72: How to Start a Podcast

Welcome to the 10 Loans a Month podcast, where mortgage brokers become business owners. And now, your host, Scott Peckford. Hey Broker Nation, welcome to the Out of Mortgage Brokering Podcast. Today I'm continuing on my 10 months a month series. This is a tactical podcast we produce every single week and I'm your host Scott Peckford.

how to start a podcast, why to start a podcast. So maybe I'll just jump into my story first and then I'll give you some tips on what you can do to start your own podcast. So my... journey to getting into a podcast started with radio i actually did a radio show a call-in show very briefly for about a year i did it actually so it wasn't that brief but compared to my podcast career it's been brief so for a year i did a call-in radio show on an am station

And there was a lot of cool things, opportunities that came from it. And this was back many years ago. And it was like 30 grand for the year, which isn't that much. But and at the end of the year, I had calculated that I'd basically broken even. I didn't think it was worth doing. It was probably a mistake for me to quit. Honestly, I probably should have stayed with it. And it would have. been awesome in any case i didn't fast forward a few years later i really got into podcasts

And just love listening to content while I'm doing something else. I love that podcasts are zero net time. So I can be driving, I can be walking my dog, I can be on the treadmill. So for that reason, I was like, this is a fantastic medium. And I created the mortgage brokering podcast. And if you listen to my very...

first episode, I reached out to Peter Mathen. He was one of my heroes in the mortgage business. He's the top mortgage broker with mortgage architects in Canada. And lo and behold, I said, yeah, sure, I'll come on your show. And the whole idea was just to basically have a beer with a mortgage broker. Well, sorry, the whole idea was I used to find that going to conferences were...

only somewhat useful. What was more useful for me was sitting in a lobby with a beer with a guy like Peter and just ask him a whole bunch of questions about what they're doing in their business. And I would get so much value from that. And I thought, well, why don't I do that?

Instead of, you know, going to the conferences and drinking beer all the time, I could just do this much more at scale. In any case, so if you listen to the first episode, though, I was quite nervous because it's my first one I'd ever done. I had heard that most podcasts die after six episodes.

So I decided that I was going to record 10 before I even launched. So at least I did more than six. Now there's actually a benefit to recording multiple episodes before you launch. And that is, is that if somebody finds your show, it's great if they have more than one piece of content to listen. to so I did it because I was trying to get past six

But actually, it is a good strategy to have a bank of them so that when you launch your show, people can come in and listen to a few of them and get hooked on them, hopefully. The growth was very slow. I think the first month, I had like 160 downloads. Keep in mind, I had 10 episodes in that first month.

And I think a lot of it was just my family being generous and being like, I'll listen to your show, Scott. And they're like, I don't understand what he's talking about. But in any case, it slowly grew over time. And from the beginning, I did not edit my show. And I don't recommend you doing this. You don't make money editing podcasts. Get somebody to help you with it.

I found a virtual assistant from the Philippines who would do my shows for me. But the quality was hit and miss. And so they ended up finding another company. Actually, I hired a guy for a while.

But then I found another company that did it. And so I've kind of bounced back and forth. Most recently, I've actually hired a producer who does an amazing job of cutting all these shows for me. And I decided to hire a producer when I had too many shows, just make more sense to keep it internal than to outsource it.

And also I had sponsors and I didn't get a sponsor for, I don't think the first 18 months or almost two years. So I put money into it the whole time and built this thing up. And I was learning stuff myself in the mortgage business, but I never at any point did I make any money from it or even think that I would.

And so the same with you, I would say that you need to play with the podcast. It's a long game. Think of it like in my community, it's a wine country and there's a lot of vineyards. And so I'm told when you plant a vineyard, at least from the start, from the first planting to the first bottle of wine, it's seven years.

time of course after that it's every year and so podcasting is very similar if you're going to get into it and think i'm going to do a few shows everybody's going to follow it i'm going to be the next tim ferris don't even bother starting it's not going to happen you do need to think of this as a long term play but it is absolutely still worth doing.

And I'll give you some tips on how to do that and why this is so valuable for your mortgage business. And so first thing I would say, though, is don't do the editing yourself. Definitely get somebody to help you with it. Focus on just having the conversations or if it's going to be a solo show. I've actually found the solo show harder. do for me now everybody's different you know some people can get on and riff for 30 minutes and not even think of it i find these shows much more difficult

than having a conversation with somebody who I find interesting just because of how I'm wired, I think. So in any case, it took me a long time to do a solo show. And for sure, these shows are more work for me than I can crank off three interviews.

have a ton of energy when I'm done because I get to learn from people. So what I would say though, a couple of things for why this is worth doing. First is you can become a local celebrity. So I know of a real estate agent who's got a podcast called True Condos in the... Toronto area. And he has built a pretty substantial size following from his podcast. He's interviewing the developers when new developments come online. And so he's gotten super niche and focused and that's helped him expand.

sure it helps his real estate business significantly. I've talked to him once before. Very interesting guy. That's a show you can check out if you like. And so the first tip I'd give you is choose a niche, which is what he did. He chose condos. I chose mortgage brokers. You know, the more niche, the better. You're not going to

to compete with Tim Ferriss in business categories and some of these other people. So your best option is to go very, very narrow. And it could be local. So your niche could be that it's local real estate. It could be local. You know, Denise Lafonboise, she's one of our coaches.

I'm going to put these links to their shows in the show notes, by the way. She has a podcast called Real Stories in Real Estate. And so she basically tells the client stories. And in those client stories, you're finding out about how great she is and you're learning stuff at the same time. It's a pretty clever concept.

And then Alex McFadden, the mortgage plug guy and Thrive Mortgage, he's got a pretty good size following in his podcast. And he told me the same thing. It took a long time for it to turn into business, but now it absolutely did.

Again, they put a plan in place stuck to the long game. And so the first thing is choose a niche. Really important that you do that. And then second is launch and learn. You're not going to have it all figured out. If you listen to my first episode, you're going to be like, wow, you're terrible. And I was, you know, it's something I work.

at and try to get better but you're not going to get better if you don't start and so don't overthink it just get it launched and then you can improve as you go if you never launch well you'll never improve because a lot of things you won't figure out until you do

So that's the second thing would be to launch and learn. And then the third thing would be to choose a show format so that your listeners can kind of get used to what to expect. And so my first show is an interview show, but you could do a solo show. You could do multiple people on a show if you want, but the more complex you get.

the more editing it requires and it will cost more to get done. And it's just a little bit more difficult. So think of a show format that you can actually run with and then go for it. The next tip would be to be consistent.

So don't start this and be like, oh, I'm going to print money next week because you won't. But if you stick to it for the long run, you can absolutely get traction from it. And so one of the things that intrigued me about being in the podcast was that when I did my radio show, so I did this radio show on AM 1150. And truthfully, I have no idea how many people listened. You know, we do a call in show and people.

call and be like hey i'm just calling because there's a car accident and i'm like you don't have a real estate question they're like no i just and i'm like okay so we didn't have a call screener it's kind of janky the whole thing but in any case it helped you think on your feet But what I found is that I could reach out to people in economists and top people in banking. And if I said I was doing a show on an AM radio show, I could actually get access to them.

So building that local authority, that local celebrity will then get you a backstage pass to people in your community that you may not get in front of, right? Like the condos guy who gets in front of all the developers. That's pretty smart. He now has a backstage pass. All the condo developers are like, hey, we want to get out on a show because the more demand we can create, the higher we can sell our stuff for. So he's built celebrity status that's allowed him access.

I did this when I was on the AM station and I was like, wow, that was really easy. And I've transitioned that into the podcast when you start to do it. The other reason why it's worth doing is that it builds trust and rapport with your audience. So because they start to listen to you, it's usually longer form.

They either like you or hate you, but if they're listening to long-term multiple shows, just imagine how much time that's invested into getting to know you. And then when they find out that you're a mortgage broker or you've got that weaved in there, now they're like, oh, you're my person. I got to talk to you about a mortgage. And it can very easily turn into business for you. But again, it's not a fast.

game it's a slow game but it's definitely still worth doing so that's my advice for you guys on this i'll just do a quick recap first choose a niche so get really narrow on the focus of who your audience is going to be don't overthink it launch and learn really important that you're not going to learn this

by just sitting there and don't even over edit it. Don't worry about it. If you watch Gary Vaynerchuk's very first Wine Library TV, it's pretty rough. He's pretty dang good now, but he did not get from there to here by... sitting in his room and practicing, practicing, practicing. He actually did it. He put it out to the world.

got feedback and just improved it next tip is choose a format it's really important that you choose a format that makes sense to you and then finally be consistent and i would say that you probably want to run weekly if you can that would be ideal because at least weekly you start to get some momentum if you do it less than that once a month unless your shows are really good you know kind of like the hardcore history guy but

These shows take a lot of prep. So you're not really going to create a hardcore history type show. But in any case, the last part is to be consistent. And then I'll put those links to other shows, Alex, Denise, and True Condos.

In the show notes, you can check those out. Hopefully this gives you something to go try. Oh, and then in terms of tools, one last tip on this. If you want a free platform for hosting your show, you can check out anchor.fm, anchor.fm, and you can do it for free. And so that's a great way to get started.

but don't for heaven's sakes do the editing because if you start doing the editing you're not writing mortgages you're not going to get paid to edit your shows you're better off to pay somebody and just think of it as an investment in your long-term growth your business hopefully find that helpful

If you're a mortgage broker and you're like, hey, I want to get my business going better, faster, go check out 10loansamonth.com. We have an academy that we open up a few times a year with amazing coaches. You can get on the wait list. Check that out. And thanks again for checking this episode. This is an I Love Mortgage Brokering production.