic to it and drive more advertising revenue then those things are possible if you're at the beginning they need the chance to take advantage of it so i would urge you all on this call unless you don't need more business if you're professional in any of those fields sign up and i would also urge you to call your friends and family they're in those categories and get them into the program as well i think we've been best for everybody barbara says she teaches a free workshop for prospects a free will workshop come i probate with your presentations what's the best contact for more information i'm sorry so barbara that's great you offer a free will workshop for prospects now if you're not an attorney you're california or most states be careful of what you teach or not there are licensed document providers who provide low-cost or free wills and there are the ones that will provide them for a small fever and nominal i do the same thing i encourage my customers to go to trustedwill.com for a low-cost estate plan or free will to choose to go that way and i encourage other attorneys for more complicated estate planning i think it's a great idea becoming a free resource to your clients

32:14 And they can points out tony still thinks you're getting percentage of the of the revenue that's the challenge of being paid as an executor okay my rep has her contact info good so again this is meant to be interactive if you have questions raise your hand or put a question in a chat box i'm going to go through those i want to try to give everybody a chance to participate but here's a question i'm just curious who here thinks that adding your profile to this site would be beneficial for you for free yeah let's do it i mean imagine if we're in early and at some point george says oh my gosh there's too many people to start charging 200 a year and you're in already he might not charge us as being in there already so okay so there you go so it's not a contract you can't you know you can't guarantee that but that's what he's telling you so to me number one number two how can i hurt creating value by exposing yourself there's so many realtor websites for a waste of time and are really just designed to then market to you this is not one we're talking to the founder he's not really marketing to you though you have a chance to advertise if you want to not so likely but it's a chance and so kim says she's in good executorium.com is the website good so george tell me tell me the funny story is there any vendor that's asked to be in here that's not on your list somebody has to be in here that's not on my list somebody we refused well or allowed in but they were different so here's something i've learned about this business people are probably people are not probably professionals but pretend to be like they'll say they're probate expert or not they complain about how difficult the business is real probate professionals brag about the problems and how they overcame them right and so i know i know talking to you about this you mentioned a couple but you build something like this it's not easy and there's times people ask you to do things you know

34:17 That's just not in alignment with what our goals are is there anybody is there any vendor that came from another angle that maybe you thought was appropriate or anybody who wanted to do something that was that you rejected that you thought wasn't really appropriate what were you trying to do well you know not quite in that the other the opposite direction bill actually we've gotten some you know early feedback i'm all ears and some of the appraisers here in new york were very helpful in helping me to you know hey think about a framework for you know what qualifies in an appraiser without getting into too much vetting and approval etc and so on but you know that's been enormously helpful i have gotten the you know the odd you know just person that doesn't fit any of the categories finding the website and signing up and that's that's easy to discourage and disapprove so you know well one could that pops up somebody mentioned it makes sense to me is estate planners which would avoid probate that doesn't serve the executor except sometimes it does because for example i had a case where there's an executor of a conservatorship a man was incapacitated and he never prepared to trust you on 50 pieces of property but one of the things that the executor had to do was create a trust and then as executor put the property in the trust on behalf of the of the conservative and so you might think by adding in estate planning as a way to avoid probate or to expect the process down the road next time around to simplify the process and i think sometimes the executor is too late for that that estate they're working on but they're gonna go holy moly if i had just done this i would avoid this problem let's go ahead and plan my estate now it

36:19 Might be a good place to put somebody just as an idea gus did you have a question i saw you and mute yourself and i handle background noise was a question you had or was that just in passing sorry just an accident my i'm sorry no problem at all very good so yeah that was one that came up with i think planning angle is is a good one built and it's not even an angle but it could be helpful to a group of people to you know you plan with the with the end result in mind right and then certainly this is the end result i mean you know it's a heavy topic so you know you know pardon me the i think the estate planner could get something out of it i wouldn't be listing them because it's you know the horse is out of the barn right but you know they might find some value in visiting and just you know things to think about and people in that in the midst of that process you know might cause that might beg some questions and again that's it that's at the heart of this whole thing is if i can get people to ask questions that they might not otherwise think of then my mission is accomplished yeah another one that comes to mind for me is professional fiduciaries you might find people who say i am aware of my head i'd rather pay somebody else there are you know attorneys will do it but there are other people who are maybe lower priced and more focused i think on the administration oftentimes your accountants by trade or background have to be to do it says another group that maybe comes to mind barbara mentions that they're one of her resources ladies of justice the national network of priority law firms with discounted subscription fee interesting okay something else to think about and yeah george the website again is executorium.com is the best way to reach him on that web page my email is [email address shown on screen] if anyone wants to email me directly i see i see

38:21 There are 40 chat questions i'm i'm not if i start paying attention to that i'll lose track of everything else i'm not a great multitasker so i'm i'll marry you that but anyone is certainly welcome to ask me a question the phone number is on the website as well call me if you like that's how i got him that's with anybody that's how i come simple so again the email is [email address shown on screen] phone number is on the email i was on the website and the website is executorium.com again i just can't ask you all enough i think this is an amazing opportunity i know personally on the process of creating a national referral network now my one question somebody asked was how many counties can somebody put themselves into and sign up for george well you can put yourself in one county the this is one of those questions that during the synthesis of developing this site i wrestled with and had to come to a conclusion so you know should we put people in the in the counties that they operate or the in the locations of where they're actually physically located and we settled on the ladder it was just going to be unwieldy to manage somebody saying they wanted to be in five different counties because you can't vet it you know i think that it would just you know it would the farther afield it gets the less effectiveness it would have for executors so we've limited to limited it to you know the county of your location and you know if you have if you have two offices and they're spread beyond you know within two different counties you're welcome to list them both under two different accounts yeah i'm in the price of creating a program for just for real estate agents to build a team of certain type of resources and my requirement is that they be one county because i want them to go to that county

40:24 Courthouse because i think if you're a real estate agent now this isn't true for all service providers but as a real estate agent i think it's important to be able to go to the courthouse when things require that whether it be a sale confirmation or if a hearing is required to meet attorneys there and be a resource there so that's kind of my thinking but here in this case so you can sign up for one county and just pick one and i think there's room for other people let's come from a position of being generous and let's embrace our colleagues in this industry rather than look him as competitors and work together i think we do that we bring good vendors in here's the other thing if other agents bring in good vendors other attorneys being good vendors we all benefit so we want to encourage other people to participate and help us build out this list okay and i think gus hit on the head being professional and a true resource to all people will eventually gain your referrals at a later time so he says you sitting up gus i think you hit on the head my first coach was zig ziglar he used to say you can have anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want and so think of this as a tool to help other people who are maybe they're hurting emotionally maybe not maybe financially maybe not maybe there's overwhelm with work and stress but if you help them get through the process better more efficiently in a happier way we all you know we all come up better in the long run and that will work out for you as well okay that's all i have george thank you so much for being on the call today i really appreciate thank you bill what you do i appreciate talking to your time i appreciate it we'll continue to stay in touch on this and build this out for the rest of you i just encourage you so much particularly your realtor don't only sign up don't just sign up sign up and get your good vendors in there get them to sign up call your accountant call your favorite appraiser call your favorite account to get them in the system and let's make this thing a great tool for all of us don't make it a secret post your social media that you're doing it put your profile on your social media so other people will be encouraged as well so last question if you're here in los angeles or just a real quick plug it's now just about five o'clock and i want to say at 6 30 it's a great live event the la

42:28 County real estate investor association i don't get any money on this i just love this event but 250 people real estate related will show up there in culver city at the imminent center there's a little map it's at lyric.com l-a-r-e-i-c dot com they have a vendor's expo that's what the talk looks like about 250 students that was last month on edu's there's a vendor expo with all kinds of vendors there usually about 50 and type speak will be on how to become a successful wholesaler now i'm not look i know how to wholesale but i also work with wholesaling so for me it's a great lead generation tool so that's at 6 30 is free l-a-r-e-i-c dot com or lyric.com is website i hope you guys in la can be there tonight if i don't see you please you know subscribe like this if you like this participate in executorium thank you so much everybody thanks again george and make this your best week ever