How Joe Ring built a 400,000 probate business on 6 or 7 follow-up calls a listing

Ren Jones00:00

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

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

Carley Hathaway00:53

I know.

Ren Jones00:54

I know. That’s happened twice now.

Carley Hathaway00:56

Oh man.

Ren Jones00:56

From San Diego, miss Carley Hathaway. That’s carleyhathaway.com. Welcome, Carley.

Carley Hathaway01:02

Thank you. Thank you, Ren. Hi everybody. Thanks for watching.

Ren Jones01:06

How’s real estate in San Diego?

Carley Hathaway01:07

Real estate in San Diego is amazing. Cannot complain.

Ren Jones01:11

Good. Good, good, good.

Carley Hathaway01:12

Yeah.

Ren Jones01:12

So let’s introduce our guest from Naples, Florida. Naples, Florida. What a great place to live. Mr. Joe Ring. Welcome, Joe.

Joe Ring01:21

Good afternoon.

Ren Jones01:23

Glad to have you here.

Joe Ring01:24

Well, thank you so much. I’m going to enjoy it.

Ren Jones01:27

Good. Good, good. And you’re newer to real estate, aren’t you? How many years?

Joe Ring01:31

Well, I believe it’s four. It may be five, but I believe it’s four.

Ren Jones01:35

You’ve been too busy to count them, huh?

Joe Ring01:37

Too busy to count, right.

Ren Jones01:38

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

Joe Ring01:57

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

Ren Jones02:15

Right.

Carley Hathaway02:15

Yeah. That’s-

Ren Jones02:16

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

Carley Hathaway02:36

Yeah.

Ren Jones02:38

So let’s dive in.

Carley Hathaway02:39

Yeah.

Ren Jones02:39

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

Carley Hathaway02:47

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

Joe Ring03:01

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

Carley Hathaway03:16

Okay.

Joe Ring03:16

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

Carley Hathaway03:43

Mm-hmm.

Joe Ring03:43

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

Carley Hathaway03:52

Okay.

Joe Ring03:53

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

Carley Hathaway04:14

Yeah.

Ren Jones04:14

Probably in educational process too, to educate them on a few steps that they hadn’t considered.

Joe Ring04:19

Correct. Right.

Carley Hathaway04:23

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

Joe Ring04:37

Well, you want to start the-

Carley Hathaway04:37

It’s kind of touchy.

Joe Ring04:40

That’s a great question, actually. You want to start the process right away.

Carley Hathaway04:42

Okay.

Joe Ring04:43

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

Carley Hathaway05:04

Okay.

Ren Jones05:05

Are you calling the probate attorneys that specialize in estates and probate work?

Joe Ring05:12

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

Ren Jones05:36

Okay.

Jim Sullivan05:36

And Carley, I just wanted a real quick follow-up on your question.

Carley Hathaway05:41

Yeah.

Jim Sullivan05:41

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

Carley Hathaway05:57

Okay.

Jim Sullivan05:57

There usually is a time there where they’re more responsive and they’re more ready to deal with it.

Joe Ring06:03

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway06:04

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

Jim Sullivan06:11

Well, we give it to you as soon as the probate is filed.

Joe Ring06:14

Right.

Jim Sullivan06:14

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

Joe Ring06:27

Right. I was just going to get to that. Right, right, right.

Jim Sullivan06:27

Go ahead, Joe. I don’t want to steal your thunder.

Joe Ring06:27

No, that’s all right.

Jim Sullivan06:32

Please go ahead.

Joe Ring06:34

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

Carley Hathaway06:48

Yeah.

Ren Jones06:48

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

Joe Ring06:58

Right.

Ren Jones06:59

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

Joe Ring07:21

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

Ren Jones07:45

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway07:46

And is that how-

Ren Jones07:47

Investors have to make their margin.

Joe Ring07:49

Right.

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

Carley Hathaway07:53

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

Joe Ring08:00

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

Ren Jones08:11

Yeah, there’s a reason an investor is coming along and making it very …

Carley Hathaway08:14

Mm-hmm.

Joe Ring08:15

Yeah.

Ren Jones08:16

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

Joe Ring08:24

Exactly, Ren. Yeah.

Ren Jones08:24

“Be careful, you deserve to sell it for retail.”

Joe Ring08:27

Right.

Jim Sullivan08:28

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

Carley Hathaway08:41

Mm-hmm.

Joe Ring08:42

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

Carley Hathaway08:58

Mm-hmm.

Ren Jones08:59

A lot of these are second homes or are they?

Joe Ring09:02

Sure.

Ren Jones09:02

Is it just the first home and then the-

Joe Ring09:04

Almost all of mine are second, third, or fourth homes. Correct, yeah.

Ren Jones09:08

Okay. Because you’re in just a wonderful market.

Joe Ring09:11

We’re in a resort market. Right.

Ren Jones09:12

What’s an average price there?

Joe Ring09:14

I think our average price right now with both combining both homes and condos is 588.

Carley Hathaway09:21

That’s great.

Ren Jones09:21

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway09:21

Yeah.

Ren Jones09:24

That’s the upper end in a lot of cities.

Carley Hathaway09:27

Yeah. Yeah. So-

Joe Ring09:28

And we go all the way up to 20 million in that area.

Carley Hathaway09:30

Nice.

Ren Jones09:30

Up to 20 million. What’s the biggest you’ve done so far in a probate property?

Joe Ring09:38

Oh, in a probate property? A million. Yeah.

Ren Jones09:40

One million? Okay. That’s not so bad.

Carley Hathaway09:42

So how many listings are you taking a month, or what’s your goal?

Joe Ring09:48

Well, I’ll answer both questions.

Carley Hathaway09:50

Okay.

Joe Ring09:52

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

Carley Hathaway10:05

Mm-hmm.

Joe Ring10:05

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

Carley Hathaway10:12

Okay. Yeah.

Ren Jones10:13

Because you got some seasonal ebbs and flows there.

Joe Ring10:16

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

Carley Hathaway10:35

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

Joe Ring10:42

Sure.

Carley Hathaway10:43

When you start in the morning, how many calls you make?

Joe Ring10:47

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

Carley Hathaway11:23

Okay, got it.

Joe Ring11:26

And then in the afternoon I do my lead follow-up after lunch around 12. And then I do listing appointments or previewing property after that.

Ren Jones11:34

Okay. Great, great.

Carley Hathaway11:36

Sounds like a good routine. It’s working. Definitely.

Joe Ring11:39

Right.

Ren Jones11:39

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

Carley Hathaway11:53

Yeah, love having coaches for sure. So you were saying you have, you send a VIP packet out for a pre-listing?

Joe Ring12:01

Mm-hmm. Correct.

Carley Hathaway12:03

What do you include in that?

Joe Ring12:04

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

Carley Hathaway12:16

Yeah.

Joe Ring12:17

I have all my recent sales of last year, which was over 50.

Carley Hathaway12:21

Good.

Joe Ring12:22

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

Ren Jones12:38

Good.

Carley Hathaway12:39

Nice. Nice.

Ren Jones12:40

That’s a big part of your market, that luxury vision there.

Joe Ring12:43

Right.

Carley Hathaway12:43

And I-

Jim Sullivan12:45

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

Joe Ring13:04

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

Jim Sullivan13:17

Right.

Joe Ring13:18

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

Carley Hathaway13:28

Mm-hmm.

Ren Jones13:28

Do you yourself do group calls? Do you have to… Because sometimes you have four, five, six heirs.

Joe Ring13:31

I love it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Ren Jones13:34

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

Joe Ring13:40

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

Ren Jones13:47

Well, it’s better to have one person in a hurry. That’s what I think.

Joe Ring13:51

It’s better to have the executor wanting to sell, yes.

Carley Hathaway13:54

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

Joe Ring14:06

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

Carley Hathaway14:16

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Joe Ring14:17

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

Carley Hathaway14:24

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

Joe Ring14:33

This is my belief, I don’t have a timeline. I call them all the time.

Carley Hathaway14:38

Okay.

Joe Ring14:38

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

Carley Hathaway14:45

Right.

Joe Ring14:46

I stay up at night and think about things that I can call them about.

Carley Hathaway14:48

Okay.

Joe Ring14:48

So it has to be of value, otherwise you’re a nuisance. Right?

Carley Hathaway14:53

Yes. Got it. Okay.

Ren Jones14:55

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

Joe Ring15:10

Yeah.

Ren Jones15:11

How much money is that? Is that six, 700,000?

Joe Ring15:14

It’s over 400,000.

Carley Hathaway15:15

Yeah.

Ren Jones15:16

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

Joe Ring15:34

I think-

Ren Jones15:35

What would you tell them?

Joe Ring15:36

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

Ren Jones15:52

So you’re a big lead follow-up guy?

Joe Ring15:55

I would say that on average it takes six or seven lead follow-up phone calls before I get a listing.

Carley Hathaway16:01

Right. Okay.

Ren Jones16:02

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

Joe Ring16:06

I’m not sure I understood the question. If what?

Carley Hathaway16:06

If you didn’t do lead follow-up, do you think you’re-

Ren Jones16:06

At the level that you’re doing lead follow-up-

Joe Ring16:13

Oh, if I didn’t do lead follow-up, I’d be out of the business.

Ren Jones16:24

Or you’d take a pretty big haircut on your income

Joe Ring16:26

Yeah, because you’re only as good as-

Ren Jones16:28

So for 500,000, you’d make 100,000?

Joe Ring16:30

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

Carley Hathaway16:40

Yeah.

Joe Ring16:40

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

Carley Hathaway16:50

Yeah.

Ren Jones16:50

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

Joe Ring17:02

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway17:05

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

Joe Ring17:12

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

Ren Jones17:21

Good. So it’s people to people, it’s contact. I know you have shoulders. I know that.

Joe Ring17:25

Oh.

Ren Jones17:25

There we go.

Carley Hathaway17:27

He’s relaxing.

Joe Ring17:29

I am relaxing. Sorry about that.

Ren Jones17:31

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

Carley Hathaway17:52

Yeah, I like that-

Ren Jones17:54

To be in the business such a short time and make that much money by intense lead follow-up.

Carley Hathaway17:59

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

Joe Ring18:15

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

Carley Hathaway18:24

So you feel like it’s… Are you competitive?

Joe Ring18:27

Oh, extremely.

Carley Hathaway18:28

Okay. Okay. Good.

Jim Sullivan18:30

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

Carley Hathaway18:45

Mm-hmm.

Jim Sullivan18:46

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

Joe Ring19:04

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

Carley Hathaway19:12

Yeah.

Joe Ring19:13

It’s good for me actually.

Carley Hathaway19:15

Yeah.

Joe Ring19:15

It’s kind of embarrassing.

Carley Hathaway19:18

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

Joe Ring19:28

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

Carley Hathaway19:40

“Speaking.”

Joe Ring19:41

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

Carley Hathaway19:54

“I do. I do. I have a condo.”

Joe Ring19:56

“A condo. Well, terrific. May I share with you my process for working with executors?”

Carley Hathaway20:03

“Sure.”

Joe Ring20:04

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

Carley Hathaway20:35

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

Joe Ring20:45

Yeah. Yeah. Because I’m a driver, I don’t get real wordy because I-

Carley Hathaway20:51

Yeah.

Ren Jones20:52

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

Jim Sullivan21:17

And Ren, they can go alltheleads.com/Vulcan7, make sure they go directly.

Ren Jones21:22

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

Jim Sullivan21:43

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

Ren Jones21:57

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

Jim Sullivan22:14

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

Ren Jones22:26

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

Jim Sullivan22:35

We recommend you mail first. Joe, what do you do?

Carley Hathaway22:37

Joe, calls.

Joe Ring22:39

You do my mailings. I think the call, from my perspective, is a lot more important than the mailer.

Jim Sullivan22:47

Yeah.

Ren Jones22:47

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

Joe Ring22:55

You will get-

Ren Jones22:57

I mean, the guy’s making a half million a year. I think I’m going to side with him, Jim.

Jim Sullivan23:03

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

Joe Ring23:22

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

Carley Hathaway23:38

Oh cool.

Jim Sullivan23:39

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway23:39

That’s great.

Joe Ring23:39

Yeah.

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

Carley Hathaway23:53

Yeah.

Ren Jones23:53

Probably go down, you’re up in Michigan, you go down to, might as well hang out in Naples for two, three years.

Joe Ring24:00

Yeah.

Ren Jones24:00

Until the red tide comes in and then sell it.

Joe Ring24:02

Right. Right. Yeah.

Carley Hathaway24:06

So let me ask you, do you leave voicemails when you’re calling?

Joe Ring24:09

I do not.

Carley Hathaway24:11

Okay.

Joe Ring24:12

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

Carley Hathaway24:20

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

Joe Ring24:30

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

Ren Jones24:43

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway24:44

Yeah.

Ren Jones24:46

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

Joe Ring25:07

Yeah, it’d be great if they split that up because there’s a shitload. Sorry. There’s a lot of leads.

Ren Jones25:14

That’s okay. We have an edited version we send out.

Jim Sullivan25:17

How many leads do you get in your market every month?

Joe Ring25:21

I got to be honest, I never counted, but I got, there’s got to be at least 150.

Jim Sullivan25:25

Yeah. And Ren, it varies anywhere from a dozen to several hundred. Every market’s different.

Ren Jones25:32

Nice.

Carley Hathaway25:32

Yeah.

Ren Jones25:33

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

Carley Hathaway25:42

Yeah.

Jim Sullivan25:43

You get more, but it’s still not a lot.

Carley Hathaway25:44

Yeah.

Joe Ring25:44

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

Carley Hathaway25:57

Nice. See? Just one more call. Just one more call.

Ren Jones26:01

It’s a contact sport folks.

Carley Hathaway26:04

Yep.

Ren Jones26:05

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

Jim Sullivan26:11

So I will tell you, I think you just paid for about 10 years’ worth of leads there with that one.

Joe Ring26:14

Yeah, that was a great one. The guy has three properties he rented. Right.

Jim Sullivan26:18

Awesome. Good job.

Carley Hathaway26:20

That’s great.

Ren Jones26:20

Jim, is your company offering the divorce records? Because that’s-

Jim Sullivan26:26

We are. Funny, I wasn’t supposed to mention that, but Ren, yes, we are.

Ren Jones26:29

We’re not. Okay.

Jim Sullivan26:31

We are rolling it out in Florida, in California in the next couple weeks. And we will be nationwide by the end of the year.

Ren Jones26:38

Okay.

Jim Sullivan26:39

We’re going to take the same approach.

Ren Jones26:39

Okay.

Jim Sullivan26:40

If you play it, you got it. Service. Healthy-

Ren Jones26:44

Yeah. Say a lot. I mean, those are triple headers.

Carley Hathaway26:47

Oh yeah.

Ren Jones26:47

You’ve got a sale and a sale and a purchase and a purchase.

Carley Hathaway26:49

Yeah.

Ren Jones26:49

Maybe it’s four. Yeah. Oh yeah, sale-

Carley Hathaway26:52

A sale and a 2%.

Ren Jones26:53

A sale and two buyers.

Carley Hathaway26:54

Yeah.

Joe Ring26:55

Yeah, I’ve got a sign up for that too. I got to call those people.

Carley Hathaway26:59

Yeah, I want to start doing that too. I’m glad you’re rolling it out in California. I’m excited.

Ren Jones27:02

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

Carley Hathaway27:08

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

Ren Jones27:19

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

Carley Hathaway27:25

Oh, that’s true. So you have to have your boxing gloves on I guess. Right?

Ren Jones27:29

That’s a different beast.

Jim Sullivan27:32

It’s a little more contentious.

Ren Jones27:32

And a whole different set of strategies.

Carley Hathaway27:34

Yeah.

Ren Jones27:35

I mean, the set of strategies on that type of sale is, it’s a very different list of scripts and conversations.

Carley Hathaway27:44

Mm-hmm.

Joe Ring27:44

Yeah. It’s to be-

Jim Sullivan27:44

That’s the reason why it’s taken us so long. We wanted to get it right.

Carley Hathaway27:45

Yeah.

Jim Sullivan27:46

And we’re going to have a full-time divorce coach.

Ren Jones27:49

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

Jim Sullivan27:55

You’re correct. Yep.

Ren Jones27:56

Yeah. Yeah, I mean there’s even a little bit of confrontation required.

Joe Ring28:02

You’re probably going to have to work on both parties.

Ren Jones28:04

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway28:05

Yeah.

Ren Jones28:06

But the best part about divorce is if we’re prospecting it, you don’t know either one of the sellers.

Carley Hathaway28:13

Yeah.

Ren Jones28:15

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

Carley Hathaway28:21

Yeah. You’re the middleman, you’re the mediator.

Ren Jones28:22

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

Carley Hathaway28:33

Mm-hmm.

Ren Jones28:34

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

Carley Hathaway28:51

Yeah. Yeah, this was-

Ren Jones28:51

What a great life.

Carley Hathaway28:51

Yeah.

Ren Jones28:51

What a great life.

Carley Hathaway28:54

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

Ren Jones29:01

Yeah. And yeah, and you’ll love the Florida tax rate, Carley.

Carley Hathaway29:05

Okay.

Ren Jones29:05

It’s a lot better than California.

Carley Hathaway29:08

I know. I’m getting killed.

Ren Jones29:11

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

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

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

Jim Sullivan30:34

Ren, you asked me for a special deal. Do you have time for that or not?

Ren Jones30:37

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

Carley Hathaway30:43

Yeah, I need a deal.

Jim Sullivan30:46

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

Ren Jones30:57

Nice.

Carley Hathaway30:58

Nice.

Ren Jones30:58

Thank you, Jim. That’s wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sign up, get two for one.

Carley Hathaway31:04

Yep.

Jim Sullivan31:04

Two for one. Buy one, get one.

Ren Jones31:07

That’s it.

Carley Hathaway31:07

Perfect.

Ren Jones31:08

See everybody next week when we interview another great agent who’s setting the world on fire taking listings. See everybody.

Carley Hathaway31:13

Bye. Thanks everybody.

Ren Jones31:13

Bye everybody.

Joe Ring31:13

Bye. Yep.

31:13