How to Find Missing Heirs, with Assets International's Michael Zwick

0:02 Welcome to Probate Weekly I'm Bill Gross at Bill Gross probate on social media and we host Probate Weekly every Thursday morning live on Zoom 9:00 a.m Pacific Time 12: noon eastern time and everything in between on either side love to have you join us sometime live you can register at www.pro weekly.com and you'll get the link to the zoom call if you watch this on replay you can put your comments in and I'll respond to them our format basically is almost always an interview and the idea is to share with the people that I've worked with and I used to help me build my business so you can help build your business I'm really excited today to have first I think it's a second time guest which is I think I'm I think I'm a part of three member Club bill I think we did an interview once and two did interview and this is your second formal Probate Weekly because I still have room for you I have I a whole system down to this so we'll see but we'll have you back for the third if you want to get the third as well but I've had him on here because I believe he's so Central to how I built my business and I also think the missed opportunity for those you who are in real estate working in the space wondering how do I get more business and yes an answer might be cold calling whatever or spending money on mailing but here's a chance to talk to an actual human being who you can use to help your business I want to share with you Michael Wick is the proprietor now his he's changed his branding to the probate Pi the probate personal investigator or private investigator but I know him as an heirs researcher with asset International is the company or assets International right and we met him I met him a while ago on LinkedIn and if you know Michael you're gonna know him on LinkedIn whether you like it or not I really don't like LinkedIn but you know Michael just has a way of kind of getting my attention there and it's and we're going to talk about that a little bit but what the reason I would do this is some people say well why are you interviewing this guy a couple reasons why I a list number one this is a great tool for your customers whether it be the families

2:05 Or the attorneys when there are heirs they can't find them or more importantly there's an asset that they know a house is there who is it because if you find the person you can represent them get the household and make money I've done that we'll talk about that great content for social media he posts regularly on Facebook and Linkedin and I'm sure he'd love you to reshare it and add your two bits to that to help for you for those you agents who have trouble what do I post on probate material he talks about that a great lead generation tool because frankly we all have investors and wholesalers who door knock or coal call or mail and find properties are abandon and really that's right Pali because he'll help you find who that person is and then if you get in the driver's seat you can help drive that transaction to closing we'll talk about that a little bit as well and then how to Market and we're to talk to him about why he uses LinkedIn how he uses it how he brand himself in a way that we as real estate agents or Professionals in the space can work with as well so Mike with all that said thank you so much coming back to Probate Weekly my pleasure to be here and then also I know over your shoulder is a Banner for Alex do you want to share a little bit about your involvement with Alex sure so you know asset International is my quote day job of course as an entrepreneur day job is you know 247 or in my case 246 take one day off but so Alex is a really great company that I consult to it's a basically concierge service for executives and trustees so imagine you've been you're appointed as executive trustee and you get into it all sudden you go oh man this is a lot harder than I thought it would be so what Alex does is they take basically all the tasks off your plate you know Finding and marshalling all the assets working with Realtors® to get the house sold you know cancelling all the bills getting in touch with the Credit Service they do all that work for the Executives and trustees and so we talk actually I've interviewed a

4:09 Couple people from Alex we be posting that in future and we'll have a guest in a future episode to go in more detail on that so let's talk about specifically heir research what is it you do and how does that help families in prob probate how does that help attorneys impr prob probate which also then means how does it help Realtors® build their business in Probate so a good part of our business at assets International is locating missing heirs and beneficiaries so basic I'll give you a great example you mentioned I'm active on LinkedIn the other day very active on link what was that hyperactive on LinkedIn very active on L I try Linkin I don't know if I that's my goal as you know dominant LinkedIn and the world but one step at a time so anyways the other day I get a DM from a attorney in New Orleans who says he's handling in a state where man died and it was a second marriage didn't have any kids with his wife and then it turns out that he had been she knew he had been divorced beforehand she didn't know until later that he actually had a kid with that first wife he didn't have a will and under new Under Louisiana law this long lost daughter who hasn't seen since she was probably pre-teen you know 30 years ago is and tells they half the state so he turned to me and says can you find oops I think we got connection identify her name and her whereabouts she's also in the New Orleans area and the next step will be hopefully you know get in contact with her apprise her of her inheritance and hopefully she'll get what she is coming to her and so your job your business then is finding these heir now I know there's different companies work different ways some charge by the hour some charge a contingency some do both some do Case by case how does your particular firm manage that process so

6:12 Our business is a contingency based not that one is better than the other it's just how we're built so basically in this case where I mentioned we will hopefully get in contact with this daughter we'll contact her and say hey we've got great news we found some money coming your way and exchange for percentage we will'll give you all the information and we'll do all the leg work to get you your money so basically there's no cost to her if we don't succeed and also there's no cost to this to the Widow who you know she's still going to get her half without our Fe coming out of it so that's just a benefit to the state the executive or the trustee is they're not having to front any money to us because sometimes we don't succeed some you know sometimes we just don't have enough information to work with or you have a person who might have gone off the grid for whatever reason whether they've moved to another country you know we've Tracked Down people in dozens and dozens of countries but not every country is has open records like the United States does we're very successful we do but sometimes you know I can't I can't guarantee success every time so not succeeding could look like not finding any heirs or not succeeding could look like you have an heir you've identified you can't track them down either live or past or children of correct those are two different levels of not succeeding right so you know so in this case going back to it again just say for example the they had no idea you know the knew nothing about the first wife didn't even know like where they so had they said to us hey they lived in another state I don't even know what state they lived in we don't know anything so that might have been difficult you know it made it a little easier they were able to say yeah they lived in New Orleans his entire life so that enabled us to zero in on to find first the ex-wife's name and then from there to find her daughter's name but sometimes we just there is just not enough information especially if it's someone who didn't

8:14 Really know the deceased at all and has been appointed you know for example appointed as a by the court because no one else steps forward so that could be a little more difficult nobody knows even a starting point it also depends on how common the name is so you know some people have much more common names than others I see there's a on the call I'm not going a single amount to ask him talk about there's a Jason Patton Jason Patton is a relatively common name more so than you know I see a Randy milmeister that name is definitely not nearly as common as Jason Patton so that plays a factor in being able to find people and zero in on who is the right person we can't just go with the first person we find with that name we have to ex the person who's actually the actual heir I know we've done a couple cases together most recently as in literally I wrote the check yesterday to your firm was a case where a kind of a friend of somebody had lived in a condo next door was a nightmare where the man had died squatters have moved in there's cats there's drug deals going on there's prostitution going on in a condo in San Diego in a nice area and they had no idea who the owner was he was you know he had a spouse who had passed he had no evidence of any children and they called me and I reached out to Michael and he was able to find it turned out three living ears that had no contact with the Ceda none at all they didn't know him they didn't you know they had never met him never seen him May it's hard for people with close families understand that but it's not that uncommon and sometimes it's multiple Generations apart but as a result of that we got appointed to open a probate and then we went through the process of the assets and then divide the money and these heirs who you were sitting home one day got a phone call from Michael's company end up getting a check and they're happy and I'm a Realtor® I sold the house I'm happy I love that as well but I think more importantly helping the neighbor who was living next to this nightmare

10:16 House and the property got sold and now they have a new neighbor living next to them and solve their problem so this is the tool when you have abandoned properties any house in California be worth 3 400,000 minimum or a lot more and if we don't know who they are that's an opportunity to do some research and then when you get stuck to look for the heirs and if you have questions on how that process works I'd be glad to talk to you now Michael I know you also network not just with Realtors® which we appreciate and you know consumer facing but really a lot with attorneys talk a little bit and this is opportunity for those of us listening how do you Market to attorneys effectively without being too salesy I'm sure they get solicited many cases they don't understand what you do when you first call so how is it you to attorneys to position yourself as an asset rather than as another cold caller or salesperson so I'm a big believer in the Soft Cell of marketing I don't believe in just you know contacting an attorney and saying if I whether it's my first conversation or my 100th conversation saying hey do you have any cases for me to work on my strategy which I think is paid off is just to be a pres and let people know who I am and what I can do so a phrase I learned years ago from there's a marketing firm that my company used back in the 2000s to get us some exposure and to help us revamp our website is repetition makes reputation so constantly you have to hold on hold on hold on that's gold now let's not run over that one more time repetition makes reputation because we think if we send an email they know what we sent them but that doesn't really work they have to hear the message over and over again right exactly so I'm very active on LinkedIn I very active in LinkedIn I used to post pretty much five days a week more amount to three to usually three days a week on average I try to be entertaining informative I'll often will as much as I

12:22 Can without being too awkward try to drop in some language into that post about what I do you know mentioning like in my work of finding missing a blah I try to just make it a so Mondays for example I do Monday is always a movie you can see on the screen the Meet the Parents so every Monday I pick a movie and I find some way of tying it into probat or what I do I like that yeah so and it's funny because when I first started doing I thought it would it would tie me down too much to if specific Niche and actually what happened was it one of helping me because there's always so much you can post about but this kind of gave me a focus it kind of kept me it's kind of like you the horse and the race that has needs the blinders on to stay focused on the goal so it really it really helps sometimes my post just comes from random things going on in my day you know we've been living here in Orlando for a little over two years and there's a old Direct TV satellite dish that's you know mounted on a pole in the backyard and the other day I said there's got to be a post I can do related to that so coming soon to LinkedIn nearu will'll be some post regarding Direct TV satellite dish I'm also very active in on probate list serves you email list so I'm in addition to being private investigator I'm an attorney that's how I started my professional life and I'm licensed in Michigan and Flor Florida so I'm a member of a few attorney email lists I've definitely become known on them as the guy who knows how to deal with missing heirs but I also in order to keep my name in front of people going back to the repetition makes reputation thing I will just do whatever I can to join in a conversation in a productive manner so my company we've been around for 23 years we deal with Estates all over the country we do

14:26 A lot of recovery of unclaimed money from government agencies so we have to file probate wherever the seed it might be and so sometimes somebody will post on thing hey does anybody know a good attorney in Oklahoma and here I go I got a great one here's your name here's your contact information I'll make the introduction it takes me two minutes but that keeps my name in front of people and also both at attorney Oklahoma as well as the everybody on that list server that sees that email so it's a matter of being helpful reminding people what you do but not in a in your face way I get very turned off by people who just go right into sales mode when they connect when I get a connection with them on LinkedIn I usually ignore them sometimes I'll if I'm in the mood I'll say does this really work for you they have no idea what I'm talking about well their little robot machine doesn't respond to that question is the problem and really that's why I got LinkedIn I so many people with that kind of approach and then somewhere along I met you and I think you the only person in LinkedIn I actually communicate with and your relationship is so valuable that is worth hanging out let's talk a little bit now back up a little bit I'm sorry you mentioned the list serves now I'm on one because I'm on I'm a member of the LA Bar Association as an affiliate I'm not an attorney but you can pay as an affiliate and join and as a result get into their list sered and pick a section in my case the trust andate section and literally before this call somebody said you know do you know an attorney in Nevada well I know a great attorney in Nevada I closed a probate referral in Nevada and so I shared the information and she got within two minutes and was appreciative the list serves that you're talking about are these as a result of bar associations or is there some other format that you're using oh no it's I'm member of two one is the Michigan State Bar probate section so they have different you know for different practice areas so because the people I want calling me generally in the missing a area our probate attorneys I remember that I think cost like $25 a

16:29 Year most of the emails that come through have to do with estate planning which is the flip side of what I do that's the pre-death stuff I deal with the post-death stuff so I you know I basically just don't bother to you know I just kind of I don't even bother read those emails so once I see the title but also what I do is when I see a new name of a probate attorney someone who like again that's kind of my quote target audience I'll shoot them a LinkedIn if they're on LinkedIn I'll shoot them a connection request and I don't I don't follow up with a with an email other that if they connect sorry if they accept I might just say saying hey thanks for connecting let me know if that be service of you to you and that's it and if they want to they can they'll I'm out there the other one is a is an organization that does educational stuff for attorneys in Michigan and that's more General but again the apprpriate attorneys are on there apprpriate questions that come up so I'll just be part of that as well U I'm always I'm always open to other list serves to be on I just haven't found them and for those listening in Michael's case he's an attorney for the rest of us those listeners are also a great educational tool to learn the LW because they're asking questions what happens the new attorney asks a question and the experien pro answers it or 10 people answer it you see this debate and understand the details of that legal question so for me the list serve has been a great educational tool as well hey for those watching thank you for joining live on the zoom call you're welcome to put questions in the chat box if you want to ask Michael a question that way if you want to speak to him directly love to have you raise your hand just I'll need you to turn your camera on so we can make it enjoyable for everybody to watch and if you're watching this on the replays feel free to ask questions and we'll get them back to Michael as well let's talk a little bit about on your content since we're on that topic a little bit how do you choose to balance between your personal kind of personal marketing or what's word I use kind personal information about you and business because you blend in you know a little

18:32 Bit about your family on LinkedIn you blend in a little bit about your T-shirt collection on your on your Linkin how do you how do you find the right blend for you and of course the question is for you because I don't do any of that I'm the opposite of you in a sense but I respect how you do it because that's really authentic you knowing you this is important to you so describe to me how you came to that kind of balance so I'm a big believer in the idea that people want to do people do business with people they like people they trust so I'm putting myself out there I'm just trying to have fun with LinkedIn while I'm doing this because frankly I think if I just stuck to all business it would just I would I would have given up on a long time ago it's got to be enjoyable to me the way I looked at LinkedIn and I can't I can't speak to other social media platforms I'm I also actually on Facebook but that's more for personal stuff is my attitude LinkedIn as someone described it really great is LinkedIn is basically a Non-Stop 247 International so networking event so act in there like you would a networking event I now granted when I go to Live Events I do put on a you know put on as poos to shorts at a t-shirt I'll be wearing you know pants at least a butt shirt but generally speaking I look at the same way as I think LinkedIn does reflect my personality again going to the sales thing you would never I don't think I like to think nobody here would if they went to a networking event would the first thing they say when they meet me would be oh Michael nice to meet you here's my business card it would be more like oh nice to meet you let's talk what do you do what here you know you know that's basically my attitude about it is people want to know you know who I am what I do whether they can trust me I think they need to like me in order to trust me there's only so much I can talk from a stet business perspective about what I do there are only so many angles to approach it from

20:36 A marketing perspective so that's why I try to be creative and make it fun for people and like I said just throw into the conversation oh here's you know here by the way here's what I do it's because I'm just the exact opposite but appreciate what you do right meaning I you know I would never wear a t-shirt and talk about my family vacation or movies though I like movies and I could talk about in a bit I guess but that's me right if you get to know me that's kind of I'm all business and if you don't like that you're not going to like me so let's flush it out right away but you've really found a way I think to find a way to be authentic you and I think the message I want people to get is that Michael's not doing this because the movie thing works or the T-shirt thing works he's doing this because that's who he is he knows that if you know him and like him you'll do business with him and so for all of us we have to find kind of that blend of personel so let's talk about where your business comes from how much is coming from if you're able to dis disclose comes from attorneys let's say versus you know real estate agents investors wholesalers to me I know you focus your lead generation on attorneys it seems to me there would be a whole world of Realtors® investors and wholesalers who would be issu in your service as well so I don't know exact numbers I mean definitely the bulk of it is coming from the attorneys that's definitely where most of our leads come from I'd say you know from the list servant and Linkedin I get few calls a week from people that granted that might not sound like much to some people but you know some of our cases can be very you know high dollar you know we're talking often six figures or more so you know one case alone that's this one this one out of New Orleans could easily be a you know a mid six figure or mid five figure case right there so that one phone call is you know is great so it really just depends on the on things

22:40 So the Realtor® thing has is something that definitely intrigues me and we've done some work on haven't really scaled it like I think we probably can got it well I'm trying to help you do that so we'll continue to work on that appreciate that so like me there are times that you have business in your case you know maybe you have a lead for an heir discover the error you discover it has to be probated in a certain State you are an attorney but you're not licensed to do business in all 50 states I don't think you do probates in any of them you have to find an attorney to help you turn this lead into business and so to some degree you're I want say dependent on but affected by the effectiveness of the attorney and real estate agents I think have this experience all the time where you the customer picks an attorney for the probat or they refer and don't get the results they expect so how have you come to ensure that the attorneys you work with that you bring the business to end up doing the job that you want to get paid for so one of the benefits of being active on LinkedIn and just my general personality is I have a pretty good network of people I'm a member of an organization called provisors which is a for professionals like attorneys CPA stuff like that so I have a pretty good Network that if I need an attorney in a particular state where we don't already know someone I can look into it there's been tralon AA there have been attorneys that we have used that were just shall we say bad experiences and we cut ties with them and then their attorneys like the one in Oklahoma that I referenced before she's been doing we used to we've done a lot of work in Oklahoma over the years finding missing owners of oil and gas royalties as well as owners of for closure surplus funds and stuff like that and she's handled those for us for like I said probably about 15 years and she's the only attorney we use in Oklahoma because she's great and she knows our business and she knows how we work we know how she works we know so once we find an attorney who can work we

24:43 Hold on to attorney for dear life some places we've had some trial and error I know I think we finally found a good one in Philadelphia but I know every you know we've gone through a few people through attor few attor we worked in Philadelphia before I finally found the one that was a good fit for us so really just you know part of it like I leveraging my network my wife jokes that I know somebody who knows does something everywhere and that has that's a something I've been I've inherited from my father in terms of networking and filing away and having a good not to date myself rodex let me just do some quick housekeeping if I can as to as to where we are how we got here this is Probate Weekly we do this every Thursday morning live 9:00 a.m. Pacific time 12:00 noon eastern time and then we continue the conversation in Probate Weekly's Facebook group we have over 4,000 members additionally if you want to you can post your probate content on there for free and get some additional exposure on your videos or your content reene here has a probate help desk that he promotes inside this group glad to have you guys do that and also there's leads there here's a lady who posted a question about a complicated probate and whether you're an attorney or a Realtor® you can jump in there or you might find an attorney to help her with that situation if you want to join live on the zoom call go to www.pro weekly.com and all we need is your email address and then you get registered you get a email reminder to come in live you can click down here to see all the other audio formats that we're on as well as the YouTube to see the past episodes and then this we started last week we launched a new program in the Facebook group called build your real estate channel in YouTube and this lady on the right is my virtual assistant who is my YouTube channel administrator Jess and we talk about how I built my YouTube channel how you can leverage your knowledge expertise and business using YouTube and my long-term goal frankly is of a network of people so that when we get attorneys we have

26:47 Four five or 10 similar people in our Network that we can book them to get exposure to get the practice to get exposure Nationwide love to have you join us in that program it's free every Monday 2:30 p.m. Go to the Facebook group and sign up there but it's a zoom call and we and it's pretty personal and I will say as an add-on if we get 10 people or more like we did last week I offer a free Channel review of jesses and we don't charge I'm not selling anything in YouTube at all just charge you know by the hour but I'm going to offer you at my expense a free one hour Channel review to help you get your YouTube channel going as long as we have 10 people at that call that's Mondays 2:30 p.m. Check out that in the Facebook group guest today is Michael Z he's a proprietor at assets International LLC assets international.com is the website and has all the legal details but really if you want to find him the best place is go to LinkedIn he is all about LinkedIn I'm telling you this guy I was ready just to Cher it off and the only reason I go on I again look I have like 25 notifications I know all this stuff is I just look for messages from Michael off it's best I respond otherwise I don't go on at all and then again he mentions that he's a fili with Alex which is a service that we're going to be talking about going forward helps trustees who are ministering Estates and it's definitely part of the process okay so you know you've been in this business a while you've seen people come in and kind of you know like we all do in businesses with a lot of energy and a lot of steam Place link to event in chat okay hold on one second whoa hold on everybody let me put the link in the chat actually it's a Facebook group you have to go to get into the to get into the event so you have to M the group and the reason why we post the content there and that helps us scream people so we don't get spams there's a link to the Facebook group it's called Probate Weekly Glenda so you're certainly welcome okay so you've seen people I think come and go in business marketing

28:48 Wise would it be competitors whether it be attorneys whether it be real estate agents what is it you think that distinguishes the people who build long-term successful businesses versus those that are you know one and done or short-term stars and burn out real fast if I knew the secret to that I'd be a very wealthy man no I'm big Believer in First of all entrepreneurship is not for everybody and it's not there's no straight line in entrepreneurship you have to come into it with a expectation of excuse me things going wrong lean times and be prepared for both financially and mentally so and Frank I've been there we've had some I've had some very tough times in my business which has L you know then led to some very tough personal financial times in the past so it's not for everybody but I think the key is to first of all really think about what your plan is be real realistic about it you know in a few years but I remember watching on Shark Tank and someone would come in and say you know this industry that we're getting into is a$3 billion doll industry and usually it' be Mark Cuba go okay that's great but what's your part of it going to be just because an industry is Big doesn't mean that your part is going to beig be big so you have to be realistic about what your really know what your costs are of doing business there was a time back in the late 2000s when my company was we were Revenue was great and somehow my partners and I were barely taking home any money at the end of each month and we were like what's going on here and then you know I sat down and I did a really in-depth study of our finances and I realized we were taking on too many matters that we were losing money on so we set a very hard floor on how much a case had to be worth in order for us to get involved if it wasn't going to be worth at least over a

30:50 Certain amount we just weren't going to do it and you know there we'd find other solutions for the person who's calling us but we're not going to get involved it's so you really have to know and be willing to turn down the business that's not going to make you money you know I'm big there's the saying that you know when you say yes to one thing you're saying no to something else and you only have so many one thing you know it's very cliche but cliches usually become so because they're true which is that the only limited resource you have is time there's only so many hours in the day and if you're taking on cases that are not serving you well than the taking time from those that might be well and also you can take on a Case thinking you're going to make so much and then find out that there less because you know there's other leans like I know the one that we did some things pop up and all of a sudden what thought was we X ends up being x minus y and you put the same work in but you get you know maybe half or twoth thirds or one third of the revenue and as real T the same thing sometimes we end up deals fall apart we throw some money in to make the deal work and so you have to start with some but now I also would imagine that if you have a chance to work with a particularly high value Target maybe a really high quality attorney who does a high volume business but the first case is a lower Revenue would you negotiate would you consider making exceptions and looking at as marketing expense or is that something that your rule is hard and fast and you wouldn't go below that if it was really if there was a real strong showing that first one would it would be worth it in know to take a loss in the first one I would consider it you know like I said we do a lot of unclaimed property recovery and for those who are not familiar on Clay property our assets that are dormant for Ser period of time whether checking accounts stocks insurance policies they were turned over to the states and the states are sitting on something like 80 billion dollars of this of this money so part of our business is finding people who have

32:52 Have unclaimed property coming to them and getting for them so we've you know twice have had very large well-known corporations I'm not going to say them private confidentiality but both times they came to us and said you know would you take a fee lower than lower than you normally would because we'll give you the volume and in both cases we did and in both cases we wound up cutting bait after a while because we saw that there wasn't the volume there and we wound up it just wasn't worth it for us right yeah I think that's the other thing you said earlier I meant to ask question on that probably fix goes along with that is fit right there's a difference between working with somebody who really fits your business and maybe you know you have to make a marginal decision and somebody doesn't fit your business and even if they even they do fit the threshold for income we all want to work with people who fit our business because it just works better for us than people who don't so talk a little bit about that when you know you mean at no upfront but how do you kind of get the feel is this the kind of person I'm going to want to work with what's kind of your process to make those determinations well you I mean you really have to know what your what you do well and what you don't do well and you know we live in an era of specialization where people you know are great what they you think of all the attorneys that I'm sure everybody here knows very the idea of the general practitioner or attorney who does a little of everything is very much the thing of the past and I think that goes for a lot of Industries for people who for example work in real estates the ones I know the really good ones generally have that good the very successful ones tend to have their Niche whether it's like Bill like you who focuses on a lot of probate stuff when we moved from Michigan to down to Florida a few years ago we used a Realtor® that we were friendly with because we lived in a one square mile city that's a suburb of Detroit and this

34:58 Pair of Realtors® pretty like 90% of their business was this one square mile city and they knew everybody in the city they knew who they had their ear to the ground that who's moving into who's moving into the community who's moving out who's ready getting ready Sal they knew the houses that were not even on the market yet that they could work out a deal and we went with them and they did a great job because that's their Niche so part of it is identifying what your Niche is obviously you know you want to the niche has to be enough to put food on the table but I'm a big fan you know Seth Goden the marketing Guru talks about the thing of identifying the smallest profitable Niche you can find and going with that I'm also a big fan of the books Good to Great and Built to Last, which really drill down and he and his focus is on very large companies weing fortune f of companies but the principles behind them and how they got to there are true whether you're a two person company or one person company or you have hundreds or thousands of employees so I definitely recommend those books to people who are looking to build a build the business fantastic okay now we're on the call here we've got about 20 people watching the reason we do the zoom call is my thesis is we all need the opportunity to talk and learn and grow and improve our business become professional I know I cover a lot of things that I find important with Michael we've done business together but some of you this is an opportunity to talk to him and find out how he can service your customers I think any real estate agent Who's involved in probate real estate is going to come across a need for either Michael or there's other companies that do different things that sound the same as Michaels like their companies will just do kind of the paperwork research and give you back in certification there are no heirs they've done exhausted research that's a process that some attorneys need others will you know take cases where there's the assets aren't as clear so there's different there's different niches is within his Niche but certainly if you have a

37:01 House that's sitting there vacant and some you have some control of the process where you can perhaps step in and help move it forward and all you need to do is find the heirs or establish if there aren't any in California we have a law that says that there's no heirs what happens to the money we have such a process and I'm sure in other states as well then this is an opportunity for you to add your business and I think this really kind of exciting opportunity so feel free to jump in raise your hand and put a question in the chat box if you guys want to do that but Michael and I can talk all day you know Michael one of the questions I want to ask you we I didn't pre- ask this for permission so if it's uncomfortable on one hand but the other hand if it's comfortable it's a great topic you and I share a religious practice right we both happen to be Jewish both happen to be I think we describe yourself as religious we both wear black yamas which kind of a symbol of hey I'm a I'm Jewish how does that how does that interplay with your business how does that interplay how do your practice and how's your faith interplay with your business or does it if you're comfortable discussing that to my knowledge it's never been a minus for me and frankly if it was a minus someone want didn't want to do business me because of it I wouldn't want to do business with that person anyways for the most part my attitude in life about being an observant Jew I've I'm 54 years old I've always wor I for the most part I've always worn my keeper for work when I was litigator as an attorney when I went to court I didn't because things could get nasty and whatever but that's a whole different story generally speaking though I like to think that people will say will see me and say Here's you they'll talk to me they'll get to know me and they'll say here's a guy who knows what he's doing and we can trust him and oftentimes that keepa that sign that I'm religious person it's just the bonus but it's I don't think it's ever been a detractor u I think people I' like to think that even though I'm wearing my keep on it's you can't see it in the video because

39:02 Usually the back of my head but here it is that even though I MO is wearing it so someone who's sitting across me will see it at the same time I like think at some point in the conversation they'll say okay that guy great is great at finding missing heirs not that they'll say oh that Jewish guy the Jew you know I don't mind if they say the Jewish guy that finds is great about missing heirs is fine but I want them to walk away with this is the guy that I can trust to find missing heirs how does your religious practice help you personally obviously we all have ups and downs you mentioned Financial ups and downs we've all had you know personal ups and down I know you had your share as well and we've shared that you don't need to go into the details of that but in those moments how does having a religious practice or faith help you through your process or is it not that important to you it's definitely important you know I've a long believe that God will take care of us in his in his way however it might be and that I've got to just trust that things will be okay when things aren't going so well it also helps being a Sabbath Observer for those who are unfamiliar with the Orthodox us practice from Sundown on Friday till Nightfall on Saturday night which about 25 hours we don't use phones don't drive don't you don't get on the computer don't watch TV and I have to say that 25 hours of Technology extension is great it's great to just get off it's great to force yourself to be present with what's going on in the world including my family and I've got my wife is if you think I'm active on social media you should see my wife on Facebook so and you know she for her business and we have three teenagers so needless to say there's a lot of technology and screen time going on in our house and it's nice to have that one day where we're slow down we're not going any I mean yes we go to we go to synagogue for services but we're not going anywhere in terms of running to

41:07 This practice or meet up with this friend we're having one time a week that I know we're going to have our meals together and have time we're not rushing off to a phone call and having that unplugging from work is so important there's you can't go at least actually say you can't I can't keep going seven days a week non-stop so point it's just gonna you know you're going to crash you know I would have said when I started real estate I wasn't religious I didn't grow up religious and so as I became more religious and was confronted with the opportunity to grow but had to take off for the Sabbath I would have said at that time you can't be successful taking off for the Sabbath and the Jewish holidays last month we had six work days off out of a one of a 20-day workday period now I would say you can't last without taking the time off because you need to recharge you need to be connected to why business is important to you and in the long run I think that whatever your practice is you need to build in family time spiritual practice you know downtime physically but also more importantly I think mentally emotionally spiritually as well and I just want to share I know you and I don't really get into it but for those who listening you know I think Jewish people we don't seem to talk as much about our faith I don't know what that what that's about again I'm I became religious I grew up in that world but I do want to say that I you know in entrepreneurship it's much more commonly discussed than in other areas of social life and I can say that there's no way I could have built my business without the faith and the strength I got from that faith in God during the difficult times it was very difficult to get through the initial year or so of building the business and I would just encourage all of you to lean on that faith and If Ever I can help in that area I used to do a class on this business principles from the Bible but I would just say to me this is the strongest tool in all of our Quivers is our faith if we have it and if we don't whatever form you have I would say you know search that out and find what you can rely on so again I don't mean to get too personal with you

43:09 Michael I know some people are I become more comfortable that because I wasn't religious and I became Jewish through kind of some Evangelical Christians kind of encouraged me to pursue my faith and so I'm used to S around talking about in a way that I don't think typically religious just so I'm kind of like a hybrid of the tube I we'll go there okay enough on that any other questions last call for that feel free to put a question in the chat box raise your hand this's a chance to talk to guy who's built a really successful business as well as I think has a great opportunity for you to learn from his practices as well as I think reposting his content for those of you looking for something to talk about so Michael let's talk a little bit about the business economy you know we just went through an election that whichever side of politics you're on was a emotional I think roller coaster an intellectual roller coaster one side of the other would tell you that the economy is going to crash if the other side wins and meanwhile one of the sides wins one and when the sides lost so during that time how do you evaluate as a business person you know investment and you know growing your business in this Marketplace do you and what do you plan for going forward does it affect you at all do you just continue to work your plan regardless how do you approach kind of the roller coaster of news and emotion and all that I can't say the economy really affects what I do so much you know to the extent that we're working with people in real estate obviously that does affect things because excuse me if my you know since our business is very contingency fee based like Realtors® oh I don't even know the ins and outs about what's going on but obviously since we're contingency based it's the value of the house or for missing errs the value of the assets of the estate that they're recovering obviously it does impact things but we haven't really seen you know like we've been around since early in the George W bush first term so we're talking April of 2001 was when we started the company so we've been now

45:12 Through you know four presidencies you know two on two on each I never saw any correlation as to which party was control of the White House or congress affecting us obviously you know there's the how much we I'm paying in taxes at the end of the year but it's a different story yeah but also you moved to Florida or do you live in Florida yeah we moved down here four years ago for what we thought was going to be six months and decided to stay did that affect your taxes in a positive way that does help that move from a state that has a state income tax to one that doesn't yeah that's the thing I moved the other way I moved I grew up in California lived in Florida for a couple years moved back to California I experienced what there's a state income tax work so much so that's the reason why last question is your business geographically you know I know that you were based in Michigan I know you now are based in Florida how geographically focused are you on those two markets is that just because of your success has built those markets do you target those markets more or do you target your business more internationally so my business is still based in Michigan I'm just most of my employees I work remotely so I'm like said I'm based in Florida if I was living in Michigan I'd probably still be working you know maybe I go into the office here and there but not all that much so it doesn't really matter where I am Michigan is definitely our I'd say a top Source in terms of referral simply because that's where I know people that's you know like said before I'm active on the LinkedIn sorry on list servers with Michigan attorneys I just know them personally from having practice law and you First Years of our business was doing a lot of Michigan unclaimed property so I knew people from there so it's just kind of built on that but we can we get cases from all over the country LinkedIn you know obviously doesn't have any borders to it so our cases come from all over country and then at that

47:15 Point we never know where in the world it might take us we might we found heirs in dozens and dozens of countries so we don't know where it's going to go but some of our biggest cases going on right now are like I said men New Orleans case we have one from the biggest one we have going now is from Philadelphia another one we're just about to finish up is in Chicago so you know we never know where case is going to come from and while he's in different business for those you're listening I think all of us need to think about how do we expand our business how do we leverage our knowledge and success outside of what we're doing and building it out regionally or nationally is an obvious opportunity for us you know in real estate there's referrals and real estate there's building a downline those opportunities I think that in the past maybe were Lu luxuries that are becoming I think requirements in businesses because we work hard and get a relationship and if somebody has a house to sell in Texas or Florida and they want me to be involved in it they don't just want to give me a referral fee they want me to pick a partner they want me to work with somebody I've worked with before they want me to be able to kind of keep my fingers on it make sure it goes smoothly so for all of us I think what Michael's sharing with you is the opportunity and the necessity I would say of looking at your business expanding outside of your individual neighborhood that doesn't mean you market like he talked about the specialty of being in one neighborhood but that person who's selling a house in that one square block might be buying a house in Florida or some of your passes and that house in that square block may also own a second home in Florida and to not be able to service them it's not just about being paid you're getting paid but about not being able to service the customer is not helping them and I think that's the opportunity that we want to look at okay so Lynette says does your company hire people with boots on the ground in areas you're trying to track down heirs or do you jump on a plane when it's necessary great question it really just depends on cost efficiency and how detailed it is we definitely have hold network of people for example we need to get do some research on the

49:17 Ground into court documents or land records whatever so you know if there's the volume for it or the case is big enough one of us might go to that place I was I spent a day in really Western Texas if you saw Friday Night Lights that's where I was in the Permian Basin because there was millions of dollars that we were working with on some mineral you know royalties but if it's a smaller case I'm not g we're not going to fly someone just to you know work on something smaller so yeah we do rely on a network that we built up and keep adding to of people that can do that type of work all over the country fantastic and I think also you know one of the things that we as reals should be able to do is offer help meaning we find errors and you know I've had other real estate agents go to County cour houses on behalf of clients I think that's something thing we should be we should you know offer because we should be familiar with those records if we're in real estate we should be willing to learn and I think we whenever I've gone to court and learn something new it doesn't just solve that problem but gives me education that's valuable to get some more business going forward so let's make sure that if we have a chance to work with Michael or somebody like him that we're proactive and offering to be of assistance and it's also again going back to what I was talking about with list serves it's now generated you Goodwill with that person you did the work for even if whether you're getting paid for it or not you know you're you've proven your you've proven that you are offering value to somebody else and lastly I was say for those of you looking for content to put in your social media what great content going to court hey what you can't do anything in the courthouse in LA county at least but outside hey I went to the LA County Courthouse to look for public records on land owned by so and so or heirs research or so and so we found it we didn't find it if I can help you give me a call these are the kinds of things that people look at and go wow you number one you solve that problem I'll call you but number two you're a problem solver I have a different problem and I like you and trust you can you help me with this other problem and so this

51:20 Really gets about gets to us being proactive and focusing on solving the customers problems than just focus on getting commissions well look Michael you've been very generous of your time I really appreciate as always whether official I'm going to check the official records is this your second actual Probate Weekly or is this your third I think it's a second with an interview in the middle but we're going to find out and notice it appropriately for those of you this is Michael zwick who's proprietor at assets International LLC and the website is assets international.com but really if you want to get him I would that and I would go on to LinkedIn and message him connect with him just to watch the game of Michael's wick on LinkedIn it really I'm not exaggerating I don't do anything on linked but follow Michael Wick and respond to his messages but he has a game he has good posts he has good content every reposted and I see attorneys respond to him and that's how I've met a couple people that I've work with as a result of seeing the interaction so check out him on LinkedIn as well and also he's affiliated with Alex meet alex.com this a service for primarily administrators of Estates to help them through the administrative process are not attorneys that refer business to attorneys when needed and other professionals but it's a service to help the administrators with the administrative work so Michael thank you so much for being on our call today really appreciate you as always and look forward to talking you again soon pleasure to be here and for the rest of you this is Probate Weekly we do this every Thursday at 900 am oops I lost my spot here the screen too there we go Probate Weekly we do this every Thursday 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time 12:00 noon eastern time and everything in between either side and then we continue the conversation in the Facebook group Probate Weekly we have over 4,000 members we just went over that number feel free to post your probate related or trust related content there as well there's leads there's Realtors® looking for referrals there's attorneys looking for referrals love to have you join in if you're watching this on a stream and want to get in live on the zoom call go to Probate Weekly.com put your email address you'll get a

53:23 Reminder you can come in on the zoom we' love to have you come in and ask questions live and in person if you'd like to scroll down and you can get the audio versions as well Spotify and apple and all that stuff and then past episodes on YouTube love to have you share there as well and then last have opportunity to build your own YouTube channel I host a free and we don't upsell there's no other program it's really about building out a network build your real estate channel in the Facebook group we do this every Monday at 2:30 p.m. Pacific time it's just a half hour but it's actual work we're going to go through real examples real questions how to improve your YouTube channel to help you build more business leverage the contacts you have so you can work the same amount of hours but get more business work Less hours make the same money either way that works for you thank you so much again Michael as always thank youbody on the call and have a great week you too