S4 E3: The Probate Show!

Ren (00:00):
Welcome to Roadmap. How to take three listings a week until you’re ready for more. Each week we interview a powerful agent taking lots of listings each month, and we have an exciting guest today. In fact, today is the season four probate show. We encourage you to take notes, apply as much of their knowledge as quickly as you can, and then use the copycat principle.

(00:23):
Before I introduce our guests today, I want to remind everyone that we are also simulcasting the show on the private Lead Gen group on Facebook. They have almost 51… Do they have 51,000? Almost 51,000 members. So we have a large audience there today as well. We’ll be pausing for a commercial message during the show as a thank you to the Lead Gen folks. Now let’s welcome our guest today from… Oh, I didn’t even introduce my cohost.

Carley (00:53):
I know.

Ren (00:54):
I know. That’s happened twice now.

Carley (00:56):
Oh man.

Ren (00:56):
From San Diego, miss Carley Hathaway. That’s carleyhathaway.com. Welcome, Carley.

Carley (01:02):
Thank you. Thank you, Ren. Hi everybody. Thanks for watching.

Ren (01:06):
How’s real estate in San Diego?

Carley (01:07):
Real estate in San Diego is amazing. Cannot complain.

Ren (01:11):
Good. Good, good, good.

Carley (01:12):
Yeah.

Ren (01:12):
So let’s introduce our guest from Naples, Florida. Naples, Florida. What a great place to live. Mr. Joe Ring. Welcome, Joe.

Joe (01:21):
Good afternoon.

Ren (01:23):
Glad to have you here.

Joe (01:24):
Well, thank you so much. I’m going to enjoy it.

Ren (01:27):
Good. Good, good. And you’re newer to real estate, aren’t you? How many years?

Joe (01:31):
Well, I believe it’s four. It may be five, but I believe it’s four.

Ren (01:35):
You’ve been too busy to count them, huh?

Joe (01:37):
Too busy to count, right.

Ren (01:38):
Good. Good, good, good. Fantastic. Joe does a little of everything. He’s doing… We have Jim Sullivan from alltheleads.com on here. It’s a product that is available through Vulcan7, and a lot of people call probate leads. Probate leads being… How would you define probate leads, Jim?

Joe (01:57):
I think it’s a very underserved niche. It’s people that just inherited property they weren’t planning and owning. Usually very motivated to sell it. Our Vulcan subscribers and our people that call these people, tell us most of the time they’re the only person contacting them. Little bit different than FSBOs and expireds. It’s a little less-

Ren (02:15):
Right.

Carley (02:15):
Yeah. That’s-

Ren (02:16):
The thing about probate business is it drives seller… It’s seller business. None of those people that have passed away will ever purchase again. It’s perfect. If you’re working on Vulcan7, which drives seller business, this is a good fit for you and you may want to look at this and the strategies that Joe’s going to share with us today. So this is going to be fun. Good.

Carley (02:36):
Yeah.

Ren (02:38):
So let’s dive in.

Carley (02:39):
Yeah.

Ren (02:39):
Let’s find out. Carley, I know it’s not your regular thing to chat about probate, but dig in and see what you can…

Carley (02:47):
Yeah, well, I’m excited because I don’t call probates right now, so I want to learn something, and I definitely want to start diving into it. So you’ve only been in the business about four or five years. You’re calling probates. Tell me your strategy when calling in mornings.

Joe (03:01):
Well, the first thing I do is I offer my condolences of course, and then I ask them if they have any real property to sell. And a lot of times they’ll say yes. And then I’ll say, “May I share my process for selling your property with you?”

Carley (03:16):
Okay.

Joe (03:16):
And then I have a four-step process that I explain to them. And if they want to go forward, I send them out what I call a VIP pack straight out of Mike Ferry and send them that package to their house, request a date and time to do a presentation. And I do it just like we’re doing it right now. I mean, because a lot of times in my area, the sellers are from out of state. They’re from Pennsylvania, mostly the Midwest.

Carley (03:43):
Mm-hmm.

Joe (03:43):
It would be the kids trying to sell their parent’s condo or their home down here in Naples, Florida. And I’ll just work remotely through them.

Carley (03:52):
Okay.

Joe (03:53):
But I also have sub services that help them too, because since they’re out of state, I maintain a cleaning crew to get it all cleaned up. I have associations with tax deduction facilities. And so I have some value-added services. Obviously, I bill the estate, but I have some value-added services that help me along in the process.

Carley (04:14):
Yeah.

Ren (04:14):
Probably in educational process too, to educate them on a few steps that they hadn’t considered.

Joe (04:19):
Correct. Right.

Carley (04:23):
Let me ask you, when you’re calling, when you get the probate contact information, are you getting it right after they pass away, or what’s the timeframe? And then also, what’s the timeframe of when you want to start calling them?

Joe (04:37):
Well, you want to start the-

Carley (04:37):
It’s kind of touchy.

Joe (04:40):
That’s a great question, actually. You want to start the process right away.

Carley (04:42):
Okay.

Joe (04:43):
Okay? And what you’ll find is that when I first started, I was a little bit hesitant because it was so near the death. But if you don’t, they’re already going to list because their lawyers have associations with realtors, and that’s a very hard thing to break. So you got to get at it right away. I mean…

Carley (05:04):
Okay.

Ren (05:05):
Are you calling the probate attorneys that specialize in estates and probate work?

Joe (05:12):
Yeah, I’m an old attorney myself, so I would say that I’ve tried that going through the attorneys. It’s much more effective for me personally. Probably it would be a wall of ongoing referrals, but since they already have associations, it’s really hard to break that unless you get a new attorney. So I’ve been finding more success attacking directly the executors. Yeah.

Ren (05:36):
Okay.

Jim (05:36):
And Carley, I just wanted a real quick follow-up on your question.

Carley (05:41):
Yeah.

Jim (05:41):
It varies greatly, but on average it’s about three and a half months from the date of death until the probate gets filed. So generally, the people are over the grief enough that they’ve made the business decision to hire an attorney and move on with their life. So it’s not… A little bit different than working obituaries.

Carley (05:57):
Okay.

Jim (05:57):
There usually is a time there where they’re more responsive and they’re more ready to deal with it.

Joe (06:03):
Yeah.

Carley (06:04):
Okay. And that’s when we would get the numbers through Vulcan is after already it went through probate court and it’s ready to be moved?

Jim (06:11):
Well, we give it to you as soon as the probate is filed.

Joe (06:14):
Right.

Jim (06:14):
From the time it’s filed, it takes a few months at least to complete the process. But your first call, or Joe’s first call to these people is to let them know that they can go ahead and list the property now they’re authorized as executor.

Joe (06:27):
Right. I was just going to get to that. Right, right, right.

Jim (06:27):
Go ahead, Joe. I don’t want to steal your thunder.

Joe (06:27):
No, that’s all right.

Jim (06:32):
Please go ahead.

Joe (06:34):
Well, yeah, I was going to follow the note. You want to get them signed up with you as soon as possible so that, “You do realize Mr. And Mrs. Seller, you could get this on the market right now and we could sell it. We just can’t close.” That’s just my script to them.

Carley (06:48):
Yeah.

Ren (06:48):
Okay. So they need to be educated on that, that they can get it under contract and then closing may be decided in that process, in the course.

Joe (06:58):
Right.

Ren (06:59):
Okay. Would it be fair to say that your bigger competitors, not other agents doing what you do, but that investor or 10 that gets in their ear and whispers, “I’ll pay you cash, and I’ll do it quickly and easily,” and they end up basically it’s a wholesale deal. Is that your competitor?

Joe (07:21):
Yeah. It’s interesting that we’re an impetus to them by us starting to go for the higher dollar amount. At least in my marketplace, the guys would rather get the higher dollar amount than sell early to an investor at a 20% discount. But yes, I do go through that with them. They say, “Oh, I got an offer from so and so,” and usually, generally speaking, at least 20% below market.

Ren (07:45):
Yeah.

Carley (07:46):
And is that how-

Ren (07:47):
Investors have to make their margin.

Joe (07:49):
Right.

(07:50):
And investors don’t like us calling.

Carley (07:53):
Yeah. So is that how you overcome that objection by just saying, “I will get you more money for your home than an investor would”?

Joe (08:00):
Well, without getting right into my script, I go through the analogy of buying at a wholesale versus buying retail. “Do you want to sell your house wholesale or do you want to sell it retail?”

Ren (08:11):
Yeah, there’s a reason an investor is coming along and making it very …

Carley (08:14):
Mm-hmm.

Joe (08:15):
Yeah.

Ren (08:16):
So just warning them, “I just want to warn you that investors are on their way and four, five or six of them are going to make you low offers.”

Joe (08:24):
Exactly, Ren. Yeah.

Ren (08:24):
“Be careful, you deserve to sell it for retail.”

Joe (08:27):
Right.

Jim (08:28):
I was just going to add, Joe, you probably also tell them that, “Let’s go ahead and try to get you closer to what it’s worth.” I have an investor too, if the situation arises and you need a quick sale, I’m sure you have an investor do the same thing for them. Right?

Carley (08:41):
Mm-hmm.

Joe (08:42):
Of course. I mean, you do run into the situations where the estate doesn’t have enough money and they do actually want to go with an investor. I can certainly accommodate that situation. That’s, at least in my marketplace, and it might be different in other marketplaces, that would be the exception rather than the norm.

Carley (08:58):
Mm-hmm.

Ren (08:59):
A lot of these are second homes or are they?

Joe (09:02):
Sure.

Ren (09:02):
Is it just the first home and then the-

Joe (09:04):
Almost all of mine are second, third, or fourth homes. Correct, yeah.

Ren (09:08):
Okay. Because you’re in just a wonderful market.

Joe (09:11):
We’re in a resort market. Right.

Ren (09:12):
What’s an average price there?

Joe (09:14):
I think our average price right now with both combining both homes and condos is 588.

Carley (09:21):
That’s great.

Ren (09:21):
Yeah.

Carley (09:21):
Yeah.

Ren (09:24):
That’s the upper end in a lot of cities.

Carley (09:27):
Yeah. Yeah. So-

Joe (09:28):
And we go all the way up to 20 million in that area.

Carley (09:30):
Nice.

Ren (09:30):
Up to 20 million. What’s the biggest you’ve done so far in a probate property?

Joe (09:38):
Oh, in a probate property? A million. Yeah.

Ren (09:40):
One million? Okay. That’s not so bad.

Carley (09:42):
So how many listings are you taking a month, or what’s your goal?

Joe (09:48):
Well, I’ll answer both questions.

Carley (09:50):
Okay.

Joe (09:52):
My goal is 60. So I’m trying to take at least three listings per month because off of your listings you’ll get the buyer, sales, et cetera, and that’ll drive you up to 60. So that’s basically what I’m doing.

Carley (10:05):
Mm-hmm.

Joe (10:05):
And about January, February, March in my marketplace, I may take 8, 9, 10 listings. You know?

Carley (10:12):
Okay. Yeah.

Ren (10:13):
Because you got some seasonal ebbs and flows there.

Joe (10:16):
Very seasonal. So yeah, I don’t do very much work in the summertime. Even if you’re a probate, you’ll get some, but a lot of people have this perception that selling in my marketplace, selling in a summer, meaning you’re selling it on a cheap because the buyers aren’t here. I mean, that’s the reality.

Carley (10:35):
Okay. Okay. That makes sense. So to reach those goals, how many calls are you making per day? Why don’t you just walk us through your schedule?

Joe (10:42):
Sure.

Carley (10:43):
When you start in the morning, how many calls you make?

Joe (10:47):
Okay. I hope my coach isn’t listening, but anyhow. I start with role play at 7:30, and I do that every day of the week except for when I’m with my coach Larry Kozak on Thursday mornings. So role play from 7:30 to about 10 to eight or so. Then I get some coffee or whatever. Right at 8:00 I’m starting to dial. And my goal is to hit 25 contacts per day. My analyzer’s saying I’m at 97% of that. My monetary goal, I’m over my monetary goal, but I’m under my transaction goal.

Carley (11:23):
Okay, got it.

Joe (11:26):
And then in the afternoon I do my lead follow-up after lunch around 12. And then I do listing appointments or previewing property after that.

Ren (11:34):
Okay. Great, great.

Carley (11:36):
Sounds like a good routine. It’s working. Definitely.

Joe (11:39):
Right.

Ren (11:39):
It’s interesting, and I wasn’t even thinking about this happening on this call, but no matter how you’re doing this business, everybody seems to have a coach of some sort from some organization. Larry Kozak’s yours. So great, great, great.

Carley (11:53):
Yeah, love having coaches for sure. So you were saying you have, you send a VIP packet out for a pre-listing?

Joe (12:01):
Mm-hmm. Correct.

Carley (12:03):
What do you include in that?

Joe (12:04):
Well, I have it tailor made to different products, but sticking with the probate product, I have what you call listing those services that I have, value-added services that we talked about a little while ago.

Carley (12:16):
Yeah.

Joe (12:17):
I have all my recent sales of last year, which was over 50.

Carley (12:21):
Good.

Joe (12:22):
And I include them in there. I have references with phone numbers in there. I have my listing plan of action and my objections in there. And oh, then if it’s a luxury property, I have my luxury certificate and I would throw that in the hat as well.

Ren (12:38):
Good.

Carley (12:39):
Nice. Nice.

Ren (12:40):
That’s a big part of your market, that luxury vision there.

Joe (12:43):
Right.

Carley (12:43):
And I-

Jim (12:45):
I was going to add real quick, Joe, if you’re anything like me, what I loved about probate, and let me ask you, I mean, as far as following a schedule, what percentage of your probate listings do you actually have to meet with the people versus just a phone conversation and send off the paperwork?

Joe (13:04):
That’s interesting. Because it’s, I’m sure we’re going to get to this and the probate and it’s a really a lot of aggressive follow-up, I don’t have to do that many presentations, although I’m not opposed to doing them. It’s not a big deal. But…

Jim (13:17):
Right.

Joe (13:18):
By the time you get to actually listing their property, they just said, “Send me over the contract,” because you’ve been in contact with them so much.

Carley (13:28):
Mm-hmm.

Ren (13:28):
Do you yourself do group calls? Do you have to… Because sometimes you have four, five, six heirs.

Joe (13:31):
I love it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Ren (13:34):
And it’s always that one that’s like can’t wait for it to sell that’s like “Give me the money, the money, the money,” that gets things moving along.

Joe (13:40):
I’m encouraged when you got one person that wants to sell and the other person doesn’t want to sell, then you… I’ve been in those situations too that’s you know…

Ren (13:47):
Well, it’s better to have one person in a hurry. That’s what I think.

Joe (13:51):
It’s better to have the executor wanting to sell, yes.

Carley (13:54):
Yeah. Definitely. And I think also, I mean sending that pre-listing pack, I feel like a lot of agents don’t do that. So it sets you above the bar, right?

Joe (14:06):
It does. And if they see that you’re actually selling homes, especially at their price points, and it makes their life a whole lot easier.

Carley (14:16):
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Joe (14:17):
You want to make it about them. You don’t want to tell them you’re a great salesman and how many sales you do, but if you put it in that package, they’ll read it, they’ll know. You know?

Carley (14:24):
Yeah, definitely. And then you said you do lead follow-up in the afternoon. How often are you following up? What’s your kind of timeline for that?

Joe (14:33):
This is my belief, I don’t have a timeline. I call them all the time.

Carley (14:38):
Okay.

Joe (14:38):
But if you’re going to call them all the time, you got to bring something beneficial to the phone call. “I got some exciting news. Two more units sold in your building.” Whatever the case may be.

Carley (14:45):
Right.

Joe (14:46):
I stay up at night and think about things that I can call them about.

Carley (14:48):
Okay.

Joe (14:48):
So it has to be of value, otherwise you’re a nuisance. Right?

Carley (14:53):
Yes. Got it. Okay.

Ren (14:55):
I was just thinking about this, Joe. You’ve been doing this 48 to 60 months, just four to five years, and knowing your price point and a goal is 60, what kind of income is that? That’s like 600. I mean that’s a lot of money, isn’t it?

Joe (15:10):
Yeah.

Ren (15:11):
How much money is that? Is that six, 700,000?

Joe (15:14):
It’s over 400,000.

Carley (15:15):
Yeah.

Ren (15:16):
So you’re approaching a half million dollars a year. And in a very short period because there are people watching right now. They have been in the business four years, but they’re not at a half a million in income. So what would you tell them they need to do, regardless of their market, that maybe they’re not doing? Maybe it’s the advice from Larry Kozak, your coach.

Joe (15:34):
I think-

Ren (15:35):
What would you tell them?

Joe (15:36):
Well, I would tell them that most people call the expireds like every day, and it’s like 10 or 12 agents that are calling and they never get anywhere. And that’s because they’re forgetting to do their lead follow-up. You’ve got to get their motivation at least on the first phone call, and then follow-up and pound that motivation.

Ren (15:52):
So you’re a big lead follow-up guy?

Joe (15:55):
I would say that on average it takes six or seven lead follow-up phone calls before I get a listing.

Carley (16:01):
Right. Okay.

Ren (16:02):
So there’s huge advice. How much money do you think… If you were not doing the lead follow-up, if you were doing lead follow-up at the rate that a lot of agents are doing it, would that cut your income in half or maybe only a third or what would… I mean.

Joe (16:06):
I’m not sure I understood the question. If what?

Carley (16:06):
If you didn’t do lead follow-up, do you think you’re-

Ren (16:06):
At the level that you’re doing lead follow-up-

Joe (16:13):
Oh, if I didn’t do lead follow-up, I’d be out of the business.

Ren (16:24):
Or you’d take a pretty big haircut on your income

Joe (16:26):
Yeah, because you’re only as good as-

Ren (16:28):
So for 500,000, you’d make 100,000?

Joe (16:30):
Right. Because you’re only going to get the drivers then. You’re only getting one set, one person out of the four personality styles. A driver you can do one phone call and get them signed up.

Carley (16:40):
Yeah.

Joe (16:40):
Sometimes an appointment the next day. But if you’re with an amiable or someone like that, you’re not going to… It’s just not going to work.

Carley (16:50):
Yeah.

Ren (16:50):
So if they pick something from this call, besides the probate strategies, would be intensity, five, six, seven, eight times just either they list or they die. I mean, well, in your case they’ve done both. But…

Joe (17:02):
Yeah.

Carley (17:05):
So for lead follow-up, I know you’re calling in afternoons. Do you send mailers, do you email, do you text? What else do you do besides call? I just-

Joe (17:12):
No, I don’t do any of that stuff. I just, I believe that real estate is direct sale, so I just get on the phone.

Ren (17:21):
Good. So it’s people to people, it’s contact. I know you have shoulders. I know that.

Joe (17:25):
Oh.

Ren (17:25):
There we go.

Carley (17:27):
He’s relaxing.

Joe (17:29):
I am relaxing. Sorry about that.

Ren (17:31):
13 more minutes. There we go. So we’ll hit some Q&A here in about one minute, two minutes, so if people type in questions, whether you’re on Facebook or in the Lead Gen group, or if you’re on the Vulcan7 network, go ahead and type in some great questions. What else do we need to share with these folks? Because this is, he’s got a great life.

Carley (17:52):
Yeah, I like that-

Ren (17:54):
To be in the business such a short time and make that much money by intense lead follow-up.

Carley (17:59):
Mm-hmm. And I think also him having a really tight schedule and a routine, and I know we talk about this a lot, I think that’s really helpful. What is it that keeps you on your routine rather than just sleeping in one morning or, “I’m not feeling like making calls,” what keeps you going?

Joe (18:15):
I’m a driver. I mean, if I’m going to do something, I want to do it right and get it done. I just, it’s the way I’ve always been.

Carley (18:24):
So you feel like it’s… Are you competitive?

Joe (18:27):
Oh, extremely.

Carley (18:28):
Okay. Okay. Good.

Jim (18:30):
And I was going to add, Joe, one thing I heard there that is so common of our most successful agents, not only the lead follow-up, but one thing I heard you say is, “It’s about them.” You talk about the people first and that leads you to the real estate conversation.

Carley (18:45):
Mm-hmm.

Jim (18:46):
You don’t start with “Yeah, I’m the best guy to sell your house.” You start with the people and, “How can I help you?” And that leads… That’s true of any kind of prospecting or lead follow-up. Let them know you care about them and they’ll want to do business with you. And that really rang true. And I sense that you’re really good at doing it.

Joe (19:04):
Right. And I think a lot of agents when they’re prospecting lose that. They start telling them how great they are. And once they start, I just cringe when I start hearing that stuff.

Carley (19:12):
Yeah.

Joe (19:13):
It’s good for me actually.

Carley (19:15):
Yeah.

Joe (19:15):
It’s kind of embarrassing.

Carley (19:18):
So Tim is asking, he’d love to hear the script. So maybe we can do just a little quick role play if you’re calling me

Joe (19:28):
Yeah, I don’t have it right in front of me but, “Hi Mr. and Mrs. Smith. This is Joe Ring from Coldwell Banker.” Well, I first say, “Hello. I’m looking for Mr. Smith. And then you’d say…

Carley (19:40):
“Speaking.”

Joe (19:41):
Yeah, speaking. “Hi Mr. Smith. I’m calling about your probate case. And I first would like to offer my condolences. I’m Joe Ring from Coldwell Banker and I have one simple question for you, do you have any real property to sell for the estate?” And then-

Carley (19:54):
“I do. I do. I have a condo.”

Joe (19:56):
“A condo. Well, terrific. May I share with you my process for working with executors?”

Carley (20:03):
“Sure.”

Joe (20:04):
“Well, I would first like to get access into your condo, determine two things, what needs to be done to exactly get it sold. Number two, while I’m there, I’ll determine a price point, and I’ll prepare you up an aggressive marketing plan and at what price your home will sell at. Number three, I will send you out that information in a VIP package. And step four, we’d set a time for listing presentation. If all that’s fine with you, I’d like to get started.”

Carley (20:35):
Sounds good. I like it. It’s straightforward, it’s direct. I like your four easy step process. It makes you feel comfortable. I think it’s really good. I could see how you’re so successful.

Joe (20:45):
Yeah. Yeah. Because I’m a driver, I don’t get real wordy because I-

Carley (20:51):
Yeah.

Ren (20:52):
Get right to the point. So good, get the conversation going, and then the lead follow-up. Elena wants to know how to get involved. So a couple of ways, Elena. In Vulcan7 it discusses probates and how to get in touch. You can also go to alltheleads.com. Make sure they know you’re a Vulcan7 user so they can tie it together and push them into your Vulcan7 CRM.

Jim (21:17):
And Ren, they can go alltheleads.com/Vulcan7, make sure they go directly.

Ren (21:22):
Even better. There you go. Go to alltheleads.com/Vulcan7. Let’s see. Oh, Hassan Ali wants to know if you can also get things that you mail. Jim, what do you offer there?

Jim (21:43):
Yeah. Yeah. We have a dozen templated letters you can download, modify, upload to us. You can do them yourself, or we’ll even mail them for you if you like. We’ll send them out in a greeting card style envelope with a hand addressed line.

Ren (21:57):
Okay. Because I imagine with that specialty, that’s something that you want to have crafted. And Huey Haybare’s asking the same questions. So apparently, there’s a lot of interest in what to send out by mail or email. And are you providing email addresses too, by the way?

Jim (22:14):
Yeah, if it’s part of the court records, we supply it. The phone numbers are not part of the court records. We supplement those. But emails are about 20% of them have emails. About 80% of them don’t.

Ren (22:26):
Hassan wants to know, do you send the mailer first, and then call? Or do you call first and then mail? Or do they just happen right at the same time?

Jim (22:35):
We recommend you mail first. Joe, what do you do?

Carley (22:37):
Joe, calls.

Joe (22:39):
You do my mailings. I think the call, from my perspective, is a lot more important than the mailer.

Jim (22:47):
Yeah.

Ren (22:47):
He’s the call guy. Yeah, which is good. And in Vulcan7, if you ask us if you can move your lips you can put some deals together,

Joe (22:55):
You will get-

Ren (22:57):
I mean, the guy’s making a half million a year. I think I’m going to side with him, Jim.

Jim (23:03):
The mail makes it a little bit less of a cold call. Plus, you will have people put your letter away and call you a year later where they probably won’t save your voicemail. This is a niche. Probate’s a niche that the lead season very well. A lot of them are ready to do something right away. A lot of them will call you. Joe, have you found that people call you a year later?

Joe (23:22):
Yeah. You’re going to love this, Jim. What you say absolutely rings true. I just figured that out. I started going back to your old list that you gave me from a year ago and I started calling them. And I’m pulling out listings out of those. They never did anything.

Carley (23:38):
Oh cool.

Jim (23:39):
Yeah.

Carley (23:39):
That’s great.

Joe (23:39):
Yeah.

(23:41):
And I have never done that before because I figured they’d probably be… But no, there’s more people than not. And then I think about myself and my parents. If they were to die, I probably wouldn’t want to get on it right away if I didn’t need the money.

Carley (23:53):
Yeah.

Ren (23:53):
Probably go down, you’re up in Michigan, you go down to, might as well hang out in Naples for two, three years.

Joe (24:00):
Yeah.

Ren (24:00):
Until the red tide comes in and then sell it.

Joe (24:02):
Right. Right. Yeah.

Carley (24:06):
So let me ask you, do you leave voicemails when you’re calling?

Joe (24:09):
I do not.

Carley (24:11):
Okay.

Joe (24:12):
I find them not to be effective, both, whether it’s probate, FSBOs, expireds, you’re just wasting another two minutes when you can put three more calls in.

Carley (24:20):
Yeah. Okay. And then, what if you’re on, what if you’ve called them already four, five times, do you have a timeline of when you throw them away and move on, or do you just keep calling?

Joe (24:30):
Well, that’s an interesting question. I get so that I have so many calls to make that if I would say the most three times, because by then I have a whole new batch of leads. Every day I get leads in. So you know, it’s…

Ren (24:43):
Yeah.

Carley (24:44):
Yeah.

Ren (24:46):
Tom Horst wants to know, well, he says he is from Pennsylvania, but he could be anywhere. He could be in Amish country. Who knows? But he wants to know how many leads are available in a typical market. And if I remember, you send the leads once a month, if I remember. All big batch. Whoa.

Joe (25:07):
Yeah, it’d be great if they split that up because there’s a shitload. Sorry. There’s a lot of leads.

Ren (25:14):
That’s okay. We have an edited version we send out.

Jim (25:17):
How many leads do you get in your market every month?

Joe (25:21):
I got to be honest, I never counted, but I got, there’s got to be at least 150.

Jim (25:25):
Yeah. And Ren, it varies anywhere from a dozen to several hundred. Every market’s different.

Ren (25:32):
Nice.

Carley (25:32):
Yeah.

Ren (25:33):
And your prices vary too. The prices depend on that. So if you’re in a big market, you’re going to pay a lot, but you get a lot.

Carley (25:42):
Yeah.

Jim (25:43):
You get more, but it’s still not a lot.

Carley (25:44):
Yeah.

Joe (25:44):
I’ll tell you a story. One time I called on probate just about a year ago, and I picked up $3 million sales, 900,899, and one 1,000,001 off of one phone call. Yeah, it was pretty-

Carley (25:57):
Nice. See? Just one more call. Just one more call.

Ren (26:01):
It’s a contact sport folks.

Carley (26:04):
Yep.

Ren (26:05):
Get on the phone. I mean, I’ve never understood real estate people that get in the market and then don’t talk to anybody.

Jim (26:11):
So I will tell you, I think you just paid for about 10 years’ worth of leads there with that one.

Joe (26:14):
Yeah, that was a great one. The guy has three properties he rented. Right.

Jim (26:18):
Awesome. Good job.

Carley (26:20):
That’s great.

Ren (26:20):
Jim, is your company offering the divorce records? Because that’s-

Jim (26:26):
We are. Funny, I wasn’t supposed to mention that, but Ren, yes, we are.

Ren (26:29):
We’re not. Okay.

Jim (26:31):
We are rolling it out in Florida, in California in the next couple weeks. And we will be nationwide by the end of the year.

Ren (26:38):
Okay.

Jim (26:39):
We’re going to take the same approach.

Ren (26:39):
Okay.

Jim (26:40):
If you play it, you got it. Service. Healthy-

Ren (26:44):
Yeah. Say a lot. I mean, those are triple headers.

Carley (26:47):
Oh yeah.

Ren (26:47):
You’ve got a sale and a sale and a purchase and a purchase.

Carley (26:49):
Yeah.

Ren (26:49):
Maybe it’s four. Yeah. Oh yeah, sale-

Carley (26:52):
A sale and a 2%.

Ren (26:53):
A sale and two buyers.

Carley (26:54):
Yeah.

Joe (26:55):
Yeah, I’ve got a sign up for that too. I got to call those people.

Carley (26:59):
Yeah, I want to start doing that too. I’m glad you’re rolling it out in California. I’m excited.

Ren (27:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Jim ships, he was telling me about it, he ships a little special helmet to wear when you make those calls.

Carley (27:08):
Perfect. So you don’t get beat up too bad. Well, no, I think it’d be a really fast… It would be a fast sale, right? They want out. They want to get it sold fast. They don’t even want to speak to each other.

Ren (27:19):
Well, what’s interesting is whoever’s in the house sometimes would rather stay there for a while. So it just-

Carley (27:25):
Oh, that’s true. So you have to have your boxing gloves on I guess. Right?

Ren (27:29):
That’s a different beast.

Jim (27:32):
It’s a little more contentious.

Ren (27:32):
And a whole different set of strategies.

Carley (27:34):
Yeah.

Ren (27:35):
I mean, the set of strategies on that type of sale is, it’s a very different list of scripts and conversations.

Carley (27:44):
Mm-hmm.

Joe (27:44):
Yeah. It’s to be-

Jim (27:44):
That’s the reason why it’s taken us so long. We wanted to get it right.

Carley (27:45):
Yeah.

Jim (27:46):
And we’re going to have a full-time divorce coach.

Ren (27:49):
Yeah, because you’re going to want coach people on all the… Because that is… You can’t treat it like a regular sale.

Jim (27:55):
You’re correct. Yep.

Ren (27:56):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean there’s even a little bit of confrontation required.

Joe (28:02):
You’re probably going to have to work on both parties.

Ren (28:04):
Yeah.

Carley (28:05):
Yeah.

Ren (28:06):
But the best part about divorce is if we’re prospecting it, you don’t know either one of the sellers.

Carley (28:13):
Yeah.

Ren (28:15):
And so you have a professional relationship, and they should trust you more because you don’t care if it’s this person or this person.

Carley (28:21):
Yeah. You’re the middleman, you’re the mediator.

Ren (28:22):
Right, you’re the middle person. Instead of it being this person’s friend or this person’s friend, you’re not friends of either one. So really you play a huge role by going after that business.

Carley (28:33):
Mm-hmm.

Ren (28:34):
Really do. Good. This has been wonderful, and there’s some great ideas here. And Joe, it’s kind of fun to where you can four or five years in the business and be approaching a half million dollars a year in income. That’s a wonderful thing. And living at the beach. Well, near it anyway.

Carley (28:51):
Yeah. Yeah, this was-

Ren (28:51):
What a great life.

Carley (28:51):
Yeah.

Ren (28:51):
What a great life.

Carley (28:54):
Yeah. This was really informative. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m really excited to start calling probates and then maybe divorce people too.

Ren (29:01):
Yeah. And yeah, and you’ll love the Florida tax rate, Carley.

Carley (29:05):
Okay.

Ren (29:05):
It’s a lot better than California.

Carley (29:08):
I know. I’m getting killed.

Ren (29:11):
Good deal. So I want to thank everybody for being here. I’ve got to read a couple little things. If you’re watching on Vulcan7, you want to get involved with the Lead Gen Facebook group, they are at facebook.com/groups/gotobjections. And I want to thank Aaron who runs that group. And he has a great program he does called expiredmasteryelite.com.

(29:37):
And finally, if you’re watching on Facebook and you’re not involved with Vulcan7, can’t imagine, make sure to sign up at Vulcan7.com/leadgen for a very special deal. And now for Joe’s secret he didn’t tell you. But what Joe does is he makes his calls all morning long and then he does his lead follow-up for another hour and a half, two hours. Because he does a lot of lead follow-up. And then he rewards himself. And this is what drives him to making the big bucks he’s making. He gets some delicious Graeter’s mint chocolate chip. He has the delicious… You want to get this, folks. The delicious Graeter’s mint chocolate chip. The only one for taking listings.

(30:16):
If you’re working with buyers, it’s a totally different flavor. But for the listings, it’s the mint chocolate chip. If the listing has trouble selling, dig a hole in the front yard, bury it upside down and it will sell just like that. But that’s his secret and you should get involved. Go to graeters.com. You can buy it anywhere in North America.

Jim (30:34):
Ren, you asked me for a special deal. Do you have time for that or not?

Ren (30:37):
Oh, yeah. Jim, can you get… I asked Jim if he would do us a favor and give us some sort of special deal.

Carley (30:43):
Yeah, I need a deal.

Jim (30:46):
Call us in the next day or two and mention Vulcan7 and we are offering a BOGO. So basically, you buy the September lead, we’ll give you buy one get one free. We’ll give you the October one.

Ren (30:57):
Nice.

Carley (30:58):
Nice.

Ren (30:58):
Thank you, Jim. That’s wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sign up, get two for one.

Carley (31:04):
Yep.

Jim (31:04):
Two for one. Buy one, get one.

Ren (31:07):
That’s it.

Carley (31:07):
Perfect.

Ren (31:08):
See everybody next week when we interview another great agent who’s setting the world on fire taking listings. See everybody.

Carley (31:13):
Bye. Thanks everybody.

Ren (31:13):
Bye everybody.

Joe (31:13):
Bye. Yep.