0:16 foreign kickoff of the way to wow shows this is trusts and Estates weekly and we are here every Monday at 10 A.M Pacific Time 1 p.m eastern time and today is Memorial Day so I would be remiss especially as a veteran and a military chaplain um if I did not um Mark today um by
0:52 um taking a moment to remember those of our fellow Americans who gave their lives in the defense of our country so um I was just uh reading something a friend of mine posted a few minutes ago five things to remember um not to do on Memorial Day and one of the the top thing on the list was do not wish people a happy Memorial Day um it's a commemorative day and uh I think it's a time for
1:30 um I don't think it's a time for sadness per se um because for the most part the people who have died in combat did so of their own free will um however certainly their loved ones who remember them I I think are are sad today and I think we should be grateful that they made that sacrifice so that we don't um the reality is only a very small
2:05 percentage of people in the military these days do lose their lives especially in combat um in in fact more probably lose their lives in uh from from uh training accidents and um and suicide especially if you count military veterans in the in the latter group and and so uh nonetheless um it is I think appropriate to Mark the day um I I know it's become kind of a day of
2:40 barbecues and and that sort of thing and um I guess a barbecue is a great American tradition so um by all means get together with family and friends and um but I would encourage you to take a moment just to think about what it means to especially those who were left behind by service members who are no longer with us because they they die defending our country okay you know on that um sort of somber
3:17 note so our purpose uh on Mondays is to talk about all things related to trusts and Estates and last week we talked about how to get started in a trust or in a state matter and today I want to talk a little bit about getting business in the trusts and Estates field so I I for some people this can be their sole way of making a living certainly if if someone is in estate planning lawyer they're
3:52 gonna make basically make their living dealing with trusts in the states however if you're a real estate agent or an insurance agent or a financial services professional what we used to call a stock broker I don't think they're called stock Brokers anymore or or a real estate appraiser uh real estate broker um you're probably not going to make your entire business based on um working with trusts in the states however they can be a very lucrative area in
4:30 which to practice and and because typically they're more complex than straightforward transactions um they they will sometimes pay more they'll be less competition and also excuse me the sources from which you'll get business tend to be sources that will generate business repeatedly so just taking a um a homeowner for example uh if you're in
5:06 insurance that homeowner you know will buy an insurance policy uh fire and Casualty policy maybe and perhaps that policy gets renewed every year but beyond that probably not a regular source of business that person may on occasion refer you to a friend of theirs or or you know a family member something like that um what I found in my in my uh previous professional life when I was in the real estate business is I got to know um especially
5:41 attorneys and accountants who specialized in uh trust and estate matters and and conservatorship matters as well and so they were a regular source of new business for me now sometimes the business lasted for a long long time so for example um I I think the first piece the business that I got from um of this particular conservator was to manage a building where an elderly an elderly woman had owned for quite a long
6:16 time I I believe in the beginning she lived there and she was just no longer able to handle the hassles of um you know looking after the tenants and paying the bills and dealing with the gardener and all that kind of stuff so they they brought me in I ended up handling that that property until I sold my business I want to say maybe 15 years something like that um and and I continue to handle it even after the woman was first moved to uh retirement home and then even after she passed away in fact I was at her funeral
6:51 I got to know her son who inherited the building and he you know kept me on as the manager of the building he had a business himself and he just found it easier to let me continue handling the property so and from that same uh conservator I I you know over the years probably handled I don't know half a dozen 10 different matters so maybe on average I would get a new one every year or 18 months um that that I was involved with the client which is which is nice um you
7:26 know we developed a very good working relationship a lot of mutual trust and when they had something that involved real estate so I was the person they called um generally speaking and and they also knew that if what they needed done wasn't something I felt I was competent to do that I would take the time to find them the right person um you know to handle the matter and through them I met a lawyer that they worked with on a regular basis and it became a regular we we regularly
8:01 um did business together um and and then an accountant and and so on and so on so one of one of the things I most enjoyed about working in this area of practice uh was the people that I got to do business with so I got to know them I got to understand them I got to know about their families they got to know about me uh I I I got to understand how they liked things handled so I could better tailor my services to meet their needs and it it it was all a very sort
8:38 of comfortable situation in the sense of like I said before Mutual trust and mutual understanding and so very very low stress you know and and the and the the you know along with that though if there was something that you know it just it had to be done quickly so if they said to me hey you know Kevin I I just I I need this in the next few days I I knew they weren't just you know pressuring me to get something done so they could impress their client I I knew that they were they were you know that they
9:14 weren't going to rush me merely for the sake of rushing me and and so you know I I I could I could to myself and to my other clients justify sort of maybe setting something else aside for a day or two while I focused on that and got it done for them and they didn't abuse that which uh which is good because especially in things like the appraisal business uh there there are clients who they always need it you know in in 48 hours whether they actually do or not is immaterial they want it in 48 hours and to maintain their business you have to have that kind of turnaround and and
9:52 I was a small practitioner in the sense I had myself I had a few people working for me but we weren't a great big firm and so for people who always had us on a deadline it it created much much too stressful a situation I didn't like it and so when I started getting into the estate area what I found was because sometimes you're involved with the courts you're and and and and and in many cases you're involved with someone who's deceased so the the time pressure
10:27 it wasn't there um there were deadlines of course but people knew the deadlines with with they could give you an assignment for the most part with plenty of time to get it done and so you were on this constant you know I gotta get it done gotta get it done I always found that to be a really um awful way uh to to have to deal in business and and uh and so I think you know being in the Estates area also gave me a lot more control over my schedule and and I found that to be a
11:03 very um a very positive thing as well um just as an aside I've talked about this in other shows so um people who desire to have their own business they tend to think wow you know I um I you know I I I can do what I want when I want that's sort of true really what you have is the ability to work your schedule the way you want to work it so that's it's it's it's that freedom that you have more so than the freedom saying you know not to work on a
11:39 particular day now of course once you get to a certain level of success and if you have a lot of staff so then you want to take a day off you've got staff um backing you up what I found is as sort of the You Know Chief cook and bottle washer as my dad used to say you know the the one bringing the business into the firm was generally speaking uh you know I had to be there if a client called they did expect to to talk to me it got a lot easier ones there were cell phones and you know he called me on the cell phone and I could be you know sitting in a Beachside restaurant working on a report or or whatever you know in the sunshine
12:16 listening to you know the waves um you know on occasion of the client wants what's that sound in the background oh yeah I'm having lunch down on the beach and working on your report and you're like wow it must be nice to be you because you'll be he'd be a lawyer he'd be in his office you know I'm like well you can come and join me anytime you know I'll I'll pay for the you know the iced tea or whatever so so so anyway just just I I thought I'd kind of throw that in there as to why I think um it's it's so uh enjoyable working in this area so you know as I normally do I
12:51 I created a a short uh um PowerPoint um you know this is I think a holdover from my military days when you didn't you know you just you just didn't present something without a PowerPoint that's just how it was done so trust in the states weekly of course which you which you've seen um okay so getting business there's there's really three um steps is not necessarily uh the correct term because you don't need to necessarily do these in any particular order there's three um I think ways to work on getting
13:26 business okay learn credential and marketing um and and I'm gonna go through each one of these just just briefly so first of all learn the thing as I mentioned a a couple of minutes ago one of the nice things about being in the trusts and Estates arena is it takes specialized knowledge which means that a lot of people just aren't going to be able to operate in that Arena at least not well now the the sad truth of it is
14:01 people will operate in this Arena without the knowledge to do so and and I think you know candidly don't serve their clients well okay so in order to be a competent professional in this area there's three at least three areas of special knowledge one of them is legal another is accounting and the third is taxes now you may say well wait a minute isn't accounting taxes not necessarily nor is legal necessarily taxes okay so there are legal issues that extend beyond tax
14:39 issues as as is the case with accounting as well so when I talk about legal issues these amount to things such as what is a trust what are who are the parties to the trust and if you're interested in that I invite you to go to our YouTube channel uh youtube.com I think it's at the way to wow and you'll see all our past shows I did a show um talking about what is a trust what is an estate okay it's a it's it's basic information but it'll certainly get you
15:14 started so you begin to understand some of these basic legal Concepts okay accounting is an issue as well so when does the accounting for a trust for example have to be separate from the accounting of the person who set up the trust the grantor and how does that affect things and then uh what kind of accounting and or bookkeeping needs to be done in order to keep track of what's going on with the trust how often do you need to report to
15:52 um maybe the beneficiaries or the grant or if you're the trustee but not the grantor um what are the reporting requirements those kind of things okay and then taxes so there are there is a whole tax regimen for Estates and trusts for example if the trust is revocable then the the tax liability for income generated by the trust is actually a liability to the grantor or grantors if it's an irrevocable trust now that trust
16:28 sits as a separate entity a separate what's called a person under the law and so now perhaps a tax return has to be filed on behalf of the trust the trust may need its own tax identification number okay so these are all things that you need to know something about not because you're going to do the accounting you're going to handle the legal Affairs or you're going to you know prepare a tax return or something like that now if you're a lawyer or an accountant then you probably are going to do those things but if you're a real
17:03 estate agent you're not going to do those things however you need to be aware of the issues so that when you are working with a client you can make sure that they are being properly served across the gamut not just in your little niche okay now that's that's important too because when there's an estate or a trust the there typically is arm typically is there typically is more than one professional handling the matter okay and so you're
17:39 going to be part of a team and being part of a team means keeping your eyes open and your ears open to issues that other team members need to know about so that something doesn't take place that causes uh you know a problem down the road okay so again you don't necessarily have to be an absolute expert in these areas but you need to have the knowledge necessary so that you you know for those of you who are Spider-Man you know friends your spidey sense goes oh wait I
18:15 you know before we do this I I think we may need to get some accounting advice or some legal advice there could be some ramifications here well I don't want to spend the money blah blah blah blah well you know sometimes you know spending 10 minutes talking to the lawyer and be the best insurance that that we can do if you'd like let me just send an email and see if the lawyer thinks you know he needs to weigh in on this or something like that or or please send an email and if you'd like to copy me that would be great so just asking is this something
18:52 we need to be concerned about okay now hopefully by the way you know the attorney the accountant you're dealing with is not one who you know every time they you know read an email they're like you know charging a hundred bucks okay by the way a lot of the attorneys and accountants that I've dealt with they don't do that it's just not conducive to good client relations and so you know if you send them an email asking them do we do you do we need to talk to you about this if the answer is no then you're done there's no charge if the answer is
19:27 yes so then you know you're gonna have to set up a meeting probably or a you know telephone call or something and just sort of go through it quickly and the lawyer may say no you know what now that I've heard it yeah don't worry about it you're fine just go ahead or the lawyer may say well wait a minute you know before you do that I think we need to look at X Y and Z and so then there may be a charge but but Justified because if you had proceeded without the legal or the accounting matter being taken care of now a problem has been created for the trust or estate Okay so step number one is to start developing
20:02 your knowledge and it's an ongoing issue so tax laws change regulations change laws change okay and and you need to keep up with those things okay so that's that's you know kind of number one number two are credentials okay so if you're going to be working in the Estates and trusts field I think it's it's a good idea to consider getting a A specialized credential in in that field okay and and again it will depend on
20:40 um what area um you're practicing so if you're a real estate agent you may decide to become a certified certified probate and Trust specialist That's a program through the National Association of Realtors okay so you'd have to be a member of of Nar and I think your your your State Association of Realtors as well to be able to do the program but in that it may be worth it um and then you carry this designation and that designation is basically saying look I have special training in this area
21:15 um to be honest I don't know there may be a an experience requirement as well but in any event you now have this this credential and it it you know it it separates you if you will from others who don't have it okay now if you're a lawyer there's an there's an estate planning trust and probate law board certification uh you know is that better than experience in the field I don't know you know frankly I don't think so I mean given my choice between choosing a lawyer who had this certification and
21:51 little or no experience and a lawyer who's been in the field for 10 years I frankly am going to go with the lawyer who has the you know experience because they're going to have dealt with the real world issues having said that this again will help you get the knowledge that you need okay as far as I know it's only open to to lawyers okay now if you're going to do estate planning maybe you are a certified financial planner or maybe you are a financial services uh professional so you may decide for example to to get an AEP an accredited
22:27 estate planner credentialed and this is a program and I'm going up on the organization who issues it okay but but again it's it's it's it's I don't think it's as robust as getting a cfp a certified financial planner or I think there's cfp in England is a chartered financial planner okay but it but it will give you specialized knowledge in this area Okay and then there's something called a probate referee so this is a someone who actually works for
23:05 the probate court and their job is to Value Assets in an estate now in California you apply for the position and then I think you have you take an exam and you have to be selected okay so not on any not everybody gets to be a probate referee who wants to be it depends on whether they have a need for them or not having said that if you're a probate referee and a lawyer is handling a particular estate and they need to have something valued so they're going to have to pick from that list of
23:41 probate referees in order to have that work done now in in my experience um a probate referee will not get as many times will not get as large a fee as an appraiser would however you should be compensated for that by having a greater regularity of work that's that's what I was told in the end I did not become a probate referee now a couple of other things that I I didn't list here one is if you are a real estate appraiser you actually don't have to
24:16 have a license to do work for lawyers in the estate and Trust Field okay you're required to have a real estate appraisal license to work on federally related transactions and Estates and trusts are not federally related okay having said that be when you're working in the legal realm in in many cases it's even more important to have some kind of credential especially if you're going to have to do any kind of expert witness testimony which is one of the most lucrative things you can do as certainly
24:53 as a real estate appraiser it was it was the the sort of specialized tax and litigation work I did in when I was in the real estate business prior to joining the Navy was the most uh lucrative thing that I did upwards of 500 an hour okay so even though you don't need to have a license to do the work uh I would encourage you to get it okay and and the the higher the the the license the better so I was a certified General real estate appraiser here in California that was that's the highest level you can get
25:28 I believe that's true in all the other states as well and actually I was a c GRE certified General cgrea sorry cgrea um in uh one time I think like half a dozen states okay so um again you know if it's a state credential that you're getting or estate license that you're getting if you're licensed in multiple states that people just they assume that you have greater confidence even though in many cases there's reciprocity and you're just able to get the other license merely by paying the fee and submitting the
26:04 application in another state okay the last thing I want to mention is becoming a professional fiduciary so there are I think about 14 states that have a professional fiduciary license California is one of them that's one of the licenses I hold and what the professional fiduciary allows you to do is essentially be a trustee for a trust and or handle an estate um with this professional credential okay without being a lawyer or a bank or
26:39 something like that okay so you're gonna go through a a pretty extensive education program to get it I I will say had I not had a background in in real estate and investing and management and all of that it I think it would have been a pretty tough slog as it was because I had a had a background I hadn't worked in the field for many years prior to getting my uh professional fiduciary license um it it it all kind of made sense when I took the training okay but that's another another credential that you can get that can be used as you Market
27:17 yourself to get business okay and then the last thing is marketing okay for the most part you are not going to get business in the Estates and Trust Field unless you are actively marketing yourself uh what can you do to Market yourself well guess what you know trust in a state weekly this is a show that I developed at the encouragement of a friend of mine who is a trust and estate specialist in the real estate business to help get out the word that I'm
27:52 involved in this and and and in so doing also serve other people who may want to be in the same field to take the knowledge and experience I have and put it at the disposal of other people so that they might be able to benefit from it as well okay so you can certainly start a show or a podcast and and that would be another that would be one way to do it another way to do it is to let me know I'll have you as a guest on my show you'll come and talk about your specialized expertise the work that you've done one or the the process you
28:27 went through to become someone working in the Estates and Trust Field even if you're brand new it's you know I'd still consider it having you as a guest to talk about your experience so other people can learn from the process that you went through okay so that's one way you can Market yourself another is through relationships and for me this is the key as I mentioned at the beginning of the show one of the things that I like most about working in this area is CR is establishing long-standing business relationships with people that I who I
29:04 enjoy working with I can get to know them and and get to know how they like to have things handle create Mutual trust Mutual confidence and and and really build that over the years okay now in the Trust In Estates field I focus my relationship building basically on lawyers and accountants that's what I did before that's what I do now and and because I do find they're the best source of ongoing business number one and number two because they're operating in a
29:41 sophisticated Arena okay so they can appreciate the additional knowledge and experience that I have because then when they turn to a their client and say hey I'm bringing Kevin on on this and here's why you know they they don't have to worry about their client going oh this this clown doesn't know anything about it right they say well he's been he's been doing this for you know over over 25 years um he's done it in a lot of different areas he has a you know a broad um view of the the situation is able to
30:18 troubleshoot effectively et cetera et cetera et cetera okay so that's where I focus my relationship building now there are other areas that you could do it you could focus in on uh real estate Professionals for example and then that's an area that I'm I know I'm going to be moving into with the help of my my friend bill um and so you know and again the the thing is these relationships are somewhat reciprocal in the sense that um you know if someone is referring you business then you want to be referring them business now when I say that I I
30:54 have to be quick to add you don't want to refer business to someone who clearly is not competent to handle the business so whenever you refer a piece of business especially in this realm where there are a lot of fiduciary obligations that come out of it your first obligation is to your client okay so it would not be correct to refer them to let's say a lawyer who had given you a lot of business just because the lawyer had given you a lot of business okay the lawyer has to be the right professional
31:29 for that person and and and and by the way the lawyer understands that that's why you have to make yourself the right professional for the lawyer to refer because the lawyer has the same obligation he cannot refer you business merely because you've given him a lot of business okay so it's got to be based on professional competence experience Etc okay and that so relationships then and that takes in referrals as well okay and the final thing I called it locations because I just I don't know I don't know what else to call it so
32:05 um one of the things that I I have done in the past is um attend meetings where I was likely to meet people who are working in Estates and trusts so there may be a local bar association meetings um I was uh involved quite a bit with the um California Association of CPAs I believe it was called okay and they had they have something called the credit grantors committee that I was involved with and they had an estate and Trust committee that I was also involved with
32:40 for a while okay and so I would go to their meetings and meet the people there um and and there were two good reasons for doing that one was marketing of course but the other was I would learn things there so at the accountant meetings I would I would keep up to date on changes in accounting and tax laws that sort of thing so I was kind of killing two birds with one stone um if I would go to uh like a bar association meeting so um one time I made an arrangement to represent uh it was an appraisal
33:15 organization um I forget which one it was but anyway um and I met a lot of attorneys there and in particular I kept my sort of eyes and ears open for attorneys who were handling estate and Trust matters okay and and and I would get to know them and then we would follow up I would send them my newsletter that that kind of thing okay so put yourself in a location where you can meet the kind of people that you want to establish relationships with okay so and and they're all very very simple by the way you know when I was doing this stuff LinkedIn if it
33:51 existed it was just in its nasancy now you can do a lot of this through Linkedin you could meet um uh attorneys you know State planning attorneys you know through Linkedin um and if you're interested in how do you meet people through Linkedin again go to my YouTube channel I have a whole show on how to use LinkedIn to start and build relationships and so I encourage you to check that out if you can't find it just drop me a comment in any of the uh social media for the show or send me an email the the links will be in the
34:27 show notes for this show and I'm happy to send you the link so you can check that that out and that's what I got and here here if if you want to take a you know quick screenshot uh like I said this will be in the show notes but if you want to grab it now here's how to contact me in the different social media and email and you know as always there's the you know legal stuff so there we go and I'm gonna stop sharing so that's just a a brief primer on how you can prepare yourself and start getting business in trusts and
35:04 Estates and I I I want to repeat something this will be I think the third time I've said it um but but it's really the reason why I I so enjoy working in this area and and when it comes down to it it's because of the people so well I I don't I'm not disparaging lawyers for example who work in other areas the reality though is for lawyers who work in litigation or work in family law so much of what they do is you know it's sort of pain and suffering not
35:40 necessarily because of the lawyers although sometimes it is unfortunately but because the parties are at issue and there's there's fights going on now I'm not saying that that never happens in the estate and Trust area it does but far less often most of the time it's about you know helping people take care of themselves their their their children their heirs um and and helping them live a better life and and that's a it's a much more a positive environment to be in and and so
36:17 the the people that you're dealing with tend to be less stressed and and and it makes for a more pleasant working relationship I I I candidly have a lot of uh empathy for uh lawyers and accountants who work in in these more sort of um dispute oriented areas because um you know they spend all day you know dealing with people's problems and and their egregious problems and and and it really can be kind of down Harding after down dispiriting after a while I guess
36:53 is the word I'm looking for whereas I mean yes in Estates and trusts you are dealing with deaths impending deaths that's true and that's sad but but not not in the same way um and uh you know when when that inevitable time comes when a client passes away um you know you have an opportunity to to go to their funeral and and be a support work for their family for their friends and and be someone there who can understand um in many cases I got to know the person and got to know you know what uh
37:31 um my in my cases was almost always a woman women tend to outlive their husbands and you know so they were elderly women just sweet sweet women so nice so caring just you know they got to the point where they couldn't handle their own business Affairs and so I would be brought in and I would see them periodically when I went to you know visit their property or visit them to take care of something or whatever it was such I have such warm memories of of these women um and and um the idea of being able to help them being able to serve them was was very
38:07 meaningful in in my professional life and so um I I encourage you to consider it and and here's how to the last two uh shows this one and and last week's uh hopefully will start to show you the way on how to do this if you have any questions if I can help you with any of this please don't hesitate to contact me and if you're just not sure look I I do the following I I feel feel like I want to be involved with this but I don't know how so you know send me an email or or better yet you post it on on uh on you know social media I'll give it some thought maybe I can give you some
38:42 suggestions on how to do it and if it's on social media then somebody else may read it and be kind of inspired by you know the same thing so that way we all sort of raise the you know the tide together so thank you very much for joining me today um wishing you a meaningful um Memorial day and just a quick reminder tomorrow at 11 A.M uh Pacific Time 2 p.m eastern time is my show business lessons from the military where we look at military Doctrine history and great leadership and apply it to our
39:19 business lives and then on Wednesday is my show people making money where we look at career and business issues and financial issues kind of in its broadest context and our purpose there really is how do we find a career or a business that we really enjoy doing and how do we build wealth so that show is at 12 30 PM Pacific Time 3 30 p.m eastern time so that's that's our show for today again thank you very much for joining me hopefully I'll see you uh in the next couple of the days and next week as well
39:55 signing off Marie darling You Are My Pal all the best folks