KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Joel Epstein on Mastering Probate Real Estate

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Summary:In this episode, guest Joel Epstein offers a deep dive into the profitable but challenging world of probate real estate. He provides a tactical guide on how to ethically and effectively serve families navigating this sensitive process. The discussion covers everything from finding and contacting probate leads to building a brand as a trusted expert. Joel emphasizes the need for empathy, patience, and a long-term mindset, offering concrete strategies for creating a sustainable business by providing immense value during a difficult time.

high-tech, low-touch equals no money, and high-touch, low-tech equals big money. And, you know, now I say high-tech, high-touch. And meaning that touch, you know, the best agents, the best mortgage people in the space have mastered touch and tech. And the ones that are just all tech are not as successful as the ones that have mastered touch and tech, because there's a lot of cool tech for everyone. to use now. And I find, you know, when you lean on it too much and you take the touch away, that's when either you're vulnerable to one of these big companies, like I heard you talking about

on your, I don't know, that's your weekly podcast, which I always just love listening to for me. It's just a full crack up. I mean, in a good way. I love, I always listen to it. I think you were going on talking about Zillow. And, you know, that's how you get. Loved up in Zillow. But that's how you get, you know, taken over by the tech. If you let it take you over. And I tell agents all the time, Bill, I say, you know, you can sit. If you're doing your job right and someone you know or maybe a client or referral sources sitting in their house, in their slippers, pounding Prosecco all night long, all over

the internet, looking at every different type of, you know, whatever they're in, I know, Zillow, Redfin. It doesn't matter what they're in. and they're getting pounded with phone calls and emails from all of these agents that paid to be in there. They can still wake up in the morning and just call you and say, hey, Bill, it says Susie Q. Oh, hey, how are you? Hey, I have a house that I really want you to show me. Like, that overcomes all of that tech if you're in their head the right way. And sometimes agents kind of look at me and they're like, oh, you're wrong.

And I say, okay, we can agree and disagree, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. because it doesn't who wants a bazillion cold calls you know in that tech they'd rather have the touch but then again you need to use the tech with the touch so sorry that was a little little quick talk but no and I think no I think it's right on point so let me break it down a little bit because you know obviously we've worked together and I know a lot of what your code words mean one of the phrases that you taught me was red light ready and what now you primarily coach mortgage agents what it means me as a realtor is I need to be able to get a contract signed anywhere I'm at which could mean I'm in my car well describe this there's a there's many

technologies right there's AI to write stupid brochures and there's there's you know a sly mail fake text messages that's not what you mean when you say red light ready and being high tech what high tech specifically do mortgage agents or real estate agents need to master in order to be effect from their customers well I mean first of all you know people have been talking about we used to call it a database forever ago okay and now the hot sexy word is CRM there's probably an even sexier word I'm probably aging myself even calling it a CRM a customer okay the reality of it is is Bill I don't know about you but I'm around some really good real estate agents all the time and I'm a lot I'm around a lot of really good loan officers and anyone that's really

really really good at their job the last place they ever want to be is inside a CRM I already know they're not going to use it. In fact, the best ones I work with, best agents I work with Bill, real estate agents. I didn't even let them use it. They send a text to someone else that uses it that then puts information in. But the one thing they can use is that thing that's in their hand all day long. So I just said this to a group of agents in Rhode Island last week. They were cracking up. I said, I bet you'd leave your three-year-old at the mall before you'd leave that mall without your phone. So let's talk about that phone that's glued to your hand. And let's talk about what's in that phone. And whether you have, whether you're using Joy

technology or Apple technology, I think agents overwhelmingly use Apple, but it doesn't matter what technology you're using. Those contacts in your phone are your walking CRM that you're used to looking at all day long. And what I find when I meet new agents is when I look in their contacts, they're usually a baby dumpster fire. And they really can't use them effectively. And when I use the term red light ready, Bill, you know, red light means you're sitting in red light. You can actually you do something productive in the minute it takes for that light to go from red to green. But most, it's not just agents, agents, loan people, everyone, they're too disorganized. And I tell people all the time, Bill, people I work with one-on-one, if you ever say to me,

I need my laptop, we're in a large fight. Like, I don't want to hear it, that you need your laptop to do something. Yes, I understand, Bill, there are certain things you do need your laptop to do. I get it. But don't tell me you need your laptop to get someone's email address or a phone number or something like that that to me is career insanity i don't know who's doing i mean i don't even get that like who would who would do that and so red light ready bill at 40 000 feet and i go super deep on this and you know some of my classes and things like that is being prepared you know you've heard me say

this a million times you know i can't see everyone i can only see uh the one guy in you right now stan well i could see stan but stan went somewhere um and you know i tell people stand up Stan, you're already up. Stay up, Stan, stay up, Stan. You're already up. Turn around. Look at your chair. If your chair looks like an imprint of your ass, you're failing.

Because you're not supposed to be sitting in your chair. You're supposed to be out doing stuff. You know, agents go out and do stuff. They don't sit in their chair and print money. It doesn't work like that. It's a people business. And so, you know, we have these phones. We have these things.

Bill has more than one probably, or they all go to one number. I don't know. He's always tricky about it. But we all have these things. things in our hands all day. And I bet, Bill, what do you think? Because you're way more tactical than me. I've asked you for help a bazillion times. Are you using 3% of your phone, maybe? Maybe 2% of what's actually what this thing can do. And I just teach agents, hey, you've got these contacts in there. You're using it all day long to make phone calls.

Why are they not set up in a way that you can, in a minute, between red light and a green light, do something productive make one phone call send one text maybe even you're sending an email i don't know what you're doing but something you know productive and bill i'll say this to your group everyone should write this down every single day whenever you're done 5 o'clock 6 o'clock it doesn't matter what you should be saying to yourself is what have i done today to deepen an existing relationship with a referral source or develop a new one you notice how i didn't say sell a house or take a new listing. I did not say that.

What have I done today to deepen an existing relationship with a referral source, a referral partner, or develop a new one, period. And I don't care if you took three new listings. For me, I just said this to an agent yesterday, Bill, who took seven new listings this week. I asked her what she did yesterday. I said, fail.

She started laughing at me. I said, it's a fail. That's a Joel fail. I don't care. I don't care if you have seven new listings. Don't care. You didn't push referrals forward at all. And your job is not to list houses.

Your job is to get referrals, which then create listings. Well, hold on a second now. Guys, I should have started with that. I went to where I wanted to go, and I left out step one. Everybody who's ever seen Joel in person the first time, he has an amazing exercise where he asks you what your job is. And what's amazing is, and now I've come to assume this, because I've seen you speak in person, may, may, may, many times.

I know the answer, and that's what I work on, but in the room, nobody ever gets the answer right. Who hasn't heard you already before? That's right. So those are listening that most of you guys don't have your cameras on. Feel if you type in, what is your job as a real estate agent, or what's your job as an attorney, or what's your job if you're an account executive for a vendor in the probate space? What's your job? And if you're listening to watching this, and we get a couple of people watch this every week,

is that going to write down what is your job because here's the thing it's wrong joe i'll turn over to you what what is not their job and what is their job i love your job your job is to find people who know people who need you become best friends with those people and get them to refer the people that need you to you your job is to get referrals but your real job is stan said relationship building correct, is to create a set of new best friends who can refer you people that need you. So this covers, I don't care whether you're doing mortgages, real estate, title, it doesn't really matter. He's ever listening right now.

Your job is to create referral partners. That is your job. That's your job all day. And the best agents that do this all day long have so much business, they don't know what to do with themselves. And, you know, then I love when agents bill, they, you know, they come to me and they, they're, well, Joel, you don't understand what we're doing all day. We're so busy. I'm like, all right, I dare you to pay me to watch you for one day because I'll strip away 90% of stuff you're doing because you shouldn't even be doing it. Because it's not pushing your business forward. You just think you're supposed to, you just think you're supposed to do it. We can get someone else to do all this stuff, not the core activities. I'm not one of those guys built. I know there's a lot of people in my space that are like, you should be working two hours a week. You should be on vacation three weeks out of every month. You know, this total crap, they blow at agents all day long.

Like, they make them think you can do this job not working. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is you guys are working on the wrong stuff, okay? Meaning you're busy with the wrong stuff. You know, Bill, you know, we have a friend in common. You know, I'll just name him as a California guy, Brian Mincalf. One of the greatest things he ever said to me is, is Joel, the biggest trick to my business is I work eight hours a day. I'm like, what do you mean?

He goes, I work eight hours. he says but Joel I actually work eight hours like I don't work an hour and then go eat 10 donuts and go to lunch right like I'm actually working for the full hours so listen your job is to build a set of new best friends that become your referral partners that can refer you people that need you the thing about real estate is you guys have it all backwards you guys get all rewarded on all these deals you do and your GCI and how much money you make which is great it's all awesome. But what I'm concerned about is who referred you that business. You could sell a house to someone. You know, if you're in California where Bill is, you could sell a shack and make a huge commission where Bill is for a shack. Okay. I'm sure there's people from all over the country on here right now. But you could you could literally make a lot of money on one transaction and never hear from that seller or buyer again for the rest of your career. Okay. But yet you go in your CRM and you label them as an A in your CRM because you sold them a house.

That is not what I call an important person in my CRM. The only people I care about my CRM are people that are actively referring me business. It's not the deals I did. Unless it crosses and the guy I sold the house to, I sold Bill a house and Bill loves me and Bill's actively referring to people. Okay, then Bill's in that category. But if I just sold Bill a house and I made a $50,000 commission, I don't label him as important to me based on how much I'm.

I mean, that's not how I'm going to do it, ever. I think one of the things, one of the bi-products, I don't know that you talk about this so much, but I know I experience it, is I coach real estate agents as well on my team who are so focused on doing the wrong activities that generates some business, right? Coal calling generates some business.

The problem is the business that generates is so miserable and so time-consuming because you're selling strangers all day long. Every deal is another stranger. Every deal you have to convince them, you're not going to rip them off versus referred business is so much easier. The process is just simpler. I think that's the hidden bi-proc.

When people say they work hard, they shouldn't be working that hard. That's probably a sign that they're working too hard and on the wrong things. Yeah, I call it a cookie listing. You know, Bill, one of the questions I ask groups of agents all the time is I say, raise your hand. If you have an active listing right now and literally you would like to put a hit out on the seller, like literally you hate the seller at that level. It's the most miserable seller in the history of the world.

And a bunch of hands will go up. And then I will say to them, leave your hand up if it was a cold lead or a relative. And all the hands stay up every single time. And I call it a cookie listing, Bill. And the way I explain it is how many times, how many of you all have gone in on a listing appointment or a listing presentation, wherever you want to call it? And you walk in the door and they look at you and they go, Bill, we've been waiting for you to come over. This is so exciting.

Our good friend Susie Q said, you're awesome. they said basically do what you say because you're going to get this done and they're going to make the most money and it's going to be seamless and whatever where do I have to sign want a cookie bill and in 10 minutes the listing is signed you're eating homemade cookies and on minute 11 you're walking around the house already staging and moving things around yeah can we move this bookcase over there this room look a little bigger whatever versus this listing where you're talking to the person and they go, yeah, Bill, can you come over at one? Absolutely, yeah, I don't park in the driveway.

I'm going to need to save that space for the two o'clock person, you know, and you walk in the door and you know the house is worth, well, Bill, we'll use your area, 1.4, and you walk in the door and they lock you and go, yeah, we're thinking 1-9, okay, and then literally you're sitting there for an hour of your life in probably the most heinous pain you would ever have, you know, from a cold, you know, and there's plenty of people that would say, oh, Joel, I don't mind talk to 100 people to get one deal, you know, or to get two deals or whatever it is. And I'll say, you know what? Cool. You don't model match with me. That's great. But it's going to be hard for me to help you. I want to talk to 10 people and do eight deals. I don't want to, I don't want to talk

to 100 people to have three people say maybe and two people say, uh-huh. And one person say, okay. And then that whole okay is literally the worst experience of everyone's life. Because all they do is literally give you a hard time the whole time, which is what you were just referring to. And Bill, when new agents have to do that stuff, but I mean, I have a whole plan for new agents where we don't even do that right away. We do make calls, but we're calling other people. But I just think, Bill, that real estate is a lot easier than people make it. They try to make it really hard by doing it the wrong way. And unfortunately, there's a lot of people that teach in my space. And when you teach, I learned this from very effective good teachers a long time ago. When you're teaching huge groups of

people stuff, you have to take it down to the lowest level and give them stuff that every person can do. And it's why, Bill, for me, and Bill, you and I have had this conversation multiple times alone where you have wanted me to expand and do things in a certain way and I could not wrap my head around it because I felt like I was teaching people stuff they weren't even going to do and I would rather keep the groups smaller with people that monomatch with me because my own satisfaction, I know they're going to go do it. You know, I know there's these. agents all over the country that are killing it that if you go talk to them they'll be like yeah I'm just doing what Joel and I talked about and it's working you know well and that's why to this day

you and I work together very closely you know about six years ago when I launched this and I was doing some coaching and I just stopped doing because I didn't like it because I didn't want to I didn't have a big enough impact I'm sorry being a pool of people and I didn't want to make money from people who weren't going to do I told them to do and to this day to this day I get a realtor calls me every two or three days. Bill, how do I get started in probate real estate? What do I do to build a niche? And I tell them a couple of basic things. Step zero is have your database put together. So that step one is you can learn something about probate and then share that with your customers or you share that with your process. Share that with your people. Like everybody wants to learn. Everybody needs to

learn about things they need to do. But if you don't have the database done, step zero, I call it, then you can't, and nobody wants to do it. Oh, well, can I just buy the data? Can I just Cole, well, you can. That's just a miserable life. Like, I don't know why you would want to do that, but go ahead. You know, and people sign the data, I guess. It's just really one of those things. It's because they're getting into business and for the wrong reason.

They're looking at this business for the wrong reason. This is a people business. I mean, technology, you know, I mean, I don't know. Maybe this will haunt me. But I don't see while we're alive that technology is going to completely replace what great agents do every day. Will it enhance it? 100%. Will it make great agents have the ability to sell more houses and touch more people?

Absolutely. But that phone call, that, you know, that, that, I just heard someone talking about this. I don't know what I was watching. I say it all the time. They said the same thing. You know, death of a family member, divorce. buy you're selling a house top three most stressful things in life i mean people want people i mean even bill there used to be a stat i don't know what it looks like now uh it was out of seattle

that you know the highest percentage of clients in the country that literally refused to speak to a human being was in the seattle market and it was like 4.8 percent because of all the tech workers and they literally would only text and not even show up like you have to send some of their house to him to sign stuff like literally but even in that area 95.5% of people you know when their surveyed say no no no no I want to talk to someone no I want to I want to speak to a human being like I want to I want to see someone there's too much going on here you know and I think that there's a lot of agents that don't really understand I mean Bill I've been saying this for years at the end of the day if you don't need hot tea with lemon and you're a real estate agent you have done something wrong

you have literally done something wrong unless you took the whole day off that's fine But if you're working and you don't need hot tea with lemon at the end of the day, you have failed. You have not talked to enough people. There's something is wrong. You know, don't tell me this. Oh, I emailed 1,000 people and went to lunch. Right. That's just, that's just, I don't know about you.

I don't know any agents. I mean, yeah, I mean, I do know some agents that spend $200,000 a month on leads, you know, but they still have agents that are making those calls, okay? But I don't know any good agents that don't buy leads that work will call it by referral only that don't need that hot water with lemon every night. I just don't. Because I talk to people all day long. I mean, I'm the same in that boat. The differences people call me rather than me have to reach out because I've built enough referrals. And I tell real estate agents, it's one thing is when you start out, you want a cold call

every day. Okay, because you don't know that many people. But it's maybe, maybe. I know. I'm not even big on that, but maybe. But if you've been in the business 10 years and you're still cold calling, you did something wrong. Because all the people you talked to you for 10 years, you should be talking to them like call them back hey we've talked to five years have you have any real estate if you buy any investor property anything but you're moving out the area and so yeah there's people you could talk to all day long we all have databases we never finish through all of them yeah no no it's it's it's there is there is you know whenever an agent says to me oh i'm bored i don't have anything to do i'm like no you didn't just say that to me

because i'm about to give you 27 things to do you know you have you have plenty of things things to do. But I just think, Bill, I think the market is getting better for agents because I think a lot of agents, Bill, I don't know if you know if you have any good stats, but do we lose at least 35% of licensed agents over the past 18 months? No. Actually, it's fascinating is 20% leave and another 20% come in and the number is about the same as it was a year ago. It's the oddest thing. Sales are down 30% where our industry is in a depression and that sales numbers, units are down 30-something percent. Sales values are up about 4%.

So revenues down about 25% in this industry, but the head count is almost identical. It's fascinating. But the difference is, I guess, the head count is you're counting new people. These are brand spanking new people. The ink is wet on their license. Correct. I'm watching experienced agents bill and experienced loan people literally grow their business and take market share no matter what market.

market they're in from, you know, L.A. or West L.A., which is unique and funky and tough and whatever, to Pittsburgh, to Kansas City, to Providence, Rhode Island, to Orlando, Florida. I mean, every different all over, you know, the market. Bill, I think there's, there's interesting things going on, you know, in 2025. It doesn't really matter who you voted for. Both sides of the aisle have on their agenda credit card company interest. It's on there. I mean, if you've put 25,000, thousand dollars on a credit card um and you make a salary of 60 or 70 grand a year uh you will never pay that off do the math you will be dead before you pay that off i mean that is egregiously high interest and i think there are things that are going to be going on um and i'm not

just going to say with the new administration forget about that because it doesn't matter who you voted for but with the new people in congress and the senate on that stuff which is just economy base which is the number one issue for all voters number one issue uh even know the cost of stuff, I think there's good things that are going to be happening. We're going to lead in energy. And when you do that, it costs less to drive the eggs somewhere and the eggs cost less. And suddenly, you know, maybe your interest is capped at 12 or 13% instead of 30% on your visa card, whatever it is. And people have a little bit more money. Now, do they use that to buy a house? Because they've always wanted to buy a house. I mean, I read a great article

bill about four months ago that said if the interest rates dropped a half percent, 5.2 million consumers would step off and say, I either want to buy a house or sell my house or do something, okay? Not to mention the 30 plus million millennials that have stated, you know, just flat out, I want to buy something. I want to do something. You know, that have said they want to do something. And, you know, we know there are other challenges.

There's wages and all kinds of challenges. And we also know everyone on this call. We all know this, even though the media won't talk about this. And I don't even know why, except for like Barbara Cole. Larkrin, no one will say anything, is that, you know, doing the math on, you know, paying $500,000 today and having a 7% interest rate and paying $5.50 in six months with six and a half, you're way better off paying $500 at 7%. It's very easy math. For some reason, the consumer either can't do that math, they're not doing that math, or they actually think the market's going to crash.

And Bill, for your audience here, one of the big subjects, one of the big things that I hear about all the time, okay, is math. And if you're an agent and you can't do math, okay, you're going to have a problem. If you're an agent and you're not partnering with a loan professional, the correct way, the best agents right now are getting people on the phone with their loan people at a hundred miles an hour. You all cannot see credit. They can. The three big objections are, I can't move. I have three percent. I can't afford to move at seven percent. I can't afford to move at seven percent. And if I move, where will I go? I challenge anyone on here to give me the fourth one. Those are the big three. Those are the ones you hear all day long. I've been hearing

this bill from brokers, not like just a regular real estate broker. I know in California's a little different. For the broker record, you know, the guy or woman that owns the remax, Joel, I think we're losing a lot of deals because I think my agents are not prepared to overcome those objections fast enough and they're trying and they can't and the people get off the phone and I'm telling agents everywhere you should have a deep relationship with a lender partner you should be bouncing that person within three minutes to your lender partner you should use this language everyone write this down this is winter winter chicken dinner okay I understand your objections I get it I work with a residential real estate

financial real estate finance expert. You notice how I didn't say the word loan officer or mortgage. Two scary words. I didn't say either one of those words. I would love you to talk to him or her and go through some of these things because I want to make sure that you're telling me you'd like to move if you could.

I don't know enough to help you with it, but he or she definitely can. And this is not a secret. you all can't pull credit okay mortgage people can all right mortgage people can see credit and see that someone has 50 grand on a visa card at 26% all right people think they have three and a quarter percent interest rate on their loan they don't if you have a bunch of consumer debt that is not your interest rate on your consumer debt at all that that's wrong it might be closer to 5.8 when you're all done okay you're not paying 3 and a quarter you're paying 5.8 meanwhile you're in a two-bedroom house

you've had two more kids you need a bigger house anyway you're You think you can't move. Meanwhile, if you bought a house, I mean, you guys tell me, I mean, please, I don't care what market you're in. I mean, if you bought a house in 17 and refinanced it in 20, I mean, Bill, it would have you doubled your equity probably? You could sell the house, pay off all your debt, put less down on the new house with a 7% mortgage, and your total monthly payment goes down like a grand a month. I mean, it's just, but agents, it's not that you can't do this math. You can't look at someone's credit report. You can't even see it.

And to be honest, you know, and Bill. as someone that's bill you've worn two hats you totally get this the best thing you could ever do is the agent is stay in your lane you don't want to be in that other lane let someone else be in that lane you stay in the downspouts gutters and you know backyard lane stay the lane you're supposed to be in let your mortgage partner stay in that lane don't cross and that way you guys can always get something done bill those are big subjects i talk about math all the time i've been talking about math forever but Man, if you can't do math, you're going to have a real hard time as a professional real estate agent going forward. I think 2025 is going to be great.

Bill, personally, I think 2026 will be a banner, knock the cover off the ball year. I think the rates are going to play ball with us will be low sixes, maybe even high fives in 2026, and the market will explode. I think the rates drop to half percent right now that will explode. It will completely explode as long as there's stuff for people to buy. I think there's a lot of impact. Let me go back and pull a nugget out on how everybody on this call can get some more business. Before I do that, a little bit of housekeeping. This probate weekly is free.

Sign up at probateweekly.com. Just put your email address. If you want to text reminders, put your phone number in. You can register for it. If you scroll down, you'll see we have all the audio formats linked there as well as your past episodes on YouTube. Welcome to check all that out. We also continue the conversation on Facebook. Our Facebook group is Probate Weekly.

We have over 4,000 members. feel free to post your content on probate and trust related onto public weekly to get more views, likes, interactions, and all that stuff. Rene does that, does a great job. Kevin, as well, does a good job, and his podcast is where we can help you get more views, likes. Our guest name is Joel Epstein, bigjole.com. He coaches mortgage agents across the country. He coaches real estate agents, some of the top names.

I can't name them because I'm not authorized to let the names out. But names that you would recognize, he coaches real estate agents and big teams. And so he's in the business there all the time. Joel, I don't know that you would know this necessarily, but in probate real estate, the opportunities that came to me was for years, I was a residential agent. I did mortgages, residential sales. And the nature of probates was there being a state where the decedent also owned office building, industrial building, rental, multiple, multi-unit properties.

And in the past, I said, well, I'm a residential agent. I'll bring somebody else in on that. And what I learned was, well, I know the probate so well, the commercial guy knows nothing about probate. So much of that transaction is about the relationship. And that once the attorney had trust in me to make that referral, all of a sudden, here it is two, three years later now, half my business is non-residential. Half my business is commercial, industrial, multifamily land.

I know I followed your precept. So let's talk a little bit. about how do you create trust in relationships so you can go deeper so rather than just be the residential guy, you're the person that call when they have a problem. In my case, the problem I want them to call me about is probate or trust-related litigation. How do we get them to call me about the problem rather than somebody else? So, you know, first of all, you know that I like agents to not call themselves agents, okay? I like them to call themselves. Now, Bill, I normally say residential real estate expert. But in the case of what we're talking about you and I right now,

I would say all, you know, multi-resident, multi-real estate expert. I'd have to think it through to cover anything real estate related. But it's branding yourself as an expert in all things related to any type of real estate. It's being okay with taking a phone call and being on a call for a half hour where you don't sell anyone anything where you're creating such value that people say hey you know you should really call bill for that well why am i going to call bill about that what is bill no no no you're going to call bill because bill bill makes it his business he probably spends four hours a day being an expert on this stuff and and bill's not oh it isn't bill an agent isn't he going to be a pain and like try to get business from me whatever and he's it no no no

that's not what bill's about yeah yeah bill would love to if you have a building and you want a list he'd love to list it but let me know if that's how the conversation goes but i think he's going to go that way i think you're going to say hey i was referred by so-and-so and bill's going to say how can i help you and and he's going to answer all your questions and and and that's going to be that and and so it's it's how your people you know bill you've heard me do this before i tell agents all the time yes leave leave where i am right now call your best friend and ask how they refer you and make sure you have an airline barf bag on you because you're going to want to throw up when you hear how bad they are at it, okay, or how, you know, or what they say. So it all really starts with people

even really knowing what you want and really what you do. And the best agents are experts, period. Bill, I said a little bit ago, when agents have bored, I don't mean anything to do. I'm like, go buy a tank of gas and go drive. What do you mean drive? Drive. Know the neighborhoods, know everywhere. That's your job. You're a real estate agent. Now, listen, if you're, if you have something 400 miles away, I get it, you're not going to know that market. But any place you can drive to, you should know. You should be an expert. You should know that there are center hall colonials in this market.

There are these kind of houses over here, and there are these kind of houses over there. You should know that stuff. Bill, when it comes to what you're talking about, if you want to play in that space, know all the areas, know the industrial areas, know where there's industrial space. Obviously, it's a little easier to know where the big office buildings are, but know where the lower-rise office buildings are. I mean, know the market, understand the market. It's your job is not sitting your chair all day. That's why I don't know where Stan went. But, you know, I asked Dan, he stood up and looked at his chair.

You're not supposed to be sitting in your chair all day. Even if you're in your car driving somewhere to get out. I mean, you did not fail for the day if you went and looked at stuff. Bill, you know, there's a, there's a, if they go to my site, this is Ernie Carswell said this. And it was awesome. I have all these podcast interviews with agents and loan people. And there's one with Ernie Carswell, Bill, who's in L.A. Okay, I know you know the name.

And he talks about what he has new agents do, and you will love this, Bill. You should go and look at it. It's right up your alley. He says, pick 10 properties and study them like you were going to take a test on them. And so it doesn't matter who you're talking to. You pick one of the properties you're an expert on and start talking about it. You know what I mean? Other people's listings.

It doesn't really matter. And they're like, wow, this person really knows. So in your case, Bill, if you have someone that's spreading out into multifamily or small commercial or light industrial or whatever and they're active properties listed, I would tell your people, be an expert on one of those properties. So you could sit and start talking about some light industrial space somewhere where they're like, oh, wait, that's not where I wanted to look or that's not where I went. But they're like, wow, this guy knows about these properties. I just thought it was really genius. And it's right along the lines of what you're saying right now. Well, I tell agents all the time that you should subscribe in your MLS to keyword probate.

So you see all the listings that come up that are probate. See your competitions doing what wording they're using, the good and the bad. What kind of properties are they listing? Where are they listing on what pricing? And then you can look at that property. You also can open their probate case if it's online or available publicly. You can see the case. Who is the attorney?

Who's a probate referee? who was the advanced company. That's all I did. I didn't go to learn the properties of the expert. I started to learn the cases as the expert. You use a phrase that I, I remember I was working with you on your coaching program and you used the phrase with real estate agents. They should be the experts on everything from the sidewalk to the back fence.

Right. And it hurt to hear this, right? It hurt. Somebody said, call me about their tree falling. I'm an expert in real estate and I know, why do I care about the tree falling? And I tell the story. I don't know if I've told you this one, Joe, I would think I have. So I would call my database.

I started with the A's. I got to D. I remember who it was. It was an attorney. He wasn't a probate attorney. As I'm talking to him, I said, hey, by the way, I've been learning about probate and avoiding probate. You know, anybody who has problems with those areas, you know, feel free to pass them on.

He said, well, this isn't probate. There you go. But she has a problem. The problem was there was a question with a type with the lot line. Her neighbor had a fight over the fence. There was some damage. city, blah, blah, blah. Can you help her out? It was kind of like the tree falling. Like, ugh, I don't know about lot lines. I mean, I do, but I, and I called her on the phone. I talked to a nice older

lady, widowed, 50-year marriage, husband passes, has a six-unip apartment building. She says to me, can you come by and take a look at it? Like, ugh, it's like the tree. I don't care about the lot line. I'm going to drive to East LA. And I go there and I walk with her the property, spent about 45 minutes with a sweet old woman, who was a widow now. At the end of a walk around the house and she showed me everything, I listened to everything. She just said to me, you know what, rather than fix it, can you just sell the property for me? I'm like, yeah, that was my listening presentation. Yeah, sure. And the story's in there because I did a good job. She netted about $500,000 cash. I picked up the check at the escrow office and took it to her house

on a Friday afternoon in East LA with crappy traffic here in L.A., because I knew it would make her happy. And she started crying. And she said to me, you know, I've always wanted to move to Arizona to be with my sister, can you sell this, which was her residence? I said, yeah, sure, why not? I sold two properties, and my entire listing presentation was, yes, because why? So talk a little bit about from the sidewalk to the back tree, what does that mean to a real estate agent? So, you know, since we've been on this call bill, every single agent, I'm going to, I'll make an assumption that everyone on here right now is a licensed agent, even though they might not be, but I'll just make that assumption that most of your audience is licensed real estate agents.

since we've been on this call everyone has lost money and the reason you've lost money is there was a business opportunity that you could have had that you didn't have because your people that refer you didn't even know you wanted it or could do it the easiest example bill is let's let's use la for a second let's make it easy for a minute okay you're a licensed real estate agent broker whatever it's called in california you live in l.a okay um you know There's only so far you can go in L.A. to even take a listing because of traffic or whatever. And your cousin's next-door neighbor that you've met every time the day after Thanksgiving, when you're over at your cousin's house and everyone's drinking, their son is going to go to

Cal Berkeley for law school, and they want to buy him a condo there. Now, they know, they think they know that you're a real estate agent. And they think they know that you're a real estate agent in L.A., and they don't call you. Well, shouldn't they have called you so you could call an agent up there and make the referral and get a referral fee? Well, yeah. But they didn't even think of it that way because they just thought, oh, Bill's an agent in L.A. He helps people buy and sell houses in L.A. I mean, what would Bill have to do with Berkeley?

Consumers, there's no one thinks that way at all. Okay. So I would say agents leave more money and referral fees on the table every minute of every day than it's just ungodly, the amount of the amount of money. money that they leave on the table. But the reality of it is, is you need to position yourself as a real estate expert. And the best way to tell the story, Bill, is it, you know, your people know what you do and you get an inbound phone call, you know, ring, ring, and you say, hey, this is Joel, and I'm Joel the real estate agent. This is Joel with ReMax, Joel with EXP. And someone says, hey, my name's Bill Gross. And Susie Q told me to call you. And I say, okay, how are you?

And I'm getting a little excited because I know Bill, and maybe this is going to be a referral. and this is cool, and I'm doing the referral dance. And they say, you know, you're a real estate agent, right? And I say, well, I'm a residential real estate expert. You know, anything having to do with the house, I'm an expert in, you know, from the front walk to the back fence, you know, that's me. What do you have going on? They're like, oh, you know, we need to have a tree removed from our yard.

And I say, okay. And they say, but you're not a landscaper, right? I say, absolutely not. But I know plenty of really good landscapers. Can I ask you a question? They say, sure. Where do you live? Okay. Ooh, there's a good one, right? Well, I live at one, two, three, Main Street, wherever that is. Okay, now, of course, because you're a good real estate agent, you know where that is. And you say, oh, is it one of those Center Hall Colonials? What is that over there? Oh, boy, oh, exciting. You chat for a minute, I mean, literally a minute, no longer than a minute, you say, would you like me to have someone call you say, would you like me to give you some names? How would you like to do this? They tell you, and then right after you say this, Bill, and we can get off this call after this, because everyone should write this down and be done with it. You say, you know, anytime,

I make a referral like this, I love to drop by and make sure that they did a good job. Would that be okay? Of course, Joel, no problem. Okay. So the job is done. Now, you're standing in their yard, staring at a tree stuff. Okay? You want to get a listing. Where do you need to be? The kitchen table, right? You are now at their house. Okay. When they list their house, if you don't list it, Bill, you know how I am, so I don't care. You suck. Okay. If you were just in their yard, all right with them looking at a stump okay and with them so happy that you referred them i don't care if they list your house in a list the house in a year or 10 years we all know real state's a long game if you don't list that house you suck because all you have to say once

they're connected to you there is hey are you good with me periodically keeping in touch with you know i have some cool things that i send out and they go of course yeah no problem okay let that that sink in the person standing in the yard is the one that gets the listing all right what an easy way to get in the yard if you never got the call you're not in the yard it's so particularly appropriate for probate where often the the person calling you isn't at the house that they didn't live there the deced it lived there they live off and outstated out of the area and so they really even more appreciate you being like get by and so when they'll say something like well i'm looking for somebody to help clean out same thing would you mind if i go over

and just kind of check on them, make sure it gets done right. You take a picture you're there with them, with the cleanup crew or whatever. You're in the property. Nobody else is in the property but you. Nobody else has pictures but you. Nobody else can show the property, but you. You have such a head start, you know, unless you blow it, you're the obvious choice to list the property.

Okay, so that's the, that's the sidewalk to the backyard, which is basically, we want to be the solution for all things. In my case, probate. People ask me a little yesterday, you know, well, do you want to do that work? Well, I don't do it, but I know somebody who does. I want people to call me if they have a problem. I want my customers to call me about any problem they have in real estate. I want them all to call me all the time.

Yeah, and Bill, you know, it's amazing how I'll ask the question, you know, who wants that call? And hands will go up. And I'll say, who doesn't want that call? And hands will go up. And I'll pick on someone if I'm in a room and I'll say, why don't you want that call? Oh, I'm way too busy for that call. I can't take that call. And then I'll say, and then, of course, it depends on how sassy I want to be.

You know, how many houses did you sell last year? That's ultra-sassy in a group. I don't want to get crazy because normally they're going to answer four. And I'm going to be like, yeah, you got time for that call. But if it's really an agent that's selling 100 houses a year, I'm going to go, okay, you need someone to take a look at what you're doing all day because you really want that call. You need to delegate a bunch of other stuff that you're, you know, that you're busy with because you do want that call. And I want the, you know, sometimes people say, well, you know, customers get into probates with bad attorneys.

It's a problem. No, I want that because either, A, I can help the attorney be better with their customer, or B, I can help the customer navigate around the attorney or find a new one. My job is to help somebody with a problem. And I'm open helping both. That's the home run is when you help both rather than just one or the others. So, a home run there. Let's talk a little bit about, because it's a time of the year that we do a little more networking with, be a holiday party, office parties. Also, you know, maybe taking people out, people more open to going out to lunch,

coffee. Attorneys by their nature, a lot of people this call trying to build business with attorneys, but their nature are more likely to go out for lunch than any other group, in my experience. That's kind of the normal attorney business is you call them to go out to lunch. They generally say yes. We're in most professions. They'll say no. Can you give us just kind of a couple common mistakes people make on those kinds of meetings and maybe one or two tips that can help people be more productive? So number one, I wouldn't even call it. Now, Bill, do you know this person or did you cold call them?

No, and just me you know, like maybe I'm doing a probate where I know the seller and they happen to bring in the, you know, the attorney they picked or so-and-so. And I'm talking to the guy on the phone about a couple of things. I might say, hey, by the way, I'd like to get to know you a little better. We're going to be working together for the next year or so. Would you mind if we want to if I could too catch a lunch one day next week? I would. I would, the first thing I would say is if you go to lunch, dinner, you know, breakfast. First of all,

breakfast is best always with all professionals, but if they'll go to lunch, that's fine. You know, no business spoken literally the whole time if you can do it. Zero. That's brutal. Now, I've been with you on coaching people who pay you a lot of money every month and they're like crying on the phone. It makes sense. So describe why is that so important? Okay. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, here's the thing and this is this is this is this is deep this is the dr joel stuff okay if you're all business all the time then if someone doesn't want to do business they don't ever need to talk to you let that just sink in if they think you're all business all the time then if they don't have any business why would they take your call and this is a very hard concept bill three percent of all

salespeople understand this and live this concept three percent that's it the other 97 percent literally cannot they start to go like this they literally start shaking because they have to ask for the business because they heard some dummy say well if you don't ask for the business you're not going to get it i do not profess that i don't believe it i think it's crap i'll argue with anyone not on this call right now anyone wants to call me after i'll argue with you all day okay you don't they should know who you are and what you're doing okay what's more important is that you're building a relationship with the person and you're really getting to know them so they will take your calls and you can talk to them and they will take your call if they don't have business okay if people think you're

all business then if they don't have any business they just send your call to voicemail it's why oh bill gross is calling i got nothing for him why am i thinking him up okay instead of oh bill gross is calling i can't wait to find out um you know about his daughter's new job because you guys had a whole conversation about the other person's daughter's job and then your daughter came up and then that came up and whatever it's a very different thing now bill this is very hard for salespeople okay salespeople are hardwired you saw your reaction play it back and watch your reaction we're like oh you went like this you actually went ah you know what i mean because it's very hard for people to sit and actually connect and not attack okay but the best people to do this stuff i used to argue

with my old boss forever ago bill who's getting put in the mortgage hall of fame this friday pat okay Casey it's really cool and and we used to talk about Joel you could train anyone to sell it I'm like no you can yes you can no you can yes you can no you can and I was the no you can't guy I'm like you can't sell anything to anyone they buy when they're ready okay you can't if you shove it down their throat it doesn't really matter those are always the worst transactions they're on they buy when they're ready oh I need to do something I got to call bill not I'm going to do it because bill called me okay those almost always go wrong all right so you need to be in front of them when they're ready to do something okay but

lunches are for connecting you when you walk to your car and they walk to their car the only thing they should be saying is wow i like that guy bill gross he's a cool guy it sounds like blah blah blah whatever whatever about him they learned okay they shouldn't be walking away going oh yeah bill seems like the best probate agent there ever is okay well then the only reason they want to talk to bill is if they have probate business for bill the bottom line is is wait a minute we don't just want business for bill from that attorney, we want that attorney telling other attorneys to call Bill, right? We don't just want what that attorney has. We want that attorney telling 10 other attorneys, oh, you got to call Bill. So, you know, agents are always focused on deals, deals, deals. Did I get a

referral? Did I get a deal from that guy? I'm like, no, no, no, no, stop, stop. Who did he tell to call you? And they go, what? And I go, uh-huh. But it's the way everyone's coached and trained, Bill. You've been through it all. You've seen everything. You're, you know, you were at, you, You've seen sweat hogs with Mike, Mike Ferry. I mean, that's aging both of us, okay, 35, 38 years ago. You know, whatever it is, you've seen it all. You know, it's really, you can do business that way, but that is the hard way. So if you're going to be in front of people, your main goal is to deepen the relationship when you're there.

Okay. I'll give you one simple thing. You're talking to someone on the phone. Okay? You're talking to someone on the phone. You're talking, you're talking, you're talking. and you hear a dog bark. I don't care what you're talking about.

I don't care if you're about to get a $10 million listing for a multifamily apartment building. You stop in your tracks. Is that a dog? Yeah. What kind of dog you got? A doodle. Really?

How old? Three years. What's the dog's name? Biali. Oh, that's a funny name. Does the dog bark all the time? No. And then right back to the dog.

$10 million listing. The next time you talk to that person, if it's quiet for more than a minute on the phone, you literally say, where's Biali? And they go, what? They're thinking themselves, what is going on here? I'm on the phone with this business guy that I do business with. He's asking me where my dog is. The only people that ask where the dog is or his cousin, his mom, his kids, his spouse, is the only people asking those questions. Okay. So where does that put you? That puts you in the inner circle immediately, all right? And by the way, this is not some hokey, crazy thing. You heard what I said.

I want to know about the dog. I like dogs. I want to know. I'll talk about his dog for 10 minutes and then go back to the $10 million listing. I can care less. One of the greatest things you could ever do in one of those lunches, Bill, greatest things you can ever do is someone sits down, Bill, you and I sit down and I'm the attorney and your bill, okay, and we're sitting down and I don't know.

we're getting sausages how about that and we're sitting down and we sit down and go bill i say bill what a timely lunch this is so awesome i literally just got off the phone with someone can you handle these three things for me i've got this person that has this this this and this i need all this stuff listed i need you to call over here can you do this i got this client for this and you look them in the eye and you simply say bill we should almost end with this because it's beautiful you say wow that's great i really appreciate that uh where did you guys go on vacation for thanks Thanksgiving. Literally, you don't even mention the business. Then you wait all the way to the end when you're getting up and say, oh, I totally forgot. Do you want to give me that guy's phone number and I'll

take care of it? Now, those of you on this call that can do that will be very successful. It is one of the hardest things for hardened criminal salespeople. I'm talking mainline cons, people that are in jail for murder, okay? Literally. To be able to do is literally say, this guy's about to give me $20 million worth of listings, and I blew it off to talk about his vacation for an hour, and then came back at the end and got the info. Those of you that know what I'm talking about are smiling right now. I can't see you. Those of you that aren't, I really want you to listen to me and take it in, because this is what the best people do, because that person walks away from that lunch, Bill walks away from

that lunch, or I walk away and I'm like, I like, I like that guy. that guy's awesome you know that's i'm that is literally what my thought is not that guy's gonna do the most bang up job ever i'm already assuming you're great at your job that's an assumption that's already assumed right but i'm like man i love that guy that guy's great right that guy went to the same place in mexico that i go for whatever oh his daughter same age as my daughter he's got a grandchild's whatever okay that's that's where it's at that's the goo bill that's go and that's what it's very hard to teach people i have to teach it in trench warfare that's why i'm i'm you know i work with such a tiny percentage of people it's why i you know get paid the way i get paid

or whatever because it's a knife fight to teach people how to do that you can't you know watch some video and figure that out that is that is a lot of internal fortitude to be able to do that but the people you work with make a ton of money which which i would translate create a lot of value for customers, which means they're compensated, working very reasonable hours and primarily doing things they like to do. You have salespeople who enjoy, I don't enjoy playing golf, for example. I just, to me, that would be a living hell going on a golf course for six hours. But there are people who love playing golf and their job as they go out and play golf every

day with somebody different or a couple people were different. There are people that shoot guns every day. I take people to the range. That's my, that's what I do. There are people that play pickleball. They do whatever. they're doing with their clients, whatever it is. They're friends, their partners, their referral.

You're 100% correct. But this is people that understand their job is to connect. Their job is to make a new best friend. And, you know, Bill, I'll leave you with this because I know we're looking at the time right now. But, you know, what are the two best sales techniques? Everyone get a pen. Everyone always gets this wrong. Bill's not allowed to answer because he already knows.

Guilt and sympathy. And they are both attached to emotions. Emotions are attached to a relationship. If people have no feelings towards you, they can't feel guilt or sympathy. They can't say, oh man, I feel really bad. Bill should have had that business. I can't believe this person has that. Bill should have had that.

I love Bill. Big concept for people to understand guilt and sympathy. That's it. Well, look, I think that we've covered a lot. your system is, I think, holistic, and it all kind of fits together and needs to be kind of consumed and adjusted to you over time. And so definitely worth watching. Go to big Joel.com is his website. He has podcast. He has interviews he's done there. A lot of top real estate agents, a lot of top mortgage people. Any speaking engagement schedule here out in the West Coast in particular?

I'm going to be, I'm in San Diego first week, and I think the last week of January, I think I'm in L.A., but it's all private client right now. There might be one agent thing. He's his big teams that hire him as a coach. So you guys got chest look behind this curtain a little bit to see it. I'll tell you this, Bill. You know, I've been doing agent crush. You know, I don't love doing it because a lot of the agents don't show up on time and make

me crazy. But, you know, if you have a group, you know, of your crew that are Bill Gross people, we can put something together. You can discount it. You can be on those calls with everyone. and we can go deep on everything we talked about today. We do it in 12 weeks. It's a three-month class, and we go deep, deep, deep.

And I would be glad to do that. I don't know if that page is up on my site right now. I might be disabled because I didn't want to do it anymore. But I do. I always have agents asking for it just called Agent Crush. And we could certainly do something for your fans, if you want. You just let me know. Well, if you guys actually, let me know, reach out to me and we'll put a group together.

But I want to say we talked about in under an hour, material. His crush program every week is a different one of these topics expanded in details a lot to uncover. Definitely worth checking out his YouTube channel, his podcast. Joel, obviously a longtime personal friend. Thank you. Colleague, thank you, success coach of mind, mentor of mine. Thank you for being on today and helping us learn how not just to do more business, but I think to do it in a way that we'll enjoy more and won't be better for us in a long run. So thank you so much. All about hourly rate, Bill. It's all about your hourly rate. That's exactly You're right.

And are you having fun? Thank you, everyone. Have a good holiday. Thank you. And for us, this is probateweekly.com. We do this every single Thursday at 9 a.m. live. We live stream it on YouTube as well. And then we record it, put it on YouTube, LinkedIn, all their various channels.

So if you're interested, I'm at Bill Gross Probate on social media or Bill Gross Probate.com. Look forward to seeing you. Have great holidays. We'll talk soon.