07.19.14 My Podcast Experience

On June 5th Jaren at Bigger Pockets sent me a private message entitled “Interview on the BiggerPockets Podcast?”. I didn’t know there was a Jaren at BiggerPockets, and my first thought was that this was a prank.

I took awhile to respond, even after I decided it was legit. I’m a quiet person, the thought of an hour plus interview intimidated me. I don’t like the spotlight on me, I'm not good at thinking of great answers on the spur of the moment, and I was happy with my current level of BiggerPockets “fame”, so to speak.

But I decided to move forward, and offered a couple interview rather than just me. Took some pressure off and I think it is more interesting with both of us.

The interviews are normally taped at about 11am PST, and luckily we found a time that didn't interfere with my full time job about 4 weeks later, July 3rd.

I received a list of technical requirements and a list of questions to fill out to help Jaren develop a general interview outline. I sent screen shots showing that I had a strong enough connection, we had a Skype sound check with Jaren.

Then the big day came. Time seemed to slow down as 11am approached. Brandon got on early and we chatted, which helped calm some nerves. Then it was go time. And it was just like a fun phone conversation. Nothing to be nervous about, nothing to prepare a lot for, a little hard to get a word in edgewise, but a very nice experience. It was important to us that we could share the podcast with anyone in our lives – friends, relatives, people revitalizing our low income neighborhood, etc. without offending anyone. After the interview we thought of several ways to expand on answers, but we felt good about the interview and looked forward to hearing it.

Brandon gave me the option to mention my e-book on Amazon, but I decided not to. Sales have been strong enough, the book was conceived before I got involved in BiggerPockets, and I wanted to keep the focus on our landlording adventures.

We thought it would likely air July 24th as show #80, so we had a few weeks of waiting. Then Brandon let us know it would be airing a week earlier as show #79. And I got nervous all over again!

I thought maybe there would be so many comments that I'd have a hard time keeping up, but so far it has been very manageable. I also thought that the podcast and resulting activity would improve my average post score, but that seems to be difficult for me to move very much...

Glad I said "yes" to the podcast experience.