Finding Probate Title Problems Before They Become a Problem, with Kevin Sayles of Lawyers Title

0:01 Hey, welcome to Probate Weekly. I'm Bill Gross at Bill Gross Probate on social media, your host. We do this every week. Interview talk people in the business. And the most common question I get asked without a doubt is, "How do I build a successful or big or how do I build a probate related business, whether it be an attorney or very commonly real estate agents?" Today we're lucky to have a guy who has no doubt I don't think he'll say this, but I can say this because he's modest and I'm going to brag on him a little bit. He has no doubt seen more Realtors® do more probate deals than anybody else in Southern California. He no doubt has worked with more probate attorneys on helping them through their probate cases. I've seen him personally teach more probate attorneys in the probate courtroom in Los Angeles than anybody else. We're excited to have today Kevin Sales Law Title. Kevin, thanks for coming back to Probate Weekly. Oh, thanks for having me, Bill. It's always a pleasure to be here with you. So, you know, I get asked that question. I'm sure you do, too. What's the best way to build my probate business? And I think when I get asked that question, I just take a deep side. I think gh I've done so much. It's been, you know, six years I've been working at this non-stop when I went into the probate niche specifically. I'm sure you ask the same question. How does somebody who wants to build a successful niche of probate or build a business around probate real estate where they get started? What should the things be they focus on? I think the first thing with pro, you know, probate is very I was going to say technical, but I like to say has a lot of logistics in it. There's a lot of bells and whistles that you got to turn this and you got to do that. So, knowing the process is really one of the big things. The first thing I think anyone should do is understand the process, learn the process before anyone goes out running trying to get probate deals or get attorneys on their team to send them probate business. I think they got to understand and know the process very well. So, I say, you know, go to a class, go to a workshop. I teach them, you know, learn probate, learn that process and get some deals under your belt, close some transactions so that

2:04 You understand how it all works before you start really trying to build your business. Now, I'm going to say for any real estate agent here who's in California, we have two forms that every agent should read before at the very beginning of the process to talk about learning. One is a probate purchase addendum, one is a probate listing addendum. If you're a real estate agent, you have forms. They're free. You should read them because I literally have conversations with real estate agents every day, who will argue about things and I'll say, "Well, did you read the form? It's all laid out right there." Right? Right. And so I know that's part and then I know when you talk about classes really this is how I started and I built my business. It must be more two years before I started. So it must be like in 2017 16 or 17 I want to say 17 that you were giving classes to real estate agents at various real estate offices in the days when we had kind of open office meetings and such. And I saw that and called you up and invited you to speak at the office I had. I thought what a great niche because we all know people were getting older. We you know people who inherit property are more likely to be you know motivated to sell the property because they don't they didn't live there before typically. It just seems like that's not always the case but just seemed like what a nice niche of business and then I remember your presentation which was really based on more of a process of education rather than some magic pixie dust you were selling because you don't have magic pixie dust. You're a title rep. You're selling me on the dream of working hard. And I saw that and I was trying to offer that class from the agents that I was coaching and so few took you up on it. I remember thinking this is just crazy that when later about 6 months later I went back into personal production. I remember that I remember that niche. I remember what I learned in your class. I called you up. We had a little conversation and I took some certifications. So I do want to say first thank you on behalf of the industry that you do teach those classes. Second of all, obviously we're in the postcoid environment. Do you still do live in office classes? Do you do classes online? How would somebody who wants to learn more from you in particular? And there's other classes too, but I would definitely say you're here now and I enjoyed it when I

4:08 Saw you do it and I've seen in the past also you did some online ones. How would somebody looking for more information find you in the classes that you're doing? Well, that's good. I think the best thing to do is to reach out to me and let me know you're looking because I just did a class I want to say a month ago, maybe a month and a half ago at a real estate board. I'm probably going to have one coming up in a month at a different real estate board. So, you know, I do those often because the real estate boards want a class taught. They want a class taught on probate. I also do them in real estate offices regularly. And if I have a group of people I have a group that I'm I trained recently, there's about 12 to 15 folks and they're like, "We want to learn this." I think they're all on the same real estate team. They said, "We want to learn probate, how the process works on a probate transaction." And so I put together a class specifically for them. So, you know, if someone reaches out to me and if they're just an individual, then I can put them on the list so that when I have a class, I'll email them and let them know it's coming up. Or if they have a if they're part of a real estate board or part of a real estate office, I can come out and do training specifically for them. I mean, we're in the early part of this year and I believe I've done about three or so, maybe four or five probate classes in individual offices already and one at a real estate board already. You know, we're just barely four months into the year. So definitely and you know, you mentioned something very key, Bill. You said read the form. You are absolutely correct. The zip forms, it's a part of the contract. It's a part of the escro. It's a part of the agreement.

5:38 They've got to read those forms cuz so much stuff is spelled out in those that they need to know that. And I extend it even further. Do they read their prelim? Do they read Whoa, that's a whole another level. That's already your forms they should be reading. I'm just talking about you write the offer. It says right on the probate purchase addendum. But go I'm sorry. Go ahead. I don't mean to cut you off, but I think it's funny because I ask agents this regularly. I say, "Hey, do you get a home inspection?" Yeah. Well, when that home inspection comes back, do you read that home inspection? Yeah, we read it because the inspector went in, he said the faucet was leaking. He said the floor had a crack in it. And do you expect that the inspector fixed the crack in the floor or fixed the faucet while he was in there? They say, "No, he's just giving us a report." I say, "Yes." That's exactly what we do as a title company. Our report is not on the physical condition of the property, but it's on the ownership rights. You know, so when people have their whatever situation, they should read not only their forms on the probate stuff, but read the prelim. I've had people in a probate sale or not a probate sale that they didn't know was going to be a probate sale. And because they never read their prelim, they go months down the road and didn't realize, oh, we're working with John and John doesn't own it, the propertyy's still in John's mother's name. Okay, now we're getting the meat of this. I want to go there, but again, I want to start at the beginning for those people just watched a little bit of the video in the beginning to say if you're interested, call Kevin. He has classes and the ones at the real estate offices, even though it's not your board. Usually there's boards allow people come in. You pay a nominal fee, five bucks more if you're not a member or something. So, I would definitely urge you to do that and go into this on a deep level. So, okay. So, let's we you know, I know that we covered a few things here, but I also know that if we don't go slowly, people are going to follow up. So let's talk first about since you want to talk about the title report. So one of the things that you offer as a service as a title representative is that you allow us to get a prelim before we list the property. And you say, "Well, why is that important?" Well, just recently I called Kevin. I have a state with four different properties for sale. Two that

7:39 Have an additional party and two that don't. The two that don't, we can listen now. The two that do, we got to figure out what to do. And I'm not sure the attorney is still working on it. But by getting the prelims, we confirmed which two were which. The documents matched up. We're getting those two listed. Hopefully, we'll put them into escrow and we'll sell them. So, talk a little bit about you do offer this, not necessarily to every agent, but those that work with you obviously and have to pull through those t reports to closings. Talk about the importance of looking at the report before you even list the property. Yeah, absolutely. And just to be clear, useful that we do is before you list, before the client has committed to you, we will do a property profile, but it's an extended property. I have my five points that I look at to make sure if there's any issues. That's going to be and we did that. I'm sorry. I should have I left it off. You're right. So, just for the record, we did that. I knew where the title was on those four. So, we're able to move forward. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. And then when you list it, when they've committed, if they've if they've signed up with the attorney to move forward with the probate, at that point, then we'll open order a prelim because we just want to know that they've committed and they're moving forward with whatever sale or whatever they're doing on the property. With either one, either looking at the actual documents or the prelim because there's not going to be any difference. If I go pull all the deeds on a property, that's not going to tell me a different story than when I pull the prelim because the prelim is based on all the deeds. But whichever one it is, you have to look at those documents because it's your starting point, right? I've had cases where they were probating the estate of John and they should have been probating the estate of Jane because John died before Jane, but they didn't look at the prelim to see that both of them were on title and they were joint tenants. So you that's always your starting point.

9:16 One of the things I start in my training classes is where do we start? You know, whether you're out door knocking and someone says, "Yeah, we want to sell, but it was my grandmother's property." or you know right off the bat maybe you're calling from probate leads and you're calling and they say yeah you know I filed this petition the start is always let's look and see how title was held because that's going to tell us where we are and what we have to deal with if it's a joint teny or not if it's one person if they had a trust etc all the myriad of ways they could hold title to that property but that's going to tell us what the starting point is so yeah and I think at the end of the day the too many agents look at that as work as a problem versus that to me is the opportunity to shine with my customer because if I call Kevin and sometimes there even things that are beyond Kevin's ability not that's often but it does happen from that time to time well then we get a whole explanation as to what's to be done we have a title sometimes the officer or the attorney for the company will come back and tell you what the issue is or what has to be done and I take that back to my attorney now what do you think the attorney thinks of me when I've gone through and pre-checked Fact, I went online. I got the profile, which they have. I went to the towel company. We looked at this problem. We researched the problem. We said, "Well, based on that, we got to do A, B, and C. What better way is it to earn respect your customer and or your attorney than doing the work before it's a problem?" That's right. And you talk about building your value, you know, with the this really hit home a lot last year with the NAR settlement and now the new law in California. You have to have the BRBC signed or whatever those forms are called. But the thing is now agents really have to show their value.

10:56 They really have to be able to prove their value. And this is one of the great ways you can do that because when there's a deceased party, everyone a lot of times everyone thinks, "Oh yeah, it's grandma's house. It's always been free and clear." They don't know there's three loans on the property that no one knew were on there or maybe they were paid off but they were never removed from the property or a myriad of other different issues that people think everything's fine because it was always grandpa's house but sometimes the paperwork wasn't done right or sometimes there was an error in their chain of title and that sort of thing. So until you start looking into it and finding those issues and coming back with a solution, you know, you may not be showing the true value you can bring to the table for that client. Especially some of these older deeds when nothing was done for 30, 40 years because grandma had it. Unbeknownst to you, grandma had another husband or you know when they got married, dad had another wife that you didn't know about and there's other kids and all these are things that come up. How many different title problems have you seen on what otherwise was an easy standard listing? I'm sure you've seen I've seen tens or 20. I'm sure you've seen hundreds. I would say I mean maybe you could say thousands. I'm just looking at my notes right here just from this morning. One of the prelims that we completed on a trust sale today, I reviewed it and I looked at it and there's a problem. The they got the property from a bank back in 2005 and there's a problem.

12:19 The deed did not include the second parcel. So, this lot consists of two. The ownership of this property consists of two parcels, parcel one and parcel two. Parcel two was omitted from that deed. So now we have a trust sale and what's going to happen? We got a deceased party trust sale and now part of the property that should be owned by this seller was not included when they bought the property. The issue it's an issue and I think the other thing is as Realtors® we have to look at those not as problems though they're problems but they're for our customers but they're really opportunities for stepping up and demonstrating our expertise. So, okay. So, our takeaways for anybody listening this is, read your preliminary title report when you get it. First, do your appropriate profile before you list the property, before you get involved. If you have questions, talk to your title rep. Once you get the go-ahhead or the prelim, read the prelim. What you don't know, go back to your title rep and get explanations, get in writing, try to resolve ahead of time. And of course, if you write a listing and or purchase contract, read the appropriate C forms. We in California is the only state that has these, but the forms lay out everything. I had a discussion today with an agent this morning. He said, "Well, I didn't know that blah." And I said, "Well, it's right in the form. It says either court confirmation is required or confirmation not's not required. It says may be required." Why do you think it says maybe instead of not? Because it may be. It's just the court's telling you be prepared. This is probate, man.

13:43 Put on your seat belt. Get the airbag lined up. Get your hand hands on the wheel and buckle in. Man, this is going to be a wild ride. It's a probate case sometimes. So, there you go. Okay. So, let's talk about what are the kinds of common things that when you get a profile or somebody sends you a profile comes back as a problem or when somebody has a prelim comes back to if you had to list off two or three of those common things. Obviously, any defect is a defect, but what are the more common ones we should look for? I'll list a couple of them and I'm not going to give all of my algorithm or my formula. You know, Coke never shares their formula, right? So, I can't give the whole recipe. I'll give you a couple of the common things that we see. The tease, man. That's the tease to be a Kevin sales customer. Go ahead, Kevin. Yeah. One of the things is the is the vesting, how they hold title to the property. Again, this morning I was looking at one and there's this is what the deed says. It says John Doe, trustee of the trust, and Jane Doe, an individual as joint tenants. Well, most of us know joint tenency in California, the law is that joint tenency is for natural persons. That means a corporation cannot be a joint tenant. A trust cannot be a joint tenant. Therefore, even though they put joint teny on the deed, it's really teny in common. So, I haven't got I because it was just this morning, I haven't gotten all the details yet. If that other individual had passed away and they're thinking, "Oh, great. It was joint tenency, so now the trust just has it." It's not. It's a separate ownership.

15:13 That individual, if that individual is deceased, you have to probate that individual's estate. And then the trust would, you know, sell the other half. So that's one thing is vesting issues. Vesting, investing how they hold tit, who's on title, and how they hold title is a big one. And then liens of the owners is another one where it could be that no one knew. Grandpa had I mean, I had one just in the last couple weeks where there's a child support lane for this person. Now, we don't think it's actually his, but I've seen them where they are. I seen him where he had a 78-year-old person and no one knew he had a child when he was 65 and he's paying child support for that person. So, a child support lean pops up. So, there could be all different types of leans, whether it's loans that are on the property that they didn't know were there or whether it's things like child support or a judgment or a tax lean. Th those leans that pop up on a property are another big issue because they either prevent your sale or cause, you know, have to be taken care of by paying for them. So, money comes out of the proceeds, etc. But those are surprises that most people don't like to see that they that are very common. You'll see like city citations. I have a vacant lot where a property burned down and we're selling it vacant. Now, we got sided with the city. Not we client got side with the city, went in, had a demo, had removed, did all they're supposed to do, got the permit signed off or the deficiency signed off, but never got recorded with the county. So, that when we pulled the prelim, there's this lean showing. We go back all through the process, give them the paperwork. But we did that when we got the prelim. We didn't wait until the day before escrow, you get that phone call, we can't close. Why? Well, this lean popped up. Well, no, it didn't pop up. It was on the prelim all along. Was item 17 on the prelim and you didn't even look at it. You just filed the prelim. So, okay. So those are kind of common issues. I think the answer that you're saying there is anything looks out of the ordinary or I would say you should read the prelim anything you don't understand. I feel like that's why you have Kevin, right? He'll tell you what those things are because he's an expert or and if there is something that stumps Kevin, he has a team behind him.

17:18 That's his job is to go to the team and get the answer, bring it to you. So the best practice is read those documents, read the prelim the profile, read the prelim and there's anything you don't understand, that's why you have a title representative to help you understand that and or bring the resources to bear so that your customer doesn't get penalized at the end. Absolutely. And a lot of times these things are written in pretty plain English. People don't want to read them or they're concerned they've never seen that before. But then when you actually read it, you realize, oh, it's written in plain English. It says right here exactly what it is. Or, you know, you were talking about a lean like a substandard lean. The substandard lane won't tell anything. It'll say you have to contact this inspector to find out what the problem is. So, a lot of times they're written in plain English. It makes it easy to look at it and go, "Okay, this is this is the next step or this is what we need to do from here." You know, I love when I read the document and my favorite line sometimes you got attorneys who are, you know, a overly aggressive and they're representing the other party and they're trying to put me in my place and I'll say something to them and they'll say, "Well, why do you how can you say that? Are you an attorney?" And I would just say, "No, I just read it. It's in English." and I read English. It's not that difficult. The truth is there are things that churches understand the implications of the words, but the words themselves are written in English in these contracts and so we shouldn't be we shouldn't shy away from reading it and at least bringing our knowledge to bear and then bring the right resources in that are needed. So, absolutely.

18:38 Okay. So, that's all about being a Realtor® and doing our job and attorneys expect that when we have a probate case, when we're working with our clients and or when referring to them. Let's talk about best practice for attorneys because I know a lot of your clients are attorneys. I also a lot of my clients are attorneys and unfortunately a lot of people watching this a number of more attorneys. Let's look at the best practices for attorneys in a probate case. I would I would think if I was a probate attorney, I would want to make sure I vetted who the Realtor® was on a transaction because I know I make a difference for the positive. I know other Realtors® who make a difference for the negative. Talk about attorneys. Do they ever come to you for referrals? Is that something that And so what is an attorney looking for to make the decision on behalf of their client or make the referral on behalf of their client? What are they looking for to refer the right deal to the right real estate agent? Well, I don't really ever have attorneys I mean it's very rare that attorneys come to me for a referral. I think I had one recently and they're like they had a listing in Sacramento and they're like, "Do you know anybody in Sacramento?" Because it was so far. They tend to have people on a lot of the local ones. But I know one thing that truly helps is when the agent understands the process because there's things in the process that we're going to require in order to close. There's documents we need to have copies of. There's timelines and if the agent doesn't know those things can get a little convoluted or promises can be made to heirs that aren't really accurate and that sort of thing.

20:08 So, it really helps when the agent knows the process because they can the agent can also help bridge the gap. Sometimes the clients are like, "Well, I haven't reached the attorney. The attorney didn't tell me this or didn't tell me that, right?" When the agent understands the process, they can help explain to that person. I'll give a prime example. Prior to closing there, you know, on probates, there's three documents that we need. It's always the same. So, if we're scrambling to get those, you know, we're supposed to be closing tomorrow and we're scrambling to get those and those documents haven't been provided, that can make a challenging situation. That can delay your closing. Whereas, if the agent knew up front, oh yeah, maybe a week ago, they're like, "Oh, yeah, we're going to be getting ready to close next week, so let me make sure I have these documents from the attorney." Then it's not scrambling at the last minute. Can I tell an interesting story, Bill? Yeah, of course. I we closed the train. Kevin, you're Kevin Sales. You can say whatever you want. We closed a transaction last month and the client that I that I that sent the transaction over to us has closed several probates. I'm using my air quotes probates during the process. You know, we were needing the notice of proposed action. She's like, "What is this all about? Like, what are you talking about? We don't need this. I've never had this in any other transaction." When we got into the meat and got into the details, every quote unquote probate transaction that this agent had closed was where the case, the probate case was already over.

21:34 The property had been distributed and she was selling for the heirs, right? That's not really a probate sale. That's a regular sale after a probate case, right? This was actually the first one that she was selling where the administrator of the estate was, you know, dealing with the probate and in the process and selling while the property while the estate was going through probate. That's why she had no clue of the documents. So, I thought that was really interesting because she and I had talked numerous times. She had done trust sales where the, you know, person died. They had a trust, but she didn't know these procedures and I thought she knew them because she told me all the experience she had in probate sales. So that's a big help. I've heard attorneys mention that a lot that what we need is someone who understands the process, right? And I think that there's a what you're pointing out there's a difference between the process between post-probate distribution, which is really a regular sale. Trust estates are nice. If there's litigation, it can look like a probate sale, but 99% are not litigated. They're just like a regular sale where the title is held in trust, but a person. And even many probate sales, you know, you mentioned the notice of proposed action. And I would say some title companies require that on every probate sale if there's full authority. Some don't if there's only one ear. And I, you know, often times the attorney will argue with me and I'll say, "Look, this is the title company's requirement. You might be right. It's not required. They want it for this reason." Maybe there was litigation. Maybe there were a number of objectors in the past.

22:58 Whatever the reason is, no title insurance, no sale. So the attorney be right legally, but wrong in terms of trying to get the job done. My job is to bridge that and sometimes it's not required, but getting a notice of proposed action is a whole different world than a court confirmation sale. And so I had a recent case where an attorney, two attorneys were fighting over it. Two parties to a transaction, one a probate estate and one a trust. And my client was a trust saying, "I want you to handle the sale." And the other attorney picked some other guy who was experienced in probate. And I went online and noticed, well, he' done some probate sales as a buyer agent. Done some listing regular probates, but I said, "This is a court confirmation and you know, a couple questions." I made a list of the questions that I cover and the attorney goes, "Yeah, I think actually you should." I guess I went through they didn't because most attorneys, you know, I can tell you in LA County, I've tracked every court confirmation sale for the last six years. Of a spreadsheet with every case, every case number, the attorney, the estate, the property address, the terms of the property, and the result, the denied, continued or sold. There's not that many attorneys who've done one a court confirmation. It's a it's not that common. There's maybe 30 a month, and a lot done by certain attorneys and most don't. So, when you say you know the process, don't oversell it. I think it's important to be honest. On the flip side, you can if you do some of the standard probate cases, it gives you the chance to do the occasional confirmation sale. So, I think that's a good point. Okay.

24:27 So, let's talk about let me let me step back a little bit from the probate part. You've obviously been a very successful business person. I know you've been in the same company, which to me is always a clue of success that when people bounce around, it's because it's members of the company, but sometimes it's also the rep. And I know you've been with Lawyers Title as long as I've known you. And I know you to be successful by the business, your reputation and such. Let's talk about kind of some basic fundamentals of building a successful business, whether you're taught a rep or a Realtor® or an attorney. What do you see yourself focused on that maybe the other people in your industry or your competitors maybe don't do or don't do as well or consistently as you do? You know, for me and in my business, and I think it's the same for anyone in a job that's salesreated, is constant growth. The there's that saying that you're no one is ever maintaining. You're either growing or you're dying or you're pulling back. And so for me, it's constant growth to constantly try to beat my last month, improve my numbers. And to do that, what it requires is focus on continual prospecting, continually doing things that will bring new clients and new business into my fold and reaching out to different parties. Followup, all of all the things that we all should be doing in sales, you know, prospecting, followup, you know, nurturing relation, nurturing past relationship, nurturing relationships with clients that already know what it's like to work with me. So those are things that I think have made me successful and continue to make me successful and I see it sometimes with some of my peers that I don't want to say they rest on their laurels, but maybe they don't maybe they don't get up as early as they used to.

26:08 Maybe they don't make as many calls as they used to. And we all have that. There's nothing wrong with rest. We have to rest, right? But for me, I still have as long as that fire is still in me, I'm going to let it burn. And that fire and drive is still in me to do more and produce more. It's the way God built me. And I'm thankful for that. Sometimes I have to tone it down so I don't stress myself out, right? But I think that's what it is. It's the drive and the desire to do more and to grow. I set goals for myself. I have goals written on my wall here on my desk and so it makes me it keeps me focused on moving forward and continuing to prospect and continuing to grow. I heard explained to me that life is like a slow downward elevator that if you're not always going up that you're going to go down by default. So you have to go up a certain amount to stay even and even more so to increase. So let's flip it around a little bit. You've been successful in this business. You've been around the six years that I know, you've seen hundreds if not thousands of real estate I imagine thousands of real estate agents of which I'm sure 10% have been successful and I'm sure you know half are below average by definition and the vast majority don't get the traction they want. What do you see as the one or two key practices in those real estate agents and attorneys that are growing their business versus those that are struggling?

27:25 Well, you know, attorneys are different. I think I think it's just what I said a moment ago. You know, continually prospect. Our jobs are hard, right? You know, for me, I have been title reports to come in. I have a thousand emails. I have phone calls. I have other things. I have clients to go see. And so, it's hard. How do I find the time to continue to prospect for new clients for myself, right? Because that's what keeps you growing. But that's mandatory. That's mandatory. I have to carve out I have to make space in my day. Even with all the admin work and that sort of thing that I have to do, I have to make space in my day to be able to do that prospecting. For you or for a real estate agent, it's the same thing. I mean, you have an appraisal, you have an inspection at a property, you have all these things that you have to do, but you still have to contact your sphere of influence. I was on a call just recently and it said something to the effect of and this is a this is a very consistent statistic because I've heard this statistic probably 10,000 times. Maybe not 10,000 times. I've heard it basically every year for the last 25 or 27 years. I've been in this business for a little over 30 years, but I paid attention to it 25 or 27 years ago. And the statistic is something like 26% of sellers went back to the agent that they worked with previously, right? But after closing, when Carr and NAR do their surveys, something like 75% of homeowners that bought with an agent or sold with an say, "Oh, I'm going to use them again." 75% say, "I'm going to use them the next time." But only 25% do. And I heard a statistic one time that it's a low percentage, something like only 20 or 30% of people can remember their agent's name two years later.

29:09 I'm sure it's worse than that. I'll bet less than 10% of agents ever contact a client ever again. They post on social media, but that is constant reminder to me. It's a great reminder to it's a constant reminder to me who's someone that I closed a deal with a month ago, two months ago, three months ago that hasn't heard from me, you know, and it's it constantly drives me. And it's the same thing, I think, for real estate agents to, you know, deal with your past clients, deal with your prospecting. This the same sales is sales, right? Right? If I was selling shoes, it would be the same thing. If I was selling cars, it would be the same thing. If I was selling cotton swabs, it would be the same thing. Who knows me that trusts me? Let me go to them and see if they need cotton swabs. Right? Sales is sales. There's a saying, hungry dogs hunt best. And I think what it means to me is not only does a hungry dog put the effort in, but when they get a chance to kill, they kill. And I my experience with for example the top Realtor® the top attorneys in Southern California in terms of volume in businesses they're always working on business development you know by volume I don't know anybody does more than say Paul Horn's always got a seminar or program of this or that right and you might think well but he's got a million cases and but from his perspective he wants to do better he wants to do more he wants to dominate and there's other attorneys the same boat I can name the same names but the ones who do these talks at the real estate offices and go out to the board of Realtors® like you do. They're the same people year after year and they're also the ones who seem to do the outside portion of the business. And the reason why is that if you're out looking for business, you appreciate it. You respond to it better.

30:44 You respond to it harder. And so you have to have certain activities that you do on a regular basis. So, you know, one of the most common prospecting technique that Realtors® are taught in probate, one that I don't do, I never really did was cold calling by buying data of filings and cold calling petitioners and or cold calling attorneys. Now, I will say I don't knowbody who's done that over time who's been successful at it. You know, more Realtors® than I do. Is that something that you see as a Now, what I will say is I buy the probate data because I want to know who the attorneys are or when somebody calls me, I have all the information on their case. I can quickly get their case number and look it up. So, I do buy the data. I do think information is power, but I don't cold call petitioners. I found other ways to generate business. Give you know where do you see real estate agents is cold calling petitioners given all the challenges we have with calling today effective and or cold calling attorneys effective or there other techniques that you see that are also or more effective? Yeah, I mean I can't really speak with specifics to that because I don't cold call on the leads but what I what I will say is I and this has always been the case in my business. I have clients who only door knock and they've been successful doing that. I have clients who only cold call and they've been success I have clients who only do postcards. But it's about the volume, you know? I mean, maybe with doornocking you have to knock on 50 doors a day, but with postcards you got to send a thousand a week. I don't know those exact numbers, but I think it all works. I think every method of marketing will work. Now, like you mentioned, it is more challenging. I get I get spam calls. Spam calls. I get someone calling wanting to do construction work on my house at least once, if not twice, every single day, Monday through Friday. And so does that make me more insensitive to someone calling to sell me something? Absolutely does. It makes me not want to deal with them as much. But I think you know leads are like seeds, right? You a

32:49 Farmer doesn't look at every seed and figure out which one to plant. He throws all those seeds on the dirt, lets them sprout up. And so I think for it's the same for all of our business, you know, we have to go out and generate business. And if for you it's cold calling, great. If for you it's something else, great. Bill, I think you were very unique. I mean, you mentioned that you track every case. You've tracked every court confirmation sale. You know, where it was sold. There's probably no one else on the planet that knows that level of detail. I can't I can't think of anyone that would know every court confirmation center has done that for six years I think you said and that's certainly true. I just feel like you created a different niche and a different way of going about it to get business and that's I think key. I mean I do title insurance. Title is like rubbing alcohol. Back when the mortgage meltdown happened, I had to figure out what's a different angle. What's something what's something that I'm very knowledgeable about so that I could bring real value to a person and that's a different angle that would be beneficial for folks and look I believe Jack Welch Jack Welch the guy who ran GE he said Barry business is a series of trial and error and so I didn't just one day go oh probate I'm going to do I tried a few things I tried doing it with vacant I tried doing it with commercial I tried doing it with probate because those were all things that I'm like I have a lot more knowledge than the average title rep does on these areas. And there's some idiosyncrasies with selling vacant land, with selling commercial property, with selling a probate property that everyone may not know about that could get them caught hung up. And I started moving forward on it. And the thing is with vacant land and commercial at the time of the mortgage meltdown, no one was buying those that the fund the funding was not available for those.

34:39 So the properties weren't moving. I had great traction. I had great success with my marketing. I was the leads that I was using were working out really well, but there was no closed transactions from it. With probate, guess what? Person died. They have to sell the property. So, it worked out better that probate stuck because people still had to sell the property and those were still moving even though, you know, the mortgage meltdown had put a, you know, put some tight belts around our waist. So that's kind of how it came to fruition. And so I don't know the answer to that question, you know, do but I would say I've always in my entire career, I've been a title rep since 1999. I've been in the industry since 1993. In my entire career, I've always seen people that did all forms of prospecting and were successful at it. It's just how hard they go at it. Well, if I could reform your answer a little bit, knowing you and being in the same spot with some overlap, I would say I think what I hear you saying is it's not so much how you prospect, it's you better do something. You better do something well and regularly. It better look like a lot. I tell people you better spend three or four hours a day on that something and be really good at that something to be the one to generate the business. Whether it be cold calling, doornocking, postcarding. In my case, I used to go to court every day and I'd spend three or four hours going to court. That's where we initially met, not met, we rem reacquainted and started the process a little bit more seriously by going to court. When the that shut down of co I had to change and I went to social media and I've used video but I do about three or four hours of video a day. That's my lead generation methodology and it works for me but I have to do it. I have to do it well. I have to do it more my competition. And so for everybody I think you need to find your niche and where you create value. And mine was more court and procedures but there's a million ways to do probate. You can do senior housing.

36:30 You could help health providers, you can do estate planning, you can there's I do a class on 11 different ways. There's actually a million different micro niches within that. Find your lane. And then second of all, as Kevin has said, whatever it is you do, I don't think any of us have any real shy as to what doesn't work. But try and when you find something that works, just work the heck out of it until it gets you the business you need. I think that's what I hear you saying, Kevin. Yeah. And Bill, can I turn the table around and ask you a question? Sure. Of course. How did you Kevin cells you can you're Kevin cells you can do whatever you want. Go ahead. Okay. I'm gonna interview you now. So Bill, you like I said, you're very unique in your background in pro. And what made you decide or what told you that yes, this is the right way to go about it. When you decided, I'm going to start going to the courthouse and looking at these court confirmation sales and doing all of that work that you did in the beginning. Well, it's a long answer. A shorter version of it would be I was taking a probate certification class, probate mastery, and the coach said you should go at least once and check out the court, which makes sense. If this is your service, you're helping your customer at this service, at least figure out what it looks like. So, I went to court one day. And I came back, I was amazed like there's people there. There's at the people I'm trying to reach marketing wise there in the room. There were petitioners there.

37:47 There were attorneys there. There were real estate investors there. And I learned a lot while I was watching this go on. And I said, you know, I'll come back the rest of the week. I was I was in kind of business planning mode. And I originally go for one day and I said, well, I'll just go tomorrow. And then I end up going for the week. Then I started going I'm going to do this for a month and really pay attention, take notes. And at the end of the time period, I realized that there was a lane for me to be unique. And again, I think you have to find the intersection of three things. What you like to do. I kind of like going to court, putting on a suit and tie, pretending I was an attorney at that time. Now, I don't necessarily like to do as much today, but that time it was a lot of fun. It was professional. It was safe. You're in the courthouse with sheriffs. There's a Starbucks there. They have good Wi-Fi. It's air conditioned. Like, it was kind of a fun thing to go work at. Second of all, it would play to my strength. I kind of look like an attorney. I kind of talk like an attorney. My father was an attorney. I could I'm a smart person. I learned things quickly. So, it played to my strength as far as that goes. And then third of all, there was a need cuz I saw petitioners lost. Most of them hated their attorneys. 90% attorneys obviously didn't know what they're doing. When you sit in court, you realize there's the 10% who are killers and they're great and it's like watching a class and you want to take notes from them. But the other 90% of the attorneys got the case somehow and I have no idea, but they don't know what they're doing and they're not serving the customer and they need a Realtor® like me to help them or help their customer. And so I walked away after seeing that reality and said, "Well, I can do that." Unique. I'm in LA County, largest probate court in America. Nine courtrooms daily to choose from versus other areas maybe have one a couple days a week. So, you know, again, you to find your right lane. Mine was legal problems. Mine was originally going to court and mine originally was you know, there's a rich opportunity there. And then when CO shut down, some of that went away. So, I had to kind of how do I replicate that? So that's kind of my story of how I decided to do what I'm doing.

39:49 Yeah. And you've done an excellent job in doing that, Bill. So I just wanted Well, it's been great. And I think again, I think you to find something that you're good at that you enjoy doing. And if you don't enjoy like I don't enjoy cold calling and I enjoy having petitioners argue with me about real estate. And so at some point I think you need to graduate from that. Like the goal maybe is I'm going to prospect petitioners for three months or six months or a year and build some business and then by the end of that time period you should be building referrals and some other form of business that leverages your expertise rather than just your energy. Right? You don't necessar there's nothing wrong with being a brick layer, but your goal should be maybe to learn how to lay bricks and then at some point 6 months a year two years have a brick company where you hire brick layers, train them how to do it and you can have four or five working underneath you. And that's kind of what I've tried to replicate with my business. Okay. Yeah, that's a great formula that you just laid out right there. If I were an agent and watching this, I would rewind and listen to that last minute or two one more time because you just laid it out perfectly. You know what's funny is I think when you met me, I was a coach and a branch manager. And at the time I was so frustrated because I would tell agents what to do and none of them would do it because it was hard work. And I said, "Well, it's not as hard work as teaching you. I'll just do it myself.

41:06 And so the last thing she is, I built a business where I make a lot more money. It's a lot easier. I'm in control of it. I have agents that call me all the time and say, "What's the easiest way to build a probate business?" And I say, "I have no idea because the only thing I know is put the work in." I know the hard way and but it works if you put the work in. And so I think for anybody's interested, yeah, either rewind this or give me a call. I'll be glad to walk you through it or talk to Kevin as well. That's what we're here for. Okay. I wanted to also talk about I think that really anybody who knows you knows you have outstanding reputation with various attorneys and as a result attorneys send you business regularly. I see that, you know, I know that's part of the process. And I'll see like in the forums sometimes, it's funny in the LA U bar association. There's a you can join as affiliate and there's like a forum email and such where attorneys got chat and they'll say, "Anybody know tile rep?" I only use Kevin Sales. I see this all the time like they discovered fire or something that they know who you are. But you've built this reputation and so talk a little bit about what you've done to both start referral relationships with attorneys and then what you've done to keep them going. Yeah. About 15 or 17 years ago, an attorney that I had met 10 years earlier said, "Hey, we have this there was something was going on in something in the law and she and I were this attorney and I were talking about it and she said, "You know, we have this study group. It's about 10 to 12 of us.

42:35 We get together periodically to just learn from each other and hash out details and this and that. Would you come speak to us? And I went out and spoke and that was 2008 or 2010, something like that. And I remember being so nervous. I had never spoke to a group of attorneys and here I am thinking, "Oh, these guys are going to know everything." 10 seconds into the meeting, I realized they don't have a clue about any of this stuff. Yeah. And so it taught me that the information that I have as a title person in the details and I'm different than the average title rep. I mean, I read a probate, a trust, an estate, a estate documents, a court order, something, you know, every morning, usually before 9:00 a.m. So I've read thousands of them. And when I got into the details and I realized, oh, we keep seeing this mistake in court orders. The attorneys may not understand that this on a court order may work for court. It may not be a mistake in the court, but from a title company perspective, we don't like it that way. That's not the right way. We can't provide insurance based on that. And I started noticing things like that and different changes and different issues. And I started noticing stuff that just taught me, you know what, they don't have all the details and all the specifics about title and about real estate that I that I thought they had. And since then, having talked to attorneys, you know, attorneys have told me point blank, they don't teach us any of this in law school. You learn this stuff from your paralegal after you become an attorney.

44:05 Hopefully, you have a good paralegal who teaches you the right way. And so, I started doing workshops. I now what I do is all throughout the year the problem cases, the challenging situations, the really big issues that we have. I keep notes on those. I look for the learning experiences in there and then I put them in a presentation at the end of the year along with any laws that change that affect title policies or we get a C a CLTA memo every year that tells us these are the laws that change that you know affect real estate and affect us as a title company. So I put those together in a presentation. I do that presentation annually. That's what has helped me the most grow my reputation and in being able to help real estate I'm sorry attorneys either real estate attorneys or probate trust and estates attorneys is by keeping track of this information, putting together the presentation and doing a presentation to them to help. And sometimes the organization or the group that I'm doing it for, whether it's the South Bay Bar Association or the Inland Empire or whatever, you know, they'll offer MLE continue education credits based on the topic and the subject matter that I'm presenting on. And I think as a group, attorneys are usually really good learners and enjoy learning, right? The nature of somebody who's gone through college as an undergraduate, then gone to law school and then gone on to pass the bar exam is at a minimum somebody who can, you know, take a lot of information and regurgitate it in some format, hopefully productively.

45:36 But most of them tend to, in my experience, kind of enjoy learning new stuff. And so when you can give them good quality information, whether as an agent you do it yourself or you bring in Kevin as the featured speaker, to me it seems like a lot less makes a lot of sense to give the people an opportunity to do that. So, I would urge any of you to take a look at where you can bring in somebody. CL the continuing legal education units are valuable to attorneys. They all need to have a certain number of them and it makes a class attractive. So, reach out to Kevin or other people other providers to provide that. Well, look, you and I have talked a lot in the past and we'll continue to please God going forward. We got a couple escrows we're work or listings I'm working on with you. So, I'm kind of stuck with you for at least a while. Just all kidding. Well, we've been together for a while and hope you a long ride together going forward. I really appreciate your time today. For those people who want to get a hold of you, what's the best way if they have questions or they want to go to your next class or have questions on working with you as a on a profile or getting set up with your profile application? And that's the other thing he if you're a customer he has, you get a chance to get this application. Talk about that a little bit as a tool. I use that all day long. Yeah. The property profile is online, title pro 247. It's a great way to be able to in just a brief moment quickly look and see who's the owner of the property and see the deeds and that sort of thing. When it comes to probate stuff though, I like people to call our office because sometimes with Title Pro 247, you may not get all the data the documents you're looking for because for instance, court orders aren't read by the online systems. So then I say, "Yeah, call my customer service department." But yeah, they can get a hold of me. My email and my phone number's on the screen there.

47:09 If you if you're interested in talking about something, if you have a scenario you want to talk about, I always say call me because if you email me, I'm probably going to have some questions rather than us going back and forth on email, we can do it on the phone and I can get you some answers. But otherwise, email is a great way to get a hold of me. If you want to schedule a meeting with me or if you want me to come do a workshop or training or something at your real estate office or your group of investors or law firm, then email is definitely the best for that. So either way, email, call, you'll get a hold of me and I would look forward to, you know, following up with some of the folks that watch your show. Kevin, thank you so much for your time as always and what you do to service our c our industry. You can get in hold with him. Again, his information is down below in the banner or you can go to his website lawyers title insurance company, L ltic.com. It's on the screen one. You get a picture of Kevin as well as his contact info as well and other tools he has available to him. So that's a great way to get in touch with him as well. Kevin, thank you again so much for your time as always. Really appreciate what you do personally as well as on behalf of our industry. Thank you so much, Bill. I love being here speaking with you in the morning. So anytime that you want to have me back. I would love to be here. Well, thanks. Thanks so much. And for the rest of you, this is Probate Weekly. We get together every week and interview leading professionals in the industry. You can get reminders by filling out at www.proetweekly.com if you want to put your phone number in.

48:30 Occasionally we do text as well. Don't have to though. But if you scroll down the page, you'll also see we're available on all the audio formats as well as past episodes on YouTube. And if you register, you'll get an email reminder that will have a link to the YouTube of the current episode. I'm Bill Gross at Bill Gross Probate. If you like this, let me know. If you have questions or comments or content you'd like to see, please let me know. If you're an attorney who'd like to be interviewed on this, or you have an attorney who should be, please give me that information as well. As always, make today your best day