What makes you a heavy hitter on BP?

[Robert C.]

Ok, let me say I'm really asking because I'm bored today with sheltering in place! But I've been for some reason seeing the phrase "heavy hitters" popping up more than I remember on BP, referring to a particular group forum contributors. 

So what do you think makes someone a heavy hitter here? Is it just the number of posts and likes a person gets? Is it whether they've appeared on the podcast or spoken at an event? Is it their wisdom or an assumption about their net worth? There are definitely investors on BP who have a larger sphere of influence and therefore probably receive both the outsized praise (and criticisms) that comes with real estate forum fame. Is it all well-deserved?? 

If you're one of those folks, what do you think about about being niche-internet-famous?! (Feel free to tag people you want to hear answer that question!). 

[Russell Brazil]

Thanks for those that mentioned me.  There has been a few points where I came to understand the power of the BP website into getting your name out there.  The first time I was trading in my cell phone at the tmobile store, and the clerk kept looking at me, and my name on the computer while we were talking...and he finally asked me, are you Russell Brazil from Biggerpockets.  Now I was use to people sort of knowing who I was at real estate events, but not in sort of random environments like the cell phone store.  The next time was at a conference, and I just sort of ended up in the hallway with about 4 or 5 people and one of them was the keynote speaker, and about 10 minutes he was like your Russell Brazil from BP.  So I was like wow, I cant believe this hugely famous person in our industry knew who I was.

This website and its members however have contributed immensely to my business, helped me to build my wealth, and I in turn contribute back into this site.  It is for me a hugely symbiotic relationship.  Many of my real life closest friends are people who I have met through this site.  There are 22 BP moderators, (and a few past moderators) and getting the chance to be a part of that group has given me access to some of the best real estate minds in the country.

Im a huge believe that people should do what they love for a living.  My 3 largest passions are real estate, investing, and personal finance.  As a real estate agent and investor, I get to live my dream, and luckily my passions happen to be in fields that produce a high income.  What some may, or may not know is that the largest percentage of my time spent working in my profession, is contributing to the BP forums. For me, it hasnt been the podcast, nor blogging on the site that return to me anything either financially or in satisfaction.....but posting in the forums returns both the satisfaction to share my passions and help educate others, but it also has had the largest financial return for me of anything in my business.  These forums are perhaps the key reason Ive been able to become a top 1% real estate agent. (Though at the very bottom of that 1% percentile)  I will actually be speaking at BPCon this October, if it ever happens on the subject of how vendors (agents, lenders, inspectors etc) can use the site to grow their business.

I do admit though, I like the votes, just like people like the likes and hearts on other social media sites.  I am the 2nd biggest vote getter on the site behind @Jay Hinrichs.