Bill Gross: Using An Area of Expertise To Grow Your Real Estate Business
LISTEN TO FULL EPISODE ON:
Bill Gross has been an agent for a long time in the Los Angeles area. He learned that differentiating yourself amongst all the other agents is important in gaining mindshare with clients and vendors. So he decided to become an expert on Los Angeles Probate, and his business has flourished as a result of it. He hosts a weekly call to discuss how to get sales in probate, how to engage with probate attorneys, and more probate-related topics for real estate agents and investors. Born in Santa Monica, raised in Orange County, lived in the Inland Empire, San Gabriel Valley, South Bay, and for the last 20 the Westside of Los Angeles, he has been in real estate for over 30 years, closed THOUSANDS of transactions, and gives his all to help his customers achieve their goals. Learn from Bill on how he used a great niche to grow his business and how you can too!
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- Bill is the LA probate expert, because he has the LA probate expert.com URL.
- He’s the expert at probate in the Los Angeles area, hosts a weekly call to discuss how to get sales and probate how to engage with probate attorneys.
- He was born in in Santa Monica, raised in Orange County, live in the Inland Empire have been in real estate for over 30 years and closed 1000s of transactions.
- Bill took up a college bid in aerospace electronics and his brother was in real estate and that is where he started being into real estate.
- He dressed up like an attorney to gain more more trust, maturity and credibility at first glance. This is his way to compete with younger real estate agent.
- Bill is a probate expert.
- He is hosting a weekly call on probate. It's Thursdays 4pm Pacific 7pm Eastern, probateweekly.com. You can also contact him via his website which is the LAprobateexpert.com. His contact details are posted in the website.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro and overview on Bill’s career
01:25 Bill’s background and how he gets into real estate.
07:10 Bill’s tips when you get into real estate and talking about when he became so successful.
16:15 Him being a real estate hack.
17:46 His tips and advise if people wanted to focus on probate.
24:47 How people can reach out to Bill.
Follow Bill 👇🏼
www.thelaprobateexpert.com
https://www.youtube.com/user/BillGros...
www.probateweekly.com
www.probateweeklyepisodes.com
SUBSCRIBE IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO BUILD WEALTH THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES IN THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY
✅ http://relfreedom.tv
GET STARTED INVESTING TODAY AND ACCESS OUR DEAL LIST!
📈 http://investwithelite.com
PARTNER WITH US ON BIG DEALS!
💵 https://eliteadvantagepropertieshq.com
BUILD YOUR REAL ESTATE AGENT CAREER WORKING WITH INVESTORS
👨👩👧👦 http://eliteadvantageagent.com
LEARN ABOUT REL FREEDOM & HEAR MORE REAL LIFE STORIES
🎙️ http://www.relfreedom.com
FREEBIES: DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE FREEDOM FOUNDATION BLUEPRINT
💵 https://www.relfreedom.com/blueprint
LOOKING FOR A REAL ESTATE AGENT ANYWHERE IN THE US? FIND A TOP AGENT IN YOUR COMMUNITY
🏠 http://www.eliteagentreferral.com
JOIN OUR FACEBOOK COMMUNITY
👨👩👧👦 https://www.facebook.com/groups/relfreedom
SUBSCRIBE TO THE REL FREEDOM PODCAST
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rel-freedom-podcast/id1535281574
🎧 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDA3NjIyLnJzcw==
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5nXA5hLHbDzRwxypc2wLur
LET'S CONNECT
👉 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mswenson13
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getrelfreedom/
👉 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@relfreedom
🏠 Minnesota Real Estate: https://www.eliteadvantageteam.com
Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome to the REL freedom podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together.
Mike Swenson
All right, welcome everybody to another episode of the real freedom podcast. And I'm so excited to have Bill Gross here today. So Bill is the LA probate expert, because he has the LA probate expert.com URL. So by by nature, you are the expert at probate in the Los Angeles area, hosts a weekly call to discuss how to get sales and probate how to engage with probate attorneys. And more probate related topics, obviously, that's really important to hear for us in real estate, born in in Santa Monica, raised in Orange County, live in the Inland Empire have been in real estate for over 30 years and closed 1000s of transactions. So obviously, a lot of wealth here, specifically in the area of probate, which we're going to cover here in this episode. So welcome, Bill. We're so glad to have you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, so why don't you just go ahead and share, share a little bit more about your background and your story here, how you kind of got to where you're at to today, and then we can dig in and focus more on probate after that?
Bill Gross
Well, I mean, I my initial career was, you know, somewhat nondescript, I had a college bid in aerospace electronics, and my brother was a real estate. So I have checked into it and built a career and he didn't done really well and then ended up getting into management and recruiting for a company and did real well with that, until the company stopped growing. And the problem management is the company is not doing well, you're in trouble. And so I realized, at the age of 60, after having a really nice career, I was making really good money. They hadn't really built the wealth they needed to I had some setbacks along the way. And I don't want anybody to lose stories. But you know, things happen, I raise a family and did really well. But I needed some wealth for the rest of my life. And so I actually met with a man who had coached me years ago, Don Hobbs, who now is actually the president of Success Magazine had the privilege to sit with him one on one, after seeing his talk on the importance of branding and focusing on one niche.
Bill Gross
And so two years ago, I started full time lead generating in the area of probate in Los Angeles County. And from there, I built a tremendous business, to where I sold more houses last year than I ever had as an agent. And this year, or you sold more this year, through August, so they had all of last year. So it's been really about focusing on something and creating expertise, that gives me the chance to work with people who value my service and those who don't, that's okay. There's enough people that seem to, and I really believe in this. This is the opportunity of a lifetime for me and anybody on this call, I mean a lifetime to build a business because these tools we have are so powerful to distribute if you have real value to create and real value to share. And so I try to encourage everybody find it an area that you're an expert in, or you have value in, and then serve that just make people as you possibly can.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and I think that's the cool thing about it, you know, in real estate is there's so many different areas of lead generation areas of focus. And you know, what we often would tell people, when when I'd have agents on our teams that would come to me with this new idea of, Hey, we should try this, we should try this, we should try this. Well, the answer is is probably all lead generation works in some way, shape, or form. It's just what's the most effective form and what's going to be the best fit for you and your knowledge and expertise. And for you obviously, you've carved out quite a niche and probate that doesn't mean you couldn't send postcards and you know, farm a neighborhood and be successful. But it's really finding that mix of what works well with what is something that you're excited to do day in and day out. And it's going to help your business grow
Bill Gross
and good at I think you'd have if I did do an assessment of my assets, and I am older so I have to work that to my advantage. I can't compete with younger guys door knocking, they're going to hit more doors that I'm going to be able to prior for example, but I could be older I have a little more maturity a little more credibility at first glance, I like wearing suits and ties so I was going to court every day, dressed like an attorney wearing Brooks Brothers suits and ties weave casing and Emily firming the court was really my Legion ratio when I started. And I'm able to talk to attorneys who my father was attorney I interned for attorneys. I know the business so I think you have to do it probates a huge market to like all real estate, we do an assessment of what your strengths are and what you want to do. And then make sure whatever your marketing is lines up there and that way the the lead conversion is more effective because you're good at that rather than just average
Mike Swenson
like this most people and I think for some people the hard part of focusing an area means that you're saying no to the other areas and I think that's hard because you think why could get busy In this way, or I could get business and that way. But if you play it forward a couple of years and you see okay, I can actually grow more quickly. If I focus on this area. Yes, I'm giving up some business but what I'm gaining is going to be more fruitful for me.
Bill Gross
100% The hardest thing in real estate, whether you're a real estate agent or investor, is ask the question, What value do you create versus all the other realtors in the market. And if you're just like all the others, then you're going to get replaced by Zillow or Redfin, if you have any value than Zillow and Redfin tools are gonna drive business for you or delegate tasks that you don't want to do. So you have to really think about what value you create versus other people and find that and work it. And I think that the thing that shocked me and Don was right from the beginning, he said that, when you proceed as an expert in something, people assume you know, the basics. So if you think about it, let's say looking political, you know, should I take a COVID vaccine or not, or whatever? Well, if you're, if your brother in law is a world renowned brain surgeon, even though he doesn't have particular expertise in a maybe immunology or viruses, he's an expert in medicine at such a level that you would value his opinion, if not accept his opinion, as a medical expert.
Bill Gross
And it seems to with real estate that, because I'm a probate expert, I think homeowners properly assume I can listen to sell a house, that's easy. I do a lot of maybe 30 houses a year, that's a lot for most agents in my market. I do have smaller houses, I do houses a lower price, lower quality, but I negotiate every one of them. I'm talking to agents buyer. So the the skill sets hire as an expert, but that allows me and so I tell people, I mean, the truth is half my business is non probate. All my lead generation is in the field of probate, but I get other business because of my expertise.
Mike Swenson
So let's just take a second then in kind of give, you know, the the nuts and bolts around probate for people that have been interested in that, you know, that have been a real estate agent or like, Hey, I really maybe have an interest here and want to focus more, just give us a little bit about, you know, where should I focus my time? What should I do to learn? And kind of how have you taken that and then leverage it to be a great tool in your toolkit?
Bill Gross
Right. So the first thing I would say is it varies by state, and it varies by county. So not knowing where your listeners are, I'm assuming most of them are not in the LA County. And of course, we're in a COVID time. So whatever I say that is because of COVID restrictions, just just start that after that stops, whatever that is. But I would say the first thing I would recommend for is a great resource I use was alltheleads.com. Now they're they're a service that sells data. And the cellmark material is self coaching, but they give away more training for free than anybody else sells. They have a free weekly roleplay call for a free monthly mastermind. There's a great website, you can search questions there, I would say check that out. The other thing I tell people is go to your local county courthouse where they do probate you go online usually and get a live information. And they'll just say show up with the idea of researching spend the day find out and jelly starts in the morning. So be there for the first call in the morning to see what does it look like are they is a judge's there in person is on video, they all varies by county Now, watch the procedures, you should see attorneys there, you'll see investors there often.
Bill Gross
So I would definitely encourage people to learn some information about your particular area and how it's done versus others. And then you can you can get a strategy for because not all strategies work for everybody, right. And I will add one more thing that the companies have sell the data tend to sell one of two strategies, either mail or call petitioners families that are inheriting property, or mail or call attorneys, con attorneys very difficult mailing to either side, in some markets is very competitive, smaller markets, good idea. But I actually teach those 11 ways you get business, those are only two of them. And for an agent who has business, you can bolt on one of those other 11 ways to your current business. That won't cost too much money, not a lot of rejection, you have to start at three hours a day calling everybody. And so I say this, there's a lot of ways to get business. If you go there sometimes though, you'll discover which way makes sense for you individually.
Mike Swenson
In which ways have been most successful for you.
Bill Gross
Well, I've tried them all. And I would say I do a little bit of all of them. I look at it. Yes. I was never in the military. But I imagine that we have a bad guy that you talk to him from multiple angles, right? You have you try and circle them. You have helicopters, you have planes, you have missiles coming from Navy ships, right? The more ways you can attack an enemy and keep them off guard. So not to make my clients the enemy, but the more I can attack them. So if you think about from a probate case, the song house the more ways I can approach that house the better.
Bill Gross
So if I can contact attorney in an eye contact with petitioner, for example. Well, my top attorney can say Well, I've been talking to Mr. Jones, which is true by talking to Mr. Jones. Well, I know your attorney, Betty Jones, but that's also true By Dornoch, the house I never Dornoch by have team members have Dornoch the houses for me. So now you see the house and they know in there there's a renter Lieutenant, there's an error or whatever. So now we have multiple angles of attack. And so I think that the more ways you can approach something depends, so I try to tell people, if we can make this your full time niche, you really need to dot probably three or four different lead generation strategies and then constantly add a new one to get rid of one that's not working. But doing combination.
Mike Swenson
And, and the reality of that is, is it's, it's no different than more traditional real estate, right? You know, you're gonna maybe do a postcard if you're let's say, You're farming a neighborhood, you're gonna do a postcard, you're gonna do a door knock probably some people in your neighborhood, you might have them on social media, so they're gonna see some of your stuff on social media. Yeah, so it's it is that multi tier angle, that's going to get them it's not just I only mail or I only call, but they're going to read, they're going to respond more fruitfully when you've got kind of multiple angles there.
Bill Gross
I hope so I think the chairman markets called multi channel how if you can address people in the multi shell side, you're 100%, right? When when I'm new agents who want to use another method, like, you know, farming is perfect example. So yesterday, number houses, you said, why would door knock 100 day, you know, 20 work days a month, every 90 days, I go back to the beginning, great. Now you have 6000 houses identified, don't poke don't postcard all of them just postcard everyone that you meet, for example. And then social media, add them all into your database for social media. And so I think that that's the same thing that you can attack people from Twitter different angles, you just catch the different times different channels, different ways to evaluate it, you don't really know which one's gonna work.
Mike Swenson
Now, you had mentioned attorneys. So obviously, there's so for those that don't focus on probate. You know, you might think, well, I don't know any attorneys yet. How do you how do you go from I don't know any attorneys to now I've got quite a few attorneys that are great lead sources for me,
Bill Gross
Great. 11 grow good. I think that's my favorite technique. I picked up for agents from making a living, you know, your full time you're making money, you really need to make more believe you have a business is going if you know how to sell houses. So this might prepare technique for them, which is take your list of past clients, and put them all into one of three categories, either your CRM, or in a spreadsheet, the three categories either. Now you're in again, what state are you in?
Mike Swenson
Minnesota.
Bill Gross
this is a little different. But I believe universally, there's a concept called a living trust, and the trust are ways to avoid probate. Now California is a big deal, because our probate is expensive in other states is not as big a deal. But it's still important, and living trust also give non real estate advantages. For example, God forbid you're capacitated or die, how are your medical affairs managed? How do you you maybe have kids? How are they how you give all your mind your kids who are under age No, but you create it, you know, you can establish all that. So I highly recommend everybody who has a house and or $100,000 or more to have a living trust. And so I think that if I was a realtor, I'd learn about that. Learn about particulars in your state. Finally, go online to YouTube, you can look living trust in Minnesota, or living trust in Alabama and get an attorney we'll talk about the advantages. T
Bill Gross
hey offer that service. And then categorize all your past clients as either, you know, they have one because we took title, the title of the trust, or you don't know, or you know, they don't have one. And so I would call all those that I know have a living trust. The other thing you can do is you go online, at least in most states, and pull public records and see how they took title. If it's a title in a trust, you know, they have one, right. So I would call you up and say, hey, my book was on the road to sell your house, how you doing how the kids bubble? But By the way, I noticed he has to title he took title in a living trust. And I'm just curious how that's worked for you. People love talking about smart decisions. So going on. At some point, I'll say, Well, you know, I talk to people like you all the time customers like you that need living trusts. I'm always looking for an attorney that can service them. Are you comfortable sharing who you train was and me referring the business now? They're either gonna say, Oh, yeah, our attorney was Betty Boop, she is the greatest we love, love, love Betty Boop. Here's your number. Now you can call Betty Boop not for referrals.
Bill Gross
But just introduce yourself as a way to add your network. And so the way a couple things you can do at that point is number one, when you call Betty Boop, this is a little trick I learned. You don't ask them you know, care for your business because probably does that you ask them? Are you still writing living trusts? That's a phrase that tells attorney you know the business has brand new attorneys will do living trusts experienced attorneys won't, they'll go hire a junior or delegate it out. It's kind of like first time homebuyers. Newer agents always work without established agents find somebody else to delegate that work to. But in the long run was first time homebuyers become listings into attorney those new living trusts become business in the long run, which is more profitable. So yes, net key question. Do you still write living trust and they do Are you would you be interested? Are you comfortable new referring people to like to like Mike Swenson he was so happy with you I mean other people would you be okay me and make introduction? Oh, yeah, of course. Muscle say yes.
Bill Gross
Your love just to meet with you not to associate you I'm here to pick you for business just that with a refer somebody I feel comfortable that you? Can I meet you for lunch Can I need for coffee? I find most attorneys, their natures, they'll go out to lunch with almost anybody that's just kind of there. That's just kind of their business model, right. And they think they're supposed to be networked with people at lunch. And so I was taking a nice lunch place. There's that expensive, but she business oriented type lunch place. And I just found that a very easy way to get inside them and not ask them for referrals, I would never ask them, but now they're in my COI database, the rest of my life, I have that attorney and the other one. So I'd say most agents, if you've closed in your last career 100 deals, let's say over 10 years, you've got you know, three, four or five attorneys in that database that you can pry out of your system, and right away have a relationship.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. So then, once you've built that relationship, are you you're checking in with them and then asking for referrals down the road, or you're just you're just deleting the relationship do the do the walking there.
Bill Gross
So I like the relation to the walking because I'm an expert in real estate, they need somebody occasionally to refer somebody to was an expert in real estate. Now, again, this goes back to being an expert, if you're just a real estate hack. Well, they every knows 10 of those, right? That's, that's what they hate, and they hate us. The average person hates realtors, because the average realtor is so bad. And so I always tell people isn't that great, because I don't have to really compete, I said, to get him to that person, that average age had to stand out as an expert. And so you know, I advise all the it just my team, you need to send out something that's real estate related to everybody you've ever met every week. And so you establish yourself as an expert in the real estate market. Most agents can't do that most agents won't do that. And the stuff, they'll send out the pictures or the body or pictures of their food or pictures of family, which is nice. But I'd have thought about the real estate industry so that an attorney who has a case with a million dollar estate, feels comfortable offering me the $500,000 house, that kind of material about the real estate market. So that's, you know, I just find if you do that, and your social media is on that and you friend them in Facebook, most importantly LinkedIn. You know, eventually they see you as the expert.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, that's great. So, okay, so you've obviously grown your business here over the last couple years. What other tips and advice do you have for people to if probate is where they want to focus? What else should they be thinking about?
Bill Gross
Well, I think whether it's public or not, the number one mistake to avoid the number one thing to do when you build your business out, is understand that the long tail of marketing the average there, I know that the detail in it, but the short version is the average lead from the time they start looking online at Zillow or Redfin, or a similar site to closing the average is over two years. Now, that doesn't mean people don't buy a house within three days. And we love getting those people or when less than three days, but the reality is they're thinking about talking about it, researching on average, today, that means some are four and five years, and your marketing has to at least get to average. So you have to think about what am I going to do with somebody so I am relevant to them two and a half years now. So when they do decide the at least the fat majority of buyers and sellers, well these still be in the game with me, right? You can't concede otherwise, you're just priming them for the next real estate agent or the next person.
Bill Gross
So whatever your system is, it has to include reaching that time that's why I say dude every week if you if you email something to everybody, every week forever in your career, you're going to stay in touch with them forever and I literally have clients who come back to me 7, 10 years later say saying I get your email every week is crazy to think about but you know that I email everybody I've ever met you know every week and I think that's the number one missed out truth most agents is there now once you email you can do a podcast you can do a video you can add other you that's the same thing in my mind is the consistency of a messaging to database and you can upgrade it but that's like to me the minimum that most agents aren't reaching.
Mike Swenson
So what type of stuff are you you know, you had mentioned you know, not what food you read do your you know what you're doing but something real estate related for those people that are maybe looking for ideas, what are some ideas of stuff that you've you've done that it's been been successful?
Bill Gross
So criteria I have is something that I find interesting, I'm just commenting on it. So I made a list of real estate industry resources, like coffee Association realtors has a nice little newsletter section with like eight or 10 different articles and different companies. Zillow has one and other companies have other ones I found over time or I'll do a search engine. Google News under real estate and housing, and Twitter, real estate and housing and nothing really magical, but I just read a bunch of I live in my calendar every Sunday, block out 5pm. Now sometimes I'll adjusted based on what I'm doing. By block time to spend about a half hour reading articles finding what I like, is I just summarize it in three or four sentences or five sentences. Or sometimes I'm inspired to write a whole page, this one this week was on staging.
Bill Gross
So I wrote a long article on it. But most of my three or four lines summarizing an article linking to that article, and then emailing out to the database. Now I added, I also then now shoot a video and attach that video to that article as well. That's an upgrade. And I think that's, I think that's becoming more almost required that we all participate with some video. But at a minimum, the email should go out and should be on the topic that you find interesting that you find relevant to the market. For more use it, I write what I make and that way, and I would never send out a canned piece by company, because the way to engage with people is in my language, and with my opinion, people who like me, not everybody does a lot Don, people like me and know me, like my voice, my voice in terms of what I see. And people like you like your voice. And so yours has to be distinctly different from where you sit. But um, so again, I would just say just find something you like, and then write an article about it just write three or four or five sentences and link to it doesn't have to be complicated.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and what I like, what, what you're doing is, is you're showing, okay, here's my professional take on this piece of information. So they can read the article, if they want, they can hear your synopsis, if they want, they can do both, they can watch the video, but what you're doing is you're you're in their mind as I know, real estate and it could be like so your focus is on probate, but at the same time, it's an article about staging, right? So you're you're hitting them from different angles, different sides of real estate, so they're knowing, oh, my goodness, if I've got a real estate question, Bill's my guy, because you're commenting on all sorts of things over the course of time. And so you're training them in a good way, like, Hey, I'm your guy for anything real estate related?
Bill Gross
Right? And keep in mind an email that no 20% open my email, which because 80% though, right, so of a percent a bunch of spam, but imagine 20 30% see the headline, don't open it just that Bill Gross, and then think about real estate, like that's viable marketing information,
Mike Swenson
right. Yeah. And even if I'm not interested going back to that example of staging, yeah, I'm, you know, I just bought a house three years ago, stagings, not my gig I could care less but I still see Bill Gross in my inbox, Bill, ghosts, real estate Bill Gross real estate every single week. They're gonna choose to read what they want to read, but they're still at least seeing seeing your name come across their inbox, which is key.
Bill Gross
Yep. Or their friends thinking is saying, well get rid of stage your house because we're thinking selling it. Boom, they're gonna call me up and say, Hey, by the way, my friends get ready to sell their house. So yeah, that's how it works.
Mike Swenson
Simple yet not easy, right? It's easy to do that, but to take the time block to do it consistently. And what people want is they want somebody who's going to do that consistently. So yes. So it's sometimes it's that mundane stuff. That's the most important because you're staying sane, Top of Mind with people, and you're doing it consistently time on time on time over the course of years.
Bill Gross
I think it is, I think that's really the key to it, it's the it's doing that work consistently is way more important. The big mistake we all make is we're all seduced by these big plans and these big ideas and we all think this will transform our business. It's just nice the execution is a lot a little details and you have to know once you get your email there's a lot of little details how does it look how you what kind of tax you put a picture in it or not. All those things over time you concentrated tweak it make it better. Look at your numbers, look, your open rate your click through rate, and over time, get better at it. It's like anything else. And if you do, you'll get so good that other people can compete with you now in the minds of your tribe or your database. You're not the expert and there's no way Zillow, Redfin, they can talk whatever they want, but they're just not going to get in the minds of your clients because you now have control of it. That sense, You've earned it.
Mike Swenson
Exactly. Great. Well, thank you so much, Bill, for coming on and for sharing your knowledge for folks that want to learn more about you and more about what you're doing, how can they find you and get a hold of you?
Bill Gross
Sure. So I host a weekly call on probate if you're seeing that specifically. It's Thursdays 4pm Pacific 7pm Eastern, probateweekly.com and if you can't make it of your register, we'll send you a link to the YouTube every week so probate with the.com and then it goes to see me or contact me My website is theLAprobateexpert.com it's theLAprobateexpert.com has my phone number and other information how to reach me
Mike Swenson
awesome and I know you've got a great YouTube channel as well. Bill Gross with a lot of great videos too. So if you haven't watched any or if you're just jumping on board, your your videos and your information. Now you can go back and see all the stuff that you've done in the past.
Bill Gross
probateweeklyepisodes.com is that as the playlist of all the past episodes a quarter weekly.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, thank you so much bill for coming on. Appreciate your time and appreciate you sharing with our audience.
Bill Gross
Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
