KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Grow Your Probate Business with YouTube

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

business what tools are available today and specifically how to use as well as other social media i'm building your business that's what we're going to talk about today i'm bill gross specifically youtube how to build your business now i think that everything in business and life comes down to fundamentals you have to match the fundamentals and then you add some spice in top of that so i think today what i'm really going to talk about will be how to use youtube in a fundamental way to build your business and so let's start with a couple premises first off whatever you doing your business to build it, it's going to be a lot of hard work. Now, if Amy on the call, if you've been building your business and it's hard work,

but you've had some success, put yes or amen, if I'm right, if you agree, it's going to be hard work and you're committing to that and you're just going to surrender to that. And what do we need to do to walk through walls and get it done to put yes or amen to whatever's appropriate, give me a thumbs up. Because one of my coaches is Grant Cardone. Grant says that even if your service or product is the best in the market and you give it away for free, it's 10 times harder than you would ever imagine to sell it. I work as it is.

Now, I don't work a lot of hours. Full disclosure, I work 40 hours a week. I block out time. And I work very structured and I don't do things during work hours. If I do, then I make it up somewhere else. When I was younger, I worked more. but I work as intense, productive 40 hours I can every week. But I heard grants say that like, oh, my God, I can't work anymore.

I need to work smarter. That's what we're talking about today is working smarter, not harder. So if you're up for smarter, not harder, you're on the right call, put yes, or I'm in if that's what you want to do to participate. So as what's what grant said, you've got to work 10 times more work to get stuff sold. But we don't have 10 times the hours, right? If working 40 hours a week like I am, I don't have another 360 hours a week to work. If you do, you're different than me.

But what we have to do is work smarter or more productive and more effective. We're talking about how. So I'll share with you four years ago approximately. I started as a real estate agent back in sales. I've been, you know, in my generation, when you were in sales, the thought was you get promoted to management. That was a good thing, right? And in most businesses it is, and real estate is not. The last thing you want to do is going to management for the most part.

I'm not talking about corporate executive management at a billion-dard company. I'm talking about the local branch managers and general managers for my money. They don't make as much as the top 10% of the agents in the office as a general role. So there's part of the dysfunction of real estate is right there. But I went in that route and I did that for seven, eight years in management and consulting and coaching recruiting. And really, I didn't like it. I went to the owner of the company,

said, I just don't like this anymore. I'm not loving what I'm doing. At that time, I was 60, and I don't want to do it anymore. And I started to see, I didn't really have a plan. I went back into sales. I knew I could sell houses. So I started from scratch in this industry about who here is starting from scratch? Somebody asked me earlier today, is this for new people?

Yes, for you. And those are you who need to relaunch? That's for you too. I started from scratch four years ago. March, so four years and four months ago. I went into a coaching program. All the leads at the time was coached by Chad Corbett. I see our current coach there online, Bruce, who's a great coach.

He's with all the leads, but Chad, the coach then since left. And I think it's part the content, part was Chad. And I was just taken by the difference from where I came from in the Mike Furry training, which was all about transactions and grinding out sales. to coming from creating value because I knew it was true that the money we receive is a reflection of the value we create for other people. So somebody says, well, how do I get more business? The real question is how do I create more value for my customers and prospective customers? That was not a question I was asking when I was in McFarru is how can I get 40 contacts

a day instead of 30 contacts a day, right? Not more value. So I realized my business. I thought about probate and Chad challenged us to go to court one day. And I went through and discovered for me a path in Los Angeles where I was to prospector to be going to court. So I went to court every day. I was at 7.45 to 10.45, 3 hours a day. I need to average one-half contacts as to find by name, address, phone number, and email

that somebody gave me to achieve my goals. And I did that for about a year. and a half to yeah about a year and a half from scratch and built a great probate business and the day COVID closed the court down I sat here and I cried I had worked so hard to build my business from scratch I had zero leads zero listing zero buyers and a year later I had a huge pipeline that just started closing loans and every deal canceled because of COVID because my deals are almost all court confirmation at that time not to mention the way I was getting business was completely shut down.

And I did cry. I mean, I'll be honest with you. I'm not proud to admit that, but, you know, it's part of life. And to be honest here. And so I reimagine my business. What can I do? What will people need? What value can I create?

And it came to the idea of creating some online marketing at the time initially there's conference calls. And then a coach I had Casey Eberhardt challenged us to do video. I'm talking about the reasons why. And on what a call, he challenged us just to do a video a day. He said, I don't care what it is, record something and put it up every day. Pick one channel, Facebook, YouTube. I picked Facebook, which in retrospect was a mistake.

But every day I record something. It was stupid. It was terrible. I just did it. Kept moving on. But eventually it got a little better and figured it out. And then I moved this call, which used to be a conference call format, to a video format. and start doing other videos on a daily basis.

Transform my business. I moved all my lead generation from going to court to online, primarily through YouTube. And that's what we share today is what I do. So the amount of money we receive, the wages, the profit we get is a reflection of the value you create for other people. There's three factors that go into creating value for people. There's the number of people we talk to, the quantity. there's the quality of the interaction with people, prospects or past customers or contacts in general,

the quality of that relationship. And the third is the leverage. What I mean by that quantity? Obviously, the number of people you contact. But contacts are different. You know, there's a difference between sending out an email to somebody who doesn't ask for it versus replying to an email of somebody who's asked you a question versus texting, which is better. versus a phone call, which is higher,

versus a video which you think is higher, versus meeting a person which is higher yet. So contact isn't just a contact, a contact in a certain format has different value. So there's contacts, that's the quantity side of it. The quality is, where do you move the person and how well do you do it?

Meaning, who here got a bunch of July, happy July 4th email some people? Anybody besides me get like 2,000 texts and emails, right? Did that make you more like you do business with those people? I mean, I'm not against Happy July 4th emails. If you enjoy sending them, you should do them. But I don't think that that's part of a strategy to get business. The quality of that communication isn't high.

So if you know in math, you can have like one times one times one equals one. Right? Talk to one person, in an average way, quantity one, and leverage of nothing special one, one times one times one is one. One times zero, if you send an email out of zero value to 50,000 people, one times zero times 50,000 is what? He knows the answer mathematically. One times 0 times 50,000.

Anybody else besides me know that? I know I'm bursting some of you. Zero. you go, Winston's got it. Cheryl knows it. Very good. So if you're, if the quality of your content is a zero, and I want to call your contact is a negative. I don't want to wait into the politics here, but we're all aware various times where companies made statements that offended customers, and as a result, customers stopped buying their product or service. That's a negative contact, right? So as realtors, we don't want to do that.

I've seen realtors who put out email and got fired or got negative publicity nationally. We don't want to do that. But we also be mindful of the quality of our communication. And the third is a leverage. Leverage is how you take something you do and multiply your activity. Right. So for example, is this communication I'm doing with you right now more valuable than a blog post? on this topic? I think so. If a blog post is one point, I'm thinking a video like this is worth

five or ten points. Not to mention, some of you on average, I'm going to watch this for 10, 20, 30 minutes of an hour-long podcast. A blog post you might read for a minute. So I don't know the exact math there. But I also am leveraging this because I'm talking to not just one of you, I'm talking one to many times the quality, hopefully the videos more valuable than a blog post or an email, times the leverage, and literally I believe, you know, I calculate out that my time, each hour I spend is worth 14 hours when I leverage it properly. So if I'm doing $5 an hour work and I multiply by 14 times at $70 an hour, if I do $20 work and multiply at $14 times, but that becomes $280 an hour, I need to average about my, I build myself like an attorney at $400 an hour. So I try to calculate

myself out that way. So again, the math is the quantity of people you talk to times the quality of that interaction, times the leverage. That's the power of one to many. And then obviously, there's a difference between doing work and creating a process that lives on pasture, meaning last night, I host a, if you're in Los Angeles, love to have you come to brew real estate. And it's fun. I sit there for a couple hours. I have a nice beer. Talk to people. about real estate, my favorite topic, talk about other things. But the marketing of that's all automated. I spent a couple hours to set it up and the invitations go out and the reminders go out and I just show up, put down my credit card, get the tickets and buy people beer. I don't do

anything other than that for that event because the process is leveraging me. Same with YouTube. When you put a YouTube video on, you know, if it stays on for a while, it's, YouTube's doing the work for you. They're hosting it. They're pushing out to people that think will like it. People watching it. And so in an average for me, each minute I spend doing YouTube videos, today average is about 18 minutes of view time. We have about 1 to 18 ratio. So let's talk about what the value is. Now, we guys ask questions along the way because, oh, at Beverly, you know, it wasn't much fun, Beverly because you weren't there, to be honest about it. Really, the life of the party, the straw the stirs the drink.

I beg her to come. Beverly Barales is a big-time influencer here at EXP Realty locally, and she is the sunshine of EXP Realty in Los Angeles. Came to my party at my event a couple months ago and has been back since breaking my heart. Anyhow, Roger, Lise, you see your hand up. Roger, what's going on? I love this conversation that you started, Bill. And I go about it just a little bit differently.

I'm in a different market than you. I'm in a much smaller market than you. And what I've had to do in order to maximize my time in front of people is I've had to basically grow a garden and then keep the garden fulfilled and watered and attended to. Sure. And that therein lies. I think you did that in the first two years with going to. to the courthouse and that was where you had built relationships with people that would bring you business, the attorneys, if you will. And in a probate trust and guardianship situation, that's

going to be a very important garden for you to tend to. Stop by, see how they're doing, bring some information to them, the latest stats that you have, don't take a whole lot of their time, but make sure you're in front of them. And what happens to you, to with that, is that you grow the referrals from those from that. And that's the prospecting that you do to get those, get those referrals. Only a point in, in,

in, it to that is last week I got a phone call from from one of my attorneys. Previously over the last three years, I've done two probates and a divorce divorce for him and, and managed to do it. And it was actually a really good, exercise in and providing value first to those people and then this senior attorney in the law firm two years three years later says roger my cousin just died he's renting an apartment over here and he's

got all kinds of stuff and and matt one of the junior attorney says that you could you knew people to do all to take care of all of that would you do that what can you do for me it said give me the key and let me go take a look at it, called them back. And I said, I've got just the way we can get all this taken care of. And I said, you got, how much time do we have? Let's do it. He says, I got to get him out in three weeks. I got to get everything out of there in three weeks. I said, I don't have time to call an estate seller. So let me call two of my charities and have them come out and get this stuff out. They'll leave it in broomswept condition. We did. And, and he just sat there and he said, I don't know what I can do to pay. If it's not something that you're going to be making money on, Roger.

And I said, I said, Jim, you've already helped me make money two years ago, three years ago. I've done three, you all have given me three referrals on stuff. And I really appreciate it. Don't worry about me getting paid for this. I'm helping you to do this. If you want to, how you're going to pay me, pay me with further referrals down the road. And by the way, here's the latest stuff that's going on in the market.

And we sat there and we talked for. few minutes and he said, I really appreciate this. And I said, how's your mom and dad? How's everything else going and develop the relationship on a personal level as well as a professional level? So it's the it takes away the opportunities or the dreaded task of cold calling and but it just continue to call. Then all of the attorneys that you know that it's probably not a cold call anymore they know who you are they know what you do you're able to do that guardianships the other the other garden that i'm starting to grow are are the uh the guardians the guardians the guardians let's let's stop right there for there for seconds because i want to just i want to stop you just

make one point i'm not telling anybody the way you should run your business other than this I'm telling you how I ran my business, and I'm going to tell you, you need to run the business that works for you. Now, you're right. I know you're in Arkansas and you're a smaller market, and I'm in a bigger market. My market's more anonymous.

Yours is more personal, right? That's where I happen to live. And I would, between me and you, I'd love to move. My wife isn't going to let us move. We have a grandson four blocks away, and we have another one on the way. So we're not going anywhere.

But my point is, I designed a plan that work for me. I don't want to go to attorney's offices. I don't want to go out to lunch. I wouldn't work eight to five. I want to work out midday for an hour because I need to for exercise. I feel good. I don't want to go to lunch.

I used to with attorneys all the time. And when I was younger, I had different, I used to enjoy going to fancy lunches. I don't want to today. So I designed what worked for me. And I use YouTube to do what I do. So I'm not here to say my way's right and yours is wrong. I'm sharing what I did.

But I will say that I do reach out to new attorneys by interviewing them. I'm going to get into how I'm still building my garden. I'm trying to build a much bigger garden. I'm trying to build a national garden using you to. You can use it in a small area too. I know you just do some radio. This is really just a different way to get there, if that makes sense. Okay.

I have a couple questions. I've got to run off. Roger, thank you so much. So Courtney says or asks, I don't know if you want to jump in. I know you do your own, his is all that in a bag of chips. And he says, what do you use to repurpose my content and place other platforms? I'm getting the details a little bit, but you jump in a head a little bit. But I will say technology wise, I use a lot of things.

You know, I run a good size business now. And if I can automate something or delegate something and not do it. it myself, I'm all for it. So do I transcribe the podcast and post as a vlog for SEO? I don't do that. I know people do. Um, you know, look, there's a lot of things you can do and spend money and time on and I try to pick what I'm best at. So I'm not looking for people who are searching and find me and kind of that. I'm more getting the people I want to talk to. And the term, I think, her grant Cardone says, you want to find your prospects and smother them with your content. So that's kind of how my approach is. But that's another thing I should be doing at some point.

And there's some AI platforms that will transcribe it. I just find that none of them really make me feel good when I see them. It's a lot. The ones are cheap aren't good. The ones are good or expensive. That's what I find. Do you have any particular question on that? Or does that kind of answer your question? Oh, that's perfect. I appreciate it. And yeah, so I appreciate the focus and the, the metaphor, the analogy one to using leverage, using leverage. Yes, thanks, yeah. I use another tool, the biggest competitor of every stream is Streamyard.

So when I do, I do my weekly video. I'll talk about that a little bit. I do a weekly video. I used a weekly email for years. When I started in real estate, I just started doing an email to my database. And I kept that up. Even when I was in management, I sent it out every week. It was interesting.

As a manager, I got one or two referrals a year from my email database. So it costs very little to do and I kept it going. When it became an agent, I would do the email and then eventually I added kind of reading and reading the email into a video that was like my script, record the video, put the top of the email and posted on YouTube. If that makes sense. So it's sent that every week. Now that's become big to where I email that out and I use streamer because it's it's a 4K, not just HD, a little better quality. My interviews, I try to do more on because it's better quality and it's easy to restream them to multiple formats but here's my point start with something you know i i do some youtube shorts

i'm not the youtube short looking guy when you go through your feed but it's amazing how many people find you there and subscribe because of the youtube shorts i've been doing both live and and recorded yeah i i would want to encourage folks too if people are afraid of like figure it saying they're new to probate or maybe don't feel like they have that voice that's one voice or anger you're coming from that's exactly what i'm doing i'm looking at the page and then i'm just just sharing i'm i'm educating myself through educating others and i don't make any qualms or try to hide that fact too when i share folks and say i'm learning so i want to share this with you and it's like they come on an adventure with you and i was actually i think i told you

last one i was on here a couple weeks ago that it was cool i stopped in the probate office and someone stop me. Hey, you're the guy on YouTube. And it was, so it's pretty awesome to that people, that it works. That it works out there and I don't have to be out there every single time, but I still can be loud leveraging tools. So yeah, education. Yeah, Bruce.

Yeah. Marketing through education. There you go. There you go. Well, also, if you look like Courtney, it's a whole different ballgame. I don't know what that's like. I got a little handicap. It looks like him, man. That'd be an easy street. Okay. And then while we're talking here,

Flitter says to me, is it possible to call you regarding a blah, blah, blah. Yeah, Flirr, that's always I do this. Generates leads. Anybody on this call, if you're on the call, yes, call me, text me, email me, if you ever leads. That's even if you have a question. Now, a lead doesn't mean you're promising to list it with me. A lead just means to me you have a question. You've got a challenge a problem.

Nine percent of the time I help you answer the question. I have nothing to do with it. Sometimes you need some help, but I can help you with that. So I wanted to upgrade my audio, my phone business. So I subscribe to Ring Central. That sounds easy enough. Port over the number, same phone number. It works today.

But when you go to Ring Central, the texting service, it takes five to 20 days to get approved to receive texts. I call them up and say, hi, my text are working. Yeah, you have to do this, this and that. Okay, good. How long before my text is working? Well, you get approved within five to 20 working days. I said, well, Amy, I have no text for 20 days. They said, well, probably won't be 20.

Like, it's been 20 minutes, I'm losing my freaking mind. So anyhow, it's always something with technology. Just know that's how it is and deal with it. Okay, so learn to educate. Yeah, Bruce is right on that we want to educate. And I think, so I want to talk about really four ways I use YouTube kind of globally and they all kind of overlap to some degree. But I want you to think about this to find the right format for you or the right tools for you.

Number one is lead generation. Obviously, talking a lot of people, you know, a blind scroll finds an acorn once in a while. If you're just stumbling around talking a lot of people, somebody's bound to say, I have a house to sell, and there you are on the spot to do it. You're showing more likely to get that if you position yourself as an expert. I think one of the opportunities of YouTube is I find when I go to network events and I introduce myself to real estate agents, I'll say, well, what do you do? Now, I already know you're a real estate agent.

Well, I'm a realtor. Oh, great. Well, what do you sell? Well, I sell and then name off, you know, first-time home buyers, condos, townhomes, luxury homes, investment property, industrial commercial retail, bridges, and helipads. I'm like, no, but what do you do? Like, because if you don't do something really well, you're in big trouble in this business. That doesn't mean I only sell probate, though most of what I do is probate. But, you know, when you meet me, you can't walk away without hearing the word probate a couple times in a business setting. And because of that, when people think of probate, a number of them think of me. Whereas when you tell them that you do everything, you're just another realtor does everything. And they know you don't do anything particularly well. So I don't know that you need to use YouTube for probate specifically if your specialty is your geography. If I was Roger, I might think about, I don't know the answer. But the question in my mind is, would I want to be the probate expert or the expert of real estate in a smaller market if I could dominate it?

I don't know the answer to that question. I certainly, if I was starting out as a real estate agent, would pick a geography to dominate, maybe it's one building with 300 condos in it, or it's maybe one street with a couple of condo buildings on it, or one small pocket of a couple hundred homes. But I would do videos about every single active listing, pending listing, sole listing in that area. And if you provide education information that people want, some of them will say to you, hey, I have a question. And that's really what opens the dialogue. So the obvious number one tool, and we measure by how many people you talk to, number two is you demonstrate your expertise, meaning it's one thing.

There's a lot of marketing. Who here besides me, maybe it's you, has seen real estate agents with the marketing piece with them and like 20 people. These days, they're all dressed in black. They're all gorgeous young men, young women, and the agent, right? And it's the Bill Grouse team of like 20 people. And you know that agent and has nothing what the business look like. Who besides me knows those people?

You get those emails, right? When you every go to the open house, you see them in real life. It's just so disappointing. Right? So most marketing is easy to do because it's not effective because you're trying to tell people something that you're not, but make them think you are. Right. That's why most of your just fall for the, I'm a real estate probate expert marketing

gimmickery rather than really learning to be a probate expert. You know, and I don't mean to, I surely do not me to criticize the all the leads call. And Bruce is on it is one of the hosts and coaches. But what's disappointing to me, and I know he doesn't have to admit it, but I'm sure this points him. And so many questions are on the data and the phone calls and, Do I leave a message or leave a text or send an email? And so if you are, I have this deal and it's a probate, there's a problem, the attorney this, the conservative of that, the petitioner this, the judge that, that's the real gold.

I'm listening for an hour for those five or ten minutes on that topic. And because if you are the expert, you don't have to talk to as many people. I was just on a call with a prospective listing. and he said to me, well, the other agents are going out to the property before they make a presentation. This is on a small condo in Panorama City because they're going to do staging, they're going to do this, they're going to do that. I said, I'd be honest with you, they're trying to over-dramatize the value of their service. In this, the case where there's a trust, but there's some potential dispute.

The goal here is avoid objectors, avoid a lawsuit. One strategy in those cases is get the deal, approach. approved, you know, contract accepted, clear of contingencies, and get a notice of proposed action filed as fast as possible before objections have a chance to think about it. Because the longer they think about, the more likely they are to find a reason to object. And these guys spend a week organizing their staging and their quotes and this and that. I'm like, dude, it doesn't really matter. You know, the house needs to be trashed anyhow.

You could sign the list with me now. I could have it on the MLS in an hour. and I can have people seeing the property Saturday and Sunday, we can be in contract, mind your Tuesday, and they're still going to give you their quote about their staging. And you don't have the time to wait. And when I tell him that, there's no, there's, you know, he said, wow, it's a whole, your whole different level than the other agent. That's not bragging.

That's just because I've been doing this now for a while. I have expertise that's valuable to them. But when I talk about that now to you, and we're going to recut this video and send it out to attorneys and petitioners and such. I'm demonstrating my expertise by talking about these things. And I'll give you another clue. When you ask an expert, some of their glow falls on to you, meaning if you're a brand new agent, you say, well, I don't know much about probate. Great. If you interview probate attorneys, the glow of that expert comes on to you. So your customer goes, oh, wow, Courtney, you know attorney so-and-so. He's fantastic. You must be worthy of his attention.

I'll list with you rather than an average agent. And that's another reason to interviews with people. Okay, so again, the reason number one or value number one, or way to think about YouTube is lead generation. Number two is to demonstrate your expertise. Now talk about it, not pretend you're an expert, but to demonstrate it. And all that means is learning, is showing one more thing the customer doesn't know.

If you saw that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, Catch me if you can. I talk about it all the time. the part of the movie where he is teaching a high school class, and he was the same age as a students. But they believed he was a teacher. I saw him interviewed, I think by Johnny Carson, how'd you pull that off? And he said, all I had to do was read one chapter ahead of where they were, and they assumed I was the teacher. All you have to know is one more thing than your customer does, your prospect does, and you're an expert. If you can't learn it and demonstrate it.

You can't just say I'm the expert, you have to demonstrate it. Okay, number three is, it's the ultimate lead follow-up tool. Right? So somebody has a circumstance. If you have a video, anything related to that at all, oh, by the way, I was just thinking about you. I know we talked about the importance of getting on the market quickly. Here's a video I did in that subject. Well, now they see you on TV or video or their phone talking about the matter.

It's not just you saying it. Now it's the expert talking to them through the screen. I know that I had one example. I've only had this happen once, but it did work once, where I had a prospective seller say to me, if you think I'm one of five agents, you probably don't either need me or know who I am. I only wait. If you have five other agents to choose from, I'm going to wish you luck, pick one of them. They're probably all about the same anyhow.

And I wish you luck. And if something goes wrong, please call me. I'll be glad to help you. I help people all the time with probate matters. In fact, I have a show on the subject. And I sent her a link to this call. And she'd come back like an hour later. So, you know, Bill, I saw your video and I didn't realize, but yeah, you really are the expert.

I talked to the attorney, we went ahead and go ahead and have you list the property. Oh, okay, fine. Because it's the ultimate lead follow up. And you can say, I'm not just saying I'm a probate expert because I'm cold calling you. I'm saying an expert because I actually can demonstrate my expertise. And you can watch it for yourself and listen to it. Tasha says she likes geography, probates a slow process, three to four minutes to close. Okay, I don't know one's right or the other, Tasha.

I like geography too, particularly for brand new agents. I think it makes a lot of sense. Okay, number one was lead generation. Number two was demonstrating your expertise. There is the ultimate lead follow-up. Number four is it's the referral power tool. It's referral power tool. What do I mean by that?

So I regularly get, and you see a bunch of realtors are saying, Oh, John Smith's the best attorney, Joe Smith's the best attorney, but he boots the best attorney. But what I've come to realize is that nobody's the best for all of it. The best is the expert for that particular case. What do they need specifically? And so I'll ask questions, what state, what county, what you need done? Is it a routine probate filing? Is it a contested probate litigation?

Is it a trust administration? Is a conservatorship? The more specific you get, the more specific referral. I can give them, but then I attach a video of me talking to that person. So I'll say this is a great attorney for evictions. I've interviewed three or four different eviction attorneys. They're all a little different. They all have different strengths and weaknesses.

And I'll say, well, so-and-so is a great eviction tree for your case and your area. And here's a, here's a video I did of them. I want my people to get the referrals. I want to, I want my farm to have all. all the plants around it growing nicely. Because if everybody around me is doing well, then eventually it all works out for me. So it's really important that we're able to both refer to people who want business from. So if you want business from an attorney, you want to be able to refer business to them.

How do I do that? I have a video interview of them. And when I talk to somebody and refer to them, I say, oh, and by the way, here's an interview I did with them. And with every other vendor, lenders, escrow, title, I ask people all the time. I send my link out to do free interviews with people on my YouTube channel. And I'll share with you, once you get good at this, I do an interview with a banker. I got 10 views. I got different vendors.

Here's 12 with, so some are recuts of people have talked to and some are interviews. But at a minimum, I'll end up after three days getting about 25, 30 views. I've seen attorneys spend $10,000 and do fancy videos and their whole channel has less views than one interview that I'll do. Now, as realtors, we have a superpower because we can collaborate. I've offered to all of you on the call for free if you have probate-related video content. But if we all watch, I'm not saying it, watch it just to increase their view count. I'm saying, I want you to enjoy what I do. And I enjoy what Courtney does.

I'm not saying let's all do clickbait and just share links. I'm saying let's fall in love with each other's content. But here's the thing as a real estate agent, we have company-related groups. I'm with the ex-P realty. I post my stuff in ex-P, realtors watch it there, as well as realtors like you watch it on my public-facing stuff in Facebook. So I'll have 100 views of real estate agents before an attorney sees it. Well, what do you think the attorney thinks when he sees 150,

views on a on a YouTube channel. Like, wow, that's a lot of views. I only have, my whole channel only has 150. And that interview you did last week has 150 views on it. We have a superpower by working together. The essence of real estate collaboration. The MLS is the ultimate business collaboration. A couple of guys got together and said, hey, I got some listings.

You have listings. Let's throw them together. Let's sell each other's listings and split the commission. And we can do the same thing in small bites with, with supporting each other on social media. I am not telling you, and I mean this seriously, I know that people do this. Those people have like link parties. I have a friend who does that. I don't like it.

I don't want people to watch to click my stuff just to get my view count up. I want people who actually like what I watch, when I'm putting out, who want to watch it. I presume realtors who I know I saw Courtney's video when he went to court in, is it Virginia? I think in Virginia, right? A few times. Where are you at? Corny somewhere out that way. Oh, North Carolina.

North Carolina, yeah, yeah. It's all the same to me. I'm in Leslie Henderson. Something you fly over to you get to the Atlanta, Gosha on the way to New York or Florida. I'm sorry, no disrespect. Okay, North Carolina, in the south. Okay, but I found it fascinating.

I enjoyed it. But because we do that, and other agents ask me, you know, well, how do I get started? I send them a link to my YouTube, and they watch that. So the goal there is, The referral power to attorneys who want to do business with or other vendors is the video becomes the ultimate referral tool.

Okay, I covered a lot here. I did a lot of talking today. Normally we have an interviewer. This is a topic that I wanted to record to have this done. So I'm glad to answer any questions on this. I have a question not related to the topic I'll get to a divine, but any questions regarding specifically. Oh, here's one. Legacy transitions.

as I'm sure that is, says, can I describe my typical week? So what I'll tell you is I like a typical week. Like I do better when the weeks are the same versus different. I crave uniformity. It's uncomfortable when it's not. Basically, my goal is I'm at my desk working by 8 o'clock, which to me means I have my cup of coffee. I sit down at 7.45 and I get ready.

At 8 o'clock, I'm making my first phone call. And most days I quit at 5 o'clock. And most days, 12 to 1, I'm either swimming for an hour with a swim team or walking three miles for exercise. And during the time, my goal in the morning is to be talking to people to generate business. Attorneys lead follow-up, people who either need to sell a house or can refer me to somebody who can sell a house. And most of the administrative stuff I do in the afternoon. And then I work true confession. I work half a day and Friday.

I work till noon. And then the other half of the Friday, I moved to Sunday. It just works better for me that way. So I knock off usually 11 or 12 on Friday. And I work, I do my, I try to do all my computer work. Anything doesn't require talking to people. I schedule that for Sundays.

So I'll do, I'll write content, I'll organize things, I'll do my computer work. There are days I'll work after hours. So what I'll do is like, for example, last night I host an event from 5.30 to 7. So I'll take an extra two-hour break in the middle of the day to relax, to spend time with my wife, because I'm not going to work more than eight hours a day. Now, I'm 64 years old.

I pace myself. I also exercise every day. But I also believe I work more effectively when I've lived a amount of time because if I only have a certain amount of time, I'm going to get things done. So I hope Legacy answers your questions. That's my typical, as typical as I can explain it. Okay. Hey, everybody should put your contact info in, feel free in a network here. I know there are some Zoom calls to tell you not to do that,

but you all should feel free in my calls. Put in your information, put in your name address, your area service, your email address, your social media handles, YouTube channels, put links to stuff in. Love to have you share that information. So a question I got regarding a probate is, this is a great question. Divine, I don't know if you're on the call or not, there you are. If you want to come on video, I'd love to have you.

We can interact or there as I can just answer your question. But she asked a question, can living trust be disputed or contested? This is one of the biggest, there's two huge, commonly misunderstood factors of probate. Number one by far is that a will avoids probate. That's certainly not true in California. A will is executed or administered or used in a probate court by definition. If you have a will, if all you have is a will, you're going to probate with a will. If you don't have a will, you're going to probate without a will.

But the will does not get you out of probate. That's the number one misconception. Certainly in California and in most states, that's true. Number two. The second biggest misconception now here all the time is that in a state plan or specifically a trust can have, can it be disputed or contested? People say you don't have to go to court if you have a trust. Well, that's just not true. Anybody can sue anybody for anything.

And you'll find in life wherever there's a lot of money involved, there's a lot of lawsuits. particularly in California. The docket and probate court is where trust litigation is administered, adjudicated. It's full of trust cases, both trying to be. Sometimes it's a question, is the trust valid or not, or is the trust in effect or not? or is the asset part of the trust or not? All those are various assets. And then there's, you're administering the trust.

There's people who will dispute your right to administer the trust or you're doing improperly and they want you're a move for incompetence or some sort of mistakes. So there's all kinds of litigation of trust. Certainly having a great estate plan and trust can reduce the likelihood of litigation. And I was tell people, it only works if you do. So, for example, my prospect, I was talking about the listing I'm working on. I tell the longer you wait, the more likely there is litigation.

You're just giving them more time to get upset and to find somebody who will encourage them to file a lawsuit. There's nothing good in real estate. There's nothing good that happens to a listing until it sells and you get paid. If you're the seller or the agent, true or not true. Is there anything good that happens? I mean, maybe you get some referrals on the sign, but other than that, there's really nothing good happens to that escrow. It's all bad.

The day you list it, if it closed the next day, you got paid, that'd be great. Right. So same in trusts for the day that the scene passes. There's nothing good that happens until whatever you went done with the assets is done. Until then, you're just rolling the dice until somebody sues you. That's just how it is. Okay, Cheryl asks a question. If I'm new to focus and probate, what would be a good topic to start with to introduce,

or do you just go right into sharing content? But what I tell people is you should be learning. Like, for example, I joined the local Bar Association as an affiliate. I'm not an attorney, but they, just like we as realtors, have affiliates to join the Association of Realtors, lenders and escrow. I'm an affiliate to the attorney is in the bar. I also joined the American Bar Association affiliate, and I get their magazine. Probate and Property, two of my favorite topics.

I always sit down and read this magazine. And every time I get it, I get one or two good ideas. Now, some of it's over my head. Some of it doesn't really belong to what I do. But I get one or two good ideas or one or two leads, every issue. But here's the thing, Cheryl, if you're constantly learning, just share something that you've learned. Right? So on this call, did you learn anything today about probate? I don't know if you want to meet yourself.

Did you learn anything about probate or trust or anything today? Not by how to get business, but about how probate or trust works. Do we talk about anything that was new to you? Yeah, a little bit. I didn't know that trust actually had to go to court. I didn't know that. I thought it was just a silent, you know, transfer. Well, let me be clear.

Trust don't have to go to court. Okay. But they might. But they might. Yeah, I didn't even know they, you know, that part. Now, what you might do is, I'm sure, where do you do business? I'm in Maryland, the DMV, DC, Maryland. DMV, got it.

Yeah, yeah. So you might want to find an attorney in your area that you'd like to work with. Just ask the question. I'm curious, I'm learning about probate. I just came now, it might not be true in Maryland. My guess is it is, my guess is that it's similar, but I don't know Maryland law at all. I don't know Maryland law at all. I'm in California. Okay. So you might ask. I'm just curious. I was on a call with somebody who really knows

California, he does know Maryland so well. I know the goal of an estate plan with a trust is to avoid going to court. Do trust ever end up being litigated in court and ask, and to find out? And take some notes. And then you just share that or video that. So, you know, would you mind if I asked that question I've videoed you and shared it on my social media? Because you're offering for free to publicize them and share their information, right? Right. So yeah. And then so the other part of that was like I don't have a social media presence. I have an account getting ready to go. But I didn't know, you know, what you, what was your first one? Your first one might have went straight in because you were already probate. So I was no, no, no, no introduce themselves, you know, as you or you just randomly just one day, your first video just boom, probate. Okay. Well, I was in Facebook and I just did. video okay okay thank you you guys start somewhere and if you do it every day for 100 days you'll get good at after 100 days i promise awesome thank you sure there's some free coaching in that

one by the way uh okay Miguel what's up Miguel let's get you in muted what's up everybody thank you for uh for sharing your info just wanted to add a comment um oftentimes you say how can i get to a journey how can i get their attention right uh huh What works for me is you as a realtor, you can also have some ideas or how you can refer in business. So you can come with that. You can come from contribution. You can talk to any property attorney and say, hey, I also have clients want to do a living trust. They're maybe in need of family law or anything, whatever their expertise.

So they can see because the attorney looked at the realtor as somebody who doesn't know much to do, you know. So you can always position yourself as an expert by also giving them some chance to perhaps they can refer business back and forth as a win-win. So that's my comment. One of the 11 ways is I think every realtor should be promoting their clients, prospects, and past clients, to getting an estate plan if they don't have one already. Contact all those that don't, to invite them to see a program, those that do need to update it, review it every period of time.

I've interviewed on this channel numerous estate planning services and attorneys. And so I think you all should find more into that you feel comfortable recommending or inviting people to share and invite your customers to that. And when they need the plan, you invite them, you refer them to attorney. That's how you get business. So Miguel's right on about all that. Courtney had another good suggestion, which is you put your browser on Incognito, do Google search on probate in your market area, like probate Maryland or probate Baltimore

or probate, why should you see? And you'll see questions people are asking and research those questions and make videos on those. I always feel like, make the video in what you learned, right? Because you now have learned the topic and share that with the next person. You'll get a list of questions that way as well. But again, I would try to find something you learned and then you can share that information. Usually your state website and your county website has great content on probate. If you just read that, you'll learn one or two things and share those one or two.

and share those one or two things. Miguel, and then DeVine asked me about the trust litigation is their time limit to dispute things. So, again, anybody can sue me for anything. There is a form called a notice of proposed action where it's filed with a court and then you would send notice to all parties saying, we plan to do this.

Generally, if they've been given fair notice, 15 days if they don't respond, or they might sign an acknowledgement they got it. Generally, the court will, that's a high standard now to get over. You can't say, I didn't know you're selling the property. And the court will kind of less than the presumption that you did the wrong thing. It's certainly not a guarantee. Again, it may consume me for anything.

But the reason why we do in probate with full authority, no supposed to action. The title company requires it. And untrust is a good practice as well. if you believe there's an objector out there to avoid that. Bill, can I expound on that question a little? Sure. I just inherited a property.

My sister passed in December, and I was the primary beneficiary. She had just, how do you call it, renewed her trust in, what, October or November? But the previous trust that she had, 2018, I was still named as primary. She just changed the secondary trustee, successor trustee. So my attorney sent out a notice to my siblings and the children of my deceased siblings and, you know, sent them a copy of the trust and everything. And so he told me they have four months to contest it. Well, they called him and told him that they wanted to contest.

tested last week, but July 3rd was the end of a four-month period. And so he really hasn't done anything with it because he's not their attorney. So, you know, he's like, go get your own attorney. Well, so that's why, I don't know, but for, Devon, where are you located? In California, Diamond Bar. In Diamond Bar, that's where you still live. What do you do? I'm wholesaling special for you divine come by a buy a cup of coffee or breakfast okay

sounds just for anybody else has to be an agent but you you're the exception you're special okay okay thank you but what I'll say is um I don't know about having to wait for months that's interesting I don't know the particulars I'm not attorney but what I can say is when there's a 15 day notice what I tell what I tell my client is I don't know the law but here's what I know If we can close out on the 15th day, we want all continuously cleared. And I feel like a sprinter at the Olympics and how you're a dash. Like we're ready to go. The second that notice is gone, boom, we're recording it.

Because what you don't want is if the notice period is up, July 3rd, and here it is July 7th, and they follow an objection, you have two problems. Number one, they're objecting to your cell. That's a problem. Number two, the other errors who aren't objecting the cell could say, hey, you should have closed by now because you delayed things, you created the opportunity for a lawsuit and all this money being wasted a lawsuit's your fault. There is nothing good that happens when that period's up. And that's why I tell people we do this proposed action. We're ready to go.

Everything's ready to go. All the paper is ready to go. No stories, no excuses, no lender needs this. everything's done because day 16 when the objection shows up we want to say sorry not sorry right that's your job yeah I'm not selling the property though I'm keeping it and I'm refinancing it or you know putting it in my name and so then what's the notice a proposed action about what is that you're noticing them that you're going to do well they have not done anything yet they just called my estate attorney and said that they want to contest it.

The first thing they asked for that I don't know the trust. They haven't stayed at why because my sister. What do you call that when you restate the trust? Yeah, when she she just changed the beneficiary. Anyway, she changed it in November. Amended. Thank you. When she was sick.

But her 2018 was, I was still listed as. primary. She just wanted to change the secondary person. So I have no idea. They haven't told my attorney with their contesting and he's kind of taken no, you know, like no approach because he's like, I'm not your attorney. As a courtesy, I sent you a copy of the previous trust because they asked for that. And his rationale was send it to them because you were primary beneficiary before and so they won't lawyer up. Well, after he sent it to them, they, they got notice. They sent a letter to him saying they wanted to contest it and was asking for a case number. And he's like, there's no case number. And I'm not the right person to call if you want to contest it.

You need to get your own attorney. Something doesn't sound right because you can only contest taking some kind of action, right? I mean, if you're not doing it, if there's nothing to be done, if the, for example, the property is still titled in the name of the trust. Yes. I just put in, I said, I better do something quick because I'm working on refinancing it. And they told me that they would take care of the title change during escrow or title. Right. And then as of yesterday, I called my attorney and told him just go ahead and put in the, you know, affidavit to change the title.

You bring up another very important point, which is, you know, when you inherit property, even in a trust, so it's in the mom and dad trust to the son. trust or daughter trust when you deed that property if you're just doing a deed and record it but it's not part of a transaction there's no tile insurance and so what happens is it's a it's a higher bar when it comes time to sell the property it's easier to contest versus if you refinance it you're getting tile insurance on that deed so the tile company is kind of putting their stamp on it anybody's objecting has to really complain to the insurance company to get paid rather than being able to see you directly. So to me, getting it refinanced is a good move if you need to, obviously. But at the same time, you're going to get the talent. You'll do the transfer in that refinance.

I think that's also a very good move. So. Okay, good. But I get done quickly. Also, rates went up today quite a bit. But I would get done quickly because there's nothing good that happens until the transfer is completed. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And I'll see you in the morning. Thank you for the information. Okay. You go to episodes.combat. weekly.com. I'd say call or text or text me, but my text isn't working. It's a whole drama. You can call me or you can email me, uh, bill at the la probateexper.com. I'm on social media at Bill Gross Probate. We just changed on my social media to at Bill Gross Probate. Hope to see you

guys soon. Thank you for being here today. Make today your best day ever. Thank you, everybody.