March 16, 2022 • 38 mins
In this Ask The Expert episode of Estate Professionals Mastermind, you'll learn why CDREs (Certified Divorce Real Estate Experts) get more listings and are the most trusted real estate agents in the family law space - winning appointments from both judges and divorce attorneys alike.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/LQMN8hzCc_k
Full show notes:https://probatemastery.com/divorce-leads-and-listings-real-estate-agent-tips
Laurel Starks, Ilumni Institute Founder & CEO and court-appointed Divorce Real Estate Expert, joins Chad Corbett for a one-on-one ask the expert on how to earn divorce listings as a Certified Divorce Real Estate Expert. Topics include how Laurel got her first divorce listing, how agents can build referral relationships with divorce attorneys, and what makes probate and divorce leads so similar and different at the same time.
Want to become a divorce real estate agent? Take advantage of this $500 savings towards your Certified Divorce Real Estate Expert education through Ilumni Institute. https://landing.ilumniinstitute.com/probate-mastery
Interested in becoming a Certified Probate Expert? This course is designed to get you on probate appointments as soon as this week, with ongoing coaching every Tuesday to walk you through your deals and scenarios: https://probatemastery.com/probate-training-course-for-real-estate-agents-investors/
ASK THE EXPERT: DIVORCE REAL ESTATE TOPICS (YouTube Links)
0:00 Welcoming Laurel Starks of Ilumni Institute, Certified Divorce Real Estate Training
1:19 Choosing a real estate niche: Probate vs. Divorce real estate niche
5:12 How I became a divorce listing agent and pursued education
8:06 Handling divorce real estate objections when one party won’t agree to sell
9:45 Learning to handle tricky divorce real estate situations as a real estate agent
11:15 How real estate agents can network with divorce attorneys for better referral business.
16:53 How to become a divorce real estate agent and how to find divorce real estate leads
21:46 Why divorce listings are different from other real estate leads (Incarceration, alimony, restraining orders, and more)
23:55 CDRE Divorce Real Estate course and continuing education with Ilumni Institute
28:22 The Certified Divorce Real Estate Expert Community
32:29 Probate and divorce real estate leads: Why you should build relationships with attorneys to earn divorce leads
Learn more at www.probatemastery.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chad Corbett (00:00):
Welcome everybody.
My name's Chad Corbett.
I'm the founder of Magnum Opusproject and probate mastery.
And this is part of ourask the expert series.
Today I'm very excited aboutour guest Laurel Starks, who
is a very accomplished realestate specialist in the
divorce space, as well as youcan see over her shoulder.
Like an accomplished author,a course creator and many
other things, and reallyexcited to introduce Laurel to
(00:23):
the community because on herside, she's built the Ilumni
Institute, which is very similarto where we're headed and the
methodologies we use in probate,applying to other niches.
She's already built that out infull form in the divorce niche.
And over time people arelike, when are you gonna
have a divorce course?
When are we goingto have divorce?
And rather than me tryingto reinvent the wheel, I
(00:44):
said, what if we found thenation's top expert in this?
We're going to talk aboutwhat the Ilumni Institute
is, what expertise andtraining they offer.
If you're interested inexploring in the divorce space,
or if you've already had a fewdeals and you want to commit
to it, how do you take that tothe next level like you like
we do here in probate mastery.
So Laurel Starks,
Laurel Starks (01:04):
I am so excited to be here.
Thank you, Chad.
And we've got so much incommon, so much overlap.
And, you know, Iget the same thing.
They, I get a lot of peoplethat say, well, are you going
to do a probate or is thisgoing to prepare me for probate?
And, you know, I thinkwhen you're knee deep into
the divorce niche or inthe probate niche like
(01:25):
the outward appearance isthat they're very related.
That you do one, you dothe other, actually, when
you get inside, they'reactually very different.
There are some similaritieswith the approach and whatnot,
but the actual practice ofactually building a probate leg
of your business, or buildinga divorce leg of your business.
Each one is.
(01:45):
Very unique and requiresits own dedication.
Chad Corbett (01:49):
Yeah, Jason Drees is a friend of mine
and he's in my mastermind.
And he had a post a coupleof weeks ago that, was
bold statement that youdon't choose a niche, your
niche will choose you.
I'm like BAM!I mean, talk about an impactful
statement for people like us.
You know, I never dreamt whenI was being recruited by the
FBI and then walking awayfrom that and coming into real
(02:10):
estate and then building myfirst little real estate team,
I didn't have a vision of beingthe nation's leading probate
expert in the real estate space.
And I think that you'vefound the same calling,
like the niche found you.
And I'd really like to startthere, like, what got you here?
Cause I think it's important.
Some people can watch ushere being so excited,
having these conversationsat a high level and be like,
(02:31):
oh, I can never do that.
But the barrier to entryis so low in these types
of niches, because ittakes a person like you.
If you're watching this, we canpretty much assume you're here
because you've got a benevolentstreak at least; you connect
with the message of 'providevalue first' and doing work
that other people are unwillingor not strong enough to do.
So I think that connectingwith Laurel's story will,
(02:52):
will be a good, good placeto start with this audience.
So tell us, tell us whatbrought you here today.
Laurel Starks (02:58):
Everything you said, I echo.
So let me rattle off afew little MythBusters.
Number one, I'venever been divorced.
I am happily married.
We are celebrating our 24thwedding anniversary in May.
I am not a child of divorce.
My parents are in April.
They're going.
Celebrating their 57th, I thinkanniversary or I do the math.
(03:23):
If I do the math correctlyNo one in my family has been
divorced with the exceptionof my grandmother who got
divorced in a time whendivorce wasn't a thing.
So I do not come to thisniche from that perspective.
A lot of people, a lotof our students do.
They have been throughthe system themselves,
(03:43):
they have seen firsthandhow broken the system is.
A lot of people come throughthe door from that perspective,
which is a great perspective.
It's a, it's aperspective I didn't have.
So I certainly invite everyonewho has gone through that.
It's a great experience to have.
I am not a lawyer.
I do not have a law degree.
I graduated high school.
(04:04):
I'm a native of Floridaand go Seminoles!
And I came out to Californiato go to school majored in
sociology, minored in PoliSci.
And I waited tablesduring school.
Then I, after I graduated.
I got a job as aflight attendant.
So I flew as a domesticand international flight
(04:27):
attendant for 10 years.
Somewhere along the way I gotmarried and then I had two
kids and I was still flying.
And when the boys were littleI decided that I didn't want
to be gone you know, flyinginternational or flying at
all during all of their life,you know, milestone moments.
So I hung up my wings and thengot into real estate because.
(04:49):
What do you do whenyou stop flying?
I mean, you get into realestate for whatever reason,
it tends to be a thing.
I got my real estate licenseI took Brian Buffini, that
was the first thing I did.
My, my license wasn't even dry.
And I went throughBrian Buffini.
I went to one of hisconferences and was completely
struck by I loved it.
Chad Corbett (05:08):
And the handwritten thank you cards.
Laurel Starks (05:12):
I am a deadbeat handwritten note card addict.
So I love the idea.
I would love to tell you theright answer, which is yes.
I write 10 a day.
The reality is I've got awhole stack of them that have
collected dust on my desk.
And I swear, I'm going to getback to doing it much better.
But I love the concept.
I love the concept andI did do it in the past.
(05:34):
Thanks for reminder.
So I but I love the idea ofa referral-based business.
And so then I got my, I gotmy first listing through
an open house that kindof crashed and burned.
It was the quintessentialrookie nightmare listing
and they fired me.
It was overpriced, whateverwent down in flames.
(05:56):
And then I got a callfrom a friend of ours.
Who's a divorce attorneyand he called me and he
said, Laurel, I'm on my way.
Home from court, or way back tothe office, rather from court.
And I've gotten you on a case.
And I like didn't evenknow what that meant.
He said it means thatthe courts appointed you
to be the listing agent.
Let me also say I was a studentof the real estate industry.
(06:18):
So I'm the girl whoshows up to every single
class that's offered.
And I sat in the front row.
Before I could be on a, anairplane and work on a plane.
I had to go to sevenweeks of training.
I was sequestered in a in a, ina training facility and we had
(06:38):
to learn all the ins and outsof an airplane and evacuation
and all of the emergencyprotocols and everything
before we were ever allowedto actually work a flight.
And so.
that's kind ofhow my mind works.
I need to reallyunderstand what I'm doing.
Selling a house isa really big deal.
I mean, it's, somebody'sbiggest asset.
And for that to be in my hands,I really had to feel confident
(06:59):
about what I was doing.
I love to learn I'm a student.
So I felt confident inwhat I knew, even though I
didn't have the experience.
So then he had meappointed to this case.
While I was on the phone withhim, I got a another call
and it was from his clientwho was on her way, home
from court and said my nameis Esther Saldonya I need to
(07:21):
list and sell my house, needto be out of here in 30 days
because my son has to startschool in Oregon in a month.
So I need you to come overright now and we need to list
the house and get it sold.
So I go over to her houseand the house was in
all kinds of disarray.
It had, there was a lot ofdamage done to the house.
She had had aflood, a pipe leak.
She wasn't able to fix it.
(07:43):
She didn't have the money.
And then she sat down forthree hours and told me
all the gory details ofher marriage divorce, the
abuse, the restraining order.
He wasn't paying support,so she didn't have the
money to fix the house up.
She told me that he wasnot going to cooperate.
So then and this wasvery interesting to me.
I mean, I was like this,isn't what they teach.
(08:04):
They didn't teachthis at Buffini.
They didn't teach this in anyof the classes that I I sat
in so I contacted him husbandand he told me that hell will
freeze over before he's gonnaever sign any of my paperwork
and to lose his number.
He's never talking to me again.
And so sure enough, he wasactually true to his word.
He didn't.
(08:24):
So how do you sell a housewhen you've got one client
who refuses to speak with you?
And there's a restrainingorder against him as well?
And then you've got thisother client that is one
foot out the door of thehouse, needs to sell.
And then there's this courtorder, like what do you even do?
So there was no education.
I, I surely thought if Iwent to NAR, if I went to
(08:47):
my company, my brokerage,there would be courses
online, something, nothing.
I worked through it.
And I found myself on awitness stand a few weeks later
telling a judge that in orderfor me to sell the house, I
need signatures and you know,I had documented everything
that the husband had doneor not done, and my attempts
to get him to cooperate.
And then the judge appointedsomeone to sign all paperwork
(09:10):
on his I thought I kind ofhad a dud listing cause I
was like, well, I can't moveforward cause he's not working.
And then lo and behold,the judge says, well, we'll
just have a court elisorsign all the paperwork.
So Mrs.
Starks, whenever you needto have his signatures,
just go down to the clerk'soffice downstairs and they
will sign on his behalfand I was like blown away.
Wow.
(09:30):
We did get it.
Esther Soldanya isshe's in my book.
She's my Facebook friend.
All these years later you know,it's, it's kinda cool to see how
far she's come in that story,but she got the house sold and
she was up in Oregon and herson was able to start school.
So I got another case andanother case, and another
case, I got three morecases from that same.
(09:51):
And all of them had uniquecircumstances, very similar
just in terms of complexity.
There were just thesechallenges that came up.
I had another one and the wifelived in the house with their
little five-year-old and she wasscared to death of the husband.
He had been very, very violent.
She didn't want tohave a lockbox put on.
She didn't want tohave any open houses.
(10:13):
She had a restrainingorder against him.
So how do you sell a housewhen you've got this party
living in the house whounderstandably is very afraid?
You know, how do you workthrough these challenges?
So it just kindof went on and on.
It's not uncommon in these casesto have delinquent mortgages,
to have houses that are inforeclosure, regardless of
the economy, regardless of howhot the real estate market is
(10:36):
because what's going on insidethe little bubble of a divorce
it's its own little ecosystem.
It's like it's a little minimarket, you know, going on
in there where Either outof spite mortgage payments
aren't getting paid orbecause there's just finances.
There's just not the money togo around because they're paying
(10:58):
lawyers, they're paying, youknow, expenses skyrocket when
you're going through a divorce.
It's not uncommon to have that.
It's also not uncommon tohave things on titles, such
as IRS liens judgments, youknow, a lot of these types of
complexities also are very, verycommon in the divorce niche.
Every single one of theselistings is like, it really is
(11:20):
like scaling Everest sometimes.
And it's very rewarding.
I learned how tobe skilled at it.
And then I got veryinvolved with the legal
community and I befriendeda lot of attorneys who.
Really taught me things fromthe inside that I needed
to understand and know.
Then I just becamevery well-known here
(11:41):
in my local community.
For every case that you have.
there's usually anopposing counsel.
So that was one way that Igrew my business was I had,
you know, the attorney whoreferred me and then there
was the other attorney who Ideveloped relationships with.
And it was very important thatI did my job and did it well.
(12:02):
And it was also very importantthat I I don't solicit that
lawyer during the listing.
That's just in bad taste.
it's basically anaudition, right?
So you prove yourself, youprove how good you are and
how effective you are andwhat kind of an aspirin
you are to their headache.
And then once it's closed,once it's done, then scheduling
(12:24):
a, you know, taking them tolunch or something like that
is, is much more appropriate.
That's basically howI grew my business.
I grew a real estate teamand then I decided in 2016, I
didn't want to have the team somuch anymore, but I was really
passionate about, was teachingother agents and helping
other agents do what I do.
So I started the IlumniInstitute in 2018.
(12:45):
I, I wrote the business planand got the curriculum and
everything going in 2017.
And then I launched it instarted 2018 and we've grown
to become the number onemost comprehensive, most
well-respected most well-knownreal estate designation in the
family law industry, within ourindustry as well as within their
industry in just four years.
(13:06):
We're in about 30 states nowand it's really transforming
how realtors do businessin the legal community.
It's transforming how effectivewe are and what an asset we are
to lawyers, and how effective weare to their clients, how we are
able to expedite these things.
So that courts don't have asmany hearings, and when they
(13:29):
do, they've got an expertwho can help assist the court
with making the orders thatare necessary for us to be
able to carry out our job.
So I really recognize.
What a gaping hole there wasin the legal community for
someone who specializes in this.
And so that's what we, that'swhat we strive to fill.
(13:50):
But boy, that was a long answer.
Chad asked me one question.
I think I took over theentire, the entire thing.
No,
Chad Corbett (13:56):
it's good to know why you're here and what
I want to underscore in thatas guys, anyone who's been,
you know, has heard my story.
If you've heard me onother podcasts, not the
long form story, there'sso much commonality there.
And, you know, from acompletely unrelated industry
similar background, youknow, education background,
like I was psychology andlaw enforcement, but I had a
(14:17):
heavy emphasis on sociology.
So we, we kind of startedin a similar place and she
became a flight attendant.
I went into law enforcement andwe fell back to real estate, but
we brought you know, a mindsetfrom, you know, we thought
our career was going one way.
And then we ended up inreal estate, brought that
mindset into this and knewnothing about what the
heck you're supposed to do.
(14:37):
Like I didn't havefamily and real estate.
I didn't have amentor in real estate.
And I think there'svalue in that.
But where the commonalitygets really interesting is we
started as solo practitioners.
We did a few deals.
We figured out something that noone else had figured out thought
what the hell let's build a teamand then realized that based on
who we are, that's a mistake.
And there's a saying that.
(14:59):
That quite frankly, pissesme off, but fuels me
those who can't do, teach.
And I call bull on that.
Those who teach, if they didfirst and they teach now,
that's because they felt acalling to make a bigger impact.
And I see that in Laurel,like it scared me to death
to step out of production.
(15:19):
I was running an investmentcompany, a holding company
and a brokerage company.
And and we started all theleads, like a lead company,
and to step out of productionto focus on reaching more
people with the message I feltlike was my best chance of
having the biggest consumerimpact, scared me to death.
And that saying, I let thatlittle voice in my head
say, well, that's right.
(15:40):
People are going to thinkthat you don't, you, you
couldn't do it yourself.
So you have to tell otherpeople what to do, but
the opposite was true.
I was held accountable at alevel I never had been before.
I had no one, not one marketto deal with and understand and
be able to solve problems in.
I all of a sudden had 3,149different counties that
I was having to learn theprobate code in 50 different
(16:01):
states and understand, soit made me way sharper.
And I held myselfaccountable to always be
there for those people.
We've walked a very commonpath and we've come up with
a very similar model andlike an outlook on how,
what the best way is tocreate consumer impact.
And for us, that's throughyou guys, like we could
never possibly serve 50states in one business.
(16:24):
And that's somethingI've been asked before.
Well, if it's so easy,why don't you guys just
do this in every state?
And I'm like, itjust doesn't scale.
At this standard of servicethat we insist upon, it
doesn't scale that well.
You can certainly scale itwithin one, two or three
counties, but for one personto try to do this at the level
we're discussing doing it atwhether it's divorce or probate,
(16:44):
it's just too much like it's,it's too high of a standard
of service to scale unless youwere VC funded or something,
but, so I think you guyscan kind of see why Laurel's
here, why she's a greatfit for this community.
And I think there's alot of commonalities.
As you said, like at themacro level, there's a lot of
commonality as you dig into themicro, it becomes drastically
(17:06):
different, but the mindset thatget that of got us all here, and
I would venture to that, thatthere's venture to guess that
the mindset of your communityis very similar to ours.
You know, one of the thingsI'm most proud of, we can put
in a Facebook group or groupsout there with thousands of
people, and I'm in a varietyof different groups from, you
(17:26):
know, exclusive mastermindand, and accredited investor
groups all the way down, thediesel pickup and camper groups.
Just things that I, you know,that I'm, I'm interested in.
And our community is the onlyone that I've been part of
where people don't get out oftheir poison pen behind the
veil of internet anonymity,and just be just downright
dirty and mean to each otherand in our community, what's
(17:47):
so cool is a student will postand a peer we'll immediately
coach them faster than we can.
I know there's people in thiscommunity, Rodger Lecy you
might be watching this weekslater, he's having some health
trouble, but Roger, the, thedivorce niche discovered him
because he became a probateexpert and he was, he went from
really auditioning with opposingcounsel in this case, it wasn't
(18:10):
opposing counsel, but it wasanother probate attorney who saw
what he was doing for one of hiscompetitors, but that probate
attorney also did divorce.
And when it came down to himtrying to find a real estate
expert to testify on the standin this small little town or
not that small, I mean, it'sthe headquarters of Walmart.
It's in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
But it's not a, you know, amajor Metro market, but Roger
(18:32):
was the one person he calledand said, let me put you on
the stand and pay you as a realestate expert in a divorce case.
And since then he gets allthe divorces from that firm
and he organically built this.
So there's so much commonality.
Before we jump into specifics,if you're connecting with this,
if you think that divorce issomething you're interested in,
be sure to check the show notes.
There's a link that willallow you as a member of the
(18:53):
probate mastery communityto get a discount, to be
part of this community.
And there's twodifferent levels.
So Laura, I'll I'll have youlet's talk about that first.
Like, what is, whatis your offering?
Like for someone who hasnever done a divorce deal that
likes what they're doing inthe probate space, but they
still have some bandwidth.
They need another pillar intheir business they are still
are in that growth mindset.
What does it look likewalking into divorce real
(19:14):
estate completely blind?
Like you did like, butthrough your community.
You know, probate mastery isto help someone get from never
having done a deal to doingtheir first deal, ideally inside
of the first 60 to 90 days.
b making sure they don't have tobeat the learning curve I did.
And I think that's thesame path for, for a,
you know, a practitionerthrough your community.
So
Laurel Starks (19:34):
Yeah, absolutely.
So we have two courseofferings and I will get
into each one of those.
And then all I'll also throughthat, I'll answer your question.
What does it look like?
You know, to startin this niche.
So we have one is an online ondemand bootcamp and it is taught
by myself as well as one ofour faculty divorce attorneys,
Shelly John, she's a family lawattorney and we co-taught that
(19:59):
it is for anybody and everybody,if you are newly licensed,
you've never done a deal.
Or if you are your market,number one performer.
Anybody in between it is,it is a phenomenal course
and it is only $275.
There's a 30 minute free trial.
(20:20):
You can try it outbefore you commit.
What we do in that bootcamp is it's broken up
into three sections.
One first section isunderstanding the legal
process that kind of thehouse is going through.
If that makes any sense,because in family law, as well
as in probate, the court hasjurisdiction over the sale of
the house The court can makeany orders about anything who
(20:43):
the Realtor is, whether or notit's sold, whether or not it's
kept how much the list prices,what offers are accepted.
So the court has all the powerto make all the decisions.
So before a real estate agentgets into the divorce niche,
you really need to understandwhat the role of the court
is, what the role of lawyersand what, what the role of
a real estate expert is.
(21:03):
Then I get into thedivorce listing process.
There's a very specific way thatI do and handle my listings.
And Chad, justlike what you said.
You know, the students whogo through our courses,
they lop at least five yearsoff of their learning curve
(21:24):
because I've been there.
I've done it.
I figured it out.
I've failed.
I've succeeded.
I've gotten my rear endhanded to me many times by
lawyers, by courts, by clients.
And I've taken every singleone of those opportunities and
turned it into a lesson thatI learned and incorporated all
(21:44):
of that into our curriculum.
One of those is how to approachand handle a divorce listing.
I mean, there's justa very different way.
You can't go into it thesame way you go into a
listing consultation withfamily friend or with, you
know, a FSBO or something.
It's a very different approach.
And then the third oneis how do you market
(22:07):
yourself to your database?
How do you, how do you ensurethat you're the one that
when somebody throughout yourdatabase is getting divorced or
they know someone who's gettingdivorced, that you will be the
person who's the top of mindthat they want to refer to.
Just the law of numbers saysthat there is enough business,
(22:29):
enough divorce businesswithin a database and the
database sphere to providea very, very good living.
So a lot of people want to godirectly to the lawyer piece
and they say, well, I wantto get in front of lawyers.
And then they skip overthe low hanging fruit,
which is your database.
So bootcamp, that's whatboot camp is designed to do.
(22:50):
Then our master course,which is the first part of
our CDRE program, Seaburyprogram is six months.
And when people say, andI think Chad, you can,
you could probably relateto this, but when people
say I want to go afterlawyers to get the business,
understand, first of all, becareful what you wish for.
Because when lawyers are ona case in a family law, in
(23:14):
a divorce, those tend to bethe highest conflict cases.
So you're dealing withrestraining orders.
Substance abuse.
A lot of times personalitydisorders, behavioral issues.
There's a lot ofcomplexities that go into the
- Chad Corbe (23:29):
like incarceration - Laurel Starks
I've got two clients thatare incarcerated right now.
Absolutely incarceration.
I mean, you're dealing withan extreme and so if you don't
have the education and thetools and the support to handle
what you would be given, ifyou earn the respect and if a
lawyer decides to take a chanceon you then it's going to be
(23:53):
a very short-lived career.
So we're in it for the long hauland the CDRE program teaches
everything from dealing withhigh conflict behaviors, how
to be a neutral, mediationtraining the divorce listing
process, as well as how totestify in court, how to be an
(24:15):
expert witness to the court.
And when, I mean, be anexpert, I don't just mean.
You know, you get amagnet for your car
that says I'm an expert.
I mean, how to be a courtappointed expert, truly.
And we actuallyobserve observe court.
On one of the days we haveour uh, resident judge, Judge
Kim Apollo, who comes in andteaches how the psychology
(24:37):
of a courtroom is built.
How an expert assists a judge.
And the role, the importantrole that experts play.
And then because of COVID,one of the cool things is our
course is now live online.
So it is live.
We're all there.
We all show up everyday for two weeks and
they're half day sessions.
(24:58):
And we are able to gointo online proceedings.
In court, we used to dothe class live, live, like
people would fly here.
We'd take a field tripto the courthouse, but
now because of COVID, weweren't able to do that.
So we made it online andand it's really kind of cool
because they are doing livestreaming court proceedings now.
(25:19):
We're able to, to hop inand and we spend about three
or four hours doing that.
And our attorney faculty are.
You know, in our zoom chatexplaining what's going on.
And it's just a really fun.
I know it sounds kindof, strange to say it's
fun, but it really is.
It's a, it's a really cool day.
And then we teach how to build abusiness in the legal community.
(25:42):
So that really is thenhow the course ends.
And that's how theentire six months is
structured and designed.
How do you build a business?
We provide all of themarketing materials.
We provide thestep-by-step process.
Everyone gets a dashboardthat is made for them with
literally checklists all theway down to the minutia of
(26:04):
what to your business card say?
What is a sample business card?
I mean, it'sliterally everything.
How do you plug intoyour bar associations?
Should you be a sponsorat your bar association?
how do you give lunchand learns to attorneys?
All of that, we handle also theCE, so you can, our students
(26:26):
can go into a law office, givea one hour lunch and learn
that we, that we put together.
We customize, we teach you, wetrain you on, and then we will
also provide the continuingeducation in all the states.
So you can go into a law firmand give a one hour continuing
legal education lunch and learn.
And we also have got somethingcalled Raising the Bar, which is
(26:48):
our online continuing educationprogram that we do for lawyers.
And so all of our CDREs areable to invite their lawyers to
Raising the Bar once a month.
So we have different speakers.
Last month, we had abankruptcy attorney and she
spoke about the crossoverof bankruptcy and divorce.
(27:11):
Because again,that's a big thing.
What happens when a divorcingcouple or one of the
parties files bankruptcy?
It really puts a legal snaginto the divorce process.
And of course we trying to sellthe house, but the, another
legal slash snag in our process.
So she spoke about that thisthis month uh, we've got someone
who is a vocational expert.
(27:32):
Maybe you've got to stay athome parent who stayed at home
for 20 years and they havenot invested in their career.
You've got the wage earnerwho has invested in their
career for 20 years.
And so now they'regetting a divorce and the
wage earner is saying.
You know, she's got acollege degree, she can go
out there and earn a living.
I shouldn't have to payher that much in support.
(27:54):
And then, you know, the, thenon wage earner is saying,
well, yes, I am entitled toall this money um, Because
I sacrificed for 20 years.
A vocational expert is, isanother expert they hire and
family law who comes in andanalyzes how much the non wage
earner is capable of earning.
(28:14):
And so then they testify.
So it's really kindof interesting anyway
that's our speaker for.
Our program is, is very,very comprehensive.
We do case studies every monthwhere we dissect cases, either
that I've done, or we'vegot a lot of our Certified
Divorce Real Estate Expertsthat have amazing cases.
This month we've gotHarold up in San Francisco.
He is part of very,very plugged into their
(28:35):
collaborative divorce community.
And he has got a very highend luxury listing uh, the
couple is going through thecollaborative process and Harold
is collaboratively trained.
He is a part of theircollaborative team so he's going
to walk us through some of thechallenges through his case and
some of his learning lessons.
So we all get to learnfrom one another.
(28:57):
That's what's super excitingas well that it's not
just our own experiences,such as my experience.
Man you extrapolate everybody'sexperiences and you dump
that into a knowledge basethat we have for our CDREs
at the Ilumni Institute,it's just unprecedented.
Chad Corbett (29:13):
The power of the community is really apparent.
When, like I said earlier, Iwent from dealing with problems
and families in one, oneculture, one county, one set of
laws to scaling up to thousands.
And then having the opportunityto hear what a divorce out of
Louisiana for example is if it'sa very different system of law
(29:33):
as Tennessee is more like anold English chancery court and
versus, you know, California,which is more progressive.
And so being able to blendthe conversation like to bring
those challenges and those,those wins from many different
corners of the country.
It just adds valuefor everybody.
So that's why I'm reallyinterested to blend our
communities because I thinkwhat our practitioners and
(29:58):
probate, what they're learning,they can cross train, you
know, that the folks that arealready working in divorce and
your community and vice versa.
I've trained thousands offolks and mentored them
into the probate space.
And some people might lookat this on the outside and
go, whoa, why would anyonedo that in real estate?
You're the cleaning upproblems all the time.
But for the people who reallyget it, like if that's the
(30:18):
fuel for their soul, it was,for me, it was the highest
currency in real estate for meever was the gratitude I got
from these, like from, frommainly probate was my niche.
But.
I did divorce deals thatwere, you know, a divorce, a
short sale, and a, you know,a housing, a housing authority
crisis, all wrapped in the one.
(30:39):
And the one legged man withfive racist brothers that
had guns pulled on me and I'mlike, I'm going to solve this.
Not only did I survive it, I gotthe outcome the family wanted.
And the court was likewho are you, how did you,
like, how did you this?
Cause it was on the doorstepsof foreclosure and you know,
you mentioned something earlierabout the hostile husbands.
I mean, focusing on theconsumer outcome, the impact
(31:02):
you can make, if you actuallyget them out of their own way.
And get that equity forthem, you can literally
change their life.
It's the difference inthem moving up in a living
situation or moving downinto homelessness in a lot
of cases or HUD housing.
I just turned that intofuel and it's been really
interesting to see thatkind of growth throughout
the country as others havethat moment, right.
(31:23):
That we both had like, holycrap, I'm going to, I'm
going to commit to this.
Again look in the show notes.
There is a link there forboth of the levels of courses
that Laurel's offering.
We do have some urgencywith, with the live class
though, as we said thatthe deadline is March 15th.
But there are always twoclasses per year, right?
Laurel Starks (31:42):
Yup.
So we've got April and Octoberand and we listen, we will love
to have anyone who's passionateabout this niche about
serving the legal community.
Like you said, we are, those arethe best fits for our program.
So anybody in yourprobate community, we
would love to have you.
We do have a special offeringfor $500 off of the CDRE
(32:05):
program to anyone who iswithin your community.
And, you know, I think you andI can both attest as well to
the business model of workingwith in the legal community is
one that is rather evergreen.
I am not out there pounding thepavement every day, looking for
expireds, looking for FSBOs,looking for the next deal.
(32:29):
I have got such a strongrelationship built on
credibility and builton trust with a network
of attorneys that.
That I, I just get referredand I don't have to go out
and and, and wonder where mynext listing is coming from.
Because it's just a very,very strong referral base.
(32:50):
You know, I also want topoint that out and highlighted
that it's not a non-profitthat we're doing here.
I mean, we offer a great, greatservice and it happens to also
be, for those that are cut outfor it, it also happens to be
one of the smartest businessmodels that a Realtor can take.
Chad Corbett (33:10):
As a practitioner, but also in this
and this education companyas a social enterprise,
that's really how I see it.
Like, it's a benevolententity that yes, we're going to
provide value first and we'regoing to get compensated well,
but only after we do exactlywhat we promised and met your
expectations and that's a.
That's a common thread of allthe people in our community.
And I would bet good money.
(33:31):
And it is in yours too.
If you have that benevolentmindset in this, of "yes, I
hold myself to a high standardand I expect to be paid for
my worth because I know thatI I've built a skill set that
most don't have, but let'smake sure we focus on you
and get your outcome first.
Then I'll get paid.
And what I've found is thecommon thread through the
people who very quickly riseinto six figures of income,
(33:53):
into the seven figures ofincome, it's that mindset.
It's not how shiny their shoesare, how great their business
cards are, what marketing theyhave, or, you know, attractive
un attractive, young or old.
It comes down to that mindset.
If you're really tryingto provide value.
It will be noticeable byeveryone and everything and
everything you do businesswill find its way to you.
(34:15):
You won't even, at some pointyou'll lose track of how these
people even heard about you.
It won't matter.
Like you'll be so focused onthe outcome, their outcome.
And that's when itgets really fun.
Like that's when, when, whenthe hugs and tears and, and,
and gratitudes, and thank youbaskets and all that show up.
And, you know, like you start,I have cold chills every time
I talk about this, becauseyou start to, to be able to,
(34:37):
to see your community impact.
That's what fuelsus to move forward.
In closing.
I think this is the firstof many conversations that
we'll let you guys be witnessto, hopefully we can do some
live, but I wanted to kindof have a macro conversation
about, you know, introducingLaurel to the community.
Uh, One of the conversationsLaurel that I can think of
that I'd really like to haveis kind of that building....
(34:58):
cause what we teach in probatemastery is really a two-prong
approach because in theprobate space, It is easy to
get a list of people who havebasically said, okay, public,
we're ready to deal with this.
And that's the on petition.
I still don't agreewith direct marketing to
pre probate or scrapingobituaries and all that.
I just, I don't agree with it.
But in probate it's,that's that signal.
(35:18):
All right, we're readyto deal with this.
Just like the filing ofa divorce is, but often
in, and what I've foundin at least 60% of states.
It's not that easyto just obtain a list
of divorce filings.
Usually you're gettingdivorced decrees, they
file on the decree.
So that's where it's reallyimportant that you, people
in the divorce niche reallybuild that referral network.
(35:39):
So in probate mastery, we teach,you know, first go market.
That's your short,cash conversion cycle.
We have a list of peoplewe know that are open to,
speaking with the public.
But the longer term isexactly what you teach.
So provide real value to thevendors and professionals in
your orbit with a strong focuson attorneys and, like senior
(35:59):
living specialists or employees,social workers, people who
have contact with familiesin that end of life phase.
So there's a lotof alignment there.
I'd love to have a conversationlike let's really go down the
rabbit hole of best practicesand building a referral
network and what that offer is.
We have and feel free toshare with your community.
We've we've recently releasedsome probate attorneys who
(36:21):
have been on this series, askthe expert, and we talk about
what is, and is not valuableto, you know, to an attorney
when they're approached bya real estate professional.
And oftentimes, you know, thereal estate professional will
come out with their handout.
Give me business,give me business.
I have beautiful marketing.
I work for this brokerage.
Give me your business.
And the attorney'slike, whatever, man.
(36:42):
I've got my guy, but whena true expert walks in the
door, it's like, What amI going to do with my guy?
I got to bench him now.
Correct.
It's so easy to unseat that it'sso easy to put that other guy
on the bench just by providingreal value to the attorney.
So I think maybe that couldbe our next conversation.
I think we have,we've got a lot,
Laurel Starks (37:01):
I've got a lot of thoughts on that and there
is definitely there are, thereare a lot of similarities and
a lot of differences aboutgoing straight to the consumer
from probate to divorceyeah, I would love
to talk about that.
Well, thank you somuch for having me on
Chad Corbett (37:16):
thank you for being here.
Like I said, I, I'mexcited that we connected.
Thanks.
Thanks so much to our teams yes.
For, for having guys backsand putting us together.
And guys.
Remember drop in the commentsif there's things you guys
want to hear us discuss evenif you want to hear us debate
certain things, probate versusdivorce might be a fun panel.
But anyway, then any ideasyou have, any questions you
had watching this that youwish you could ask directly?
(37:37):
We didn't do this as a live, butwe probably will in the future.
But if you drop a comment we'llget back to you and be sure
and check out the link, look atthe on-demand course, as well
as the upcoming live course.
I wanted to put the nation'sleading expert in divorce
real estate in front of you.
I think we've accomplished that.
So thank you forbeing here, Laurel.
How can they reach you directly?
What's the best wayto keep in touch?
Laurel Starks (37:59):
Yeah, we've got a, a Facebook mastermind
group, divorce real estateand lending mastermind.
Go find that.
And I'm in there.
And our whole facultyis in, there are all of
our CDREs are in there.
Divorce real estate andlending mastermind group on
Facebook is the best way.
All right.
Chad Corbett (38:16):
That's where you can find her guys.
Thanks so much forwatching another episode
of ask the expert.
If you get value from these andyou haven't already, please be
sure and subscribe to whateverplatform you're on, whether
you're listening to the podcastor watching us on YouTube,
and we'll see you next time.
Have a great day.
Laurel Stark (38:29):
Thank you so much.
Welcome everybody.
My name's Chad Corbett.
I'm the founder of Magnum Opusproject and probate mastery.
And this is part of ourask the expert series.
Today I'm very excited aboutour guest Laurel Starks, who
is a very accomplished realestate specialist in the
divorce space, as well as youcan see over her shoulder.
Like an accomplished author,a course creator and many
other things, and reallyexcited to introduce Laurel to
(00:23):
the community because on herside, she's built the Ilumni
Institute, which is very similarto where we're headed and the
methodologies we use in probate,applying to other niches.
She's already built that out infull form in the divorce niche.
And over time people arelike, when are you gonna
have a divorce course?
When are we goingto have divorce?
And rather than me tryingto reinvent the wheel, I
(00:44):
said, what if we found thenation's top expert in this?
We're going to talk aboutwhat the Ilumni Institute
is, what expertise andtraining they offer.
If you're interested inexploring in the divorce space,
or if you've already had a fewdeals and you want to commit
to it, how do you take that tothe next level like you like
we do here in probate mastery.
So Laurel Starks,
Laurel Starks (01:04):
I am so excited to be here.
Thank you, Chad.
And we've got so much incommon, so much overlap.
And, you know, Iget the same thing.
They, I get a lot of peoplethat say, well, are you going
to do a probate or is thisgoing to prepare me for probate?
And, you know, I thinkwhen you're knee deep into
the divorce niche or inthe probate niche like
(01:25):
the outward appearance isthat they're very related.
That you do one, you dothe other, actually, when
you get inside, they'reactually very different.
There are some similaritieswith the approach and whatnot,
but the actual practice ofactually building a probate leg
of your business, or buildinga divorce leg of your business.
Each one is.
(01:45):
Very unique and requiresits own dedication.
Chad Corbett (01:49):
Yeah, Jason Drees is a friend of mine
and he's in my mastermind.
And he had a post a coupleof weeks ago that, was
bold statement that youdon't choose a niche, your
niche will choose you.
I'm like BAM!I mean, talk about an impactful
statement for people like us.
You know, I never dreamt whenI was being recruited by the
FBI and then walking awayfrom that and coming into real
(02:10):
estate and then building myfirst little real estate team,
I didn't have a vision of beingthe nation's leading probate
expert in the real estate space.
And I think that you'vefound the same calling,
like the niche found you.
And I'd really like to startthere, like, what got you here?
Cause I think it's important.
Some people can watch ushere being so excited,
having these conversationsat a high level and be like,
(02:31):
oh, I can never do that.
But the barrier to entryis so low in these types
of niches, because ittakes a person like you.
If you're watching this, we canpretty much assume you're here
because you've got a benevolentstreak at least; you connect
with the message of 'providevalue first' and doing work
that other people are unwillingor not strong enough to do.
So I think that connectingwith Laurel's story will,
(02:52):
will be a good, good placeto start with this audience.
So tell us, tell us whatbrought you here today.
Laurel Starks (02:58):
Everything you said, I echo.
So let me rattle off afew little MythBusters.
Number one, I'venever been divorced.
I am happily married.
We are celebrating our 24thwedding anniversary in May.
I am not a child of divorce.
My parents are in April.
They're going.
Celebrating their 57th, I thinkanniversary or I do the math.
(03:23):
If I do the math correctlyNo one in my family has been
divorced with the exceptionof my grandmother who got
divorced in a time whendivorce wasn't a thing.
So I do not come to thisniche from that perspective.
A lot of people, a lotof our students do.
They have been throughthe system themselves,
(03:43):
they have seen firsthandhow broken the system is.
A lot of people come throughthe door from that perspective,
which is a great perspective.
It's a, it's aperspective I didn't have.
So I certainly invite everyonewho has gone through that.
It's a great experience to have.
I am not a lawyer.
I do not have a law degree.
I graduated high school.
(04:04):
I'm a native of Floridaand go Seminoles!
And I came out to Californiato go to school majored in
sociology, minored in PoliSci.
And I waited tablesduring school.
Then I, after I graduated.
I got a job as aflight attendant.
So I flew as a domesticand international flight
(04:27):
attendant for 10 years.
Somewhere along the way I gotmarried and then I had two
kids and I was still flying.
And when the boys were littleI decided that I didn't want
to be gone you know, flyinginternational or flying at
all during all of their life,you know, milestone moments.
So I hung up my wings and thengot into real estate because.
(04:49):
What do you do whenyou stop flying?
I mean, you get into realestate for whatever reason,
it tends to be a thing.
I got my real estate licenseI took Brian Buffini, that
was the first thing I did.
My, my license wasn't even dry.
And I went throughBrian Buffini.
I went to one of hisconferences and was completely
struck by I loved it.
Chad Corbett (05:08):
And the handwritten thank you cards.
Laurel Starks (05:12):
I am a deadbeat handwritten note card addict.
So I love the idea.
I would love to tell you theright answer, which is yes.
I write 10 a day.
The reality is I've got awhole stack of them that have
collected dust on my desk.
And I swear, I'm going to getback to doing it much better.
But I love the concept.
I love the concept andI did do it in the past.
(05:34):
Thanks for reminder.
So I but I love the idea ofa referral-based business.
And so then I got my, I gotmy first listing through
an open house that kindof crashed and burned.
It was the quintessentialrookie nightmare listing
and they fired me.
It was overpriced, whateverwent down in flames.
(05:56):
And then I got a callfrom a friend of ours.
Who's a divorce attorneyand he called me and he
said, Laurel, I'm on my way.
Home from court, or way back tothe office, rather from court.
And I've gotten you on a case.
And I like didn't evenknow what that meant.
He said it means thatthe courts appointed you
to be the listing agent.
Let me also say I was a studentof the real estate industry.
(06:18):
So I'm the girl whoshows up to every single
class that's offered.
And I sat in the front row.
Before I could be on a, anairplane and work on a plane.
I had to go to sevenweeks of training.
I was sequestered in a in a, ina training facility and we had
(06:38):
to learn all the ins and outsof an airplane and evacuation
and all of the emergencyprotocols and everything
before we were ever allowedto actually work a flight.
And so.
that's kind ofhow my mind works.
I need to reallyunderstand what I'm doing.
Selling a house isa really big deal.
I mean, it's, somebody'sbiggest asset.
And for that to be in my hands,I really had to feel confident
(06:59):
about what I was doing.
I love to learn I'm a student.
So I felt confident inwhat I knew, even though I
didn't have the experience.
So then he had meappointed to this case.
While I was on the phone withhim, I got a another call
and it was from his clientwho was on her way, home
from court and said my nameis Esther Saldonya I need to
(07:21):
list and sell my house, needto be out of here in 30 days
because my son has to startschool in Oregon in a month.
So I need you to come overright now and we need to list
the house and get it sold.
So I go over to her houseand the house was in
all kinds of disarray.
It had, there was a lot ofdamage done to the house.
She had had aflood, a pipe leak.
She wasn't able to fix it.
(07:43):
She didn't have the money.
And then she sat down forthree hours and told me
all the gory details ofher marriage divorce, the
abuse, the restraining order.
He wasn't paying support,so she didn't have the
money to fix the house up.
She told me that he wasnot going to cooperate.
So then and this wasvery interesting to me.
I mean, I was like this,isn't what they teach.
(08:04):
They didn't teachthis at Buffini.
They didn't teach this in anyof the classes that I I sat
in so I contacted him husbandand he told me that hell will
freeze over before he's gonnaever sign any of my paperwork
and to lose his number.
He's never talking to me again.
And so sure enough, he wasactually true to his word.
He didn't.
(08:24):
So how do you sell a housewhen you've got one client
who refuses to speak with you?
And there's a restrainingorder against him as well?
And then you've got thisother client that is one
foot out the door of thehouse, needs to sell.
And then there's this courtorder, like what do you even do?
So there was no education.
I, I surely thought if Iwent to NAR, if I went to
(08:47):
my company, my brokerage,there would be courses
online, something, nothing.
I worked through it.
And I found myself on awitness stand a few weeks later
telling a judge that in orderfor me to sell the house, I
need signatures and you know,I had documented everything
that the husband had doneor not done, and my attempts
to get him to cooperate.
And then the judge appointedsomeone to sign all paperwork
(09:10):
on his I thought I kind ofhad a dud listing cause I
was like, well, I can't moveforward cause he's not working.
And then lo and behold,the judge says, well, we'll
just have a court elisorsign all the paperwork.
So Mrs.
Starks, whenever you needto have his signatures,
just go down to the clerk'soffice downstairs and they
will sign on his behalfand I was like blown away.
Wow.
(09:30):
We did get it.
Esther Soldanya isshe's in my book.
She's my Facebook friend.
All these years later you know,it's, it's kinda cool to see how
far she's come in that story,but she got the house sold and
she was up in Oregon and herson was able to start school.
So I got another case andanother case, and another
case, I got three morecases from that same.
(09:51):
And all of them had uniquecircumstances, very similar
just in terms of complexity.
There were just thesechallenges that came up.
I had another one and the wifelived in the house with their
little five-year-old and she wasscared to death of the husband.
He had been very, very violent.
She didn't want tohave a lockbox put on.
She didn't want tohave any open houses.
(10:13):
She had a restrainingorder against him.
So how do you sell a housewhen you've got this party
living in the house whounderstandably is very afraid?
You know, how do you workthrough these challenges?
So it just kindof went on and on.
It's not uncommon in these casesto have delinquent mortgages,
to have houses that are inforeclosure, regardless of
the economy, regardless of howhot the real estate market is
(10:36):
because what's going on insidethe little bubble of a divorce
it's its own little ecosystem.
It's like it's a little minimarket, you know, going on
in there where Either outof spite mortgage payments
aren't getting paid orbecause there's just finances.
There's just not the money togo around because they're paying
(10:58):
lawyers, they're paying, youknow, expenses skyrocket when
you're going through a divorce.
It's not uncommon to have that.
It's also not uncommon tohave things on titles, such
as IRS liens judgments, youknow, a lot of these types of
complexities also are very, verycommon in the divorce niche.
Every single one of theselistings is like, it really is
(11:20):
like scaling Everest sometimes.
And it's very rewarding.
I learned how tobe skilled at it.
And then I got veryinvolved with the legal
community and I befriendeda lot of attorneys who.
Really taught me things fromthe inside that I needed
to understand and know.
Then I just becamevery well-known here
(11:41):
in my local community.
For every case that you have.
there's usually anopposing counsel.
So that was one way that Igrew my business was I had,
you know, the attorney whoreferred me and then there
was the other attorney who Ideveloped relationships with.
And it was very important thatI did my job and did it well.
(12:02):
And it was also very importantthat I I don't solicit that
lawyer during the listing.
That's just in bad taste.
it's basically anaudition, right?
So you prove yourself, youprove how good you are and
how effective you are andwhat kind of an aspirin
you are to their headache.
And then once it's closed,once it's done, then scheduling
(12:24):
a, you know, taking them tolunch or something like that
is, is much more appropriate.
That's basically howI grew my business.
I grew a real estate teamand then I decided in 2016, I
didn't want to have the team somuch anymore, but I was really
passionate about, was teachingother agents and helping
other agents do what I do.
So I started the IlumniInstitute in 2018.
(12:45):
I, I wrote the business planand got the curriculum and
everything going in 2017.
And then I launched it instarted 2018 and we've grown
to become the number onemost comprehensive, most
well-respected most well-knownreal estate designation in the
family law industry, within ourindustry as well as within their
industry in just four years.
(13:06):
We're in about 30 states nowand it's really transforming
how realtors do businessin the legal community.
It's transforming how effectivewe are and what an asset we are
to lawyers, and how effective weare to their clients, how we are
able to expedite these things.
So that courts don't have asmany hearings, and when they
(13:29):
do, they've got an expertwho can help assist the court
with making the orders thatare necessary for us to be
able to carry out our job.
So I really recognize.
What a gaping hole there wasin the legal community for
someone who specializes in this.
And so that's what we, that'swhat we strive to fill.
(13:50):
But boy, that was a long answer.
Chad asked me one question.
I think I took over theentire, the entire thing.
No,
Chad Corbett (13:56):
it's good to know why you're here and what
I want to underscore in thatas guys, anyone who's been,
you know, has heard my story.
If you've heard me onother podcasts, not the
long form story, there'sso much commonality there.
And, you know, from acompletely unrelated industry
similar background, youknow, education background,
like I was psychology andlaw enforcement, but I had a
(14:17):
heavy emphasis on sociology.
So we, we kind of startedin a similar place and she
became a flight attendant.
I went into law enforcement andwe fell back to real estate, but
we brought you know, a mindsetfrom, you know, we thought
our career was going one way.
And then we ended up inreal estate, brought that
mindset into this and knewnothing about what the
heck you're supposed to do.
(14:37):
Like I didn't havefamily and real estate.
I didn't have amentor in real estate.
And I think there'svalue in that.
But where the commonalitygets really interesting is we
started as solo practitioners.
We did a few deals.
We figured out something that noone else had figured out thought
what the hell let's build a teamand then realized that based on
who we are, that's a mistake.
And there's a saying that.
(14:59):
That quite frankly, pissesme off, but fuels me
those who can't do, teach.
And I call bull on that.
Those who teach, if they didfirst and they teach now,
that's because they felt acalling to make a bigger impact.
And I see that in Laurel,like it scared me to death
to step out of production.
(15:19):
I was running an investmentcompany, a holding company
and a brokerage company.
And and we started all theleads, like a lead company,
and to step out of productionto focus on reaching more
people with the message I feltlike was my best chance of
having the biggest consumerimpact, scared me to death.
And that saying, I let thatlittle voice in my head
say, well, that's right.
(15:40):
People are going to thinkthat you don't, you, you
couldn't do it yourself.
So you have to tell otherpeople what to do, but
the opposite was true.
I was held accountable at alevel I never had been before.
I had no one, not one marketto deal with and understand and
be able to solve problems in.
I all of a sudden had 3,149different counties that
I was having to learn theprobate code in 50 different
(16:01):
states and understand, soit made me way sharper.
And I held myselfaccountable to always be
there for those people.
We've walked a very commonpath and we've come up with
a very similar model andlike an outlook on how,
what the best way is tocreate consumer impact.
And for us, that's throughyou guys, like we could
never possibly serve 50states in one business.
(16:24):
And that's somethingI've been asked before.
Well, if it's so easy,why don't you guys just
do this in every state?
And I'm like, itjust doesn't scale.
At this standard of servicethat we insist upon, it
doesn't scale that well.
You can certainly scale itwithin one, two or three
counties, but for one personto try to do this at the level
we're discussing doing it atwhether it's divorce or probate,
(16:44):
it's just too much like it's,it's too high of a standard
of service to scale unless youwere VC funded or something,
but, so I think you guyscan kind of see why Laurel's
here, why she's a greatfit for this community.
And I think there's alot of commonalities.
As you said, like at themacro level, there's a lot of
commonality as you dig into themicro, it becomes drastically
(17:06):
different, but the mindset thatget that of got us all here, and
I would venture to that, thatthere's venture to guess that
the mindset of your communityis very similar to ours.
You know, one of the thingsI'm most proud of, we can put
in a Facebook group or groupsout there with thousands of
people, and I'm in a varietyof different groups from, you
(17:26):
know, exclusive mastermindand, and accredited investor
groups all the way down, thediesel pickup and camper groups.
Just things that I, you know,that I'm, I'm interested in.
And our community is the onlyone that I've been part of
where people don't get out oftheir poison pen behind the
veil of internet anonymity,and just be just downright
dirty and mean to each otherand in our community, what's
(17:47):
so cool is a student will postand a peer we'll immediately
coach them faster than we can.
I know there's people in thiscommunity, Rodger Lecy you
might be watching this weekslater, he's having some health
trouble, but Roger, the, thedivorce niche discovered him
because he became a probateexpert and he was, he went from
really auditioning with opposingcounsel in this case, it wasn't
(18:10):
opposing counsel, but it wasanother probate attorney who saw
what he was doing for one of hiscompetitors, but that probate
attorney also did divorce.
And when it came down to himtrying to find a real estate
expert to testify on the standin this small little town or
not that small, I mean, it'sthe headquarters of Walmart.
It's in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
But it's not a, you know, amajor Metro market, but Roger
(18:32):
was the one person he calledand said, let me put you on
the stand and pay you as a realestate expert in a divorce case.
And since then he gets allthe divorces from that firm
and he organically built this.
So there's so much commonality.
Before we jump into specifics,if you're connecting with this,
if you think that divorce issomething you're interested in,
be sure to check the show notes.
There's a link that willallow you as a member of the
(18:53):
probate mastery communityto get a discount, to be
part of this community.
And there's twodifferent levels.
So Laura, I'll I'll have youlet's talk about that first.
Like, what is, whatis your offering?
Like for someone who hasnever done a divorce deal that
likes what they're doing inthe probate space, but they
still have some bandwidth.
They need another pillar intheir business they are still
are in that growth mindset.
What does it look likewalking into divorce real
(19:14):
estate completely blind?
Like you did like, butthrough your community.
You know, probate mastery isto help someone get from never
having done a deal to doingtheir first deal, ideally inside
of the first 60 to 90 days.
b making sure they don't have tobeat the learning curve I did.
And I think that's thesame path for, for a,
you know, a practitionerthrough your community.
So
Laurel Starks (19:34):
Yeah, absolutely.
So we have two courseofferings and I will get
into each one of those.
And then all I'll also throughthat, I'll answer your question.
What does it look like?
You know, to startin this niche.
So we have one is an online ondemand bootcamp and it is taught
by myself as well as one ofour faculty divorce attorneys,
Shelly John, she's a family lawattorney and we co-taught that
(19:59):
it is for anybody and everybody,if you are newly licensed,
you've never done a deal.
Or if you are your market,number one performer.
Anybody in between it is,it is a phenomenal course
and it is only $275.
There's a 30 minute free trial.
(20:20):
You can try it outbefore you commit.
What we do in that bootcamp is it's broken up
into three sections.
One first section isunderstanding the legal
process that kind of thehouse is going through.
If that makes any sense,because in family law, as well
as in probate, the court hasjurisdiction over the sale of
the house The court can makeany orders about anything who
(20:43):
the Realtor is, whether or notit's sold, whether or not it's
kept how much the list prices,what offers are accepted.
So the court has all the powerto make all the decisions.
So before a real estate agentgets into the divorce niche,
you really need to understandwhat the role of the court
is, what the role of lawyersand what, what the role of
a real estate expert is.
(21:03):
Then I get into thedivorce listing process.
There's a very specific way thatI do and handle my listings.
And Chad, justlike what you said.
You know, the students whogo through our courses,
they lop at least five yearsoff of their learning curve
(21:24):
because I've been there.
I've done it.
I figured it out.
I've failed.
I've succeeded.
I've gotten my rear endhanded to me many times by
lawyers, by courts, by clients.
And I've taken every singleone of those opportunities and
turned it into a lesson thatI learned and incorporated all
(21:44):
of that into our curriculum.
One of those is how to approachand handle a divorce listing.
I mean, there's justa very different way.
You can't go into it thesame way you go into a
listing consultation withfamily friend or with, you
know, a FSBO or something.
It's a very different approach.
And then the third oneis how do you market
(22:07):
yourself to your database?
How do you, how do you ensurethat you're the one that
when somebody throughout yourdatabase is getting divorced or
they know someone who's gettingdivorced, that you will be the
person who's the top of mindthat they want to refer to.
Just the law of numbers saysthat there is enough business,
(22:29):
enough divorce businesswithin a database and the
database sphere to providea very, very good living.
So a lot of people want to godirectly to the lawyer piece
and they say, well, I wantto get in front of lawyers.
And then they skip overthe low hanging fruit,
which is your database.
So bootcamp, that's whatboot camp is designed to do.
(22:50):
Then our master course,which is the first part of
our CDRE program, Seaburyprogram is six months.
And when people say, andI think Chad, you can,
you could probably relateto this, but when people
say I want to go afterlawyers to get the business,
understand, first of all, becareful what you wish for.
Because when lawyers are ona case in a family law, in
(23:14):
a divorce, those tend to bethe highest conflict cases.
So you're dealing withrestraining orders.
Substance abuse.
A lot of times personalitydisorders, behavioral issues.
There's a lot ofcomplexities that go into the
- Chad Corbe (23:29):
like incarceration - Laurel Starks
I've got two clients thatare incarcerated right now.
Absolutely incarceration.
I mean, you're dealing withan extreme and so if you don't
have the education and thetools and the support to handle
what you would be given, ifyou earn the respect and if a
lawyer decides to take a chanceon you then it's going to be
(23:53):
a very short-lived career.
So we're in it for the long hauland the CDRE program teaches
everything from dealing withhigh conflict behaviors, how
to be a neutral, mediationtraining the divorce listing
process, as well as how totestify in court, how to be an
(24:15):
expert witness to the court.
And when, I mean, be anexpert, I don't just mean.
You know, you get amagnet for your car
that says I'm an expert.
I mean, how to be a courtappointed expert, truly.
And we actuallyobserve observe court.
On one of the days we haveour uh, resident judge, Judge
Kim Apollo, who comes in andteaches how the psychology
(24:37):
of a courtroom is built.
How an expert assists a judge.
And the role, the importantrole that experts play.
And then because of COVID,one of the cool things is our
course is now live online.
So it is live.
We're all there.
We all show up everyday for two weeks and
they're half day sessions.
(24:58):
And we are able to gointo online proceedings.
In court, we used to dothe class live, live, like
people would fly here.
We'd take a field tripto the courthouse, but
now because of COVID, weweren't able to do that.
So we made it online andand it's really kind of cool
because they are doing livestreaming court proceedings now.
(25:19):
We're able to, to hop inand and we spend about three
or four hours doing that.
And our attorney faculty are.
You know, in our zoom chatexplaining what's going on.
And it's just a really fun.
I know it sounds kindof, strange to say it's
fun, but it really is.
It's a, it's a really cool day.
And then we teach how to build abusiness in the legal community.
(25:42):
So that really is thenhow the course ends.
And that's how theentire six months is
structured and designed.
How do you build a business?
We provide all of themarketing materials.
We provide thestep-by-step process.
Everyone gets a dashboardthat is made for them with
literally checklists all theway down to the minutia of
(26:04):
what to your business card say?
What is a sample business card?
I mean, it'sliterally everything.
How do you plug intoyour bar associations?
Should you be a sponsorat your bar association?
how do you give lunchand learns to attorneys?
All of that, we handle also theCE, so you can, our students
(26:26):
can go into a law office, givea one hour lunch and learn
that we, that we put together.
We customize, we teach you, wetrain you on, and then we will
also provide the continuingeducation in all the states.
So you can go into a law firmand give a one hour continuing
legal education lunch and learn.
And we also have got somethingcalled Raising the Bar, which is
(26:48):
our online continuing educationprogram that we do for lawyers.
And so all of our CDREs areable to invite their lawyers to
Raising the Bar once a month.
So we have different speakers.
Last month, we had abankruptcy attorney and she
spoke about the crossoverof bankruptcy and divorce.
(27:11):
Because again,that's a big thing.
What happens when a divorcingcouple or one of the
parties files bankruptcy?
It really puts a legal snaginto the divorce process.
And of course we trying to sellthe house, but the, another
legal slash snag in our process.
So she spoke about that thisthis month uh, we've got someone
who is a vocational expert.
(27:32):
Maybe you've got to stay athome parent who stayed at home
for 20 years and they havenot invested in their career.
You've got the wage earnerwho has invested in their
career for 20 years.
And so now they'regetting a divorce and the
wage earner is saying.
You know, she's got acollege degree, she can go
out there and earn a living.
I shouldn't have to payher that much in support.
(27:54):
And then, you know, the, thenon wage earner is saying,
well, yes, I am entitled toall this money um, Because
I sacrificed for 20 years.
A vocational expert is, isanother expert they hire and
family law who comes in andanalyzes how much the non wage
earner is capable of earning.
(28:14):
And so then they testify.
So it's really kindof interesting anyway
that's our speaker for.
Our program is, is very,very comprehensive.
We do case studies every monthwhere we dissect cases, either
that I've done, or we'vegot a lot of our Certified
Divorce Real Estate Expertsthat have amazing cases.
This month we've gotHarold up in San Francisco.
He is part of very,very plugged into their
(28:35):
collaborative divorce community.
And he has got a very highend luxury listing uh, the
couple is going through thecollaborative process and Harold
is collaboratively trained.
He is a part of theircollaborative team so he's going
to walk us through some of thechallenges through his case and
some of his learning lessons.
So we all get to learnfrom one another.
(28:57):
That's what's super excitingas well that it's not
just our own experiences,such as my experience.
Man you extrapolate everybody'sexperiences and you dump
that into a knowledge basethat we have for our CDREs
at the Ilumni Institute,it's just unprecedented.
Chad Corbett (29:13):
The power of the community is really apparent.
When, like I said earlier, Iwent from dealing with problems
and families in one, oneculture, one county, one set of
laws to scaling up to thousands.
And then having the opportunityto hear what a divorce out of
Louisiana for example is if it'sa very different system of law
(29:33):
as Tennessee is more like anold English chancery court and
versus, you know, California,which is more progressive.
And so being able to blendthe conversation like to bring
those challenges and those,those wins from many different
corners of the country.
It just adds valuefor everybody.
So that's why I'm reallyinterested to blend our
communities because I thinkwhat our practitioners and
(29:58):
probate, what they're learning,they can cross train, you
know, that the folks that arealready working in divorce and
your community and vice versa.
I've trained thousands offolks and mentored them
into the probate space.
And some people might lookat this on the outside and
go, whoa, why would anyonedo that in real estate?
You're the cleaning upproblems all the time.
But for the people who reallyget it, like if that's the
(30:18):
fuel for their soul, it was,for me, it was the highest
currency in real estate for meever was the gratitude I got
from these, like from, frommainly probate was my niche.
But.
I did divorce deals thatwere, you know, a divorce, a
short sale, and a, you know,a housing, a housing authority
crisis, all wrapped in the one.
(30:39):
And the one legged man withfive racist brothers that
had guns pulled on me and I'mlike, I'm going to solve this.
Not only did I survive it, I gotthe outcome the family wanted.
And the court was likewho are you, how did you,
like, how did you this?
Cause it was on the doorstepsof foreclosure and you know,
you mentioned something earlierabout the hostile husbands.
I mean, focusing on theconsumer outcome, the impact
(31:02):
you can make, if you actuallyget them out of their own way.
And get that equity forthem, you can literally
change their life.
It's the difference inthem moving up in a living
situation or moving downinto homelessness in a lot
of cases or HUD housing.
I just turned that intofuel and it's been really
interesting to see thatkind of growth throughout
the country as others havethat moment, right.
(31:23):
That we both had like, holycrap, I'm going to, I'm
going to commit to this.
Again look in the show notes.
There is a link there forboth of the levels of courses
that Laurel's offering.
We do have some urgencywith, with the live class
though, as we said thatthe deadline is March 15th.
But there are always twoclasses per year, right?
Laurel Starks (31:42):
Yup.
So we've got April and Octoberand and we listen, we will love
to have anyone who's passionateabout this niche about
serving the legal community.
Like you said, we are, those arethe best fits for our program.
So anybody in yourprobate community, we
would love to have you.
We do have a special offeringfor $500 off of the CDRE
(32:05):
program to anyone who iswithin your community.
And, you know, I think you andI can both attest as well to
the business model of workingwith in the legal community is
one that is rather evergreen.
I am not out there pounding thepavement every day, looking for
expireds, looking for FSBOs,looking for the next deal.
(32:29):
I have got such a strongrelationship built on
credibility and builton trust with a network
of attorneys that.
That I, I just get referredand I don't have to go out
and and, and wonder where mynext listing is coming from.
Because it's just a very,very strong referral base.
(32:50):
You know, I also want topoint that out and highlighted
that it's not a non-profitthat we're doing here.
I mean, we offer a great, greatservice and it happens to also
be, for those that are cut outfor it, it also happens to be
one of the smartest businessmodels that a Realtor can take.
Chad Corbett (33:10):
As a practitioner, but also in this
and this education companyas a social enterprise,
that's really how I see it.
Like, it's a benevolententity that yes, we're going to
provide value first and we'regoing to get compensated well,
but only after we do exactlywhat we promised and met your
expectations and that's a.
That's a common thread of allthe people in our community.
And I would bet good money.
(33:31):
And it is in yours too.
If you have that benevolentmindset in this, of "yes, I
hold myself to a high standardand I expect to be paid for
my worth because I know thatI I've built a skill set that
most don't have, but let'smake sure we focus on you
and get your outcome first.
Then I'll get paid.
And what I've found is thecommon thread through the
people who very quickly riseinto six figures of income,
(33:53):
into the seven figures ofincome, it's that mindset.
It's not how shiny their shoesare, how great their business
cards are, what marketing theyhave, or, you know, attractive
un attractive, young or old.
It comes down to that mindset.
If you're really tryingto provide value.
It will be noticeable byeveryone and everything and
everything you do businesswill find its way to you.
(34:15):
You won't even, at some pointyou'll lose track of how these
people even heard about you.
It won't matter.
Like you'll be so focused onthe outcome, their outcome.
And that's when itgets really fun.
Like that's when, when, whenthe hugs and tears and, and,
and gratitudes, and thank youbaskets and all that show up.
And, you know, like you start,I have cold chills every time
I talk about this, becauseyou start to, to be able to,
(34:37):
to see your community impact.
That's what fuelsus to move forward.
In closing.
I think this is the firstof many conversations that
we'll let you guys be witnessto, hopefully we can do some
live, but I wanted to kindof have a macro conversation
about, you know, introducingLaurel to the community.
Uh, One of the conversationsLaurel that I can think of
that I'd really like to haveis kind of that building....
(34:58):
cause what we teach in probatemastery is really a two-prong
approach because in theprobate space, It is easy to
get a list of people who havebasically said, okay, public,
we're ready to deal with this.
And that's the on petition.
I still don't agreewith direct marketing to
pre probate or scrapingobituaries and all that.
I just, I don't agree with it.
But in probate it's,that's that signal.
(35:18):
All right, we're readyto deal with this.
Just like the filing ofa divorce is, but often
in, and what I've foundin at least 60% of states.
It's not that easyto just obtain a list
of divorce filings.
Usually you're gettingdivorced decrees, they
file on the decree.
So that's where it's reallyimportant that you, people
in the divorce niche reallybuild that referral network.
(35:39):
So in probate mastery, we teach,you know, first go market.
That's your short,cash conversion cycle.
We have a list of peoplewe know that are open to,
speaking with the public.
But the longer term isexactly what you teach.
So provide real value to thevendors and professionals in
your orbit with a strong focuson attorneys and, like senior
(35:59):
living specialists or employees,social workers, people who
have contact with familiesin that end of life phase.
So there's a lotof alignment there.
I'd love to have a conversationlike let's really go down the
rabbit hole of best practicesand building a referral
network and what that offer is.
We have and feel free toshare with your community.
We've we've recently releasedsome probate attorneys who
(36:21):
have been on this series, askthe expert, and we talk about
what is, and is not valuableto, you know, to an attorney
when they're approached bya real estate professional.
And oftentimes, you know, thereal estate professional will
come out with their handout.
Give me business,give me business.
I have beautiful marketing.
I work for this brokerage.
Give me your business.
And the attorney'slike, whatever, man.
(36:42):
I've got my guy, but whena true expert walks in the
door, it's like, What amI going to do with my guy?
I got to bench him now.
Correct.
It's so easy to unseat that it'sso easy to put that other guy
on the bench just by providingreal value to the attorney.
So I think maybe that couldbe our next conversation.
I think we have,we've got a lot,
Laurel Starks (37:01):
I've got a lot of thoughts on that and there
is definitely there are, thereare a lot of similarities and
a lot of differences aboutgoing straight to the consumer
from probate to divorceyeah, I would love
to talk about that.
Well, thank you somuch for having me on
Chad Corbett (37:16):
thank you for being here.
Like I said, I, I'mexcited that we connected.
Thanks.
Thanks so much to our teams yes.
For, for having guys backsand putting us together.
And guys.
Remember drop in the commentsif there's things you guys
want to hear us discuss evenif you want to hear us debate
certain things, probate versusdivorce might be a fun panel.
But anyway, then any ideasyou have, any questions you
had watching this that youwish you could ask directly?
(37:37):
We didn't do this as a live, butwe probably will in the future.
But if you drop a comment we'llget back to you and be sure
and check out the link, look atthe on-demand course, as well
as the upcoming live course.
I wanted to put the nation'sleading expert in divorce
real estate in front of you.
I think we've accomplished that.
So thank you forbeing here, Laurel.
How can they reach you directly?
What's the best wayto keep in touch?
Laurel Starks (37:59):
Yeah, we've got a, a Facebook mastermind
group, divorce real estateand lending mastermind.
Go find that.
And I'm in there.
And our whole facultyis in, there are all of
our CDREs are in there.
Divorce real estate andlending mastermind group on
Facebook is the best way.
All right.
Chad Corbett (38:16):
That's where you can find her guys.
Thanks so much forwatching another episode
of ask the expert.
If you get value from these andyou haven't already, please be
sure and subscribe to whateverplatform you're on, whether
you're listening to the podcastor watching us on YouTube,
and we'll see you next time.
Have a great day.
Laurel Stark (38:29):
Thank you so much.
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