WS1156: Using Real Estate Podcast To Your Advantage | #Highlights

EPISODE 1156

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:01.6] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Real Estate Syndication Show. Whether you are a seasoned investor or building a new real estate business, this is the show for you. Whitney Sewell talks to top experts in the business. Our goal is to help you master real estate syndication.

And now your host, Whitney Sewell. 

0:00:24.0

Whitney Sewell (WS): This is your Daily Real Estate Syndication Show. I’m your host, Whitney Sewell. We are introducing a new segment called The Real Estate Syndication Show Highlights, where we’re bringing you a look back at episodes focused on a specific topic that we believe added a lot of value to you in your syndication journey. 

Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe. Also, hit the notification bell so you can continue to know when new shows come out. Have a blessed day!

[INTERVIEW 1]

00:00:49.0

WS: Our guest is Tom Schwab. Thank you for being on the show, Tom.

00:00:58.0

Tom Schwab (TS): Whitney, I’m thrilled to be here.

00:01:00.0

WS: Tom, a lot of people are trying to get on shows. They’re trying to get on podcasts. Everybody wants to get their message out, brand awareness, and all that. Maybe you could speak to the listener who’s wondering why that’s necessary and why we should pursue getting your own podcast. Let’s get into the better ways of approaching podcast guests, better ways to get on shows, some good techniques and bad techniques that are used.

00:01:25.0

TS: Exposure brings opportunity. That’s why you want to do it. If you know somebody like by the name of Whitney that has access to thousands of people that love him, that listen to him each week, wouldn’t you want to talk to somebody like that and have all of his fans listen in? It’s that whole thing of a digital stage. How can you get on more stages and get introduced? A lot of people forget what they were taught in kindergarten. They go back to the worst of digital marketing. I always joke that I get pitched probably once to twice a day to be on my podcast and every pitch is the same, “Dear Tom, we love your podcast and would love to be a guest on it.” The only problem is I don’t have a podcast. They’re robo-pitching me. I’m on somebody’s list. Nobody likes cold pitches. If you’re going to lie to me, tell me I’m pretty. Don’t tell me you like my podcast. Put yourself in the host’s shoes. What do they want?

People want to have people on their podcasts that are their friends, friends of friends, or people they want to be their friends. Don’t start off with a cold pitch. Go out and become friendly with them. How can you do that? Every podcaster listens to ratings and reviews. If you listen to a podcast and like it, leave them a rating and review. They will notice who you are. Connect with them on social media. Share their stuff on social media. Build that relationship. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. I always say, “Serve, serve, serve, ask.” Leave them a rating and review. Share their stuff. Be part of the community then you can reach out and say, “I appreciate the podcast. I enjoyed this episode. This is something that I could offer your community, I could add value.”

There’s a podcaster called Doug Sandler, DJ Doug, on The Nice Guys on Business Podcast. I love something he said. He’s like, “You don’t have to promote yourself on the podcast. If you do a good job, I’ll promote you better than you ever could.” When you do that, when you reach out to podcasts, think about how you can serve with them. The other thing too is, “Content is king but context is God.” Don’t just reach out to all 600,000 podcasts out there. Find out which ones have your ideal listeners in them and reach out to them. Start small, knowing that if you do a good job, at the end of the podcast you can ask that host, “Do you know anybody else that would be good on a podcast with?” Podcasters know podcasters. If you do a good job on the first show, they introduce you to two more and they tell two friends and so on, you’ll get your dance card filled quickly enough.

00:04:15.0

WS: I get numerous requests for people being on the show. Some are good. Some are not so good. I like that you said, “Start by leaving a rating and review, sharing their posts online, and being part of the community.” I have people who have done that and then later have asked to be on the show or they’ve connected some other way. How they provide value in our group, I see that they would be qualified to be on the show. I may ask them before they even ask me.

00:04:44.0

TS: We’ve got an infographic that we call The 9 Secrets to Getting Booked on Your First Podcast. It will be at InterviewValet.com/syndication. You’ll look at this and go, “A lot of those are common sense.” They are, but they’re not commonly used. If you use those secrets, you’ll get on more podcasts than you will just trying to robo email.

00:05:09.0

WS: Tom, what do you find the best way to find podcasts that are going to have listeners that are going to connect with you the best?

00:05:15.0

TS: Our algorithm looks at four things. A lot of people will stop at the podcast. The first thing we look at is the podcast itself. Do they have the right type of listener? It could be a great podcast, but if it doesn’t relate to what you’re talking about, it will never mesh there. We’ll look at things like ratings and reviews. We’ll look at how many episodes they have. One of the sad facts is that most podcasts die within the first ten episodes. You may not want to be episode number four when they stopped paying the hosting bill at number five. Make sure that you look at one that’s a little bit more established with that.

The other thing we look at is the website. Every time you’re on a podcast interview, they’re going to link back to your website. You look at how powerful that link is. We’ve got some clients that do it for the backlink. If you ask them, “Would you rather be on Tim Ferriss’ podcast or the Kalamazoo Valley Community College Podcast?” They’d probably say, “Give us the one with the .edu backlink because it’s worth a lot more.” The next thing to look at is social media. How much are they promoting this, either to their email list or their social media? We’ve got some clients that say, “I’m trying to build my Instagram following.” We’ll find the podcasts that have a bigger Instagram following. Finally, we always look at the experience with previous guests. You don’t get to see this always, but some podcasts always convert well and other ones never convert well. One of the overarching things is, “Are they having a discussion or are they reading off the same questions?” The ones that are having a real discussion like we are here, always tend to convert better.

[INTERVIEW 2]

00:07:01.0

WS: Our guest is Toby Lyles. Thanks for being on the show.

00:07:04.0

Toby Lyles (TL): Thank you so much, Whitney.

00:07:07.0

WS: I’ve never imagined I would be doing a podcast. Before I started this, it never crossed my mind. When I decided to start a podcast and somebody, a mutual friend introduced you and me, it was relieving to know that I had somebody in my corner like a consultant. It’s what you do. You’re consulting people and you did me. You helped me get started. It was relieving to know that I had somebody that had the answers to all these questions. I have done it thousands of times and all these questions that I had were nothing new for you.

00:07:35.0

TL: We get the same question over and over again. Everybody’s got the same frustrations and everybody has the same goals but it’s hard to get through these common questions that are still hard to be answered. It’s the hardest thing to be answered because it’s often customed to the person. One person’s microphone doesn’t work for you. Someone else’s random suggestion about where to host, you and I talked about that, the standard hosting, it wasn’t exactly what you need. How do we custom make things for the actual person? That’s a huge thing because we all wear different clothes.

00:08:07.0

WS: When I got started, the big frustration, it’s overwhelming. I’ve talked about it. Especially when I decided to do a daily show and that multiplied me being overwhelmed. I knew that’s what I wanted to do, so we stuck it out and it’s been working well in hindsight. Getting started and developing the processes were very difficult and I knew what needs to be done first, second, third, fourth and how to go through that in making sure everything’s done correctly. Also, on the back end, there are so many different little platforms that I had to have to set up, whether it’s making appointments, doing the Zoom, and all these different things. Initially, it’s like, “Where in the world do I even begin?” Could you help us with that a little bit? Help the audience with that process or maybe where do we even start to know what platforms we need to make this a smoother process and as professional as we can make it?

00:09:06.0

TL: We’ll say you had a lot of major hurdles that you overcame to go. People don’t realize that when they hear your voice, they’re hearing a lot of time and money. You worked day and night to get this done. I don’t think you ever rested. It was eight days a week for you. At least, that was my observation. The first thing you need to look at is what you are trying to accomplish. Just because someone does it one way or someone does it on Zoom or whatever does not mean that that’s how you need to do it. Is that going to be a solo podcast? Is that going to be with other people? Is it an interview podcast? Is it a remote interview podcast? Like you’re doing where people are all over the world. Is it live? You’re walking around different events. That is the critical thing. What are you trying to accomplish? The next part of that is how much do you like knobs, wires and the equipment and how easy that is. Once you answered those two questions, you can start to figure out what equipment and process to work with. It’s not quite the answer but like everything, you need to start with your why, and then you need to figure out the how from there.

00:10:26.0

WS: With me, it was an interview podcast. I’ll do some solo shows but for the most part, I’m interviewing others from anywhere in the world because we can do it remotely. I was not someone that needed more knobs and wires to have to mess with. I feel like in most cases, most podcasters, especially if you’re getting started, you don’t need more knobs and wires. You need a USB mic. Would you agree?

00:10:59.0

TL: Yeah, get the ball rolling. That is an important thing to say. The only caveat with that is depending on what you’re trying to produce, getting the ball rolling can mess you up a little bit in podcasting. I hate to say that because I always want to say, “Go forward and do it.” Some people will say, “Grab a phone and start podcasting,” which definitely works but it can sometimes sabotage you because the way you sound can make you experienced or inexperienced. If you’re trying to place yourself as an industry leader, if that’s what you’re trying to do, then that raw authentic sound can turn people off sometimes. The trick with that is if you want to be an expert, then grab a USB microphone that sounds good. You’re using an Audio-Technica 2100. That has been an industry leader. I think you like it. How do you like that microphone?

00:11:57.0

WS: I like it fine. It’s worked great for me. I’ve taken it all over the place when I’m traveling. I’ll record in hotels and wherever I’m traveling, I still get the shows done.

00:12:07.0

TL: It’s simple. It sounds pretty good. As long as you get close enough to it, it’s not echoey. It’s a clear sound. It’s the perfect way to go and it’s $70 or something like that. That’s a good place to start. You’ve got a good microphone. You can record on any computer and you’ve got sound. You’re using Zoom for most of your recordings, which definitely works. The only trick in that is the Zoom sound for the host side doesn’t always sound that great. You can correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve talked about how you replace the audio with a good quality recording that you’re making with your microphone instead of that Zoom audio on the host side.

00:12:53.0

WS: What about show format? What are the different topics may be that you’ve seen or suggestions that you have?

00:12:59.0

TL: I feel like the show format always has to follow you, your identity, and your personality. It’s like when you’re starting a business. Even in real estate, some people like to do stores, some people like to do multifamily and everybody’s doing something different. It’s still back to this, who are you and what are you doing? If you’re going to do an interview format, what works for you and what works with your time? Are you an easy talker? Can you talk and people love listening to you? A solo show might be a great idea. If you’re the life of the party, everyone’s always engaged. If you’re great in conversation, then maybe consider an interview format. Where are you nationally? Where do you show up in the world and how can you easily move that to the podcast? It gets a little difficult if you try to move outside of that. If you try to be someone that you’re not, obviously we can grow but it creates a tension point with the podcast that you need to overcome and that’s okay but that causes a little bit of time and energy to grow.

00:14:06.0

WS: You’ve got to think through the format, what type of show you’re going to have, and are you going to have guests or maybe you’re going to have guests sometimes. How much talking do you want to do as opposed to having guests? It is very different. How much preparation time do you have to be able to do solo shows as opposed to an interview show, which both take some prep time? I like interview shows, I like being able to ask other people any question I want and they’re experts in this business or they have some expertise that helps the audience that is in this business. I like being able to ask those questions and dig a little bit and get some answers that we all want to know. I would say too, the first many shows are going to stink. I tell people, “You got to get started and you want it to be the best it can be but until you interview so many people and until you’ve spoken into the mic long enough or enough times, it’s not going to be easy in the beginning.” You got to get through many shows and get some experience before it’s going to feel more natural.

00:15:15.0

TL: You have to have the courage to do that, to mess up, make mistakes and blow up that first handful of podcasts. If you’re not willing to do that, how are you going to grow? You’ve done that. I feel like you’ve done that pretty well on this show. Not that you’ve blown up the first ones but that you showed up pretty fast. You went for it.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

00:15:40.0 

Whitney Sewell: We hope that you enjoyed the Highlights show today. You can always listen to the full episodes that were featured today by clicking the links on the show notes page. and in the description box. Let us know what you’ve thought of this episode or you can go to lifebridgecapital.com/podcast and click the feedback button. Let us know how we can add more value to you. Thank you and talk to you tomorrow.

[OUTRO]

0:16:04.0 ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to the Real Estate Syndication Show, brought to you by Life Bridge Capital. Life Bridge Capital works with investors nationwide to invest in real estate while also donating 50% of its profits to assist parents who are committing to adoption. Life Bridge Capital, making a difference one investor and one child at a time. Connect online at www.LifeBridgeCapital.com for free material and videos to further your success.

[END]