KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Dina Braverman

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

Welcome to Probate Weekly. You know, the key to this is to educate ourselves, to do business that people can help us do business and to network and share business. And I'm going to add in and have fun along the way. It was not fun. I'm not doing it. If you know me at all, that's one of my key principles.

And it was so much fun before we started recording where you had a little pre, what did my daughter call it, a little pregame before we did the video today. And really one of the fun people, that I enjoy in this business has also been educating me and literally working with her on a promo I had today. Dina Braverman, Dean, thank you so much for coming back to Probeate Weekly. Thank you for having me.

And I know your organization is, your company is organizing concepts and designs. So tell us what is, it sounds so formal, so important, so business-like. What is organizing concepts and designs? Well, it is, in fact, a business, right? So organizing concepts and designs, aka OCD, and that is. It is by design. Oh, yeah. It is by design.

It is a full service professional organizing company. And we provide all kinds of different services and services that most people don't even know exist. And wish they had known that existed before they needed us. So we do everything from, you know, downsizing and decoddering to helping people move. Most of our work is done because people have either passed away. People have either passed away or they're moving. So helping that figure what to keep, what to sell, what to toss, what to donate, facilitating and coordinating all those moving pieces.

So that's what we're talking about today. And so the company is organizing concepts in design. Our guest is Dean Braverman, who is the proprietor. And we're going to talk about we're going to focus a little bit more today on the estate and probate pieces of her business. So as she said, that's not all of it. We'll get that a little bit more, and we'll have her information down below. And then just a quick note, I have a program I do on real estate email marketing, or mostly for small businesses, but really realtors, on how to use email to build your business and maintain it.

And you can find that by text your emailing me. My link tree has all the information on it, linktr.e slash Bill Gross. You scroll down, you'll see the email program and the other things that I am. Oops, where's the email mesh part? I changed this thing so much. There it is. So, Dina, the thing about having one, really, you kind of hit three different, you scratch three inches. There's the service you provide that we work in, those of us in the business, realtors and attorneys and fiduciaries in that space. Second, you work with people that refer you business are the same people who refer us business.

And third, that you run a successful solve business. So let's start from the beginning. Let's talk about specifically of your business, the part that deals with when somebody's pass, whether it be trust administration or a probate case. How do you get involved there? And what's a typical case for you look like? So the way we typically get involved is we are referred by either a fiduciary, the trustee of the estate, probate, or estate planning attorney. That's usually how we're brought in. Somebody somewhere has a lot of property that they need to get rid of. And they want to know what to do with it. And they don't know what to do, how to do it. And they certainly

don't have the resources that a company like mine would have. We go in and we meet with the family or the trustee, whatever the case may be, and we help them figure out and guide them as to what's next. So is it in a estate sale? Is there enough value? Is there enough quantity? Is there enough value right to have an estate sale? Is it in a private home? Because if it's not in a private home and it's in a condo or a townhouse or a gated community. And the estate sale is going to be very difficult. So we have to figure out can we have an estate sale. If we can't, we go to the next step. What's the next best thing? Is it auction? Is it consignment? Is it a private sale? So all of this depends on what we see when we do a walkthrough of the property. We help guide the

family to what we think would be in their best interest. Sometimes timing is everything. If If they need to get rid of the house quickly and we don't have time to host an estate sale, you know, maybe that's not a good option. So we have to really do a walkthrough. We have to figure out with the family what their needs and their wants are. It's really about them. And the thing I look about your approach is, you know, if you're only selling hammers and the whole world is a nail versus, and I try to take the same approach with my business,

which is each listing is really the goal is to help that customer, it's not to do them all the same. sure, I could do more if I standardized and certain things you do for consistency. But the one thing you never standardize is that your customer has to get what they want and what they need, rather than me just sell what I want to sell, right? Right. It has to be, I work for them. It's got to be what they need and what they want. And sometimes they don't really know what they need or want.

So I have to guide them and tell them the amount of money you're going to make at this estate sale, even though it's what I do and I want to do, may not be. the best way forward. Maybe we do a private sale. We sell what we can't sell, and we throw away what we can't donate. Now, I know there are lobby agents with a wide variety of businesses. I wish I had the really big houses and the luxury and all that. And I can do a good job. I just don't have those connections to get much of that. Mine are typically, whatever we're doing, we're lucky to offset the costs of junking out the house. I would imagine that's the majority of cases. if you get enough money to between selling, raising some money, you can clean out, donate reliably, rather than junk out, maybe donate. If you end up at zero or a small amount of money, to me it seems like you won the game.

We're ahead of the game. And, you know, most people, Bill, don't know that. And that's the truth. They think that, number one, they're attached to these items, the stuff. They feel that it's worth more than it is. typically most of my job is managing expectations about this is just stuff. And I know it means a lot to you and we're going to treat it respectfully, but at the end of the day, it's tough. Unless there's a signed Picasso or bronze statues or an assigned to Aerte, you know, most of the stuff is just stuff.

And so the best that we could do typically in the average American household, sell everything that we can. donate the rest and throw away the rest. And then you're right. The amount of money that they're going to get from the sale is going to offset the cost of a clear-out, which is not inexpensive. Right. You know, because why? The people typically are frequenting in a state sale are not there to buy the big furnishings.

They're there to take away what they can in their cars. So the big items, the almars, the mattresses, the box springs, piano centers. The piano. The beautiful, it's beautiful. It's gorgeous. The pain is all that. Literally, if you can get the piano out of your house for free for most of them,

unless it's- You're ahead of the game. Yeah. I was shocked the first couple times I came across that one. But it's beautiful, yeah, but it's expensive to move. Right. Well, thankfully, you know, again, that's the difference of working with a company like mom because we do have these resources.

I work with companies that buy pianos. And unbeknown to many of my clients, I also take piano lessons. I work with piano teachers that are constantly looking for pianos for their students that can't otherwise afford them. So rather than junking them, maybe they just pay for the move of the piano. Right. And then they have a piano with their disposal. So we don't just dump stuff at Goodwill. That's not what my company is about.

We really do try to divide and conquer. So if we're donating, we are donating to several different chapters. on any particular one property. So, yeah, we're not just dumping things off of goodwill. Now, for those you're watching, we're live streaming this. It's 4 p.m. Pacific time, 408. So, and again, just to emphasize the point, so it's not, I'm crazy, but when you talk about managing customers of expectations,

when a customer tells me, oh, yeah, we have a piano. We think that's worth about $10,000. And I'll say, who, I know, if we get that piano out the door without breaking anything for free. Here's what I know. We just won big. And second, I am not controlling that. I'm a teenager. Somebody else told them that because they believe it's worth of, and it might be beautiful. And by the way, when they play piano, it makes beautiful music. My father, literally was a penis who played at Carnegie Hall. I'm all for piano music. But you don't want to have to move a piano. Well, it's at least $500 to move. And then you still have to tune it. Even if it was tuned the day before you move it, you still have to tune it.

So just the moving is expensive. And quite frankly, the donation companies don't want them because of their reliability. And the drivers don't want to do the work to take them apart, deliver them, and then put them back together again. And most donation pickups are at driver's discretion. So the chances of being picked up by a donation company are very slim. My father, a blessed memory, was a pianist and phenomenal. and when he passed, I took the piano.

It was something I took piano lessons, learned how to play basically on, and my wife plays beautifully on piano. We had this piano. At one point, we had to remodel our house or redo our house. Time to get rid of the piano. We found somebody ready to take it for free, and they only broke like three bricks on the way.

That my wife reminds me of all the time. And I don't want to pay to get the bricks fixed because then I'm admitting my wife that's my fault with the piano. Piano is a big one. I want me to get overstock on that. So let's talk about what are the calls. common areas that customers are surprised that aren't worth as much as they think they are or more trouble to get rid of than they think they are.

I mean, it runs the gamut because people want, I don't know what this is about. I haven't studied the psychology of it. But people truly believe that if somebody in their family owned it, that it was expensive and that it was worth something and that it had value. And the value, as I try to explain it, is fair market value. So if something was bought many years ago for $10,000, that doesn't mean it held its value.

And even if it did, even if it did, I don't have a brick and mortar. I'm going into their house to sell it and I have three days to do so. I have to price it so that it sell. Because if it doesn't sell, then they're paying to clear it out and I'm not making money and they're not making money.

So what's the point? It's like putting a house on the market and pricing it too high. It's not going to sell. what's the point. So we really have to. It's worth $10,000. You can't price it $10,000.

You've got to make money too. So now if you're pricing for them to sell, that's different. But somebody's buying it to resell it. They need to make a profit as well. Everybody needs to make a profit. And we need to clear out the house. And we need to price things to sell. And that's a big issue.

You know, again, I had a client just the other day who had designer women's shoes. Beautiful, barely worn, but they were in a size 11. It doesn't matter if they're Jimmy Chu, and it doesn't matter if they're Chanel. If women can't fit into them, they're not going to buy them. It was a very difficult sell. I actually was not able to help. So sometimes we can't help because the client is insistent upon making a certain amount for each of these items. And, you know, we have to be honest. We can't do it.

We have to sell it. We have to price it to sell it. And also, it's not worth what you see it in the retail market for. No. People, if they like going shopping and buying at retail, when they come to your house, they assume they're getting such a deal. Right. They just assume that.

It's secondhand. Right. And think of this, right? Somebody walks into Wednesdaysale and you see this wonderful dining room set. and they want to buy it. Well, they still have to get a truck to move it, and probably some help to get it moved. They can just go over to living spaces

and get that same dining room table brand new and delivered for the same amount of money. How is that serving the estate sale? How is that serving our business and the client? It's not. So again, whether it's brand new or barely used, we have to price it to sell. Yeah, that's the challenge.

So let's talk about areas, They're common where people have mismatched expectations. I find one of the areas is collectibles, right? People have certain dolls. They might be, you know, Marvel branded, or there might be Disney branded or something. Beanie babies. Beanie babies.

And they might be the world's second best collection of all those things. And, you know, I love watching Pond Stars, the TV show. I love that. I also love the show where they break up. American Pickers. Is that the one where they go that's storage spaces? Well, yeah.

No, no, that's storage wars. Storage wars. I love storage wars because you see what they buy and they sell the stuff for it. Yeah, they make money, but they really make money being TV stars more than they do on the material.

And they're buying stuff so inexpensively. Basically buying in a state house was put into storage and you see what it looks like at the other end. So how realistic are those and how realistic are the prices you see on those shows? I really don't. watch them, to be honest. I mean, I used to watch American Pickers because I used to be an

antiquing fanatic. I used to love doing it, so it was an interest to me. But I mean, those are just very different animals than what I do with the state sales and selling things, you know. It's just, it's not apples to apples. Okay. So what's the biggest bulk of revenue that you do generate first dates when you do sales. What's the, you know, some small piece that gets you the disproportionate money? It's the stuff. It's the, it's the Laleck. It's the depression glass. It's, it's, you know, the fines. Like, just people, you know, we have vendors that frequent our sales that specialize in, like I have one guy that just buys perfume bottles, one guy that just buys geodes, one guy that buys albums. So because these,

are the vendors that have frequented the sales for so many years. We know what they're looking for. Every once in a while, something comes up that's kind of unique. Jewelry is a big sale. Costume jewelry is a big sale. People want to be able to go into the house and walk away with their prize. They're fine. Their bargain. And it's very rarely the big pieces of furniture. I'll be honest. You love it when they get sold. absolutely but again it's usually a bargain because we wanted to be so why we don't want it there to clear it out yeah you'd rather somebody take it and you know the fascinating part of a state sales is you never know what you're going to find every household is different there are treasures

in every house i've never walked into a house and thought and nah i'll always find something of interest and something that you know somebody's going to love and the truth is people really enjoy it. And right now, with people in Ukraine coming over, people from Israel coming over, kids going off to college, parents needing to set up dorm rooms for their children. It's a great way to buy great stuff at discounted prices. So geographically, is there an area that you spend more time in or you're able to get better estate sales for your vendor list? What areas do you? I mean, you know, there are certain areas that are not good. There are so many places that are good, but the places that aren't really good are the places that are up in the hills where there's no parking.

You know, you don't want to do one on a Mohan Drive. Right. And also, gated communities are very difficult. As I said, it's usually not even possible. But gated communities are very difficult to begin with, even if they're not secure and you're supposed to just go through a gate. because typically the parking is not good. So we're looking for places that are easy to get to. People that attend estate sales typically are charting a course to get to the estate sales.

They go on to aestate sale.net or a statesall.com and they plan out exactly where they're going to go. Their whole day is kind of scheduled. So if they can't get to it easily, they're not coming. What percentage of people who are, yeah, what percentage people who come are professionals who are this is what they do, versus the casual neighbor, the casual, hey, honey, I saw the sign. Let's stop you in and check it out. I'm going to say 60, 40, 60% of the other professionals. Wow.

People that have brick and waters or a spot at the Rose Bowl or thrift stores or what have you. Those are the ones that are coming on Thursdays and Fridays. And they need product. Yeah. If you have a store, you need stuff all the time. Absolutely. They need to replenish their supply. those are the people that are really the pros.

They know, they see the pictures online that we post. They see what they want. And they're going to get there at 6 o'clock in the morning to get it. So that's the Thursday Friday. Then Saturday are typically the people in the neighborhood, friends and family of people in the neighborhood, whatever. That's usually what it is. And by Saturday, the prices are discounted.

So those people are waiting for the final deal and they're not looking for anything specific. because if it was specific, they'd get there Thursday and Friday and make sure that they got it. So you're talking, you said most of the time that you're doing estate sales are people either moving or passed, obviously. Is typically your state sale before they put the property in the market during while it's on the market or after it's already sold before they move out? So typically in a state sale is really when someone's passed. Unless people are moving from 3,000 square feet to 900 square feet or they're moving out of the country, They usually don't have enough for an estate sale because they'll pretty much take the best of the best and leave the stuff behind, right?

So there's usually not enough value. The usually people have passed on or the heirs of or the trustees are hosting a sale for somebody to clear out their house. And it depends on the real estate agent and it depends on the property. So if they want it staged, then we're going to do it after Espril closes or after the contingencies have been removed. If the property is going, you know, if it's not really going to show well with the furniture, the real estate agent and the trustee will usually say, just have the estate sale now and we'll clear out the house. We'll show it empty. So we'll do that before they go into escrow, before it's even listed. So I defer to the, I defer typically to the attorney.

to the real estate agent. And so, but typically, how does that fallout percentage wise for your business? I'm sure it varies by competitors of yours, but for you exactly, what percentage would you say is before it's marketed and how many during us and how many after closed? I prefer to do it before they list it. Why? Because I really don't want to charge my clients to stage it, only to sell it. It's a lot of money to stage it, and it's a lot of extra money. just I'd rather get rid of everything.

And that's usually what I recommend to the real estate agents. And they usually agree because it's easier and less expensive. You know, that's my preference. And so because it's my preference and I'm trying to guide my clients, 90% of the sales are done before the house is even listed. Why wouldn't you, so help me understand then, why would you, if you know you're going to list the property, why when you list it and do the state sale at the same time,

do you have traffic going in, looking at all the stuff and they're going to see the houses for sale, maybe they like it and want to buy it. Because when you set up for an estate sale, we're setting up the house, not like a typical house would be, right? We have tables full of stuff. We have rolling racks. We have a lot of stuff.

You know, staging and real estate agents, they want the house to look pristine. They want all the Chachis put away. They want all the family photographs put away. Well, you're pulling it out. You're putting everything out in order for people to. I'm taking everything out. I'm making it, you know, I'm making it look like a boutique. So, and it's also dangerous.

You know, you can't have people, first of all, people, I hate to say it, but some people will steal. And some stuff, some of the items are very, very small. So they could just pick them up. And I can't have security there. I can't. It's not a good way to go. Do you see, I know, you know, like you, I live here in Southern California, and we know that retail theft has gone through the roof.

do you see that affecting estate sales as well? I mean, you also must feel vulnerable, you know, physically. So do you see that? And if so, what changes have you made your business to be appropriate for that? So what we're finding is not so much that they're stealing on at the time of the estate sale. But when 24 hours before the sale, we have to release the address. Sometimes that house is empty overnight. That's why.

Addresses and they're going and they're stealing before the sale. even happens. So we're, you know, we try to have extra security. We try to have cameras from the owners. We try to have, you know, an alarm put on. You have to lock up properly. Sometimes the owners will actually stay there the night up just in case something happens. But that is a trend. It does happen. And so we try not to release that information until the day before. You know, this is getting one more. I know in commercial, I'm also separate of all this, a broker for a commercial property management company where we now no longer, generally speaking, puts for lease signs on our buildings because so many people break in buildings.

It's like a target. Hey, we're empty. Break in. And if it's a tenant and they're still, they don't want to sign up because even if they want to lease the place, but they don't want their business vandalized, we're putting a target. And so this is becoming more, more, you know, I'll share with you. I happen to rewatch the movie last night, Pacific Heights. I don't know if you saw that with Michael Keaton about a young couple who rents a property

and just a nightmare rental scenario. When I saw that movie in the late 80s, it was a nightmare scenario. Today, it's not that a common. Yeah. It's a fine line. You know, when people ask me, you know, how do you keep our property secure and we do the best we can? You know, some people want security at the sale. Well, we provide people in most rooms.

rooms at a sale. You know, it's very rare, again, that the value is such that we need to have a security guard and even more rare that we would need an armed security guard. It has happened. We have done it before. And unfortunately, that's the only piece of the puzzle that would be an out-of-pocket expense. It's very expensive. If the owners want it, we'll get it, we'll coordinate it, but they have to pay for it. Other than that, I've had estate sales where I actually had a higher valet parkers because the value of the estate was fabulous but the parking situation was negligible it just wasn't good so there's all kinds of things you've got to get around and you know that's one of them yeah you know i think we just the time's the fact that's hard for us

means it's also hard for the customer to try to do it on the round imagine on the round trying to do an estate sale you know they're not as attentive to the details that you are in security in some of these preparations and so i feel like i work hard every day if you want to do my job one every 10 years, as good as me. Good luck with that. You know, and it's funny because I speak to people every day about a potential estate sale. And I'm like, well, can you send me pictures? And they'll send me pictures.

And all this stuff is laid out on a table or what have you with prices. And I call them and I say, did you already have a sale? Because those items are priced. And they're like, yeah, but it didn't sell. Well, of course it didn't. Right. Because you priced it too high or too low or, you know. The entire professional told them what to do.

do, they told the vendor what they wanted done and they got the result as a result of that. Right. And once we see that, we don't go near it. We won't do a second round. We don't do two weekends in a row. It's one weekend and that's it. It's so interesting because I think it's like our business too. Sometimes the kind of customer who goes to one realtor and their listening expires,

it's like they also don't listen, they're not going to listen to me. So why would I want to take on, you need to find some reason why in order to do some different than the prior person. Yeah. I mean, if you can hire a professional, let them do their job. Right. If you think I'm good at what I do, then let me do my job. If you don't think I'm good at what I'm due, hire somebody else who you think is good.

I'm fine with that. I'm busy enough where I'm not taking that personal. Absolutely. Okay, so just some real quick housekeeping here. Our guest today is Dina Braverman, who is the proprietor for organizing concepts and designs, OCD. She's a broad-based organizing business, but we're today talking about specifically clear-right houses that are being sold primarily a state of sales where somebody's passed or probate sales or things like that.

This is probate weekly. We do this every Thursday, 4 p.m. live. We live stream out on YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. If you're watching live, I see a whole bunch of people online, feel free to put questions in, and you can chat live with Dina Braveman, real life. No joke. If you like what we're doing, continue the conversation at Facebook. We have a Facebook group, Probate Weekly. we have over 3,800 members.

Thank you. We've been growing here pretty regularly. And you can, a couple things, post referrals for attorneys out of state, realtors out of state. Also put your probate content there, and that way you get more views, more likes, more attention to build your business. If you want to join regularly, probateweekly.com, come here, put your email address in.

We'll send your reminders. We go live every week and additional material sometimes. Scroll down, you can get the podcast in audio format or past episodes on YouTube. And then lastly, my information, Bill Grouse, is linktree, linktr.e slash my name Bill Gros. And you can see what I'm working on, all my social media and stuff. But I have an email mastermind class starting on March 27th. I do it monthly. And it's only $97, hour long and four follow-ups to help you build your email database,

which I think is the foundation of your marketing. Okay, we'll take that off here. So section of when we talked about your service. Number two, let's talk about how you. get business from, I imagine primarily real estate agents. Is that your biggest source or frills? Real estate agents, fiduciaries, probate attorneys, estate planning attorneys, and, you know, I do a lot of networking. So I'm everywhere. You are. Okay, so let's talk about getting business from estate planning attorneys, probate attorneys, and fiduciaries, which is kind of

the same group of people. What is it that obviously you have your service, but they don't necessarily know that to actually have hired you. What is it you do to present yourself in a way that an attorney or fiduciary is to be comfortable introducing you to their client? It's a really good question. Look, there's a lot of companies out there that do estate sales. There are a lot of different organizing companies. There are a lot of companies, but not a lot of them do all that I do, right? So I have a pretty nice-sized company. We have eight people, eight employees, everybody's employed. And so that's a big thing. But the other thing is this, is that if it's not in a state sale, we'll handle everything. So a lot of times the heirs or the trustees

of a property live out of town, overseas, what have you. We'll make sure that whatever items they want and will get shipped or move to them. So we handle the moving and packing part. We'll handle the donations. Most estate sale companies aren't going to do all that. They're going to do estate sales. And most organizing companies aren't going to do estate sales. They do organizing.

We've integrated it because we see so often that our clients want value from their items. So that's how we started this. The other thing that I think is really important to mention is before I started this company, I was a paralegal and legal assistant for 30 years. So my legal background and my knowledge of paperwork, what to keep, what to toss, what to archive, what an attorney needs for court, what a CPA needs for a final accounting, what a real estate professional might need for an appraisal or the cost basis of a home. That's one of my areas of expertise. So the paperwork is essential to all of these professionals. So if they call me, they also get that thrown in the mix.

And that, I think, makes us invaluable. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting as you say that, I know so many successful vendors, real estate agents, state sale, another related, in the probate and estate planning space that were paralegals and then ventured out to being one of the vendors. And I know one in particular who's a paralegal at a firm I work with regularly. I've been encouraging her go out full time in real estate because she'd be a great probate agent. She doesn't even know what she knows. Like she's got so much superpower built into her.

She doesn't really appreciate the information. I got to say, Bill, if I had known 30 years ago and I know now, I wouldn't have waited 30 years to start this business. But you don't know what you don't know. And sometimes people just want a paycheck. You know, sometimes people, there's Indians in their sheets. Sometimes running a business is a lot. It's a lot of work to get it started and keep it going and keeping the funnel full.

Some people just don't have the stomach for it. Well, but also every chief needed some encouragement at some point to step up. And I've talked to the role and push people. especially to see a young woman, I feel like they really need more encouragement sometimes to take that initiative in the first step. I agree. Brian Nolan's watching us on YouTube. He asks, can you tell us what you charge to do a state sale? Now, I'm sure there's a range.

What's it look like? Somebody calls you up. Hey, Dina, we have an estate sale perspective at this house. Come check it out. What's the process look like? And then how do you, you know, up front, create expectations financially and what's it look like at the end? So all of our state sales are a 40-60 split, 40 to, us 60 to the client that is all inclusive, including, not including security, right?

Not including valet, not including the extras that are not necessary to every estate sale. And it does not include, I'm sorry, the clearing after the estate sale. So it's a 40-60 split straight, no out-of-pocket, a front street ever. So that's it. That's fantastic. It doesn't ever differ. And we came up with that because some houses are pretty minimalistic. And some houses are hoarding.

So we have to figure out a way that balances out and that we can do our job because don't forget, we're paying our employees to set it up until the estate sale happens. If the estate sale doesn't come out the way we want it to, we're still paying them. So 4060 seems to be the best option for our company. Well, it sets your expectations. It sets their expectations, and then you can work on that.

And so the, I'm sure as a range, is there a more common end result as a result of all that? There are some companies that charge 3565. For sure. We need to do that. And the reason we raised our commission structure was because of so many reasons, inflation, traveling to these places, gas prices, liability, insurance. It was just, it just didn't make sense for us anymore to do it at 3565, but there are companies that do. Well, there's always companies do it for cheaper.

And I say, and most of them are as good as me, and you can pick that. And that's your priority. You're going to probably do more of the work yourself and depends on how valuable your time is and how good you are. I guess my question more is, so at that 40-60 split, when you give the customer an estimate, hey, based on this, I'm expecting we're going to sell a total of $10,000, $50,000. You know, it's a hard question. We obviously have to go and meet the clients at the house to see what's there. If it's not $15,000 to $20,000 in that house at a wholesale level,

we're not going to take the sale anyway. So right away, you've got to know that that's the bar. That's a low bar, by the way. $15,000 to $20,000 of our entire house's inventory. We'll give a ballpark. You know, once we see it. We'll say, well, you know, you'll come out with $10,000 after we're done or you'll come out with $6,000 after we're done. You know, we want, again, it's all about managing their expectations.

Correct. So we want to give them an approximate. We're not going to give them appraisals of certain items. Not going to do that. But also, you need to be somewhat accurate yourself because you also have, you know, hard costs out of your pocket. So you've got to have a pretty good sense of what it's going to get you. 100%. That's why we need to see it.

When you go, we need to see it. Yeah. And so like all businesses, sometimes we just miss the mark. You know, sometimes as an Asian, I way overestimate the value of property or I way underestimate the value of property or I, you know, miss something significant. So, you know, you see a customer and you say, well, based on this, we expect to gross $40,000 and comes in a lot less. Maybe it rains that weekend.

Maybe there's some political event. Maybe this, you know, you can't control all those things. How do you manage those expectations, the disappointments? We tell them. Many years ago, I had a great sale in Encino, beautiful home, amazing stuff. And there was a pipe that burst on Friday, the morning of the sale. The street was closed down. What are you going to do?

What can I do? I mean, they saw that the street was closed down. It wasn't our fault. We didn't have any foot traffic that day. We lost an entire day. Right. He picked it up a little bit on Saturday, and of course on Thursday, but it wasn't the sale it should have been. Right.

And through no fault of our own. I mean. And you lost as well. I mean, that's how you get paid to. Of course. I mean, it's a commission. And that's again why we raise the prices because sometimes you don't know. And it's got to balance out.

The big sales, the small sales, the in between sales and the sales that don't happen. Right. Yeah. And I also feel as a professional, I want to refer. for high quality service. I mean, on this specter, there's cheaper, let's say lower quality less service

and there's more expensive, theoretically higher quality service, better, you know, higher touch. I always want to be a little towards the higher touch side because that's where I price my business.

Are there occasions worth something should just be bargain basement? Yeah, I mean, there's different markets and different situations. But that's a estate sale, right? That's a garage sale. Correct.

And there are those. And every once in a while, We'll just say, you know what, you better off with having a garage sale. You could do it inside, outside. You could put signs outside. Right. You know, will I lose the business? Yeah, but it's not in a safe sale.

It's not something that I want. Right. You know, I want a happy client. At the end of the day, my goal is happy client. Because if I have a happy client, I'm going to get referrals. I'm going to get nice reviews. I'm going to feel good. And they're going to feel good.

And that's how I run my business. Every client is not for me and I'm not for them. But the ones that trust me and let me do my job are the happiest clients. Brian, the chat box, you had said that his clients get 30, 70, but they keep the 30. In your case, 40s, 60s to you, 60s to the client. So it really makes the client is the stronger partner financially. Yeah. And you're putting up the risk.

Now, they are putting up the stuff. But for most cases, that's just letting you sell the stuff. They're all options if you don't do it. or donate or get rid of it or something. I mean, but don't forget, once we get a house, I always tell the clients, always. Before you let me come and see the house, please make sure that you and your family and your loved ones and the airs have come. And if not taking the stuff out that they want, at least tagged it so I know it's not for sale.

Right. And I do tell them straight up. If you want it, take it. Because nothing that I'm going to get you in an estate sale is going to replace the value that you place on this item. So take it. Correct. Then let me come in and assess whether or not

at a state sale is a viable option. And if it's not, then we go to plan B. Is there a rule amongst customers that every time you have that conversation with them and they always leave something behind and they always forgot to tag it and they're always upset? Is that a rule of customers?

No. It's really not. Most people have gone through that property with a fine-tooth comb unless they're out of state. And even then, they come in and they rummage through to make sure that they've gotten what they want. Very rarely will somebody leave something behind. Yeah.

And you know what? One of the rules that we have is before the sale, anything that you do on cannot be just tagged. It must be out of the house or we'll choose one room or a garage or what have you and we'll block it off. Right. But you just can't leave it with all those stuff. It's going to get taken. There's no way you can't buy people in your house and stuff and show it to them. That's just, you're asking for trouble.

Or sold. And we just can't have it. So the best case scenario is to have them take out the stuff that they want or put it in a room, block it off, and everybody's clear about what's going and what's staying. And I do think that part of being in a service business is dealing with unreasonable customers. I mean, I think that just goes with the territory. And if you understand that, you do the best you can and you win more than you lose and you have your transparency as you can be and you're honest as you can be. have a reputation. In your case, you have a great reputation. And so the attorney or a relative refers to you is going to say, that doesn't sound like something she would do.

You know, you double sold this. I said, you know, I paid for it. And you agreed to leave it there and I was going to come back to Mark would pick it up. No, nobody would do that. That never happens. You know, it's really interesting. In all the years, I've been doing this, and I've been doing this a long time. I have one bad review, one on any social media platform. I have five stars except for one review. What was it for? It was for a client that I did in the estate sale for. And it was the second estate sale that I did.

Of course, it was for an attorney, right? And there was a ladder in the garage that we sold, a ladder. And it was because they put a post it on the ladder and the postage fell off. It was one of those, you know, massively big, the ones that extend. Yeah, sure. They weren't going to take that out of the house. They left it in the garage and they labeled it. But the postage fell off and we didn't know and we sold it.

And that was my one-star review in 14 years. Wow. I'll show you. I paid him for it. I didn't pay him $500 for it. I paid him what I would have sold it for at the estate sale. Wow. And that was, that was.

Some people just, you know, they have to. Yeah. It's just, you know, I had a case. My first negative review on Google was not my client. And not to refer my client, it was the other agent's client. I was representing the seller. And the other agent made a mistake. And to protect my client, I had to take advantage of it.

Or I had to leverage my position in the contract to protect my client. And yes, it's like playing basketball with sharp elbows. Yeah, I have sharp elbows when required to protect my client. and the buyer's agent was mad at me and hates me to this day. And so as a client, well, that sometimes we're in an adversarial business. And the client wrote a negative review. And I got to write and say, this wasn't my client. This was the buyer's agent who tried to cheat my client.

But I caught him and he didn't like the fact we caught him and made him pay for it. So, yeah, but there's just some people who are just negative and they just have to. My one bad review. And I responded, but you know what, it actually, it's okay because it makes it real. It looks real, exactly. 5.0, it's kind of like your picture right now. It's kind of like you right now. You look too perfect.

Nobody would believe you're real. You look like a model. You can't really be in business. You need some imperfection somewhere in order for people to accept you as being real. All right. So Brian asked my favorite question. I wanted to ask this, but I thought, no, that's just the thing I mentioned. Nobody really cares.

And it may or mean, it would be important to you. What do you do if you happen to find a gun? Oh, we find guns? I told you, just before the segment, I recently had to clear out of house and we found five rifles. Yeah. And we first had to make sure that they weren't loaded. Right. Which, by the way, I had never touched a gun in my life before.

I did not know. So I found somebody who did know. Right. There's a park away. Yeah. I wasn't touching it. Yeah. And then the fiduciary who hired me to do the job wanted them delivered to him, which I learned how.

to call the police and say, look, I've got these things. I got to transfer them. Can I do it legally? Did it? And delivered them. I was petrified, but I did it. Wow. So that's a non-gun owner. But usually I will give this caveat, which is, typically if there's a gun in the house, we are notified. There is a gun somewhere. They may not know where it is. Right. But they do notify us. Be careful. There's a gun.

Please look for it and please be careful. So we usually are notified. So I think I showed you before we recorded my experience. I'm really, really busy. Been busy last night, busy today, busy tomorrow, really, really booked up, good stuff happening. Client calls me on a big account of work night and says, hey, we have a problem. We have not one but two guns, one at the office and one at the house. And can you help with that because the fiduciary is out of the area and can't himself do it? It's not my job.

I'm not selling either property. I'm selling other properties, but he just knows that I, am comfortable with guns. Yeah, for sure. As busy as I am on a to-do list a mile long, I jump in my car, go down to, it's near downtown to the office, get the gun there, go to the house,

it's in West Hollywood. I'm just too glad to get them, but I know how to handle them properly and safely. And frankly, I showed, in the one case in the office, these two ladies, well, here's how it works. Here's how you check up is loaded, and here's how you unload it, and here's how you safely handle it.

I feel like I'm on a mission to help people manage those things safely. But a lot of people, if you've never touched a gun, it's scary and find somebody who does. And if you find something like me, I'll be glad to show you how to. Like I said to Dana before we started, if you find, find rifles in a house, call me. I'll go pick them up for you for free. Yeah, it was not, it was definitely out of my comfort zone. But every once in a while, you've got to do something out of your comfort zone, right? Again, it was all to make my client happy.

And I will go to the ends of the earth to make my clients happy. If it's legal. It's got to be illegal. Well, if I can help with that, I'm available. Thank you. Third segment, again, just some quick housekeeping. Our guest today, really excited to have back. Dina Braverman.

She is a prior to organizing concepts and designs. Has a whole organizing business, both decluttering in your house and probably weekly. Okay, Dana, so we talked about your service. We talked about getting referrals. Let's talk about running a business. You've run this business for a while. I think I first interviewed you and started working with you maybe four years ago, three years ago. Yeah, it's been a while. So you've been in business a while. You're having employees. You're growing. You're obviously enjoying what you're doing. Talk about what you do to maintain your mindset. I mean, every time I talk to you, you have a smile. You're upbeat. You're energetic. I know that like everybody, you have disappointments. As my old coach used to say, some days you get the bear. Some days the bear gets you. But you set to go to work the next day. So how do you keep your mindset a positive way?

Well, first of all, I think it is mindset. It's now basically a happy person, and I happen to love what I do. And I'm grateful that I not only have the opportunity to do what I love to do, but I love the people that work with me. I don't say for me, they are employees, but they work with me. They are, I don't know how I got so blessed, but they are dedicated. They are loyal. They are hardworking.

They are fun. They are smart. And who wouldn't want to get up and work with these people every day? They make my life so much easier and they allow me to do what I do. I don't think I could do what I do without them. They've been with me. Some have been with me for 12 years, seven years, five years. I mean, I'm grateful.

I'm grateful for the life that this has provided me. I'm grateful to make, you know, this is another thing. Many years ago when I first started, my dad said to me, can you just go work for another attorney? What do you need to, what do you need this headache for? And I said, no, he said, what are you going to do? you know, it's your own business. What are you going to do at a recession? And I said, you know, this is not a luxury.

This is a necessity. This isn't about making your linen closet pretty. This is about helping people in need. People who have passed on and who's at a time of great emotional stress need somebody like us to get this done for them. People who are disabled. People who have had twins. People who, you know, who are getting divorced.

People who just can't do what we do. They just don't have the knack for it. Busy executives, it's a necessity. And there's so many things that we do to provide a service that, you know, it's just it's a necessity. And I'm glad that somebody like us can do it. Most people are people say, well, we didn't even know that your services existed. I'm like, I know.

Well, that's why I have you on, Dina. And that's why we put on social media because, one, you're a lot of fun to talk to. And two, people need to know what you do. And so mindset's a big part of it. Also, along the way, you know, you must have made enough money to pay the bills, live on, and reinvest. Otherwise, your business couldn't grow. You can get to eight employees unless you made a commitment to reinvest some of your business, had a vision of where you went to get to. So talk about how did you plan there or how did that come about?

I mean, I think when I first started, I really, I ran somebody else's business, but I had never run my own business. but I did learn a lot. And I knew two things that were very important. Number one is I had to invest in myself and number two is I had to have a good team. So before anything started, I had an attorney, I had a CPA, I had a financial advisor, and I had a coach who helped me put this thing together.

Wow. And I bootstrapped. I paid for it out of my own pocket, hoping for the best. and that's how it started. And I just knew, I'm very determined anyway. I'm just that way. No, no. I know.

Hard to believe. It's just, I have, I have this fire. I don't know where it came from, but I just push and push until I make what I want. And I'm just persistence as hell. So you had a big dream and you pushed for it. Yeah, I would say that having the right people on your side. and knowing your numbers. You know, I know my numbers year to date

from the day I started to today. Every day before I go to bed, I know what my numbers are. I know what has to be done. And I think that that's really important for people to understand that because if you don't know your numbers, you have a hobby, not a business.

That's so interesting. I'm the same way. I have a spreadsheet every day with my leads, my listings, my actives, and then my closed... That's the first year and a day. And we would do it every year over to zero. And I literally click on that my tutus every morning.

First thing, click that off. It's about time management. It's about marketing. It's about networking. It's about the balance between life, work, right? Networking, marketing, actually keeping the business safe and compliance. And that's a whole trip too. But it's fascinating, and every day that I wake up, it's a different challenge.

So it keeps me energized because I've got to put out for fires. I've got to figure it out. You mentioned compliance, and it feels like every day here in California, we have new regulations, rules, minimum wage hikes, employee issues, you know, taxes, regulations, fees, forms. You know, guns, for example, you know, you can't transfer. It can cost you $150 to transfer gun. It might be worth $100. So how do you, on one hand, I see so many people that gets them down. On the other hand, I feel like, well, that's just putting more obstacles on the obstacle course.

We all have to run the obstacle course. If I run everybody else, put more obstacles. I don't really care. How do you manage that expectation here in California? You're not moving out. You're not multi-state. You're not doing international business from here. So how do you manage that both mindset-wise and business-wise?

That is my biggest challenge. Because of my legal background, I am all about compliance. Legally, you name it, I am compliant. And that's a big challenge because in the state of California, as you just mentioned, there were new rules and regulations daily. When I, five years ago, seven years ago, whenever it was, when I had to change all of my independent contractors to employees, that was crazy.

Then I had to start providing them with benefits that I wasn't prepared for, but I had to do it. you figure it out. You either have to raise your prices or lower your expenses or you have to figure it out. You have to figure it out. But compliance is everything because I have to go to sleep tonight knowing that not only am I covered and that everything I've worked for so hard is going to be okay and that my employees are going to be okay because they're my everything. Without them, I don't have this business. I have a business, but not this business. So they are covered. They are. happy. They are well paid. They are compensated. They are appreciated. And that's how I do it. I mean, what else can you do? It's hard to say a photo mistake. They are not friendly to small business owners. Well, I have no employees. So I don't know how you do it. I know for me, and I have eight virtual assistants. And I work with a lot of other agents in my area because I know it's challenging to have

employees. Now, in your business, you have to because you have a different requirement for dealing with customers and I have. And I hear you say that to me. It just baffles me that you're able to come to. So yeah. So last thing, let's wrap up since most of the people on the call here and a good chunk of your referring partners are real estate agents. You know it's a challenging market. Business overall on the market for real estate agents is down. I'm having a great year, but for most agents, they have a real tough time, maybe with the recent news, maybe looking particularly challenging for certain people, you know, and yet some are thriving. So what would you recommend to that real estate agent who's feeling a bit struggling, feeling a bit overwhelmed to help keep them

on the course of doing the work. Keep your eye on the ball. You know, it's survival of the thinnest. If you're good at what you do and you apply yourself, you'll be successful. It doesn't take that much to be successful. It just takes time and effort, right? None of this is rocket science. We know our trade. We know our craft. You just have to apply it. And it's hard to get derailed. I get it, especially during COVID, pre-COVID. I mean, pre-COVID is such different times. But if you love what you do and you do it well, you'll be fine. You got, you know what, you know what it is?

It's all in the follow-up. Interesting. Isn't it? Well, I always say follow through. Follow-up. Wait, but customer retention is a lot easier than getting clients. So keep your clients happy. Keep in touch.

keep it personal, keep it real. Tell them the truth. And I have clients that are returning 14 years later. See, I try to say follow up to me that's oftentimes chasing people for sales. No. Wait to five, 10 times. Follow through is when you make a commitment, you're going to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy at the end and do the work to get the work done. That's the only reason I retract a little bit, but I think you're having me said right.

It's just doing the little things you're supposed to. to do every day and not stop because they got hard. You got to figure out some way to get it done. So here's one thing that's really interesting. For me, you know, my client, for a real estate agent, people are moving every five, 10, 20 years, whatever. So it's a little harder for them, right? But it's not just a phone call, hey, how are you doing?

It's real estate agents have a bunch of resources that people need all the time. They need a contractor. They need a solar company. They need a new garden. They need an organizer. They need things. A declutterer. Why not just keep in touch with your client and say, hey, you know what?

I was thinking about you the other day. Anything you need? I have all these resources. Let me share them with you. Do you need anything? No. And that's how you sustain the other small businesses in town. Right.

And keep in touch and show people that you care. That's simple. It really is. You know, ages coming all the time and how they launch the business. And I would say, you know, where do you go to dinner last night? Do a review, do a review, which is nice. your video as well and then get the proprietor on a video and then where do you get your hair done? Where do your nail is done? Where do your dry cleaning? If you live around there, why not

promote their business, help them? And then when people call you, they're going to say, well, you know, my dry cleaner mess this up. Where should I go? Well, I get mine done here, for example. So you're 100% right. It's all about the resources and touching. You have to keep, you have to keep people in your, in your sites, and your thoughts. And they know that. They know that you care. Well, one of the people I know that cares is Dina Braverman. She's been a great guest on her show a couple times as well as a great resource for it. It's so funny, I called you today on that matter, not realizing that you were the guest of the call today. I said, I'm going to see you later. And you said that to me. I'm like, when did she talk? Oh, that's right. I just, you know,

I always look at what's right in front of me. I just wasn't being paying attention to that. But we were trying to get some guns sold that aren't worth the registration fee. And she was able to I help me get at least one party to help out my fiduciary, which is the key part. Still working on it. Don't give up on it. Still working on it. The fiduciaries will know we're working on it. We're going to take care of it for them.

That's the key thing. So Dina Breedman, for real, organizing concepts. And let's see here. Where's our website is organizing concepts and designs.com. And I'll put that in the notes. And then the phone number 310560, 5060. And it's Dina Braveman. and we'll put that information in any other way that they should,

anything else they should be paying attention to of yours? You know, I write a blog monthly, and it's really informative, and it's really relative to what's going on in the world and in the world of organizing. I highly recommend it. It's not because it's mine. It's because everybody who reads it always responds back to me that it's a great resource for them.

So check it out. I'll put that in, and I notice your blog post dated today, get your taxes together. I literally uploaded my last document last night of my taxes, so I'm waiting for my appointment if I'm ready to go. But that's a good point. Get your taxes done.

Get it together. Get yourself organized. Deena Bravemeant if you're not organized, but it's time to sell the estate or declutter, organize head time. Great resource. Dina, thank you so much your time. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me. We'll talk soon.