THE PROBATE BLUEPRINT: Real Estate Investing Master Class | Buying Probate Houses For HUGE Profits

1. Before You Get Started: let me just start off by saying congratulations. You have already done what many people fail to do, and that is to get started. And you know, when you want to make big changes in your life, you want to learn something new or you want to advance your business. You know, making those changes are uncomfortable and, you know, signing up in this course and investing in yourself. You know? I mean, that's no small feat. So I just wanted to say before we get into the material or anything else, Congratulations. I'm really looking forward to teaching you how to invest in probate real estate. With this new course to probate blueprint, Let's move on. 2. Meet Ben: Now, I'd like to take a minute just to tell you a little bit about myself because I think that it helps, you know, you learn if you kind of know better. You know where this instruction is coming from. So basically, here's just a quick rundown on May. You know, I'm nothing special, you know, I'm not. I'm not some kind of real estate genius or anything like that. I'm a guy that at one point in time was just kind of stuck in a job that I didn't like and , you know, it was a good job paid well, but it was just really demanding. It was one of those things where, you know, you grind all the way through the week and you're looking forward to the weekend. And then when the weekend finally arrives, you have trouble enjoying the weekend because then you're dreading Monday and it's just a just kind of a soul sucking rhythm and routine to be in. And I wanted something better than that and what I did. I basically made a list of different things I might be able to try, and there was there was all kinds of things on the list I could possibly get into to replace that job. But for one reason or another, the option that rose to the top of that list was real estate. And, uh, I just basically started reading books and listening to Webinars and watching videos on YouTube and all this other stuff and, you know, started getting into real estate. And early on it took me probably two years before I actually made any money in real estate . And it was it was a tough two years. I mean, you know, putting all this effort into something that's not actually producing results. It's a very difficult thing to do, but it's kind of it's kind of just part of the process that you have to muscle through, especially early on. Anyways, after those 1st 2 years, you know things. My business finally started to click, and I started to make a little money, and from that point it was just, ah matter of kind of refining what I've learned and growing my business and you know, from a to this point have been in real estate for about probably about 13 years now. But those 1st 2 years, they kind of sucked. And I mean, I came very close to giving up, but anyways, I'm glad that I didn't. Um, real estate has been very good to me over the last decade, and one thing it has allowed me and my family to do is to travel. I mean, that was kind of part of my motivation the whole time and kind of a coming up, Uh, self sufficient and being my own boss is you know, I wanted to be able to travel and, you know, run my business on my schedule. And, uh, but anyways, uh, I wanted to show you just a short little clip of kind of what me and my family are up to concerning are traveling. And so check this out. - So , as you can see, real estate has been very kind to myself in my family. Now that I've kind of got this real estate thing figured out, me and my family spent a good bit of time traveling around the islands of the Bahamas aboard our sailboat. I mean, that that sound crazy. I mean, you know, I never would have imagined that real estate would have allowed me that kind of lifestyle 10 years ago when I got into it. Well, actually, more in 10. Probably 12 or 13 years ago when I got into it. But anyways, so Yeah, um, I think that's probably a decent introduction on me and my family, but, uh, yeah, that kind of fleshes out kind of who your instructor is here and that I am, you know, nothing special whatsoever. I'm just somebody who's hard headed enough to stick with something until I figure it out. And that thing that I stuck with was real estate. All right, so without further ado, let's get into the probate blueprint. I want to teach you how to make money with probate real estate. All right, let's get into it. 3. What Makes Probate Deals So Special?: Okay, so let's get right into it. Let's talk about what makes probate deals so special. And for one thing, the houses are generally located in better areas. They're located in areas where owner occupants typically live. You know, that's kind of your regular bread and butter owner Occupant tight areas. Now, because these houses Aaron a nicer owner occupant type areas, it usually means you have more exit strategies. You know, nicer houses and nicer areas. You know you can do more with him. You're usually not tied into one specific exit strategy, so it gives you more flexibility. Now, since these houses are in better shape and they're in good areas of town, it usually means that there is more equity involved as well. So especially if you're going after houses that you can retail flip. These are gonna be good candidates for that because you've got a big chunk of equity to work with. And this is simply because, since they're nicer houses and nicer areas, the owners of these houses have been living in these houses for an extended period of time . There by, you know, paying mawr towards the principle, or even paying the houses often full, so there's more equity involved. Probate houses are generally in good condition. I know I can contrast that against a lot of the absentee owner houses that I work with their you know, their for rentals there just kind of beat up and dilapidated and they need a lot of work. Um, probate houses are in better condition because since these people have been living in them so long and they own the house is personally that they live in, they usually take better care of it. So that results in houses that air generally in better condition. That also means that the systems are in better shape the plumbing, the electrical, the H V a c stuff like that. Since these people have a vested interest in this property that they've been living in, they've been taking care of it. That means less work for you and, ah, less expense involved in your rehabs and talking more about rehabs again. It makes running your numbers for your rehabs that much more simple. When you're dealing with a house that you know, you know they a lot of times they need cosmetic things like paying carbon things like that whatever but the systems, the roof, the H V, a c, the plumbing, the appliances even, you know things like that are generally in good shape, and those are big ticket items when it comes to rehab. A lot of times you don't have to worry about all those systems because they're in good shape, and that really simplifies your rehab estimates. Probate houses usually have very little to no competition, and this is a huge benefit. I think part of the reason that there's minimize competition with probate deals is because there's kind of a perceived difficulty. I think it's probably just because probate is kind of associated with, you know, the courthouse and the government and this and that. I think people kind of shy away from it because that usually means a lot of complexity. Probate deals really aren't that much different from any other lead source that I worked, so don't let this perceived difficulty keep you away from probate. But it is that perceived difficulty that I think eliminates a lot of the competition. There's also a negative associate ID stigma with probate and that comes from you know, you're you're buying houses where the opportunity results from somebody dying. I mean, that is the reality of the situation. And because of that, since, you know, death is involved, I think that's why a lot of people kind of avoid probate. But, I mean, the thing is, somebody is going to be buying this house. I mean, it's just the way real estate works is the way the world works. Death is a part of life, you know what I mean. And, uh, you know, whatever. In a lot of ways, especially using the approach that I'm gonna be teaching you in this course, you are genuinely helping these people out of a very bad and difficult situation. So, you know, don't let this negative associate it stigma keep you from probate. Let it keep your competition from probate. Ah, probate often has this. Um, I think it's a misunderstood complexity, again, kind of going back to the involvement with, you know, your local government, the courthouse, and, you know, people like that involved with it that that's gonna add a lot of complexity to the deal's. Let me tell you, I don't think it's all that complex. I've worked short sales before, and You know, I'm not a big fan of short sales. You know, other people, you know, short sales, that's their bread and butter or whatever. I don't like short sales. To me, short sales is where the complexity is. You know, you got your working. These big, long, drawn out process is with banks involved and all that kind of stuff, you know, whatever. Don't don't let me steer you away from short sales. I'm just giving you my opinion. But yeah, I think probate is much simpler than short sales and really no different from, you know, out of town owners or anything else. So, yeah, I think it's a perceived complexity, but yeah, to me, I think it's all that complex you'll see when we get deeper. And of course, another factor that makes probate deals very special is that probate sellers are some of the most motivated sellers that I've dealt with in any niche. Probate sellers have been forced to deal with a situation that is very uncomfortable and that you know, they don't want to be in the prominent sellers that that I really like to zero in on their the guys that you know they live out of town or even out of state. And they've inherited a probate house that needs a lot of work. And, you know, they just don't They don't want to mess with it. And they can't mess with it because they live out of town. It's just a big burden to them. Those guys are extremely motivated. I mean, let me tell you, those are the ones you really want to zero in on. And those ones that again when you buy their house from him. Yes, you are. You're getting inside a very unique opportunity that can make you a lot of money. Yes, but I don't look at it at all like you're taking advantage of them. These guys are so thankful when you're able to swoop in there and be their solution to a problem that they want to get out of immediately. So, yeah, that's just kind of the way I look at it. Yeah, these probate sellers, they just want to they want to be out of this house ASAP, and they want money in their pocket. And you could be the guy that gets that done for him. Probate sellers. They're looking for a quick and painless solution, and you're able to come in there and be that solution for them and help them out of this uncomfortable situation. So there's some of the reasons why probate deals are very special. We talk about some other benefits to probate deals that a lot of people don't even think about. A lot of times, these probate houses, their inherited and you know they're full of stuff. They're full of, you know, belongings and furniture and problem silverware. And sometimes there's a old car sitting in the garage and appliances and clothes. And, you know, just all this stuff that just kind of ends up getting left with house, depending on what that stuff is, that could be an opportunity to make some extra money on the deal. In the case of you know, there's a you know there's no car there that they don't want Whatever, you know, sell that car for next 2000 bucks or, you know, if it's a house full of furniture, you saw all that furniture off for a couple 1000 bucks. You know, a lot of times there's extra value in the junk that gets left behind in these probate houses. Probate deals, just due to the nature of the business, provide you with a never ending supply of leads as long as there are houses and as long as people die, there's gonna be probate leads. And those two things were never going to change. So yeah, it's an excellent supply of high quality, often high equity real estate lease. Now another thing with probate leads is you are often able to help a person out of a very uncomfortable and difficult situation because thes the personal representatives or the executors of these pro Bates, you know, they're in a situation where they do not want to be in this situation. And, ah, you are able to come in and be the solution for him. And there's a lot of, you know, I get a lot of satisfaction out of that. I mean, it's Ah, the probate has been an incredible resource for me, very profitable, but it's also been very. It's been very rewarding being able to work with some of these guys and help them out of these difficult situations. So those are some of the reasons that probate deals are so special. Now we're gonna move on to the next lessons 4. Clarifying A Confusing Term: let's clarify a very confusing term. And once you get past this lesson, I hope that this never confuses you again. But this is one of those things that just locks a lot of people down and I want to go ahead clear. Clarify this right out of the gate. What is the difference between these five terms executor, trustee, petitioner, administrator and personal representative? What's the difference? There is no difference. Those five terms are interchangeable. Different counties and courthouses and municipalities. They all kind of have their own term. The definition of that term, regardless of which five you know are going on in your county. The heck there may, but may even be more than those five. Those are just the five I could think of. It means the person appointed to administer the estate of a recently deceased person. Okay, that's Ah, that sounds even that that definition sounds a little complicated. Basically, it means the person in charge of the house for somebody who died, that's kind of a simplified version of it. So do not let that name fool you, whether you know, in what I'm going to do in this course, I'm gonna be using the word executor. Okay. But again, you know that word may be different in your county, but don't let it fool you. It means the exact same thing. I used the term executor because in my counties of Atlanta, Georgia down and, you know, good. And a cab And Cobb. And for Saif and Fulton, these these counties in Georgia, that's what they refer to the mass executor. So I'm gonna be using the word executor. Don't let it for you. Okay, We're clear. All right, let's move on. 5. The Probate Investing Process: Okay, so let me give you the outline of the probate real estate investing process. Now, this is this is just the skeleton. Okay? This is very, very simple. And we're gonna be breaking down this skeleton over the course of the course. Step number one is to obtain probate leads. Step number two is to send direct mail to the executor. Step Number three is to talk to the executor and learn about the house. Step Number four is to give the executor a written offer. Step number five is to get the contract, close the deal and make money. That's it. Those are the five steps. Now again, we're gonna be breaking down those steps as we move forward. So here we go. 6. Free Leads From The Courthouse: Okay, let's talk about how to get free probate leads from your county's courthouse. And now the thing I want you to keep in mind. Well, actually, two things. The first thing I want you to keep in mind is that free is a relative term while it it's not gonna cost you any money. Well, aside from like, you know, gas in your car and that kind of thing. Uh, it is certainly going to cost you time and energy to get these leads. The second thing I want to tell you about is this process. This is a kind of a generic process. Your specific counties courthouse may work a little bit different than what I'm about to tell you, but all I can do is kind of tell you what has worked for May at the courthouse is that I have visited. So there may be a little bit of trial and error in this for you, But I promise you, if you make an effort to go to the courthouse and you try it like a time or two and figure out, you know, kind of the nuances of your specific courthouse, it's not that complicated. So what I'm gonna give you is kind of the basic process. OK, here's how to get free leads from your courthouse for probate. Go to the county clerks office. Ask the county clerk for the case numbers within a specific date range. Take those case numbers to the archive inside the courthouse. Once you're in the archive, look up those case numbers and record the pertinent information. You want to just take notes and gather this information These air your leads that you're gonna be getting from the archive by looking up those case numbers and what you want to get is the properties address and you want the executors address. You want the executors address because that's where you're gonna be sending a piece of mail . You want the properties address because that's what you're gonna be referencing inside the piece of mail and you're gonna be using that, you know, do your due diligence and that kind of thing to figure out if that's a property that qualifies as a lead for you. And while you're inside the archives looking as those case numbers also record any other information that might be available there, for instance, there might be some phone numbers there that you can use to try. Teoh tracked down the executor and get in touch with them. So record the pertinent information, and then you just simply repeat that process. And, ah, look up all the case numbers. Record the information, and that is how you build your lead list of free leads from the courthouse. That's it again. Remember, it's a very simple process. It really is. But, you know, your courthouse might work a little differently and depending on who you talk to, you know, sometimes these people kind of need kind of a friendly, a friendly amount of guidance in the right direction, because again, probate is not a high competition lead source, and this is something that a lot of county offices simply do not get a lot of requests of. So the people that are working there, it may be very new to them. Don't be discouraged by this, because it's it's that, um, it's that kind of thing that is eliminating a lot of your competition. So it's a good thing, trust me. And once you get through this process a time or two, it's actually very simple. now, not all of the case files that you're gonna look up in the archive. We're gonna have complete information. The you know, it's just the way the data was recorded. There's nothing that you can really do about it. What I suggest is focused on the leads that have the most information first, because that's going to give you the best opportunity to monetize those probate leads. Now, I've hinted on this before. I really like the leads where the executor is out of town. Those air very good leads because they are often the ones that are the most motivated. So out of town executors are a very good thing. Now, if you're researching records that are really old, you know they're there a year or more old. What you want to do with those has just verify those records before you spend too much time on O. R. Before you send mail to, because you're gonna have time and energy and expense tied up with sending mail. And simply what I mean is, you know, look at those addresses online, see if they may have sold on the MLS because obviously, if the house is, you know, sold. It doesn't. It's not an opportunity for you any more. So especially, spend a little bit of time research those old leads and quite possibly, rule those out before you invest any time and money, money and expense into those older leads. Another thing you'll see when you're looking up these records is not all of the leads are gonna have real estate for sale. A lot of times, the probate is you know, it's It just doesn't necessarily mean that real estate is part of the probate process. If real estate isn't Ah, you know, in the probate records, you know that you know that's not a leave for you, so simply rule those out. Now let me talk about another thing you'll see when you're looking at this information. At the courthouse, you'll find leads with weird or incomplete information. For instance, you'll see an address that is the address for a nursing home or an apartment or a condo or a attorneys address. Another thing you might see is an attorney is the executor. Now these leads with missing or weird information. They can still be worked, but they are what I would call low probability leads now, depending on the way you look at him, there's there's kind of a pro and con to these. These low probability leads one on one hand. It means that the competition on these are going to be very, very low. There's almost there's not gonna be anybody going after these houses because, you know they don't want to waste their time on him. Basically, however, if you can, If you want to follow up on these leads and and work these low probability leads, it almost always guarantees that you're gonna be the only guy interested in these houses. So while these leads are probably, you know, these ladies are most often not going to result in a deal for you. The deals that do come from them can be very sweet. So whether you choose to pursue these low probability leads is kind of a factor of how much time you have available and what your marketing expenses are and what your local competition levels are. You know, for instance, if it's if you're in a really, really hot market, it probably paid to pursue these leads. But if you're in a market where you find that you know, you have very little to no competition that you're calling that. But I would probably say Don't mess around with the really low probability stuff. So when you're looking up these records, let's talk about what exactly qualifies as a lead because not not every record is a is a real estate probate lead for you. So what qualifies as elite? Well, for one thing, the property address must be in your target area. I mean, if you're looking at, ah, lead here and it's outside of some place that you want to deal with. Obviously you don't want to send mail and you know investor time into that lead, so the property must be in your target area. Now, this one is kind of a personal thing for May. Number two is that the executor is not the spouse of the deceased. Now, this is a point where I do kind of draw a line in my moral code. You know, personally, I don't like sending mail to ah, an executor. If it is, you know, their husband or wife that is passed away to me, that to me, it just doesn't feel quite right. You've got to kind of take you got to kind of put yourself in the mind of the executor. If their their husband or wife recently passed away, then they're getting a letter, you know, from the mail. You know, to me, it doesn't feel quite right. It's your call if you want to send, um Sendmail to this person if they are the wife, her husband of the deceased. But I'm just telling you what my personal preference is. This one is up to you. But for me, if the executor is the spouse of the deceased, you know I rule that one out. Okay? Obviously the lead must have the name of the deceased. The lead must also have the address of the deceased. And it must also have the name and address of the executor. If it does not have you know all of those items for me, it is not elite. I mean, some of these things you just absolutely have to have. You have to have the property address. You have to have the address of the executor. Obviously, it has to be in your target market firm. You know, you got to make the call on if you're going to send the lead to the executor if it is their spouse. But you know, it must have you know, that certain set of data in order to qualify for relief. If it does not, then don't waste your time on it. Okay, let's talk about this real quick. It's important that you know that these probate records at the courthouse they are public domain, you know. They don't belong to, you know, the courthouse. They don't get to decide who sees these or not. You know what I mean? If anybody in the public wishes to see these records, they have a right to do so. And I say that for a specific reason, the courthouse workers that you're gonna be interacting with in order to get these free leads from the courthouse. They may need some friendly guidance to be pointed in the right direction. And again, that's a result of this being kind of an uncommon process that they go through a lot of times. And it's that uncommon process that keeps your competition from, you know, getting involved in all this probate stuff. So again, it's a good thing, but it can be kind of a frustrating thing. So sometimes you might have to kind of work with these courthouse workers to get them kind of headed in the right direction for you. You may also have to remind them that you know these air. These are public records. If they say, you know, you can't see him for any particular reason or that, you know, whatever. They give you some kind of pushback remind them that those are public records, and then, yeah, you have a right to see this. So I just want you to know that little fact. Another important thing is that depending on your courthouse and how you know modern, they're set up. Some of these courthouse records systems are, in fact, computer based. I've actually found that most of them aren't, but I'm only maybe this kind of thing is changing. But usually it's all kind of catalogue in the big box, and you got the files in there and that kind of thing. But ah, lot of them are going to, uh, computers. It's, you know, the process is still gonna be. It is still basically the same process. You just look up case files on a computer system and you know the records right there in front of you. You take down the records and that's it. But yet sometimes their computer based now the process of retrieving these free probate leads from the courthouse. It can be a little awkward humming. Especially the first time you're talking to people you've never talked to before. You're likely kind of walking them through a process that they're not even all that familiar with. But yeah, it can be a little awkward, but I promise you the first after you do this like two times it's it's a piece of cake. You know, these the probate. I'm starting up from it. The courthouse workers, you know, they're gonna understand who you are and what you're doing and why you're doing it. And you know they're gonna know exactly how to do this stuff. So once you meet these guys, you build him before and walk them through the process of time or two. It's not gonna be any kind of thing at all. And really, you're gonna be doing this kind of frequently with these free lays from the courthouse because you know what you want toe you want to keep your lead pipeline going, So you're gonna be making repeat trips to the courthouse If you want to pursue these free probate leads. One thing that could save you a lot of time is just, you know, you have the record there in front of you. Use your phone and take a picture of the record in that way, you've got you know, the records right there on your phone. You can go back and you got all the information there. You don't worry about missing information. Same with the computer. You get the information up on the computer and then take a picture with your phone. I could actually save you a lot of time. So just another little helpful hint that can help you get those free leads from the courthouse. 7. Buying Leads Online: Okay, so now that we've gone over the option for getting free leads from the courthouse, now let's talk about the option of buying your leads. Now, here's kind of my story with that, I did go to the courthouse quite a bit early on. I mean, I probably made I don't know, less than a dozen trips to the courthouse total. You know, I did. I took advantage of those free leads early on to kind of get the ball rolling, but, uh, it did not take me much time at all to figure out that, you know, I you know it, you know, making those repetitive trips and doing all that work and looked at the files and all the stuff. You know, it takes a lot of time. It really does, Um So again, while the leads are free, you know, they're still expenses involved. And one of the one of the most costly things for you as an entrepreneur that you have to protect is your time. So anyway, what I did eventually when I kind of, you know, made the jump to buying leads because I started looking up. You know where I could get leads from, and I tried a couple different providers over the course of you know, my my probate real estate career and what I arrived at was a source called us probate leads . And the reason I went with these guys is it was a couple different reasons. For one thing, it's the price, you know. The price of their leads is the best over. You know, the other guys that I've tried. The second thing is I really like the owner of the company, Leon Mackenzie. He's been in the business for 30 years. Something like That's a family owned business. And the other thing is the way that they obtained their leads. They literally have individual people in every county go into the courthouse and actually go through those same exact steps that I told you about. And the previous lesson there manually going to the courthouse and extracting the leads and uploading them to you. And, uh, yeah, it's so it's it's Actually it's accomplishing the same exact thing. You're basically just outsourcing the work. So anyways, I want to show you a little bit about this. This company and their their website and kind of show you how it works. Yeah, And if you want end up buying leads thes the guys I recommend going with watch, you know, till the end of this little lesson here, and I'm gonna give you kind of a special little bonus that would help you out, which used to go with these guys. 8. My Probate Lead Source + SPECIAL BONUS: Okay, So what I want to do now is give you kind of a short little tour of us probate ladies. And these are the guys that I've been getting my probate leads from for I don't even know six or seven or eight years. I get us something like that. So I got my computer set up here. I'm gonna do that kind of a little screen recording and kind of give you a guided tour. So let me get this up and running, and I'll show you us probate leads. Okay, here we go. So to get to us. Probate leads, obviously. Just go to the Google or type into your, uh, you know, your search bar of your computer. You sp r o b a t e l e a d s dot com us probate leads. All right. And this is what the home page looks like. Pretty simple stuff. I wanted to show you this. If you scroll down all the way to the bottom of the home page, you see this kind of big link that says sample data. If you click that link, it will download a document to your computer. This is Basically, it's just a sample of what the data looks like. So delicate that your computer and you can open it up using like, uh, you know, Microsoft Word or in my case, I use open office. But this is what it looks like. As you see, this got a big watermark going across there so you can't actually use this stuff. Not that you would want to you, because the data is from 2008 but yeah, as you can see here, there's ah, you know, Second column over here is the name of the deceased. The county that this is coming from. This is, you know, counties in Texas, Dallas, Torrente, Colin, that kind of stuff. So I got the name of the seas, the county, the date of death, Dave, probate, all that stuff and then scroll on over. You get to this section here that says P R. Now, you know, going back to some of those early lessons. You know what PR is? That's the personal representative. Same thing is the executor. So this is your information of who to send your mail to. So you got PR's first name, last name and their address over here, so Yeah, this is pretty cool, but this is what an actual sample record looks like. Someone is gonna close that. And let's see if you go to right here, this big map of the US here and click View leads by leads. What kind of show you how to figure out? You know, your counties and how many records? Kind of an average are available within your counties every month. So you click that first thing, and then you click this one here, get started to find your county click. Continue. Now, you can put in your name and information here if you want to kind of sign up for their newsletter or whatever, but you don't have to. You can just click this X at the bottom right here. Select your state. I'm gonna do this stuff for my you know, my county. So I'm gonna select Georgia, and I would normally do like Clayton and Cobb and the cab. But just just for kind of consistency say, coming to do Fulton. Just a single big county in Georgia. So I'm just gonna pick that one county click. Continue again. This goofy little pop up comes up, you can just click the X and and then down here at the bottom, see where it says view pricing. Well, first of all, it says your basket right here. See, I got picked. Fulton County. There's the population, and here is the monthly anticipated leaves for Fulton County. So that's that. That's a pretty good group for a monthly basis. So you click that little continue button and then you see here this is basically the different ways that you can buy leaves. There's about, you know, there's a quantity of, you know, 100 100 50 available every month. But would you want them in batches of 25 50 or 100? So you can kind of, you know, pick one that works best for your budget. So, you know, let's say we just want to get with the full 100 leads a month. So you click that bubble there you go down here to the bottom, and then this is where you would check out. Now you see the spot that says discount code. I want to talk to you about that. I have been This is just being, you know, kind of up front with you. I get a discount from us. Probate leads because I've been buying from these guys for years and years, and they've been gracious enough to give me a discount of 15%. Now, I just recently talked to these guys and they are willing to extend to my students the exact same discount. There's no no strings attached or anything weird like that. You just, you know, since I've bought, I don't even know tens of thousands of dollars. Worse, the fleas from these guys, you know, they're passing on that same discount to you now. What I want to say is, at this very moment, they're still setting up the whole discount code coupon thing for me. I don't know exactly what the code is gonna be yet, but I will posted, you know, either somewhere you know, in this video. And if it's not in the video, then be sure that you just check in the notes or the description for this specific lecture because I want to be sure that you have access to that discount code 15% again. You know, you know that it sounds like a pretty modest discount But the thing is that saves you thousands and thousands of dollars. Whenever you get up to the level of you know, you're just constantly sending out, you know, mail pieces every single month and you're doing follow up campaigns, and this and that 15% can help you out big time. Now, the other thing that I want to say is us probing, please. These guys have become my source basically through years of, you know, always looking for kind of what the best sources and what the best deal is. And I initially started with, You know, I don't even remember the name of the company now. But there were there were basically two other guys, I think, two or three, maybe that I tried that gradually led me up to us. Probate leads So years, probate Lee. It's kind of came to the top of the stack, a za result of me just kind of continually refining my probate lead source, you know, over a course of ah of years. So, you know, I really like these guys. Some of the other guys, I don't know really how they get their data, but I know that us probate leads. They get their data by actually sending, you know, a person to each county. You know, they've got probably hundreds of people that go around and, you know, literally get to the courthouse and sort through all the data and record it and loaded up to their database, and then they sell it. And, uh, yeah, I mean, that's really cool, because it's actually performing the same exact task that you would be doing if you went to the courthouse and got leaves for free. And I just you know, I like that. I like knowing that it's not just kind of this recycled, regurgitated, um, maybe even old data. I mean, this is new fresh stuff delivered to you on a monthly basis, and I'll say to that it doesn't hurt that they're also the most cost effective of all the options. After I Okay, that is enough about us probate leads. I'll end with just a final reminder of, you know, figure out where you know I put this coupon code for you. It's most likely gonna end up being either somewhere in this video that you're watching or in the description of this video. Okay, I hope that helps. Let's move on 9. Elements Of An Effective Mail Campaign: Okay, let's talk about the elements of an effective mail campaign. And again, this is this is a really simple look at it. We're just talking about this skeleton here again. And these are the important parts. You must have a database and the purpose of the databases just to keep track of your leads in one organized place. So that you so that everything makes sense and you could make updates to them in that kind of thing. You know, if you don't have a database, then you're basically operating with little pieces of paper and scraps that were strewn all over your desk. And I mean, you just can't do business that way. So a database is extremely important. I'm gonna show you how to set up a simple database. The second critical piece is the mail piece. You know, you have to take those leads out of the database and put the information into your piece of mail that you then fire off to the executor. So the mail pieces, a critical piece of your mail campaign and that mail piece can be a variety of different things. What we're gonna talk about in this course are the three male pieces I used the postcard, the white letter and the yellow letter. So we're gonna get into all that stuff in the following lessons. Finally, the last element is your answering system, and your answering system could be a simple as you know, the executor calls your phone that's in your pocket and you pick it up in answer it. You know, it's not that much of an answering system, but or could be something mawr elegant, like a voicemail system where they call, and they receive kind of a nice recorded message that prompts them to leave their information. Or you could go something really fancy and expensive where you have there, uh, the executor ring and answering service that actually does all the talking and stuff on your behalf. I'll be honest. I have zero experience with one of these fancy, expensive answering service is what I do is the middle option. I have kind of a pretty slick voice recording system set up. It's actually free. I'm gonna show you how to set up one of those for yourself as well. So those are the three critical elements for an effective mail campaign. So let's break those things down 10. Creating An Organizational Database: Okay, now what I want to show you how to do is how to set up an organizational database that you can use to keep track of all of your probate lease. And the way I do this is with a simple Google spreadsheet. I mean, it's you know, it's not. It's not really a super high tech solution, but it's effective. And I, you know, there's there's really advantages in just kind of keeping things, you know, simple and not letting things get any more complex than they really need to be. So this is what I do. I'm gonna show you kind of how it works and how you can set it up for yourself, and it may be a good option for you. So a pre requisite for this is that you should have a Gmail account. So if you don't already have a Gmail account, just go sign up. You go to gmail dot com, and you just simply put in you know, your name, address, phone number, that kind of thing. It's very, very simple. So set up your Gmail account and then log into your Gmail account observed. Okay, so I am in a Gmail account that I set up. This is kind of what it looks like. It's pretty blank at the moment, but what you want to do once you're inside this Gmail account, which will do is you go to this little icon here, it's like nine little squares and click on that. I know what you want to do. Cruise down to this little kind of blue and green and yellow triangle thing that says Dr and Click on That. And that is gonna open up a Google drive that is associate ID with your, um, your Gmail account. It's kind of this free online cloud storage, so it's really cool. It's a you can access it from your computer, your phone or your tablet. If you're on the go and it again, it's it's free storage. So yeah, pretty cool. Pretty convenient. How that works Now what you will do is just open up a new spreadsheet. What you do to do that is you go over here where it says new on the left hand call and you go down to where it says Google sheets, click Google Sheets, and that is going to open up a brand new Google sheet. This is a lot. This is kind of like G e mails version of Excel. Basically, it's kind of a simplified version of Excel, but it's it's actually, you know, pretty slick what you can do it. Now, Inside this lesson in the notes, you'll see a link, and I'm you know, if you click on that link, it's gonna take you to a template of a spreadsheet that I have set up for you. So go inside the notes of the lesson. Find that link and click on it. Okay, Once you click on the link, you're going to see something that looks like this. This is the probate database template that have set up for you. This is very, very simple. You know, there's just a single column for the date when you've made any kind of edits or updates to the sheet. The next two columns are the information for the deceased just there. Their first name and last name. The next six columns, all information for the executor, their first name, last name, street address, city state and zip code. And then finally, the last three columns or just extra details. If you have, ah, phone number or an email address, that kind of thing for the executor. And as you can see over here, you know, I've put you know this is an example line that I have put in, and all you have to do to make this sheet your own is grab the top three columns like this . Just select over here from a one. Click it and dragged it all the way down here to l three, you know, released that do whatever you do on your computer to copy on a Mac. It's command, See? And then take that information to your new spreadsheet that you just opened up and paste it into the a one column click. And then that is the template. All you need to do then is kind of drag the information down. You know you can you can make the B and C column all yellow. If you want todo de through. I call on all green if you want to keep that format. But then up at the top left corner here, just title it. Whatever you want it to be, probate database would be an effective name. Now, the cool thing about this sheet. And the thing that I want to be sure that you're aware of is you do not have to use this format exactly how I have it. All this stuff is very easy to modify. If you want to add columns or take away columns, rename columns or resize columns or anything like that, this is Ah, this is all very, very customizable to fit your individual needs. So this is a very simple template and database that you can use to keep track of all of your probe lately, whether you're getting them from the courthouse or whether you're buying them online, you can take that information and put them all into this one database. So everything is just, you know right there. And I will say this one thing that I do is I have a separate database for each county that I'm in because, you know, I deal with Bolt In and Clayton and Cobb and Gwinnett, mainly in Atlanta. So I have four different databases. So at least that's kind of a simple way to keep you know, the information segregated and so that you know the information doesn't just, you know, grow super duper duper fast. You know, since you got four counties going on at once. Okay, so that's really it for this lesson. So I hope this helps. And this is, uh this should be something that really helps you out to keep your information organized so that you can remain, you know, effective and know exactly where the information is, where you need to get to it. So a simple probate database, I hope that helps. Right? Let's move on. 11. Your Direct Mail Documents: Okay. Next. What I want to do is go over the mail templates that I have included for use part of this course. I've got postcard templates. I've got white letter templates, and I have a yellow letter template. And what I'm talking about here on my screens thes four documents here. Just kind of disregard these four up here, which are also included in the course. That's just kind of for a different lesson. So let me open up the pdf versions of these documents, and I will kind of show you what I'm talking about here. Okay, So what you're looking at here, this is your postcard template. As you can see, you got this side of at the top, which is the back then. I've got this bottom one here, which is the front. Now, you know, one thing I'll say is all of these direct mail documents are catered towards. You know, they're targeted towards probate soldiers, but you can always kind of adapt any of this verb ege to your own uses. Kind of to make it sound like more like you or whatever. Don't Don't feel like you have to use my Burbage, but this is This is what I use and it does work. And one other point I'll make is No. Obviously you want to change, like you know, my name and number website and stuff like this to your information. But what? I just want to show you this stuff right now. So this is the postcard. Okay. This one is your first printed probate. Later. So this one goes on white paper. This is kind of this is another good one to send this one works really could have had a lot of luck with this one again. All my information is in there. So you just want Teoh, you know, make your edits and change that. But yeah, this is another good letter, by the way. I want to say these letters. This is the result of years of refinement. I'm always tweaking and tuning these things to kind of like improving little by little. And this is the I mean, I've been doing that for years on this stuff, so it works good. All right, let's check out the next one. Okay. This is the second printed letter, much like the 1st 1 Just kind of, you know, slightly different wording. And another thing I'll say is thes The letters kind of work with each other. As you see this first line says, I wanted to be sure that you read a letter that I sent you 2 to 3 weeks ago. So this is kind of a follow up letter, which is really cool to reference a letter that you've already said. That's a very powerful thing. So this is the 2nd 1 and let's check out the yellow letter template. And finally, this is the yellow letters you can see up at the top between the Asterix. The following text goes on A yellow letter doesn't look like a yellow letter currently, but this is the text that you would. I mean, if you were doing the mailing yourself, you would literally write this text onto the sheet of yellow notebook paper. Or if you're sending it off to a male house, you can just use this exact a verb. It's just copy. Paste it, send it to him. Well, you know, obviously make the changes, but then copy your Burbage and information and send it to him. But yeah, this one works really good, too. I'm actually really pleased with that. These letters again, This is This isn't just something that's been kind of thrown out there. This is years and years of refinement that has gone into these mail pieces. So, yeah, they work really good. They're gonna work really good for you too. So really, really proud to be passing these on to you. Now. One thing I want to point out right here is now just kind of disregard these four up here. These were also yours there, included with the course, but in different lessons. We'll get into that stuff. But if you look at these here, you see that there are two versions of the postcard two versions of the printed letter and over 12 versions of letter number two and two versions of the yellow later. The reason there are two versions is the first version the O. D t file that is the editor ble file. It's kind of like the Microsoft Word file, and I say kind of because I use something called open office. And that's why it's called an O. D. T. File. But you can open this file and edit it with either open office or Microsoft Word. So those your creditable versions and then finally the pdf versions. Those were the ones that you would just kind of uses. Kind of a final version. The more polished ones, the ones that you could actually print from, you know, in your printer. Not Not that you would print the postcard over the yellow letter, but you could. The Teoh, you know, printed probate letters. You would print those from the pdf versions, but he just wanted Teoh clarify that stuff. But yet these are the direct mail documents that are included in this course. I'm not giving you any kind of specific, like, you know, breakdown of you know what mail pieces you should use when, like, I'm a big fan of, like, the yellow letter. I've already mentioned that to you, but, um, you know, I really likes in the yellow letters and then maybe mix it up with the printed letters. Obviously. Do number one in the number two, you know, next because number two references the first printed probate letters, they don't want to do those two out of order but the postcard and send any time. And, uh, but I I send I send fewer postcards than I do anything else just because I find that the yellow letter works the best in the printed letter Kind of works, you know, not quite as good as the yellow letter was still pretty good. And the postcard kind of is the least effective. However, you know, when the yellow letters and the printed letters don't seem to be working really good. Blast out those postcards. And a lot of times, that is what We'll get your response when everything else doesn't. So yeah. Anyways, I hope these really help you out. And, yeah, they've very, very much served me well over the years. And, you know, I'm gonna continue tweaking and tuning these, but they're actually very effective, just as they are. So Yeah, Good luck. I hope they serve you well. 12. Personalizing Your Directmail Documents: Okay, let's talk about personalizing your direct mail documents because, you know, again, my information is in all of these mail pieces that I have given to you, Um, actually don't want to send him out like that. You gotta put your information there. It's very easy to do. Just want to kind of give you an example. So you understand how this works. I'm gonna take what you must do. Printed probate letter one, and I'm gonna open up the edit herbal version someone a double click that. And here we haven't opened up inside open office. He appeared the top left. That's what I'm using. By the way, you can download open office for free. It works on Macs and PC's really cool software. So you can you can get that for yourself for free if you want to. And what you do just simply go down through here. You obviously you can edit any of this text you want to, but just for the sake of this lesson, I'm gonna focus on you know, the phone numbers and stuff. So if you want to change this to your phone number 1234567890 And then if you have a website, you can substitute your website in the U R l So I'm gonna say se you were fancy website there. And then all this all this, like little signature is down here is just kind of a script font. You know what you can do if you want. You can just print off these letters at your house and actually literally signed them with a ballpoint pen that looks a lot more official. Or you could just use kind of the script he fund. And then if you want to change it on your fancy name right there and then I Let's see, I think that I got all my information out of there again. You know, be sure that you read through all this Burbage. It should make sense for your market and stuff like that. But if for some reason it doesn't just make whatever edits you, you feel like I should be in there and then save it to be your new file. So go up to file, click, save as and then you know, this is how it's currently say printed probate letter of one. I'm just gonna call it your printed probate letter one and then you can save it wherever you want. Teoh save. And then if you also want to make a pdf version, all you do is you go to this little icon here that says PdF up at the top left, Click that. And then, as you can say, the new pdf is already gonna be titled your pdf probate later, once just the pdf version and then click save. And that's it. That's all there is Teoh editing these. You know these documents now that the main ones, you're gonna well, you would want to edit them all the postcards, printed letters and the yellow letters. But, you know, it's specifically these printed letters that you would be, you know, editing for the point, the purpose of possibly printing them off at your house, you know, But the other ones you really can't do postcards on your own less. Um, you know, I don't know. Maybe you can't. You can do the yellow letters on your own if you have the notebook papers and you hand write him and all that stuff. Otherwise, if you're sending them off to a male house. Just, you know, make edits to your you know, the same documents. And then you can just copy and paste your new edited version with your information in it And send that off to your your mail outs. Yeah, So pretty basic stuff, but anyways, just want to clarify. I hope that helps. All right, let's move on. 13. Hand-Written, Printed, or Postcard?: Okay, So is part of your direct mail document packages don't providing you with. I'm giving you a hand written yellow letter. I'm giving you a printed white letter and I'm giving you a postcard. And the thing you have to remember about these direct mail documents is that everything works some of the time, but nothing works all of the time. And what you kind of have to do is just kind of experiment and mix it up from time to time just to see what works best. The rule number one with direct mail marketing is you got a sin something. You know what I mean? Some people spend a lot of time trying to figure out what kind of the the secret weapon marketing pieces and the reality is that there's no such thing. You know, you just got to get something out there to get the ball rolling. Because once you get something out there and you get some responses and you you can kind of lock your data and see how it works. Then you have a foundation that you can work with and make changes to. But you've got to get something out there Okay, let's first talk about the hand written yellow letters. That's that's the one that's on the note pad paper. It's yellow paper and has red ink on it. Typically, these have historically been my best performer. Overall, it's got a very personalized looking message on it, you know, hand written those air sent inside an invitation style envelope. So it's kind of kind of mail piece you get in the mail when you're being invited to, like a a birthday party or a wedding something like that. So people almost always open them up. And that's very important, because if they don't open it up and look at it, you know they don't get your message. Obviously, the downside with the yellow letters is that they are generally the most expensive option unless you buy just really, really high quantities, which gets the price way down there. Usually the most expensive option, but they're kind of the best ones for May overall. Next you have the printed letter on white paper. It kind of looks like a business letter. Sometimes you can sign it at the bottom just to kind of give it a little bit of a personal touch. But you know, pretty basic, it costs a little bit less than a yellowed letter, so you can save a little bit of money with these. But it's still a good way to just kind of get a message in front of people and keep in touch with them because it's those. It's those frequent touches and reminders that helps build report, and they keep. They recognize your name and they understand that your interest in their house So you know , it's kind of a good way to mix it up and kind of keep that message in front of him. I also send even the printed letters inside an invitation style in Veloute for the same reasons in the yellow letters. You know, it's a really high opening rate on those invitations style envelope. So yet that's what I use the white letter on. You know that's printed off. It's a good mail piece for multistage campaigns because, you know, you could start off by Senator Yellow Letter to kind of get that message in front of him and get that personalized touch, then follow up with white letter because then they see your message on kind of a different format and, uh, and mail piece and then maybe follow up with a postcard, so it's kind of good to mix into a multi stage campaign. Now let's talk about the humble postcard. It is the cheapest option by far, especially if you order higher Quan quantities of them, which pushes the price even further down. In my opinion, the postcard is kind of the least effective method overall, just cause it's kind of the least personal. And people usually use them for mass mailings, that kind of thing. So you know that's a drawback. But with all that said, the postcard still works. You know, Don't don't, uh, don't avoid postcards because, you know, there at least personal and kind of they generate the least response. Because I'm telling you, sometimes when you're not getting a response from yellow letters or white letters or anything else, you throw postcards out there, and for some reason, you know that's what work. So there's a time in a place for a postcard, so kind of keep that as a viable option. Yeah, postcard work. The way you mess up with direct mail is just, you know, failing Teoh, send a mail piece and failing to follow up and kind of bring the whole process full circle whenever the leads come in. But he got sent something out, You know what I mean? And I say that because sounds like a stupid mistake. But I made that mistake. You know, I was I procrastinated a lot, and I really, really dwelled on, you know, trying to pick the perfect male piece for the perfect market and crafting the perfect message. And that really held me back, you know? You know, choose one, get it out there. That's kind of the key with this stuff. So whether a yellow letter printed letter postcard choose one, get your message out there plugging your leads and fire enough. All right, let's move on. 14. Setting Up A Google Voice Number: okay, in this lesson, I want to teach you how to set up a Google voice account and Google Voice number. Now, I've used a couple different services over the years, but I have had this Google voice number for 10 years now. I just I was looking back at ancient messages that I had just prior Teoh doing this lesson and I saw some from 2008 So yeah, I've had this account for 10 years, so if you don't already, you know, you gotta have a Gmail account in order to have a Google voice number. I'm almost positive. So get Gmail account and then once you have that, go to Google voice Just type in Google Voice in your search bar and then it'll come up now I can't I can't actually walk you through every step, um, on my screen. And the reason for that is I already have a Google voice number associated with my cell phone number, so I can't I can't get another Google voice number, so I just kind of have to kind kind of guide you through it verbally. But anyways, once you get on Google Voice, they're going to give you a a range of Google voice numbers that you can choose from Pick a Google voice number. Uh, that has it's area code. That is the same area code as your target market. You know what I mean? Like for May, I don't live in Atlanta. So my Google voice number has the area code for Atlanta so that it looks to my sellers that I'm marketing to as if I live in Atlanta. I hope that makes sense. So once you have your Google number, you know, set up, it's it's really easy. You just you know, you get in here, you go to the settings page like this, which, you know, if you're not already there, you just click this little thing at the bottom left hand side. Here you go down to settings right there, and it's going to take you to this page. And then you just lose this linked number section here to associate your actual cell phone number like this is this is my actual cell phone number here. I don't know if I should be sure of that or not, but there it is, and the many ways then you link your your Google Voice number two. Your actual cell phone number. Now there's a few little settings that you just want a tweak for one. This is very important. The next one down. Do not disturb you want this? One clicked on. If it's Nordic, not already clicked on, click it on what that's going to do. Whenever a seller gets your mail piece and they dial the number on the mail piece, it is going to send them to your Google Voice voice mail system. Basically, they're gonna be prompted to leave a voicemail message. Conversely, if this option is not turned on, whenever they dial the Google voice number, it's gonna go straight to your cell phone and your cell phone's gonna start ringing. You know, you could do that option if you want to, but for me, I like it to go to voicemail. So you want this option turned on, um, this option here. This is something you can turn on if you want to go. I haven't turned off, but if you turn it on, what it's going to do is gonna going to send all of the transcribed Google voice messages to your Associated Gmail account, so that's kind of cool, but I usually leave. It turned off because I don't I get so many emails and I don't want any more. Let's see what else? What else? Here. Get email alerts for missed calls. To be honest, I don't really know Getting mail lurch for miss calls. I'm not sure why that song, but I'm just gonna leave it on because I guess I did that a long time ago and I'm not gonna miss it. Yeah, let's see now. This is obviously probably the most important thing of all is you need to record a voice mail greeting for your college. Just like the same thing you do on yourself. Hi. I'm not here right now. Please leave a message, that kind of thing. You could make it as simple or as complex as you want to up up to a point, cause I think you only have, like, 20 seconds of recording time there. Let's let's see what mine says Here. Let me see if I can let me see if you can hear this. Hello? You've reached the voicemail box of been Clark. I'm sorry. Give me to the phone right now. But if you'll leave me a short message after, tell him I'll call you right back there. You have it. Now, one thing you can do. And one thing I used to do is I used to say hi. This has been clarity. Sorry. Can't come to the phone right now. If you have received one of my mail pieces, please leave your name, your phone number and the properties address, and I'll call you back. I used to do that to try to get those three pieces of information out of him, but I kind of found that it was kind of hard for them. Toe. Remember to leave those three pieces of information when they're just asked right there on the spot. So I stopped doing that. But you still can. It's kind of nice to have that information up front because you can run kind of, Ah, preliminary search on the house just kind of had your mind around. You know, the property before you call him on the phone and, you know, it's kind of personal preference doesn't really matter one way or another. Just kind of whatever you want to do. They're so definitely set up a voicemail creating. And what else do I have here? Get voicemail via E mail. I'm not positive. What? This, uh, not positive what this option does, but I haven't turned on. Oh, I don't really remember. I set this thing up, like, you know, in 2008. It's just been kind of running ever since. But the all this other stuff down here, let's see. Security. I have the filter spam button turned on. Um, I don't get a lot of spam calls through my Google voice number, and perhaps this is why, but anyways, I have that turned on. Um uh, I feel like I feel kind of goofy, like having some of the settings turn down. Don't remember alive. But again, I've had this account for for a decade now. So, anyways, yet the main thing is, be sure you record a voice mail greeting and also be sure that you have this Do not disturb option turned on because here, here's the thing. And let me, you know, before I wrap this up, let me just say this If you send out, you know, 5000 mail pieces and you know you have your phone number on the card and you don't have this option turned on. You'll know the minute that all those mail pieces start to hit everybody's inbox because what will happen is your phone will start ringing off the hook and it'll ring for hours. You know what I mean? You know you can't take all the calls anyways, so you know, I would rather them just go to voicemail, you know, other than rather than having my my phone just absolutely blowing up because the voice mail system, you know, isn't catching all these calls. So you know, that is why I recommend having that turned on. I think that's pretty much it. You know, Google voice mail. It's It's very simple. It is completely free. I think there's some options down here that where you know here's payments and things like that. I think that's like if you want to make calls ouch from your Google voice number. But I don't do that. I just use it as a data collection system to catch people's information when they call me as a result of my marketing pieces hitting their mailbox and that's it. So yeah, it's worked good for me for a decade, and I think it will work good for you too, So yeah. Yeah, that's it. All right, let's move on. 15. Outsourcing Your Directmail OR DIY?: Okay. Now, what I want to talk about is, uh, comparing these two things, hiring a direct mail company or you handling all of your direct mail efforts on your own. This is again one of those things where, you know, it's a compromise. You know, obviously, if you hire direct mail company, you're gonna have costs involved in that because, you know, those guys got to make money. Uh, if you are handling all your direct mail efforts on your own, it's gonna save you money. But it's gonna cost you quite a bit of time. So you just kind of have to decide what's the best option for you if you're just starting off. You know, maybe it makes more sense to just handle all that stuff on your own. However, if you've done, you know, like one deal or more, it's probably time to think about outsourcing those efforts because there's just so many more things that it makes more sense to spend your time on than you know, you know, grinding away at doing your direct mail marketing. Anyways, if you're gonna do your direct mail marketing on your own, it's pretty simple stuff. I mean, all you need is, you know, obviously gotta have some your leads. You need a you need a computer, and you need this kind of stuff. All you have to do is go to the store and buy a yellow pad of paper like this, you know, I mean, it's nothing special. You simply write your your message on this paper, you rip out the sheet and you stuff it in an invitation style envelope like this. You know, you can get these things off of Amazon for, like gonna like $50 for 1000 or something like that. So, yes, stuff it in an invitational style style envelope, go to the post office and get some of the biggest, brightest stamps that you confined. You know, something like this slap a stamp on the envelope. And, you know, I did this a little out of order, but, you know, right your message using a red ball point pen like this, That's all there is to, you know, doing these, you know, creating these metal pieces on your own. But you got to think, you know, if you're trying to send out, you know, 1000 or 500 or however many mail pieces a month. You know, trust me. If you've never done it before, it's a lot of work. So, yeah. You know, if you want to, you can certainly do these letters on your own. You know, just stock up on supplies and that kind of thing and get into a rhythm and a schedule that allows you to meet your quota for the end of the month. Teoh, basically keep those. Keep those calls coming in, you know, Or, you know, at some point you have to decide. You gotta put a value on your time, you know, because you'll have a lot of time involved in handling these mailings of your, you know, all on your own. Anyway, what I'm gonna do in the next lesson is tell you about the company that I used to handle all of my direct mail. Evers. All right, so let's move on to the next lesson. 16. These Guys Handle All Of My Mail + SPECIAL BONUS: for the last Gosh. Eight years I have had all of my direct mail efforts handled by a company called Yellow Letters Complete and, you know, obviously in their name there, there there's the word yellow letters, But they actually do lots more than just yellow letters. They do the white printed letters, They do postcards, and they do all kinds of other stuff. But those are the three that Did I focus on your letters? Printed letters, postcards? Um, another thing I want to tell you about right off the bat here. So? So that you see, it is I can give you a discount through these guys. You can save five cents off of each male peace. Now that, you know, five cents doesn't sound like a whole lot when you just hear, Hear that number. But when you think about saving five cents per mail piece, that's a number that adds up very, very quickly. Okay, So, in order to receive that discount, just used my name. When you check out Ben Clarity, that's that's one word, Ben. Clarity. No spaces, all caps. So if you use that coupon code, save five cents per mail piece, okay? Now, what I want to do is just kind of give you a little tour of yellow letters complete. Just so you kind of see around their website, and then we'll be moving on a cart. So let's check out little letters complete. Okay, guys, this is the website Yellow letters complete. And these are the guys that I have been using for years and years to handle all of my direct mail campaigns. And it kind of is, you can see here they have a lot more going on than just yellow letters. There's no postcards and all this other stuff here, but, I mean, the things I focus on or yellow letters, printed letters and postcards and the overwhelming majority are yellow letters. And, uh, yeah, this is this is their website. Now, one thing you can do here is and this is kind of cool. You can request a sample of, you know, the their yellow letter. What you put in your name. Put in your name there, your last name and the email address, and then click there that you want a free sample, give the letter submit, and then obviously there's gotta be some step behind that where you give him your, uh, your no mailing address, but they'll send you like a man. I don't have it in here. They'll send you like this big, fat envelope full of all kinds of stuff that you know they do. But main thing, you know, I just I focus on yellow letters, but yeah. Anyway, so, you know, if you click on yellow letters here up at the top of the top bar you quick yellow letters F A Q. And then there's a lot of information here in addition to what I've already told you. And, you know, what's yellow letter? How well does it work? Why is it better? You know all this stuff if you want some extra information kind of third party information . Aside from just you know what I've been telling you. You know, you can read through all this stuff. Yeah. Let's see. Now let's talk about when it's time to order. I usually just click this yellow thing or here and then it brings you to this little, um, kind of little mini spreadsheet, and you can see here. It's kind of a cost breakdown thing. You see these you know, kind of the 1st 3 options here. It's all the same thing 99 sent you the letter with standard stamp. And if you look at the quantities, you've got a minimum of 2 50 then it goes up to 2000. Then it goes to 5000. And it actually goes up even higher than that. Just, you know, contact these guys. If you want to send, like, 10 or 20 or 50,000 letters, the price goes down, down, down, down, down. I I I kind of feel like the biggest campaign I've ever since was 10,000. Maybe I've never gone, you know, just crazy high numbers, but yet, But anyways, what I want to say here is the more you buy, the more the price goes down so you can see it starts with 99 cents that goes 89 to get a 79. And it works the same way with, um, you know, all of their products, their postcards and everything else. Now, Also included with the yellow letter is a hand written in blue, you know, invitation style, envelope one. The kinds that you get when you get invited to a wedding or a birthday party? Something like that. So Yep. Handwritten envelopes. Um, you know, the price changes with the envelopes as well. 79 cents. 75 cents. But then when? There. Anyways, whenever you find kind of the number that works for you, you know, just click order now and then This is where you kind of lay out the letter. If you have a specific message that you want to send them, like the one I provided you with the yellow letter template, all you have to do is copy that message and paste it right in this box. Here, you can type here who the letter is coming from. This is where you would put, like, you know your name if you have, you know, You know, put your email address in the second blanket. What they're gonna do is, as the process goes long where they're processing your order, that kind of send you, you know, ongoing updates, and then when the mailing has actually been sent, they'll send you kind of one more email update will be like, OK, the mailing is sent, and at that point, you could be like, OK, I've got, you know, 23 days or whatever till you know, the phone starts ringing. So it's kind of cool to have those updates in this section. Here, you can choose different templates that you can use. You know, there's standard templates and all this other stuff. I can't remember where. Oh, here we go. If you want to see the individual templates, just go up to where it says, you know, letters go down a templates and click that, and it will show you kind of lay out of all of the different templates. And But anyway, again, if you want to use the verb bridge that I have provided you, you know, paste it in this box here and then it overrides you know, any of the other templates. You know, obviously choose your quantity. If you want to order more than 1000 just, you know, contact these guys directly and get you hooked up. They're very easy to work with. Very good at communication, very professional. You know, uh, I've gone with these guys as a result of kind of ongoing refinement to my business and my resources in my contacts. And I had a couple of the guys, you know, male houses that I tried before this. And, you know, while the other guys were OK, these guys were just better. And that's why I still use them. You know, the next box down. Plug in whatever phone number you want to use. You can put your cell phone number in there or like we've gone over previous lessons. If you have a Google voice number or some other kind of business number, you know, plug it in right here. Let's say you wanted Tiu over 6789 The male schedule here. Now, this is you know, if you're sending off a larger number of mailers, you may want to spread them out a little bit. And that's basically what this is talking about. If you want him all to hit the male exactly the same time, your phone is just gonna go nuts than to use all at once. Or if you want to kind of spread it out over the course of two weeks, then you can choose this option. Um, I have also done kind of a custom mailing schedule with them too, if you want. If you if you sitting out 5000 letters and you want him to go out? You know, 1250 a week. They could do that too. So I just talked to him a little. Know what you want to do? And then finally, this block here is where you will choose your specific mailing list. Basically, your you know, if you buy a list from us probate leads, this is where you applied that list in. Then when you get all this stuff sorted out, you don't know if it's gonna let me do this right now, because I don't, uh I don't have all the information in there. Well, anyways, okay. It's gonna let me get this part. I want to just remind you right here is where you will put in your coupon code, and it lets we'll see if it actually applies right here before I You know, your total right now is $990. If you put in it and clarity and click apply. There it goes. There's your There's your discount right off the top of taking five cents off each male piece. So, you know, saving 50 bucks on your first order of 1000 yellow letters and then, you know right here. You know, put in your billing information whether you want to pay card a credit card or let stuff any special instructions you gotten and click submit order. That's it. You know, I'm not necessarily trying Teoh steer you towards these guys. You know what makes you know I'm I'm excited to promote these guys just because I've know that they deserve it. They've done such a good job for May. You know, over the years and years that I've been using them, and I know they'll do the same Good job for you and again, you know, plug in that been clarky discount code say five cents off each male peace and yeah, really good guys. Really good company. Okay, I think that's it. Let's move on. 17. Sending Your Probate Mail Campaign: Okay. Next. I want to give you some guidance on how to set up your first probate direct mail campaign. And this is kind of a difficult thing to do. You know, I don't want to give you just, you know, a really specific template to follow. Because you know what works for me and my time in my budget and all this stuff, It very likely won't be a good fit for you. So instead, I want to kind of break this down into a few different options. And from those options, hopefully you can kind of choose Ah, format that work well for setting up your first mailing campaign. Okay, so how I'm gonna break this down is this. Which of these three options best describes you in your business? Are you a Do you have a big budget and your experienced are you be you have a low budget and you're experienced Or are you see, Do you have a low budget and you are in experienced, you know, don't you know it's no Noah not trying to be insulting or anything by that, I'm just I'm really trying to find kind of a a profile that kind of fits you the best. They're just kind of be honest and maybe choose which one of those works best for you. Okay, let's talk about option A. You have a big budget and you are experienced. Okay. In that case, I recommend that you get your leads from an online source. Basically, that you by your leads, you know, I mean, don't bother. Go to the courthouse doing the free ladies thing. I recommend a volume of 1000 mail pieces that are sent out from a male house. Okay, so, you know, again, don't Don't worry about printing off letters or writing letters or, you know, that kind of thing by a volume of 1000 mail pieces sent out from a male house every month with a monthly follow up. Now, this is an expensive option because you're you're buying your lease and you're buying the mail pieces. But this option sending out ah 1000 mail pieces month with monthly follow ups that's gonna get you about 120 calls a month. And of those 120 calls, that's going to result in about 12 deals a year. Okay, so if that's you big budget and experience. This is an option that could very likely work well for you. Okay, Now let's talk about option B. You have a low budget and you are experienced. In this case, what I recommend is again buying your leads online and setting up a quantity of 500 mail pieces going out from a male house. So again, you know, I don't recommend that you do your own letters and print them off and stick him in envelopes and stamping all that stuff you know, by your leads by your letters being sent out from a male house at a quantity of 500 a month with a by monthly follow up. So you're not following up every month. You're following up every other month. Now, this is a more affordable option. You're going to get about 60 responses per month from your letters going out at that volume . And of those 60 responses per month, it's going to give you about six deals per year, which is still very good. So this is an option that would work well for somebody that has lower budget. But you do have some experience. Okay? Finally option C for the people with a low budget and you're reasonably inexperienced or just trying to get your start. The people that are just getting started trying to go after their first couple deals This is probably a good format for you. I plan on going to the courthouse to get your leads. Also, plan on handling your own direct mail, so get your white paper and your invitation style envelopes in your stamps and your yellow no patch and your red pins and you know, right everything up. Stuff him in the envelopes slapping stamp on their fire him off and also plan on a volume of 50 laid per week. Okay, you're gonna have to meet that quoted in order for all this other stuff to make sense. So the volume of 50 leads per week sent out quarterly. So every three months you're gonna follow up with your leads. Now, what this is gonna result in is the volume of about 20 responses per month. You know, your phone's going to ring about 20 times, and that's going to give you about two deals per year. You know, that doesn't sound like a whole lot, and you know it's Ah, it's, You know, it's kind of hard to build a business around that, but it's great to get started. So if you're trying to get started, you know, consider that Volume 50 leads a week. Quarterly follow up. It's going to give you about 20 phone calls per month, which is going to result in two deals per year. Those Air general numbers, they're kind of conservative numbers, so you might actually do better than that. But I'm just trying to hit. I'm trying to be kind of realistic for you. So yeah, of those options, which one do you following the best? A. B or C? And then there's a little bit of a format for you to kind of help you understand what approach to take to get the ball rolling with your direct mail. So I hope that helps Now if you're following along with this course step by step, this is the point where you need to have your leads. You need to pick a direct mail piece to send you know what letter postcard yellow, but or something like that, and you need to set up that direct mail campaign. What's gonna be happening in the the following lessons, we're gonna be talking about how to react and manage those leads. That air coming into your system. Basically, up to this point, we're talking about getting your phone ringing, and after this lesson, we're talking about how to handle those phone calls. All right, so let's move on. 18. What Response Rate Can You Expect?: So concerning the direct mail that you're sending out, let's talk about what kind of responses that you can expect from those mail pieces. And in general, you can expect about a 10% response rate to the mail pieces you send out of those responses that come in. It takes about 10 responses in order to equal a deal. So, for instance, if you send out 1000 letters, that's going to give you about 10 responses, which is going to result in one deal, So basically more letters means more responses equals more deals. Now, let me add this. Also, at this point in this, uh, this lesson, um, any mistake that many people make. The mistake that I made early on as well is I thought that I would I would kind of dip my toe in the water, you know, And I sent down, you know, 10 letters and I waited for the phone to ring and the phone never rang. And I kind of let that, you know, affect me. I let that disappoint me because I was like, Well, you know, direct mail doesn't work. This isn't gonna work. You got to send out a reasonable volume of mail in order to expect things to work. I mean, again, think about that number. Breakdown, 1000 mail pieces, 10 responses. One deal. That means that if you send out 500 letters, you're gonna get maybe five responses, but that means you only have 50% chance of getting a deal. You know what I mean? So, you know, you kind of got to make it count If you're gonna If you're expecting it, get those calls coming in and you're really trying to get a deal. You got to make a worthwhile effort and send out enough mail pieces. Don't make the mistake of trying toe, you know, dip your toe in the water. Um, you know, you don't gotta go nuts. You don't got to send out 100,000 mail pieces on your first campaign. But at least send out enough That's going to set you up for success and success it and to set you up for getting a deal done. You know what I mean? Okay. I hope that's not rambling too much. I hope that makes sense. All right, let's move on. 19. Tracking Your Incoming Leads: Let's talk about tracking your incoming leads. This is pretty simple stuff. You know, you have calls coming in and you're talking to people on the phone, and as a result of those phone calls, you need toe update the leads in your database, what I do and again, you know, your database is this Google spreadsheet that I helped you set up that has the basic information of your leads. You know, as we're coming in what I do because I cannot be on the phone and, you know, typing on a keyboard at the same time. I just can't. Plus, you know, you don't want to be like t you know it, you know, it's just kind of rude, I think. Anyways, what I do is I literally have yeah, I have a piece of paper and a pin, and I am taking notes as I'm talking to the seller. I mean, you know, nothing real crazy. You know, the general condition of the house. You know how many people are decision makers for the house, how much they are asking for the house. You know what kind of repair work it needs? Just basic questions like that. and I am writing down those answers on just a kind of scrap piece of paper like this. However, after the phone call, I take that information and I plug it into my lead database. You know, you don't want lead information over here in your database and lead information over here on these pieces of papers scattered all over your desk, you got to stay organized. So that is how how you go about it and that tends to That works well for May. I kind of think it would probably work well for you. I know. I know my brain. I have to write things down right then. Or I'll simply forget about it, You know? You know, my my wife, she's really sharp. She can have a conversation and have all this data in her head and, uh, and not forget about it. She's some kind of freak of nature, because I I absolutely can't do that. I just wanted update you with how I go about, uh, you know, entering that information into the database. Let's move on 20. IMPORTANT: Make It Count!: let's talk about making it count. And the reason I'm putting this lesson here is because I really just want to explain to you that you have to put in enough effort through all of the stages of this process in order to have results at the end. You know, I e you know, ah, house under contract that you can turn into money. And one of the biggest mistakes I made early on was procrastination in a lot of ways. I mean, you know, I procrastinated on collecting my leads. You know, I always try to do it the next day, or I'd only go to one courthouse instead of two. You know, i him in Haulover, which, um, male piece to same out. I'm sorry. Kind of crack myself up when I said him And hall, I don't know how many people understand that term. I'm a Southern boy. If it's not coming through with the with that kind of Burbage anyways, uh, procrastination was something I struggled with big time. Another thing, But this this really comes to mind. Once I had my direct mail campaign set up, I had mail pieces going out. I had calls coming in. I had all of these calls that I needed to just call back. Basically, I had all these opportunities sitting inside my voicemail box, and I don't know, I just I really early on, I had a lot of trouble talking with people. I was nervous. I didn't know what to say. And because of that, I procrastinated. That held me back a lot. Don't procrastinate. Okay, Next, let me talk about maximizing your leads. You know, if you're gonna go throw this effort of go to the courthouse and getting all these leads, or you're going to go through the expense of buying leads online from somebody you darn well gotta maximise him. You know, you don't if you don't bring those things full circle, you're just bleeding money and you're wasting time. You know why you even do this if you're not gonna maximize your lead? So here's how you maximize your leads. You maximize them by doing repeat mailings. You know, early on we talked about you know what profile you fall into, you know, a B or C. And, you know, as part of that profile, follow up was part of it. No matter which profile you found you fell into, Um, following up with your leads is critically important. By following up. I mean, you know, you send out one bail peace, and if you don't hear from those guys, you send out another male pace. And if you still don't hear from those guys, you send out 1/3 male piece. It's just you know it. I really do understand how it feels like you're just wasting money to keep firing off mail pieces of these people when they're not responding to you. But, you know, that's why you do a little bit of homework upfront. Your You make sure that the property matches your investment criteria. You be sure that they actually have real estate for sale. You know, that kind of thing. You be sure that the house hasn't if it's an older lead, that it hasn't already been listed and sold. You know, if you got a genuine lead, then you've got to just keep firing off those male paces. And you you keep firing off the male paces until you buy the house or somebody else buys the house. You know the seller just, you know, continuing to not respond to you. You know, you just keep firing off the mail pieces. I know that sounds crazy, especially to people that are just getting started, but that's kind of what you got to do in order to maximize your leads. Now, here's another thing that is critically important. And and another mistake that I made early on, How may a lot of mistakes most deals will result from, uh, from repeat mailings. To put that another way, most deals will not come from a single mailing. Okay, you must follow up. I mean, you absolutely, absolutely must. The mistake I made again, you know, I'd send out a small quantity of letters and I would expect big results, and I would not follow up. And that was just some of the big mistakes that I made. And because of that, I lost all kinds of money. I wasted all kinds of time, and I It kind of didn't do a lot for my confidence because it kind of convinced myself that this business didn't work when in fact, the business works. It was me that was not working. You know what I mean? So don't make the same mistakes I made. Don't procrastinate and maximize your leads by by following up with the repeat mailings. Okay, moving up. 21. How To Speak Their Language: Now we're to the point where you've got calls coming in and you're gonna have to be on the phone talking to these executors. So what I want to talk to you about is how to speak their language. Their some nuances with speaking to these probate sellers where you just you kind of have to adjust your your vocabulary and the way you talk. And you have to kind of crank up your listening skills a little bit. So let's talk about a few of those things. For one thing, to be very polite, be very respectful and be very gentle. These aren't your typical house sellers. There is death involved, as you know, part of the formula here. So keep that in mind. Be very polite, very understanding, very gentle. When you're talking to these people, Theis executors can be very emotional, and this is one of those things that kind of range is. Sometimes you'll talk to some that air. They're very fragile. They're very emotional on. They need kind of a soft touch and you'll talk to other ones that, oddly enough, they're just kind of not, you know what I mean. But, you know, until you. You know, you have to start with the gentle touch, assuming that they're of the emotional type before you can kind of relax and, you know, talk to me like you would anybody else but just keep in mind that can be very emotional. Another thing is that probate sellers have often not been in this kind of situation before . It's a difficult situation. It's one that often happens very surprisingly. And, you know, this is all new to them. You know, they've never been in charge of, you know, this this estate having toe, you know, manage this house and keep it updated and keep it safe and, you know, try to get it sold. You know, they're in a position they don't want to be in. It's often very uncomfortable, and they've never been in it before. So be understanding of that fact and finally, just be very understanding and be very patient with them, you know? You know, I think that's actually one attributes of myself. That kind of gives me a little bit of an edge, is I'm probably a very patient person. I'm a good listener and very patient. And if you can kind of work on those skills patients, your understanding, that kind of thing. I think you'll do very well with talking to these probate sellers. But, yeah, definitely be very patient with them. The way to build rapport with really anybody is to get them talking. Now, when you're talking to these people on the phone, you know, when they when they finally opened up to you a little bit and they're telling you about the house and telling you about situation and all that stuff, zip it. You know, don't interrupt them at all once they get talking. If you get them on a roll, you know, just let him chat. Let him talk. That's the kind of thing that's going to kind of build that that little connection between you and the probate seller and that could give you re allege. So don't interrupt them when they start talking. When you have them on the phone and they're they're telling you about the house and answering your questions, that kind of thing. Be sure you take really good notes. Try not to ask them. You know the same question over and over. Think if they tell you about the the houses condition that kind of thing. Don't be like, Oh, you know what you say about the roof. You know, if they already told you about it, you know, try to listen the first time, take good notes so that you don't have to ask the same question again. Just it really tells them that you're tuned into the conversation. You're listening really well and that, you know, you're putting a high importance on them in their situation and the information that they're giving you another thing is do not be pushy or pressure them at all. You're talking about one thing that will kill the deal for you is coming off like a salesman to these guys. Um, you know, I kind of think that's a trait that really harms people. You know, in real estate, in a lot of ways, is being real pushy and, you know, sales E and talking yourself up that kind of thing now. But these guys, you need to remain soft. You need to, um, you know, just be a really good listener, you know, just just be very cautious that you're not not coming off pushy and like a salesman to them cause that can, that can really hurt you. Another thing to remember is that their information is public record, just like when we were talking about getting these free leads from the courthouse and the the leads being public record, it's public record. I'm telling you this because sometimes you know the probate sellers they don't understand how you got their information. They feel like, you know, they've been spied on, you know, something like that, I don't know. But occasionally it could be good to remind them that, you know, this information is public record, you know, it's just like a newspaper. You know, it's out there for anybody. Teoh, Read and Toe have access to, and that's how you got their information was via the public record. So just keep that in mind in case you need to remind them of that fact gently, you know, don't not any kind of rude way or anything. Gently remind them that the information is of public record now, just kind of is a a Z. The nature of you know, the whole probate situation. The probate seller may have the opinion that you are a vulture or that you are trying to take advantage of people. You know, you've heard the term ambulance chaser for, like, lawyers. I don't know what the term is for real estate investors going after probate deals, but, you know, it was kind of along the same lines. If they have that opinion of you, you know, don't let it bother you too much again. You got it Kind of put yourself in their shoes and how you know somebody they know and love No, just died. So, you know, just just keep that mind. If they have that opinion, don't let it make you angry. You know, just stay calm about it and just kind of talk yourself through that that little point in the conversation and be sure that you are the kind of person that does not fit that profile for them. You know, you you want to be. You don't want to come off like a vulture, do everything you can to break that profile of being, you know, the vulture that is preying on people in bad situations. It may be difficult to do in the moment, but if you can do that, it's a very, very powerful thing because it's gonna separate you from, you know, kind of the mental picture they have of you in their mind and separates you further from any competition you may have as well, so 22. Tips For Tanking With The Executor: Okay, here's some little tips that I just thought about that may help you when talking to the executive. What you want to do is to adjust your vocabulary slightly on a few real estate words that, you know, while they're really, um, non threatening and benign to you and me. When a probate seller in a fragile situation here, some of these words they could kind of set off a red flag. Anyway, one word is the word contract. Don't use the word contract. Used the word agreement. And again, you know, the word contract just sounds. It sounds kind of scary and official and, you know, binding and that there's no return. Once they signed the contract. And while some of those things were true, the word agreement sounds much less threatening. So use the word agreement instead of contract. Another word you want to change is the word home, you know, using the word home when, uh, when you're talking about the house that these guys are responsible for, it kind of has that emotional tie to it. You know, a home. You know, somebody lived in their home a long time, and, you know, it's really special instead used the word property because the word property is kind of it's not. It's not as personal as the word home. You know, property is something that doesn't really have you know, those emotions tied to it where the word home is very emotional. So used the word property instead of home. Another one that you would want change is the word attorney. Now, I'm gonna stay in Georgia, where we close with closing attorneys. You may use a title company or something like that. Anyways, if you're in a state that uses the word attorney, don't use the word attorney, because again, it sounds when attorney is a scary person, it's like a lawyer, you know? So don't use the word attorney used the word closing office or title company. So, yeah, those are some terms that you might want a tweak just a little bit to kind of help your verb ege sound less threatening and more inviting and kind of help you get the deal. Okay, Another couple things. When you're talking to the executor, focus on how you can benefit them, and the ways you could benefit them are For one thing, you can save them a 6% Realtors Commission. You know, if they go through you, they don't have to deal with the realtor. They don't have to pay for a realtor that 6%. I mean, that's a chunk of money on $100,000 house, that six grand, that you can save them so you can save them a 6% Realtors commission. Another thing is that you can close quickly or around their schedule. You can be flexible that, you know, are they do they need out of that house right now? You know that they live out of state. They're trying to get rid of this house that needs a bunch of work, you know, they want out of there quick. On the other hand, they may be the kind of person where there's multiple signers and they need some time to get, you know, other affairs in order, that kind of thing. Maybe they want a commitment on the house, but they don't want to close for 45 days or whatever. Either way, regardless of you know, what their need is concerning the closing time frame, you can help them on that. So just let them know you can close fast or you could close around their schedule, whatever they prefer. Another thing you can do is you can pay cash for their house opposed to ah, financed offer. And what that means is, you know, a cash sale is simple. It's quick, you know, you've got the money, you're writing a check or you're doing a wire transfer. Whatever. You know, I just leave your doing financing. You got another entity involved. And that's just another way that's going to stretch out the closing time frame or another way that the deal could fall apart. So, you know, just let him know it's a cash offer. It's not a financed offer. And because of that, you're gonna be ableto close quickly and close around their schedule, and it's just gonna be a done deal. You don't gotta wait on banks approval. Another thing you can do is that you can prevent ongoing property maintenance. A lot of times, I mean whether the house is in good shape or bad shape. You know houses need maintenance they need, even if it's bad shape, it needs to be secured and might need to be cleaned out or you might need a tarp on the roof of a leaking roof. You know whatever. No houses just need money. They need ongoing maintenance. If it's a good house in a good location, in good condition, you know it's gonna have to have maintenance to be kept in that condition anyways. Another benefit to them is that you will prevent them from having to keep that property maintenance, you know, going and that could be a big drain. It could be a big expense. And if they live out of state or out of town, you know, that's Ah, that's a lot of could be a lot of travel for them if they're trying to handle it themselves . You know, it's just another one of those factors that could make the difference of you getting the deal or not by saving them from having to be responsible for all that property maintenance . So those are ways that you can benefit them in ways that will put you in a position to get the deal. Finally, another couple things in this section you should ask the right questions at the right time . There's a couple questions that you should bring up naturally in the conversation at some point, and those questions are and this is simple, but it's a beautiful question. Pay attention. It is. What can I do to help you? I know, I know that doesn't sound like much, but when you're in the position that these guys were in and they're struggling and they're they're in a you know, they want help. Hearing those words is Ah is a very powerful thing. And that's another thing that kind of opens up the conversation and gets them talking about their needs and what they're trying to have happened with house. So you're asking them what you can do for them instead of you telling them what you could do for him. I hope I described that in the right way. But anyways, that's a very powerful sentence. What can I do for you? Another question you should ask is, Are there any other decision makers? And what happens with some of these probate deals or a lot of them, actually is It's not just one person needs to sign for the house. It could be multiple people. I mean, it could be I mean it, really, Any number of people, I guess. Um, yeah. If there are other people that need to sign the contract in order for the contract to be properly executed, you need to know how many people there are and who those people are. And I'm gonna I'm gonna teach you another upcoming lesson here. There's actually a specific document that outlines those people, but anyways, this is a good question to ask. Are there any other decision makers? Okay, so I hope that helps. Let's move on. 23. Your Repair Estimate Worksheet: Let's talk about your repair estimate worksheet. Now, I'm looking at these documents just on my computer. So, you know, don't don't get Teoh two confused about this stuff, but anyways, included in this particular lesson that we're talking about here is an O D t file in other words, an open office file or a word file that you can edit and also a p d f. So let's just open up this. Pdf, I'll give you a look at what we're talking about here. All right, this is your repair estimate worksheet. And if you zoom in here a little bit, you can see you know, you got to property, dress up time, you get the day of the inspection or, you know, your walk through or whatever and the inspector and specifically put the inspector on here because I actually have, you know, it's it's not a licensed inspector that goes out to check out these houses for me, you know, a to least not early on the process is just like a boots on the ground guy that helps me out. You know what I mean? And you might have somebody local that helps you out to anyways, That's why I have this blank there so I can put my inspectors name on there. And then the way this works is, you know, you can see the item, the checklist item over here on the left side. And then there's a column here. No or yes. So basically, if the house needs roof work, you know no or yes. You know, you just check one or the other. And if it does need work, then there's an item cost detail over here. That kind of breaks it down, you know, doesn't need a full roof. Well, in Atlanta, you know, full report cost about, you know, just total ballpark of, like, $8000. And if you know, if the roof is okay and it doesn't need, like, a full roof job, just putting a new layer of shingles over the existing shingles cost $3000 then you can put kind of a cost estimate over here. So let's say just for instance, if it's a really just kind of bread and butter house that needs a complete roof job, I would put $1000 right here or my inspector would or if It's if it's a smaller house that maybe has a pretty small, simple roof. You know, I can just kind of adjusted a little bit, you know, $5000 for a full no roof job. So that's just kind of an example of how one of these line items works as you're going through the sheet. And you know, now one thing I want to say about this, these numbers, this is what I use for Atlanta. You will very, very likely have to kind of dial in all these numbers on your own. Now, you know, I say that. I don't know. Maybe in a lot of markets, these numbers would actually still be pretty accurate. But, you know, just anyways, be sure that you double check these numbers against what's actually happening in your own market. Maybe have you know, if you got a contractor, friend or contractor that you work with, sin the sheet over to him and let him just look at these numbers and just make adjustments on him, and then you can Yeah, kind of fine tune it. You know what I mean? But yeah, lots of check list items over here and It's kind of just it kind of just breaks out. You know, the individual components that make up an entire house, you know, paint siding, windows, garage yard landscaping, H B, a C plumbing, electrical sheet, rock all this stuff and then all the way down to Dumpsters down here if you need to, like, do some kind of demo job or a trash out, that kind of thing. But this is the repair estimate worksheet that I used to size up houses in the Atlanta market, and I'm giving you the sheet and, uh, again, I'm giving it to you in both an Ode ET version and a pdf version. The pdf version is the one that actually print from the Ode ET version is the one that I make edits to. So, yeah, I think that, uh, I think that pretty much summarizes it. You know, really simple thing. Just a one page, simple sheet, but it it really helps you organize. You know your thoughts about what it's gonna cost to re have a house on the sheet and having all of these individual costs broken down like this, it can be used as a negotiation factor you know, with Seller went to try to get a discount on the House and to justify that discount on the House. Now it doesn't have quite as much horsepower as a you know, an actual license contractors repair estimate does, but it's still it's still packs a punch, and I use this all the time. Teoh justify the expenses involved with a house, so it's worked very, very well for May, and I know it will work very, very well for you as well. So I hope you get a lot of use out of this real estate repair estimate worksheet. All right, let's move on. 24. Gathering Info At The Property: So let's talk about gathering information at the property. And this is usually done with the seller, right? There are the, you know, the the executor. Anyways, what you want to do is bring along your repair estimate worksheet the same form that talked about in the previous lesson. Also, be sure to bring along a digital camera. Now, this could be your phone. You know, I'll actually if I'm at a property, which is actually kind of rare, because I have somebody else do that for me. Anyways, I will use my phone or those guys actually use their phone when they send me those pictures to take a digital camera with you as well. So you can take pictures of anything that stands out. But take pictures of the whole house, you know, just in general. So you see everything. And also be sure to get those pictures of items that will need to be repaired or replaced or, you know, stuff like that. Now, while you're at the house, your primary objective is to build report with the seller. You want to talk to him? You want to get to know them a little bit. Yeah. Focus. on building report. Now, when you're at the house, you know you want to get, you won't get all your pictures. You want to fill out your repair estimate worksheets. You want to get them talking, but, you know, again, just take your time. Uh, whenever they're talking to, you know, let him chat. If they're more, they open up to you the better. You know, they might not be super chatty or they might if they're super chanting. Let him check, because that telling you that's a powerful thing. When somebody opens up to you like that, they're building that connection, and that goes a long way towards helping you get the deal. So take your time, get them talking, let them check. The more they chat, the more comfortable they are with you. And that goes a long way towards helping you get the deal. Now, another thing is, you know, don't just linger at the house too much, you know, really try to focus on getting in there, get your pictures, you know, building the report and then get back out of there. Keep a goal of about an hour or less, you know, trying to get in there. Get right back out. It really doesn't take that much time to check out these houses. So you know somewhere around 45 minutes would be great. But really try to get out of there within an hour or so. Also, be sure that you're filling out that repair estimate. Worksheet is Ugo. That is really good information. It's something that can be used as a kind of a little bit of leverage for negotiation on the price, because obviously the more repair costs there are, the bigger the discount you get. It's not quite as good as a contractor's estimate, but at least having all of those repair details you know, itemized and broken down on that form that carries a good bit of weight that you can provide the seller with that estimate. That could really help you out on getting a discount on the house. Also, when you're there, be sure to get photos of the mechanicals, the roof, the kitchen, the appliances, anything else that stands out about house, especially concerning things that are big ticket items that need repair. That's another thing that can give you a lot of leverage, especially, you know, those those photos the documented repair estimate worksheet that can help you out a whole lot. You can include that stuff with your offer to help you get a discount on the house. Finally, when you're about to leave the house, let them know that you will be sending them a written offer within 48 hours. You know that's important. It helps you be. It helps you. It helps them know that your professional and and by all means, if you tell him you're going to send them to offer within 48 hours, send them the offer within 48 hours, okay? 25. Choosing Your Exit Strategy: Now let's talk about choosing your exit strategy, because when you're sizing up these houses, you know you don't want you don't want to close on the house and then figure out what to do with it. You've got to be kind of lining up an exit strategy earlier in the process. I mean, it's just good practice, you know, you don't want to get you don't get stuck with house or choose an inappropriate exit strategy that ends up costing you money instead of making you money. Okay, so I always have at least two exit strategies. Whenever I buy a house. My two preferred exit strategies are one to wholesale the house and to to set it up as a turnkey rental. And what that does for me is, I mean, obviously know what wholesaling is. You know, you get the house and you, you either sell the contract, you assign it to double close it, or you basically just buy it and sell it again. Quickly. You wholesale it, you bite you, you sell it cheap off, you know, number two, a turnkey rental. That's kind of my plan B. If I buy a house and I mean literally buy a house that I intend to wholesale, uh, and just do kind of a quick flip on without fix it up. And for some reason, I can't sell it quickly. What I do instead is I turn it into a turnkey rental. I'll do a modest rehab. I'll put a tenant in there, and then I will sell the house with the tenants in place. That's my plan B because and I like that because while the house is sitting there waiting to sell, I've got a little bit of cash flow coming in. The house is basically paying for itself. That's why that's my plan B. You know you may have another, you know set of, you know, preferred exit strategies, but those are mine. Number one is wholesale. Number two is turn key rentals. Now there are four basic exit strategies when you're talking about just, you know, your regular single family houses that is one toe wholesale to turnkey rental. Three long term rental and four is to do a retail flip. And now there's, you know, there's there's other exit strategy to get in the lease options are you know, all kinds of other stuff, but those were the basic four exit strategies. Now the exit strategy you choose depends on you know your knowledge, your experience, the direction that the broad market is headed in your investment goals, the specific neighborhood that houses end. You know, there's there's all kinds of variables. You know, I I can't advise you on what exit strategy to take. That's ah, as a a function of you know, all of those criteria factors and so much more. But yeah, that's, ah, you know, exit strategy comes down to being the choices you are left with as a result of those variables. Personally, I tend to lean towards exit strategies that keep the deals simple, fast and that limit my exposure and risk. That's why you know, I do kind of one to do the wholesale or the turnkey rental. You know, I've done it all. You know, I've done retail flips and, you know, hell rental, long term, all that stuff. But again, my preferred exit strategies being those of wholesaler Turkey Rental. It's a it's the result of mainly me living out of town from my investment market. My investment market is it in Atlanta, and I live like 2.5 2.5 hours north of Atlanta. So I don't want to be making all these trips back and forth to manage rentals or to be checking on, you know, rehab projects and all that. And I'll tell you why. It's because Atlanta traffic sucks. And I tried to avoid that Atlanta traffic at all costs, So I keep it simple. I operate my business remotely for for the most part, and that's why focus on wholesaling houses and doing turn key rentals. Now I told you about You know why I choose those exit strategies for myself now. You probably have similar factors that kind of influence the exit strategies you prefer. You know your market or your where you live or you know all kinds of things like that. But that's you probably have factors like that that influence your preferred exit strategies. Now, careful consideration must be given on which exit strategy you are intending to take with the property before you present your offer to the cellar. What ultimately determines your exit strategy? It's It's not your preference it's not, You know you can't just really have a preference and you're gonna force that house, you know, toe to meet your needs. It's actually it's the market that chooses your exit strategy. It's It's not you. In other words, it would be a horrible mistake to try to do some some big, fancy, expensive retail flip on a house that suited to be just kind of, ah, kind of a cheap, inexpensive rental. You know, I mean it just the fundamentals have to make sense in the market in the neighborhood. And, you know, the days on market supply and demand. And, you know, it's all you know. Everything has to line up for your exit before your exit strategy. In order for it, Teoh make sense. So, yeah, you can't You can't force a particular exit strategy. You have to choose one based on the options that are best suited for the house out. That makes sense not trying to harp on that too much. I just want to I want to really dial in the the importance of choosing an appropriate exit strategy 26. Analyzing The Deal: Let's talk about analyzing the deal and what this is. It's gonna be a breakdown. It's kind of better suited for either a wholesaling exit strategy or a retail flip exit strategy. So let's talk about this little term. You've probably heard this acronym before a RV Hey R V stands for after repair value, and that's that's just what it sounds like. A R V is the value of the house, after all of the work, and the rehab has been done to it. Now what you want to do when you're making the offer to the seller is you want to get a discount off of that A R V. And the discount that most people use in most markets is about 60 to 70% of the A R V. Now that that factor 60 70% that can fluctuate. That's kind of a good factor for Atlanta, my market. But depending on where you are, it may need Teoh Flex a little bit, I guess kind of go into the extreme end would be some, uh, some cities in California. I mean, you know some of those values and things like that out there It is nuts. You know, you might only get a discount of, like, 80 or 90% out there in order to make money. But, you know, in markets like Atlanta, 60 to 70% works pretty good. So here's a kind of an example on a house that has a $100,000 a RV. If you multiply that $100,000 by a factor of point soon, then that gives you, ah, number of 70 $1000. Now what you need to do is from that $70,000 subtract whatever your rehab costs are. So if your rehab costs are going to be $25,000 then you deduct that and you're left with a final offer. Price will basically a max offer price of $45,000. So so the offer you make to the seller is $45,000. Or, if you want to come in a little bit less than that to give yourself a little wiggle room, then you make your offer slightly less than that. You know, 40,000 and 43,000 you know, whatever. But that's kind of Ah, that's kind of a mathematical equation. Breakdown to how you would use that a r V formula. Okay, so talk about analyzing the deal a little bit further, talking about comparable sales in order to find the A R. V in order to find your air V The biggest factor, that is Ah, mystery. Where is this kind of two factors? One is the cost of repairs, and the other is the actual value of the house after its repaired. And in order to get that, you know, there's there's lots of options out there. I mean, I, to be quite honest, might go to source in order to figure out the I. R. A. R V is Zillow. You know, a lot of people might, you know, a lot of people might not like Zillow because it might not be as accurate as some other factors or whatever, but whatever it gets me close enough. So I just go on Zillow dot com. I run comparable sales for whatever the houses that I'm interested in and up pops a number . I mean, that's kind of my go to source. Now, what I do is I will, um I will basically double check that number against some other sources there's truly a dot com. That's another website that you can go to or you can get a realtor to run some cops for you . That is very likely what the very best quality cops are, if you can if you are realtor or if you have access to the MLS, or if you can just get a realtor to provide cops for you. That's kind of the best way to get your numbers if you really want to dial it in, um, going back to my exit strategy, which again my preferred one is to wholesale. And my my Plan B is to do a turnkey rental to me. I don't have to be super duper exact on the A R V number. Zillow gets me close enough. I don't say things like this, but I don't remember the last time I asked a Realtor for cops. I mean, I I honestly I fly off of Zillow and just information that's online. I mean, I've been doing that for years and years, and that's served me just well. Now I would say that if you are focused on doing retail flips as your exit strategy and you're you're seeking houses that work for that exit strategy. I would recommend going the Realtor route. Um, yeah, so that's probably the best way to get the best Cops is going through a realtor now. The other thing is, I've said this briefly before. The discount factor can vary by market again in Atlanta. I use a factor of 60 to 70% off the air B that may or may not be accurate for your market. I would probably be safe in saying that that factor would work in most markets, but in some specific markets some really specific, super competitive, expensive markets. You probably gonna have to go with a lesser discount factor, and that can range probably somewhere between 70 and 90% so you won't get as much of a discount. But in the super competitive markets, the prices are much higher typically, so you don't need as much of a discount in order to make the same amount of money took it. So I hope that kind of sums up analyzing the deal a little bit now. Generally, when you're sizing up a house, the newer the house, the better because the new of the houses it kind of makes everything else easier going downstream. You know, there's just there's less rehab you don't you're not usually dealing with, like weird layouts and stuff that her own houses built in like the 19 fifties. The newer houses don't have like the old style. Uh huh, electrical boxes like those Ah Nam and two things where you stick men. And, you know, they have just standard breaker boxes. The newer houses. You don't have to deal with things like lead paint you don't have to deal with as best owes . So generally speaking, the newer the better. Now, more rehab and more risk mains lower offers. You know, I mean that that's that's pretty self explanatory. And the other thing is low. Offers are just fine. Just, you know, just get him out there. If the house is old and it needs Aton of rehab and it's him, you know, maybe a rougher area. Are you know any kind of factors like that if you happen to deal with mold or asbestos or lead paint or it's gotta crack foundation E kind of things like that. Listen, if the seller is asking $100,000 the offer that makes sense for the House is $5000. Make the offer. I'm serious. I come across situations like that were. People are just swinging for the fences, you know, as far as their asking price goes. But if the reality of the situation is that the offer that makes sense for you is astronomically less than what they're asking, just get the offer out there. You can either walk away and, uh, have 0% chance at getting the house, but have 100% chance that not offending the seller. Or you can sling that low offer out there and have a chance of defending the seller. But you also have a chance of getting the house, you know what I mean? So just get the offer out there now. You can make an offer on absolutely anything there's. There's no factor that would completely rule out a house of, you know, you've been able to make an offer on it in Atlanta, especially when the market was way down, it wasn't uncommon. It all for me to make offers in the sub $5000 range. I'm serious. I mean, it happened a lot. I bought houses for $1000 unless on several occasions I'm serious now. We're talking about really rough houses and really rough areas. But I'm just saying you could make offers on absolutely anything, especially if wholesaling is part of your exit strategy. If you can keep the risk extra extra extra low, then you know then why not? Yeah, so you can make it off around anything, and it is always better to make the offer than to just completely pass and walk away from the deal. Just you know, if if you've gone through all this time and effort and expense and getting these ladies coming into your world, you know, you're just wasting all that if you don't make the offer, you mean so just just think about that. Always better to get an offer out there than to walk away. Even if you in the cellar are way off between their asking price and your offer price, get the offer out there. One other thing is you can get a contractor to come out to the house and help kind of justify your offer price, especially if it's if you're offers coming in much lower than what the seller is asking. Contractors bid kind of. It's like a, uh you call. It's a second. It's like a second opinion, you know? I mean, you're getting another professional to come in there, 1/3 party professional that's non biased to come in there and give a bid on their property , and that can help the seller understand that the house really does need, ah, lot more work than what they think it does. A lot of times that could make the difference between you missing out on the deal and getting the contract. Let's talk about estimating your rehab costs now. This is something that is difficult to teach, because again, you know what works in my market all the, you know, the cost of materials and the cost of labor, and, you know, it is just it varies. You know, so much market to market. So I can't really teach specifically what works in my market, because very likely it won't work in your market. What I can do is I can teach you how to go about figuring out what the specific numbers are in your market so that you'll be able to effectively analyze the deals in your market. It's gonna make a little bit of leg work for you. But the result is gonna be that your numbers are gonna be dialed in because they're gonna work for you instead of just flying off of what works for me. All right, so let me show you how to do that. This method is actually quite simple. What you do is, once you get to the point where you have a property where you are evaluating, you know you've got a lead coming in. You've set up a showing with Seller and you're actually checking out the property. It doesn't even have to be under contract. You just you're checking out the property, get on the phone with a few different contractors and have you know, I would say at least two different contractors come out and check out the house and give you an itemized repair estimate and the kid that is itemized, you know, if they just give you can you know this big block number that's not really helping you out When you talk to him on the phone before having them come out, be sure that you are requesting an itemized repair estimate. Not all contractors. We're gonna want to come out to a house and give that itemized repair estimate to somebody they haven't you know meant before, because, I mean, it's gonna cost them time and money. It ISS. But this is a key component in helping you figure out what the repair costs are in your market. Now, we want to be respectful for the contractors time. We just don't We don't want them coming out wasting their time, giving you this estimate for nothing, You know what I mean? Now, if your intention is specifically to wholesale this house and you're not actually gonna be doing the rehab, you know, paying 100 bucks, you know, I mean, haven't come out, give them something for their time so that you have that rehab estimate and you can use that estimate going forward because then you'll know what your numbers are. But if you if you plan on, you know, you know, going all the way through, buying that house, doing rehab, flip on it, or turn it into a rental or whatever and you can use their services, then it's just a final because they're gonna get end up getting paid when they're they actually do the work for you. So anyways, get the contracts come out, get the itemized repair estimate and you can use those numbers from that point forward on evaluating the rehab cost on any of your deals. Now, another thing you can do is get in touch with the local investors in your market. This could be this could be wholesalers. There could be people that are holding rentals or people that are doing flips. Whatever. Just get in touch with these guys. All you have to do is get on Google and run a search that says, basically hi. Buy houses Atlanta or whatever your market is, you're gonna get a list of people to come up and just contact those guys and have a conversation with him and even even beyond just asking them what they what. They typically pay for rehab costs. They're good network contact. So this is kind of good practice to do anyways. But get on the phone with these guys, ask him what they you know. They typically pay for, you know, a roof for a kitchen or bathroom or, you know, you know it. You get it? Just just talk to these guys and you're gonna end up getting kind of a run down of what these things cost. And you can use those factors in your future, Uh, rehab evaluations. Now, when you talk to these guys, not all of them are gonna be helpful. But that's, you know, don't worry about it. That's OK. All you need to do is talk to, you know, a handful of these guys and they're going to give the information you can need from that point forward to understand the specifics of the rehab costs in your market. So that's ah, kind of a good way to get a bearing on what your rehab costs are gonna be. Now it takes special care to learn what it cost to replace the big ticket items. You know, the roof in the H V a c and the plumbing and the electrical and the appliances and a kitchen in the bathroom. You know, those big chunks of money become very familiar with what those costs, because you're gonna be using those on every single house that you make an offer on. Here's something else. As you learn these specific numbers in your market, be sure that you update the numbers inside that repair estimate worksheet that I gave you. That sheet has kind of a good basic breakdown of what the cost star in my market of Atlanta , Georgia, but again, they probably don't work quite right for years. So as you get these numbers, go and make the edits to that sheet and then whether you're going out to the houses or you're sending somebody else out to the houses to do those rehab evaluations, then you've already got your number. Your numbers dialed in, so that could be a big help. It's also good, even once you have that sheet set up and adjusted to Teoh to make updates to it from time to time. Cause you know, the market changes, the market moves and goes up and down supply and demand and all that stuff. So you know, it's good to probably, you know, once a year, maybe take a second look at that rehab. She just to be sure that the numbers you have plugged in there are as accurate as possible . So that's just another tip. I hope that helps 27. The MIGHTY Purchase & Sale Agreement: Okay, Now let's talk about the purchase and sale agreement that I am providing you with as part of this course. Now, in the middle of my screen, you see an Ode ET version on the left and a PdF version on the right. Now the Ode et version. That's the vegetable version that you had it with Microsoft Word or open office. And then the Pdf version is the one that I used to, you know, print off from or to email to people. So let's check out this purchase and sale agreement now. You know, I'm pretty proud of this person's and sale agreement. I have been continually improving this and adapting it for the last gosh decade, at least, you know, and it's it's kind of what makes it beautiful is, you know, it's as simple as possible, but it still has teeth, you know what I mean? It's still got everything there that you need to control the deal, and it also has everything there that is needed to keep you safe and give you the ability toe. Check out the house and get your contractors in there or your buyer. If you're wholesaling it and It also lets you get out of the deal with, you know, something goes wrong. So, yeah, everything is there that you need. But this thing is only two pages. There's a page one that's kind of the bulk of the agreement. Then there is an addendum on page two, and the only reason there's an addendum has that I haven't yet been able to get all this information on a single page. You know, perhaps after another, a decade of a continual improvement, I will be able to finally get it down to a single page. But not quite yet. Anyways, I don't want to go down through every single line of this thing. But suffice it to say that, you know, I really think this contracts pretty awesome. I've used this Teoh buy and sell hundreds of houses. So you know the address of the top that purchase price and then you're closing. Date blank is after that. You can change the earnest money deposit amount right here if you want to. You I put $1000 in there. The next blank down there is where you write in your closing attorneys or title companies. You know, name and then, you know, lots little details going down through there. Down here, the bottom four blanks. This is where you put your name, your email, you sign it and then you put your phone number, and then the seller signs it here on the bottom. And then the addendum is just, you know, a little bit more details, you know, financing contingency. Um, you know, contract subject to the seller's ability. Convey marketable title. That's kind of a wholesaling thing. And also number, I say number eight is This is actually pretty slick because number eight is what gives me the ability Teoh do a simultaneous transaction or a double closing. So lots of cool stuff like that so you can use this contract. You know, I've said a couple of things now that allude to this contract has Burbage in there that set up specifically for wholesaling. And while that's true, you know, you know, I've closed many. The overwhelming majority of the houses that I have closed happened wholesale houses, but I bought plenty of rentals, and I've done flips using this exact exact same contract. Now, like all the other documents that have provided you with this to be edited to suit your individual needs in your individual state and, you know Oh, you know, it could just be adapted to your own uses, so just keep that in mind. But, you know, I'm actually I'm really proud of this contract. You know, it's ah, I've used a time. It's, uh it's very effective. And, you know, one of my favorite things about it is that it is not very intimidating, like the Realtor contracts. That's kind of scary contract. There's thousands of words on it, but yeah, this is just very, very simple, very elegant. Yet, you know, everything is there that you want there. So anyways, check it out. It very, very likely worked very well for you. Maybe it's good to have, like, your attorney, your title company. Look at it if there's any you know concerning the matter, but yeah, this is an excellent contract, and I am gifting you with it as part of this course, so enjoy it. And I hope it helps you close on many, many houses. All right, let's move on 28. Making The Offer & What To Expect: So let's talk about making the offer and what to expect Now It's kind of pretty simple because probate sellers they usually fall into only two different categories. There is type one that wants top dollar for the property, and they're willing to hold out for it for as long as it takes. And there's type to the type that they want as much money as they can get for the property . But they want it fast type twos or the ones that I prefer to work with. But there's plenty of deals to be had with the type ones as well. So let's talk about each of those different types of probate sellers. Type one. They want top dollar, and they're willing to hold out for it. They have no real deadline at all on the house, and they can wait. The house is in really good shape, and it could be listed on the MLS right now. I would say that 75% or greater of probate sellers fall into this category being, ah, type one probate seller. So with these guys, you know, you check out the house, you evaluate everything you make the offer. But don't don't get emotionally tied this house or anything cause you got to be ready to walk away because the the fact of the matter is that they are probably going to say no. I mean, that's just kind of how it is. So what you want to do with these guys is, you know, make the offer follow up with them because you do get deals from this type of probate seller. They are lower percentage deals, but they're still good deals. If you if you get inhabited just walking away from any probate seller with a good house and they're kind of they're kind of reluctant to meet your offer and they're ready to lift it if you If you just walk away from these guys, you're throwing away money. So you know you still want to treat these guys like a potential deal until it is no longer a potential deal. Type two are the kind of probate sellers where they want as much money as they can get for the house, but they want it fast. These sellers are more motivated to sell quickly. They often live out town or even in another state, and the house usually needs at least some level of rehab done to it. These guys, they will still try to negotiate your offer price. They will often say that they are entertaining multiple offers. While this is sometimes the case, I've I don't know. I've kind of found that this is often just kind of a bluff. So, you know, don't don't call them on their bluff or anything, but understand that when you hear this, you know, it's probably just kind of a negotiation tactic. Don't let it bother you. No. If these guys pressure you on the fact that, well, not the fact that if they've pressure you with the idea that they are entertaining multiple offers just, you know, stay cool about it, you know, don't don't get bent out of shape. Don't pressure him, you know, But just remind them of the benefits of closing with you, and that is that you can offer them in all cash closing. You could buy the house and as is condition and you can close around their timeframe whether that be ASAP or, you know, some time they choose in the future. So just let them know of, you know the benefits you can offer them if they do the you know, the multiple offer bluff? Well, bluff. It may be true, but, you know, oftentimes I found it's kind of a bluff. Now, this is the tough part. Um, regardless of if you're dealing with the type one or type two probate cellar, be ready to have your offer rejected. I mean, that's ah, probably the hardest part of this entire business as the fact that your offer gets rejected a high a high percentage of the time, I would say, probably 75% of the time your offer is rejected, Let me clarify, though a rejected offer does not mean a dead deal, That's probably one of the most important things you're gonna hear me say in this entire course. A rejected offer does not mean a dead deal. The only way the deal dies at that point is if you fail to follow up with the probate cellar now, this is the point where you present your offer to the seller. Many people get nervous about making offers, and I mean, there's really nothing to be nervous about, you know, is again. I'm going back to all my previous mistakes when I was starting off, this was another way that I screwed up as as a newbie. How would get to this point? And I was so scared about insulting. People are having somebody get angry at me that many times, depending on the probate seller and you know who they were and how they sounded on the phone. And if they sounded me or something like that, I would make the offer because I didn't want to offend him. Don't make the mistake I made. You know, if you get this far in the process, you're killing yourself. If you if you're walking away from deals by not making an offer, so by all means, don't get nervous. You know it's just business. Analyze the deal. Get the offer to them. You have to go ahead and accept the fact that most of your offers won't get accepted. It is a numbers game, 75% your offers or greater will get rejected right out of the gate. Make the offer anyways and follow up with them. It's all part of the process, it really is. You can't expect all your offers to get accepted But if you can just get in the habit and accept the fact that most will get rejected and then it's a natural part of the process, you're going to do well and you're gonna get houses under contract. Make the offer. Don't worry about rejection. Follow up with, um and everything is gonna be just fine. Now, I suggest making the offer over the phone. You could do it in person if you want to. Or you can send somebody out to the house to make the offer for if you got kind of a local boots on the ground guy that does this kind of thing. But again, remember, the reality of situation is most offers. You're going to get rejected. And if that's the case, then why not make it over the phone and save yourself the drive? You know, um, I think a in person offer might be slightly more meaningful just because it's face to face and that kind of thing, but and you can do that. But you just have to make a decision on, uh, you know how you want to spend your time. And for May, I would rather spend my time doing the things that are going to be building my business rather than, you know, doing all this driving, making offers in person. So I used to make offers over the phone, and I really don't think it makes that big of a deal either way. So here's what I do. And you know, a lot of people don't do this, but here's what I do. I make my very best offer right out of the gate. Um, what a lot of people do Just, you know, going back to this a r V. Example. If your best offer is $45,000 lot of people will come out with an offer like 35. And I don't know, I feel like that kind of does more harm than good. I understand the mentality of doing that, that you want to kind of feel out the cellar. And a lot of people say that, you know, you know, in order to get the very best price, you got to come in, you know, a good bit lower than your best offer. And I understand the the angle on that. I do. But, um, especially with these probate sellers I kind of like to be a little more transparent with him and a little more just upfront with him, Uh, and not not really Beat him up. You know, I mean again. That's just me. You don't You don't have to do what I do. If you like coming in lower than your Max offer. Do it. I'm just kind of telling you what I do. So yeah, I come out with my very best offer right out of the gate. So if my max offer is $45,000 I hit him with $45,000. Yeah, I don't intentionally lowballing like crazy. I just I simply make whatever offer works for May and for me and my experience, I feel like it's I feel like it's worked Well, now, if I was dealing with, like, I don't know, a bank or Norio or something like that, what's the heart? If you throw whatever offer you out, you know you want out there. I think with these probate Ciller's, you probably may risk hurting their feelings so much If you make just insultingly low offers that may burn you, they may just completely turn you off and go with somebody else. If that's the case, uh, I don't know, but I'm not trying to steer you one way or another. I'm just kind of trying to tell you what has worked for May and kind of my justification behind that, because I feel like it would probably work good for you. But anyways, that's why I come out with my very best offer right out of the gate. So literally what I will say to this cellar and this is kind of boilerplate ver bage that comes out of my mouth. When it comes time to make the offer, I will literally say, Mr or Mrs Cellar, let's not been doing this a long time and from my experience has worked out better for everybody. If I just give you my very best offer right out of the gate, you know, is that fine with you? That is pretty much what I say in orderto tee up my offer. And then that they always say, Yeah, absolutely. And I hit him with the number. That's it. Simple. Is that 45,000 and then that is the point where the seller will react to the offer and there's really only two things that can happen at this point. The seller either rejects the offer or they negotiate the offer based on what direction the seller takes there. Here's what happens next if they reject the offer. First of all, do not worry about it because this happens the majority of the time. What I do then, as I typically will email the opportune them because then they have kind of this reminder sitting in their in box that the only thing separating them from closing this house is signing that offer and sending it over to me because, you know, I just like to leave them with the offer is not always a ridden physical copy that I hand to them. I tend to email them the offer, and from that point I put them into follow up mode. I will make a little note inside the the probate lead tracking database, and I simply touch base with him and follow up like once a month. Check on the other doing with house, you know, it's just a It's a quick kind of courtesy call just to kind of remind them that you're there. You're interested and when they're ready to sell, you're ready to buy. Now, before I do this phone call to them once a month, I do a quick search online just to be sure that the House hasn't been, like, you know, listed on the MLS. If it's been listed, I usually just I usually pull the plug on that one because once it's listed, usually gone after that. But, yeah, that that at least save you some time, you know, making the phone call just, you know, hop on Google, whatever. Run search for that address and then you'll see it pop up in the MLS system. Inside, You know your city. If the House has been listed, if it hasn't been listed, just continue to follow up. I get deals all the time, just following up like this. But again, if they go on to the MLS, I pull the plug. It's kind of up to you what you decide to do, but I found that usually when they go to the MLS, that's that's kind of they're usually going after that. Now, the other option. That can happen when you make the offers that they want to negotiate the offer and they could, you know, you can negotiate anything. It could be the the price, the closing date, the contents of the house, the closing attorney, their earnest money. It could be anything at all that they attempt to negotiate with you. Now there's a couple things that I always insist on. One is that they close with my attorney's office, have a couple of different attorneys that I prefer, but, uh, in Atlanta. But I insist that they use my attorney, and I insist that the attorney holds the earnest money deposit. What some of these sellers want to do is they actually want me to hand them over the the earnest money. And that does not work. That is, Ah, you know, you could pretty much just right off that earnest money and kiss it goodbye if you do that because there's, you know there's no third party liability if you do that kind of thing. So the safe, the safest thing to do by far, is to have your closing attorney hold the earnest money, and I I I highly recommend that you do the same and, uh, usually the thing that they want to negotiate the most is the price. But, you know, remember, I usually hit him with my number right out of the gate. I give him my my highest and best offer, and that's that's not a bluff. I don't say that. Then I, you know, come up $10,000 or whatever. Usually, um, I will remain firm on the price, you know, if maybe throw another $1000 Adam or something like that, if it really makes the difference. But, you know, I don't I don't move around a lot of my price with these guys. I I'll just remind Mobile like you. Look, you know, I was I was straight up with you, you know? I told you, this is my very best price. I've run my numbers. I've had the contractor Look at the rehab that the house needs. You know, I'm confident that I can make this work at this price. You know, im I hope it can work for you too. So we get the deal done. That's that's kind of how I talked to him. But yeah, I don't typically adjust my price at all. Okay, Now this next part is important. Assuming that they agree. Thio Thio your offer amount. You need to request this document from them. The document is called the Letters of Authority and what the Letters of Authority does. It is a official legal document that outlines the specific people that have the authority to make the decision to sell the house. In other words, if there are two or more people listed on the letters of authority, those specific two or more people need to sign the purchase and sale agreement in order for it to be valid. I hope that makes sense. Let me say that one more time. In case it doesn't the letters of authority. The people detailed on the letters of authority all need to sign the purchase and sale agreement in order for it to be vowed. In other words, if there are two people on the letters of authority and only one of them signs the contract , you do not have an executed contract. That's why it's so important to request the letters of authorities. So you know specifically who needs to be signing the contract? Hook it. I think I think that summed it up the second time. All right, here we go. 29. Sending & Receiving The Contract: So let's talk about sending and receiving the contract to the probate center again. This is assuming that you guys agree on offer amount. Now we need to get this thing official and send them a contract for them to sign. The key thing here is to make things as simple has possible for the seller. And you got a few different options for this, Depending on you know where your market is and how you're doing your business and all this stuff. Um, you may take it to them in person. Now again, As as you know, I don't do that because I don't. I very rarely go to my market of Atlanta. Um, but you know, you certainly can take it to them in person if you want to. That's probably the very best way to ensure that, you know, you get the contract as fast as possible and it's correct and all that stuff. However, it's probably not the best option to do all the time. What I usually do is one of the following two options. I will either email them the contract, and what I do there is. I opened up the pdf and my computer and I basically type in their property address and the offer amount into the lines. And then I will Elektronik Lee sign my signature and then date it. And then the only fields that are left in the offer form is the signature block for them and the date block for them. And then I will email them that PdF. Now that only works. Of course, if you're dealing with somebody who is computer savvy and email savvy, all that stuff and it does require them to, you know, go to their computer, open up, email, print off that document, signed the document and then either mail it back to you or scan it back into their computer and emailing back to you. So there's some factors there that may work for some sellers, but not others. But I find that that works the majority of the time for May. Now, let me tell you about an option that I I also do quite a bit, and this is especially handy for May living out of my my target market. Atlanta and also it's very handy for dealing with somebody who is not email savvy at all. And there's some other benefits to do with this method. So check this out. So you go to the post office and you buy two thes prepaid envelopes. You fill out one so it has. It's coming from you to them. You fill out the other one. So it is going from them to you. Okay. And then what you do is you print off two copies of the purchase and sale agreement that has, you know, go ahead and fill it out with the property. Address the purchase price that you guys agreed on. Go ahead and sign it with your signature and dated and put two copies in this envelope. And then what they can do, The seller will go to the mailbox. They'll open up the envelope, they'll take the contracts out of it, both of them because you have two copies so that they get a copy and you get a copy. They will sign both copies. They will keep one for themselves. They will put the other one back in the envelope, seal it up, pop it in the mailbox, and then mail it back to you. Now, another really cool thing about doing this myth that is thes priority mail envelopes. They have tracking both ways, so you'll get a tracking number of the shipment going to them. So you'll know exactly when it arrives, and you'll get a second tracking number for when they ship it back to you. So you contract, You know, when they put it back in the, uh you know, the the mailbox and guy picks it up. It goes back in the U. S. P s system. You know, when that happens, and then you know when you're going to receive it. So I hope I explained that well enough, but yeah, this, uh, this method actually has been very handy for me. Yeah, I like that. It's got tracking. It kind of gives some accountability both ways, and it makes it very, very easy for the seller. They don't have to worry about, you know, using computers and email and printing off forms and all this stuff. They don't even have to drive anywhere. They don't even have to leave. You know, they can take a pen down to the mailbox, open up your package, signed the documents, take their copy out, but your copy in and pop your your envelope right back in the mailbox, and that's it. And then you receive it back in, You know, usually about two days. Anyways, I hope that makes sense, but very handy method for moving contracts around the the double priority envelope trick. I hope that helps. 30. Got The Contract... NOW WHAT!?: So when you get the contract back from the seller, then what do you do? What is a couple things for one, you need to go ahead and get that contract over to your closing attorney. Your title company, A s, A. P. You should also get your earnest money deposit however much it is a dollar $500 or $1000. I usually do $1000 because it feel like it gives my offer a little more horsepower to use the higher deposit number. But go ahead and be sure that you have that amount of money in your closing attorney or title companies escrow account. And the third thing you need to do is instruct the closer to go ahead and order the title report. This is something that usually happens automatically is just part of the process. But I like to just I like to just say it just to be sure that things were getting done because a lot of times people want, you know, you're dealing with these sellers. They just went out of the house and they want it done fast and, you know, in order to get it done quick, getting that title report in A s A P goes a long way towards the whole process, going smoothly. So go and be sure that those three things are in place as soon as you get the contract back in. Now, while it is true that your closer whether being an attorney or time company, uh, they're gonna be doing the heavy lifting on, you know, managing the whole closing process. That's true. But you don't need to. Just you don't need to just let the deal go on autopilot from that point forward, um, the deal still needs to be managed. You still need to be sure that everything is staying on track and everything is on a schedule. I mean, you've worked very hard up to this point, you know? Don't lose side of that. You know, you bought those leads and set up the mailing and you've got this calls coming in. You've talked to these people. You checked out the house, you've made the offer. You put a ton of work in this deal up to this point. So now your job becomes becomes just to ensure that the rest of this closing process goes smoothly for In a way, the biggest variable that you have in this closing process is the executor. They can still be emotional, and that can still be unsure of how the closing works. And they can be doubtful and quite likely they're still getting calls from, you know, interested buyers who are wanting to buy their property from them. And they could be trying to kind of persuade them. Teoh, drop your closing contract and go with them. You never know, you know, But the biggest thing you can do, Teoh keep everything on track is to stay in really close communication with the executor throughout the process and just reassure them that, you know, you know, the contract has been turned in its with the closing attorney. Three earnest money is in. You know, if they have any questions, just let you know. But the process is moving forward. One thing I like to do is have somebody from the closers office give them a call directly where there'll be a closing attorney or a paralegal or somebody from the title company if you use title companies. But that little step just kind of helps, um confirm and solidified the legitimacy that the closing is indeed happening. So it kind of gets kind of gets, ah, an official person on the phone with these people to let them know that this, you know, this is really this is happening so they don't get cold feet or start doubting your ability to close or anything like that. It's just kind of a good step to take. Yes, So, you know, up to this point, the executor, they've been just dealing with you. They've been they've been talking to you and listening, Teoh. You know, you know all the promises you can make and how you can buy their house fast and saving the Realtors commission and all this stuff. It's just been promises that you've been making but connecting them with the closer. You know, somebody, third party, that's, you know, really official, You know, an attorney or somebody like that. It just helps confirm for them that the process is actually happening. So stay in communication with all parties, keep the deal on track and do everything you can to ensure that the closing occurs on time . But your biggest, I'm telling you, the biggest variable here is still the executor. Remember, you're dealing with the you're dealing with a cellar, that is I mean, they're highly emotional. I mean, most of them are as far as all the different real estate niches and things like that the types of sellers should deal with. This is the one that is the most emotional. So they need. They kind of need the most communication and reassurance throughout the closing process. So just be sure that you're not, you know, leaving them hanging. Just be sure you're talking to him frequently and keeping him updated and, you know, involved in the closing process. So they know everything is gonna happen. Is plant now One thing that should go without saying his that if you're intended exit strategy is to wholesale the house. You need to be working very hard at this point to line up your end buyer so that they are in place and they're locked in for when the closing occurs, so everything can get a smoothly. That's excuse me. It's adding another variable in the process when you do this. But, you know, I've closed a lot of deals like this and, you know, everything tends to go smoothly If you kind of do your homework and set things up from the very beginning, where you turn in your contract with closing attorney, you get your buyer on board to get to block down and get them under contract to get their earnest money in. You know that all the pieces tend to come together smoothly. You just want to do everything you can to be sure that the deal does not fall apart after all this work, Um, if you don't have a buyer lined up at the very end of the process and again, I just want to remind you up to this point you've done a tone of work, you know, with all the process and leaves and direct mail and calls coming in and talking to sell it . We're making the offer and do the paperwork. All of this stuff don't let it fall apart because you've got some flaky buyer in their you know, their wholesaling it. Be sure that you've got somebody really solid and locked in good. That's going to bring this thing home for you because it all kind of rests on their shoulders at this point, unless you have the ability to close on this house for yourself. If you know if you could write a check forward at the end of the closing, If the buyer fails to close, you know, then you could save it. That's that's why I kind of like this Plan B for May is being taken these houses the turnkey rental round because that kind of eliminates the variable of having some flaky buyer in there at the very end that wrecks the whole deal. But you know that that may or may not be an option. It works for you, but that's that's what I end up doing. But yeah, vastly important that you have a solid buyer in there, so be sure you're doing your homework on that. So granted that the closing goes smoothly, which it should. If everything is set up correctly and you've been communication with the executor and all this stuff, the closing occurs, the paper is signed, the money is transferred and you take ownership of the property, and then you simply proceed to execute an appropriate exit strategy to turn the house into money. And that's basically the end of the probate real estate investing process. Rinse and repeat 31. Making Small, Consistent Steps Forward: now this'll part is basically just a few bonus lectures. I mean, everything you've heard prior to this outlines the probate investing process. Uh, now, from this point forward, just in a few lessons, I'm just kind of give you some bonus material that I hope helps you out. It's kind of maybe inspirational stuff, I guess, or just kind of some things that I really hope kind of enhances your business. So let's get into this. First of all, I want to say this In order to make progress, you must take small, meaningful, consistent steps forward. And I I say those three words and I specifically choose those three words. The steps don't have to be huge. I mean, you can take little small steps along the way. In fact, you're probably safer taking a lot of little small steps than you aren't taking big, gigantic steps that you don't have control over. So it's fine. It's fine taking small steps towards your goal and towards wearing something to do and towards scaling your business. Small steps are fine, but those steps must also be meaningful. You know, you have to put your effort into something that is going to yield the results that you want . And a lot of that comes from, you know, kind of linking up with I mean, people like me that can kind of help steer you in the right direction. I mean, that's how you learned the meaningful steps to take. You know, you need some kind of guidance, whether it be, you know, ah co two books or, you know, online courses like this you've got to keep kind of educating yourself. So you know which steps to take and which steps they're going to be meaningful. Intangible. And, uh, you know that you're not just wasting your efforts spinning your wheels, so meaningful steps are also important. The third factor there is consistency. Small steps will add up to be really bit the big things if you take them consistently. Now, that's another thing. Where I messed up a lot on early on is that I didn't take consistent steps. Um, I feel like I did, you know, a lot of little small steps, but they were really spread out sparse, and I would I would come in and I would try some new things, and then I would go off in an experiment on some other stuff. And I didn't know whether I wanted specializing wholesaling or flipping houses at least options, or I was even trying to think about maybe being a realtor there. Early on, I was so spread out, I just wasn't consistent. I didn't choose a specific path, then have a specific goal in mind. But all of those small, meaningful steps that you take, they don't really get you where you want to go unless they are consistently taking you in the right direction. So you needed to find a path. Um, you know, for me, my path became, you know, wholesaling and doing turn key rentals because I kind of figured out what thing I don't I don't want to live in Atlanta. I certainly don't want toe commute to Atlanta back and forth, managing a bunch of rehabs and that kind of thing. So that's how I kind of figured out the path and the business model I wanted to have. Anyways, I think that is enough for this particular lesson, but I just kind of wanted to flesh out that statement for you. Small, meaningful, consistent steps forward. And I don't know, I kind of feel like those three factors eventually yield the results that you want to have as long as there, you know, effectively applied. So I hope that helps part. Let's move onto the next one. 32. The Incredible Importance Of Follow-Up: Okay, One more thing I want to touch on again, and I've already kind of hit on this in the lessons. But it's so important that I think it deserves kind of, ah, second mention. And that is the incredible importance of follow up. Um, throughout this course a couple times, I've mentioned some of the big mistakes I made early on in my real estate career, and probably none of them were as damaging as my failure to follow up. And what I mean by that is, I mean, I would spend all kinds of money on direct mail campaigns. I would buy leads and I would send out my mailers and then calls would come in and they would fill up my inbox. And I mean, hundreds of phone calls would be sitting right there in my inbox. But at that time, I kind of had I don't know, a fear of talking to people. I just hated talking to people on the phone. I mean, I mean, don't you can't really make money in real estate flipping houses like this, it just here and talking to people on the phone. But anyway, I wasted all kinds of money because those leads would just sit there and they would get stale. And then when I finally did, uh, you know, follow up with them, they were, like, well saying, I left this matches a month ago, you know? And then I looked like a bozo because I didn't follow up with him. Anyways, don't make that same stupid mistake. Follow up with people when the messages hits your phone. Call those guys back within 24 hours or 48 hours at the latest. The second part of follow up thing is, do not send. Well, let me say this. Do not think that you can send a single mailing to a list and that you're done. You know anybody who doesn't respond to you, it's a dead deal. I don't think that that is a that is a critical mistake. It takes multiple mailings in order to get these deals again. Remember the fact most of your deals will come from repeat mailings. I just want to emphasize that one more time. Alright, guys, I'm gonna cut this lesson often. Move onto the next one 33. Recruiting A HEAVY-HITTER Closer: Okay, So in this bonus video, I'm gonna teach you how to recruit a heavy hitter closer now in your market, that could mean a closing attorney or could mean a title company. But what my intention is is to get you hooked up with the heavy hitter and your market. And I mean having somebody that is very investor friendly. And, uh, you know, they just really know how to get these deals done. It could be an incredible enhancement to your business. And that's what I hope to give you. Now, here is how you go about recruiting a heavy hitter. Closer step number one. You need to research investors in your market online and what you need to do it. Simply go to Google and type in. I buy houses and then your markets there for maybe I buy houses. Atlanta. Now what you need to do, it's gonna give you If you're in any kind of you know, Metropolitan Market, you're gonna have hundreds of results. Uh, and what you want to do is just go down through those results and you click on the website , find a phone number for these guys. They don't have a phone number. You know, do an email to him if they have an email address, that kind of thing. But what you want to do is get on the phone with at least Tim real estate investors. And it could be they could be wholesalers or re Havers or landlords. Just anybody who is a real estate investor in your market. What you want to do, what you're on the phone with them. You simply ask them who they close with. That's that's all you need, what you want to do when you ask them who they close with. You want to take notes. You know, right now you know who this person is that you're talking to. Obviously, write down their phone number right down who they close with. Once you start collecting this data, you are going to recognize a trend. And that is why you're you need to contact at least 10 of these people because if you just contact one or two, there's not gonna be a trend. You need to get at least 10 of these people on the phone. I asked them who they close with, and what you're gonna do is you're going to see the same name coming up over and over. Maybe it's a couple names or two or three names. There's basically like, for example, in Atlanta. I operate usually with one preferred closing office. But there's basically three that you know I would refer to as being a heavy hitter investor friendly closer. And what you're trying to do is get those people to kind of come to the top of the list by finding what that trend is. And, uh, once you find out who they are, simply contact those closers and make an introduction. Just tell him, you know, Hey, I was referred to you by whoever and tell him who you are, what you're trying to do and just make an introduction with him on that point forward. Send them your business. Once you find these guys and you start sending them your business, oftentimes they'll give you discounted rates on the closings. Sometimes they will give you discounts on what it costs to run a title report, and you kind of just get preferential treatment. Sometimes you know that kind of understand what your processes I, Noah's faras wholesaling goes, which that's what I specialize in and in Atlanta. They're so in tune with the wholesaling process and that oftentimes I have I'm doing a to B B to C type closings, you know, double closings or simultaneous closings. They understand the process so well and there's more moving pieces involved in that kind of closing. But these guys, they're so in tune with how it works that it just goes so seamlessly sometimes with, for instance, the double closings or the A to B B to C closings. You want some parties to not necessarily be it completely in tuned with what's going on with other parties. You know what I mean? You've got a to B contract and you have a B two c contract, and you want the people involved with the A to B contract, not necessarily to know all the information going on within the B two C contract, and you got to keep that information separate. You've got to keep those parties separate, and if you don't have a closing attorney that really gets it. That can get kind of messy sometimes if you got kind of a complicated closing going on, but again, that's just one of the benefits of working with a heavy hitter, investor friendly, closing attorney or title company. And that is how you go about finding them. Find investors online. Talk to him, ask him who they closed with, make a list of the closures, are recognized. The trend, contact closer and start sending those guys your business. That's all there is to it. OK, guys got one more lesson, and then that wraps up the course. So let's go on to the final lesson. 34. MAKE IT HAPPEN: this lesson is entitled Make it happen and I'm calling it Make it happen because sometimes people have difficulty in putting knowledge into tangible, actionable steps forward. You know, sometimes people think that they're they're really making big advances when all they're really doing is just collecting information. And it's It's a tricky thing to talk about because you do have to collect information. You do have to gain knowledge in order to advance. But ah, big mistake is made whenever you know you gain knowledge, but you don't actually turn it into something valuable. You don't actually apply that knowledge in order to make steps forward. And I simply want to bring that, um you know that mistake forward and to your attention, because I don't want you to fall into that trap. While I am incredibly pleased and honored that you've taken this course of mind and that you know, you have all of this knowledge in your hands now you gotta take it to the next up. You have to turn that knowledge into action. So what you do now is maybe maybe rewind the course to the point where we're talking about , you know, setting up you're all your systems, your phone numbers, your database setting up your mail pieces, all this stuff. Maybe go back to that point forward. And if you haven't already done it, whenever you play those lessons, do those steps. You know what I mean? Don't go to the next lesson until that step is actually done. And you actually have, You know something tangible in front of you from that step. And if you can do that, then whenever you get to the end of this course for the second time you'll actually have calls coming in as a result of your direct mail campaigns that you sent out. And then you just have to process those calls and, you know, start working those leads, that kind of thing. But that's Ah, that is what is separating you from, uh, from you know, making big things happen with probate is you have to make that jump between simply collecting, collecting knowledge to applying knowledge. That's it. Alright, guys, I am going to now wrap up this course. I am very appreciative, Very honored. Very happy that you have signed up for my course. I hope you've enjoyed it. I know this information works because this is the same stuff that I apply in my business. You know, day in, day out, that results in me closing probate deals. If you can apply the same things and take the same simple steps, I know that you'll get the same results. Um, maybe leave a positive review for me. That kind of thing helps me out. And if you have any suggestions on new courses that I could create to help you, then by all means, let me know. And on that note, I wish you success in your real estate investing in different things.