KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Podcasting for Real Estate: Building Influence Through Intimacy and Community

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Summary:Kevin Kauffman interviews his podcast producer, Sarah Heater, about the unique power of podcasting to build a "know, like, and trust" factor in real estate. Sarah explains that audio creates a simulation of a one-on-one conversation, placing the host in the top 0.1% of people a listener hears from weekly. Agents will learn three keys to podcast success: identifying a niche audience, setting clear goals for that audience, and defining personal business outcomes to avoid the "content treadmill" and ensure long-term ROI.

Welcome to the Kevin and Fred Show. I am your host, Kevin Kaufman, and along with my business partner, Fred Weaver, we bring to you our podcast where we highlight some of the best and brightest in the real estate industry, along with a weekly segment called Industry Headlines. We are a proud member of the Industry Syndicate, Family of Real Estate podcast, and we are so glad that you are listening and tuning in today, and we hope you enjoy our show. All right, we are back on the Kevin and Fred show, and this is an interesting one, because I don't know if producer is the right word, but I'm getting to interview my friend and I guess podcast producer, a person behind the scenes who really makes the show happen. Sarah Heater. Sarah, how are you doing today? I'm doing great.

Thanks for having me. This is so cool to have seen this show from you walking up to my desk and saying, hey, I'm thinking about launching a podcast. And I was like, yeah, I can help you with that. Let's do it. It's great how far it's come. I love that too. I know because you've literally been there since before the first episode and I've edited every single one and been the one to tell me like, hey, dude, could you, could you please

use some headphones? And then maybe could you buy a better mic? And then, hey, could you have your guests get some headphones or something pretty please all the way through, you know, here we are to what, two and a half years later. And a top one and a half percent podcast. Yes, largely due to you helping me. I'm getting this thing going in the right direction. And so what I'm excited about today is because it really did.

The podcast kind of came out of like, oh, we could do that type of conversation. Like, really? And just that aha moment. And what it's turned into for me, number one, is something so much fun. And for you, I love it because it's become an entire new business for you. Yeah. And so one of the questions I'm always getting from real estate agents is, should I do a podcast or why would I do a podcast?

And you know all these things. So I don't want to steal the punchline. But I thought, well, it would be cool if you were here to just kind of from your perspective, as somebody who's basically from day one started the show, but then has now launched so many other podcasts, including your own, give some perspective and some, some thoughts on that. So now that I've said your intro for you, sorry about that. I got a little long winded. Tell us real quick for the listener.

Maybe that's never met you. Just how would what's your elevator pitch? If someone says, oh, what do you do? Like how do you introduce yourself to people? Yeah. So as you can see if you're watching the video, my name is Sarah Heater and I help small businesses, entrepreneurs and hobbyists strategically launch, grow, and monetize podcasts in order to expand their audience, establish their expertise and make money.

I like that. So that's what I do. And what I love. Good things, especially in real estate. Yeah, totally. And what I love about real estate, because I've worked now with people in a lot of different industries or topics or subject matter. But I do work with a bunch of people who are real estate agents because as everybody who's listening to this knows, if you know one, you know 100. So I work with a lot of people in different capacities of real estate even. And what is so great is that, as I mentioned, it's an opportunity to actually grow an audience and also to create a very.

very intimate, no like and trust factor with that audience, which we know in real estate is what sets us apart, especially in the Phoenix area, which is where you and I are both based. There are so many people in real estate that, again, if you know a real estate agent, you know multiple real estate agents and who you're going to work with is who's top of mind and also who you feel connected with and safe with, especially in a crazy market like we have going on right now, a person who makes you feel confident and like they've got your best interest at heart. And so podcasting, even more so than video, creates this really intimate experience in headphones. Most people are listening in headphones or in earbuds. And so it

simulates being on the phone with the person who's hosting the show, which even if the person who's hosting the show doesn't know anything about you as a listener, you still feel like they know you really, really intimately and you're on the phone. phone for a half an hour or 60 minutes every single week. And there just aren't a lot of people in our lives who wear that close with. So being able to create that on a massive scale to people you want to work with and are excited to work with in real estate is the big opportunity there. So I never thought about it like that, but you just, you sparked something for me. So okay, some of us have, I got to imagine a lot of people have you like me. I don't, I don't love talking on the phone. It's not.

It's that I would much rather text like 99.9% of time. However, I know that, but there are people that I text every single day. And there's people I would talk to on the phone every day for two minutes, five minutes, whatever. But most people don't have more than one or two people in their life. It could be a parent, a sibling, a best friend, you know, a spouse, whatever, a partner that they talk to daily. But it's probably not more than one or two people as my guess.

And so I hadn't really thought of like, if someone spends with you virtually on the phone 30, 40, 45 minutes, 60 minutes a week, you're in the top 0,000,000, 1% of people that they're listening to. Absolutely. And that's massive for influence, which is what sales is. Yes, absolutely. And I saw a really great meme going around on social media that is like, you know, a little comic strip. And it's somebody all excited and they're like, I made a new friend. and then the other person says like a real life friend or a podcast friend. And it's just so true.

There have been times, this is embarrassing to admit, but there have been times that people I've been listening to for a really long time and I feel really, really excited about their podcast. I have actually been in the car listening and paused the show so that I can respond to myself in the car because I feel like it's a conversation. So if you can create that kind of connection with somebody, and this is the other. thing too that I really want to make sure is clear. If you work in real estate and you want to create a podcast in order to build your business and build your network and build your sphere, you don't have to have a real estate podcast. So think about what lights you up that you love

to talk about and you love to learn about and you never get sick of talking about and learning about. What are the podcasts you like listening to? How do you like to spend your time? What do people come to you for advice about and make a podcast about that because that makes the content creation so easy. Plus, you're going to create this natural network of people you actually want to work with. So then you feel excited to work with those people and they give you life instead of draining you. Gosh, that is so true. So one of the things I was going to ask you that I hear from people are, yeah, Kevin, but you know, because it'll ask me about podcast. I'm like, no, you really should do it. it's amazing. And they'll say, yeah, but like, you know, I want to do it. I don't, I don't want to

have other agents listen to me. I want consumers. And I'm like, yeah, I know. Like really, it's a wide open opportunity. And if I, you know, and I've always thought, like, just build a community around whatever you're passionate about. Like, whatever you're, like Gary Vee gave, gives the example in his first book crush it. If stickers light you up, then damn it, do start a sticker Club or whatever that thing is. And so if it's stickers, do a podcast about stickers. Correct. Yes, exactly. And I think you touched on something that's a really important distinction as well. So many people who do want to start real estate podcasts, they try to do both. They want to reach other real estate agents and also they want to reach buyers and sellers. And the reality is that is one of the

biggest mistakes you could make with a podcast. You have to pick one. And so think about and not to say you couldn't end up doing two shows down the line and do both, right? But in one show, you only want to target one of those demographics. And so either are you focused on building your book of business as far as the clients that you're serving to buy and sell houses, or are you focused on recruiting real estate agents to your team or brokerage? Because try, or mentorship, you know, if you're trying to coach people on their business and become a coach and become a speaker and build your team, then that's one goal. But, And that's important. That's great. Podcasting would serve you very well for that. But also,

if who you want to speak to is potential buyers and sellers, you could still have a real estate podcast talking about the buying or selling process and all of the things that go into that. Or, of course, like we said, about something totally unrelated. Yeah. So there's all different directions there. I think I really connect to what you said about the unrelated thing because what I see, And I've been there myself too is, okay, like I feel like I got to make a real estate podcast, right? I even feel like this way. And we don't, friend and I don't do a podcast, but it's a newsletter monthly, right, for our database of buyers and sellers.

And it's like, what are we going to talk about this month? And if I have to ask myself, what do I want to talk about or, God forbid, I ask the audience, what should I talk about? That's a clear indication of it's something I should not be podcasting about or creating content around. It really should be around something that is so exciting to me, and I want to talk about it. Yes. And so there's really three, and we've already kind of touched on these, so I want to just call them out. There's three keys to success in any podcast. And so number one is knowing your ideal audience, know who's in the audience. So when you're

saying, if I have to ask my audience, then my first question is, do you know who's even in your audience? Because you could end up creating this Frankenstein audience of people from all different walks of life with all different interests and all different priorities. And then it's really freaking hard to reach any of them because you can't connect with every single person at the same time. Whereas if you wanted to start a local biking club, right, of people who love to go biking in your local area, whatever your city area is or your state or something like that, or you love travel or you love tacos or you love alcohol or whatever it is. but you want to create a community around that.

And then this is the beautiful thing about real estate too. In identifying that ideal audience, we all have service areas, right? So you don't want to just create a podcast about biking. You also want to create, you want to target an ideal audience in your service area. So then for me, I mean, I'm not a biker, clearly, but if you or a bicyclist, but if you wanted to talk about biking in Phoenix or biking in the same, state of Arizona and what that looks like. Maybe, you know, then you're going to create this network of people in your actual service area. So ideal audience is the first one. Okay. What's the second?

The second one is the goals that you have for your audience. So you want to be really clear about what you want your audience to get out of it. So if you have a real estate specific podcast and you're targeting buyers and sellers, then as an example, then you want to accomplish maybe educated them about the buying or selling process, right? You want to educate them about real estate. If you're targeting, if you're doing a real estate specific podcast and you're targeting real estate agents, you want to even get more dialed in than that, right? So maybe you want to target brand new agents who are fresh out of real estate school and don't know how to actually build their business or do a transaction, right? So maybe that's who you're focused on. Or maybe

you're focused on agents who are having success but want to up level or want to build their team or want to diversify. Maybe you're working with people who know buyers really well and you're helping them learn sellers. Right. So there's all kinds of different target demographics there of really knowing, A, your ideal audience and B, what you want them to get out of it, what your goals are for the audience regarding real estate. And if it's totally unrelated, then what are you hoping to accomplish with that bicycling example? If I wanted to do bicycling in my local area, then maybe I want to create a network or a community of people who can talk about biking, who can bike together, who can have resources of where to buy parts or get service,

people who, I don't know, I really, bicycling was such a dumb example because I don't know a lot about bicycling, but just the point being like, you could grab a community. I had a lot of yesterday with a friend of mine who is very much, he's in part, he's part of a land cruiser club. So like the vehicle, the Toyota Land Cruiser. Like they like they're, you know, it's 20 year old vehicles. And there's like a hundred plus people in his club. And they just drive their cars together. But they have meetings and they get together. Anytime you can create a community like that, there, trust me, there is business happening in those circles.

And it to me, it goes back when you say that. What, what I think of is going back to kind of the, one of the Gary Vee kind of foundational thoughts is just be the host of the party. You don't have to be the star of the party, be the host of the party. Totally. And that really kind of pushes into a little bit. And I always house this under the realm of what are your goals for the audience. But the different types of episodes. So if you want to just get on and talk yourself and just record what you know and share your expertise, then that is a way that you can help your audience get to where that are going, right?

if that's how you want to get them there. Or like what you primarily do at this point on this show is have guests on. And then you're hosting the guest and you're letting the guests lead what they know a lot about that you know will benefit your audience. So you're the connector. You're just connecting your ideal listeners with your ideal guests. And that works, you know, that benefits both people. Yeah.

And you know what? And it's really, it's funny because I had a friend who has a very extremely successful. podcast by any measure. And he said to me, I think initially he had started out with, he was like, you got to be really careful about this, the way you have it because you set up all these people to be like they are the expert. He's like, and they are. But if you, if you're good at this and you stay consistent with it, you're going to build this massive platform. And one of the things that he's, you know, you have to figure out is like, okay, if you're doing this, if your goal, if one of your goals is say sell software or, or,

sell my coaching or sell my trinkets, then, but I'm constantly pointing them towards other coaches and other software service providers and other trinket providers, then I'm actually setting up that other person. I might be, you know, hurting my own chances. And it's like, it's a balance, right? It's definitely kind of a fine line to, that you have to walk. And so when you say those, you know, the three keys to success going through that ahead of time, I think is super important. So that lead me to that, like what, like, first of all, do you have a response to that and the number two I want to or the next? I want to hear point number three as well. Yeah, I mean, they go together. So the third key is what you want to get out of it or what your goals for the show are. And this is something that I see podcasters miss again and again and again. So many of us are coming from a place of service. We want to serve others. We want to help others. That's why we're service providers. And so we know who we want to serve because we're business owners and everybody. whoever has listened to a business coach in any capacity has heard about niche and ideal client or ideal customer or whatever their way of putting that is. Everybody's heard of that. And how you want

to serve that ideal person comes pretty naturally. But what about what you want to get out of it? And so establishing your expertise could be getting sponsors so that you have an additional source of income because that's another thing for real estate professionals that can be really beneficial, especially when you're first getting going and you're first building your business, that idea of potentially having months of no income or feast or famine, what's happening in your famine months? So if you can create a podcast that also is monetized in other ways, like, for example, having sponsors that are related to your ideal audience, then that's bringing in a little bit of money on your months that you don't have as many transactions.

as well. So that is also a really helpful part of an option in podcasting. Are you trying to establish your expertise? Are you trying to create a network of professionals that you want to be connected to? Are you trying to learn something new? Are you trying to grow an audience so you can sell them existing products or services? So there are so many different goals you could have. But the reason it's so important to have goals of what you want to get out of your podcast is that if you don't have goals, you're not going to get results. And it's a lot of time and effort to put into doing a consistent podcast to get nothing out of it. And listen, this is an opportunity no matter who you are, no matter what your experience is, no matter what you're interested in, no matter what's important

to you, you can literally build a platform and then leverage that platform and use your voice to reach other people. That's what podcasting does and anybody can do it. And so, but with that being said, when the novelty wears off of starting a podcast, all of a sudden, it's like, man, this is the content treadmill. I'm also trying to build my business. Why am I putting all these time, these hours, this time and effort and energy into this podcast when those could be billable hours, right? And so you really need to know what it is you're trying to accomplish with that podcast. Are you hoping to write a book one day? Because if you have a schick that you want to write a book, a podcast is a great way to build an audience and get a really good book deal because you have an established audience that

is already a loyal follower. Or do you want to, again, get speaking engagements? You know, there's when we're having more in-person events now again. But there's so many speaking opportunities in real estate. There's so many continued education opportunities. There's so many. And so if you're trying to move into that space, that's an opportunity for you. Or if that's not your goal, which is totally fair? Are you just trying to build your book of business? Because there's so many ways, and we hear about this no matter how many real estate coaches you talk to who talk about all the different ways you could build an audience, right? You can run Facebook ads, you can make a Facebook group, you can do cold calling, you can call everybody in your personal network, you can door knock,

you can send mailers. There's 10 million ways. And realistically, you're not going to do all of them. And frankly, you're not going to like most of them. That's just true. You're not going to like most So find what you do like. And if talking is something that you do like, podcasting might be a good fit for you. Yeah. So true. So let me ask you this. What do you say to the person?

And I'm sure you hear this all the time who says, yeah, but everyone has a podcast now. Okay. First of all, numerically, that's ridiculous. So just I hear, I do hear this a lot. But just recently, the global number of total podcasts out there just surpassed. 2 million at the beginning of 2021. Okay. That's it. So when you think about the number of people globally, only 2 million podcasts exist and get this, a third of them have not produced an episode in the last 90 days. They're not even active. And the reason why we feel like everybody's podcasting

now is, first of all, it's probably who you surround yourself with. So if you surround yourself with people who are building platforms for themselves and leveraging those platforms to use their voices if those are the kind of people you hang with you're in good company so that's one two is that 50% of the total podcasts were started in 2020 so it's like in the pandemic everybody who might want to start a podcast was like yeah this is this is what better time this is the time to do it so that's part of the reason why it feels that way but 50% of podcasters also quit after episode seven so they don't make it And I know that the reason why, and with my experience of working with all different podcasters in all different industries, the reason why is because they aren't strategic about those three

keys to success. If you don't know who you're talking to, you're not going to get traction, just period. You cannot make a podcast for everybody. It's not going to work. So you have to niche down. So that's the first thing. The second thing is you need to know and be very clear about what they're going to get out of your show and make sure that you're constantly, every piece of content,

you produce is to serve that audience to accomplish that goal. If they're getting consistent progress or consistent traction for what your goals are for them by listening to your show, they're going to keep on listening and you're going to see traction and you're going to attract more of those people. And then you have to know what you want to get out of it. If you don't even know what you want to get out of it, it is way too much freaking work to keep on doing it. So but if you know, if you set and especially if you set milestones for yourself too, don't think about one day I'm going to be Joe Rogan because reality is that's going to take a very, very, very long time to ever get to that point.

He has a 10 year head start on you. Totally. And what you can do is think I'm so excited to get my first 50 listeners. Can you imagine if you created something and 50 people tuned in to listen to you? Like we were talking about how many people we would spend 60 minutes on the phone with or if your podcast is shorter, let's say 30 minutes, people who would spend 30 minutes on the phone with you. If you could think about cold calling. right? If you could cold call and get 50 people to spend 30 minutes on the phone with you,

that's the equivalent of getting your first 50 listeners on your podcast episode. So even though you're not going to have millions of listeners right away, 50 is huge for business owners. That's so funny that you say that because just right before you and I started recording this, I was on a Zoom with kind of a friend of a friend who've gotten to know a little bit and he's newer in the real estate business. And one of the things I said to him was like, dude, if you just have the 150 people that you know and if your whole job was just to care for those 150 people you'd have you'd have 30 transactions a year like you couldn't you could not sell 30 homes a year so like like just focus on that small quote unquote small group and watch the impact and it's i mean it's

really the same thing when it comes to this totally and be excited about it and and keep your success in perspective be excited about it and keep it fun you know that's something you and i have talked about with your podcast a lot is that in thinking about what you want the topic to be and who you want to talk to if you want to bring on interviews it should be fun for you if it's not fun you're not going to do it so fun should be one of your goals and and especially in thinking about who you want to serve what kind of people would you be excited to serve because as real estate agents you could help anybody in your service and anybody where you're licensed you could help them buy or sell their home but who are the people that you love to work with that

give you life and make you so happy and you're just glad you know them. Who are the people you connect with the most easily? And so thinking about those kinds of things as you're defining what your topic or your subject matter is and who you're trying to attract. And then that keeps it fun. Man, making content about stuff you love is fun. It is. Yeah.

If you actually love it. Yes. And so the podcast that I started is technically my second podcast, but my first one only made it to episode seven. So there you go. That was years ago. But my my longest running podcast is actually about Girl Scouts. It's for Girl Scout troop leaders.

I'm a Girl Scout troop leader. I've been involved with Girl Scouts since I was five. It's a huge part of my life. And I never get sick of talking about it. And my family and friends are so patient with me because they don't care about it nearly as much as I do, but they know I care about it. But I just got to this point back in 2018, I was like, you know, I need an outlet where I can talk about Girl Scouts to other people who like to talk about.

Girl Scouts so that people who care about this as much as I do can listen to it and take that off my friends and family who could care less. And so I started a podcast about that and it's been going since 2018. Now granted, the number of people who would be interested in a Girl Scout podcast is a really small pool. So that podcast is never going to be the Joe Rogan experience. It's just not because my pool of people is so small, right? Compared to narratively. But regardless, the impact comes from even when I am off season and I'm not currently posting, you know, in the pandemic especially, everything was so on hold. It was everybody was emotionally strapped. And so I took a little bit of time off and I still would get messages from people talking about how much it impacted them, how much it affected their relationships with their daughters or it kept them motivated to keep going or it encouraged them to start a trooper to take over their kids trooper or whatever. And you get these messages that you've had an actual impact on people when it feels like you're just sitting in a room talking to yourself a lot of the time. And that's when you're like, I can't stop.

I can't. I have to keep going because this is why I wanted to do this in the first place. And channeling that kind of energy where it's fun and it makes you happy and it's what's important to you and you're connecting with other people who agree. That is life giving. Yeah. Gosh, it totally is. And I'm going to just like tee you up for this, but you also have another podcast. Yes.

Yeah. Yes. I actually, okay, I'm overkill, right? I have this problem where I have a million podcast ideas and I just always want to start new podcasts. So I actually technically have three podcasts. But if you're interested in learning more about podcasting, I have a podcast about podcasting for potential podcasters and current podcasters. and it's called the scrappy podcaster. Now, this is for people who don't know anything about podcasting.

They don't have all the fancy equipment. They've never edited audio. They have no idea. Like, how do you even get a podcast on the internet? And so it's all the things we've been talking about, but it's for people who don't know anything about starting a podcast or growing a podcast or monetizing a podcast. That's who it's for.

So it's on every platform where there are podcasts, wherever you like listening to podcasts, you can find it the scrappy podcaster or of course you can search my name sarah k here awesome and then that's also your website too right sarah kheater.com is my website that has a bunch more information and resources about podcasting as well as like my services and what i offer in helping people launch their show but i also um depending on the time of year a couple of times a year i open a course and if you want to launch your podcast yourself and so this is for if you want want to launch a podcast and you're going to do it on your own, then you want to go to

launch my show.com. If it's open, then you'll be able to sign up for the course right from there. And if not, that's how you get on the wait list so you know as soon as it opens again. That's awesome. What was that URL again? Launch my show.com. Yeah, I took a page out of your book and I've become a URL hoarder. So if you guys know Kevin, if you've been following him for a while, he collects website addresses for everything. And so just for fun. Yes, yes. And so I've become that person also. So thank you for that. That's awesome. Absolutely. Well, cool. So as we're winding down, is there, what's the one thing I should ask you, whether about what you do service-wise or just for podcasters in general or that podcasting mindset? What's one thing I should ask you about that I haven't?

You know what? I've edited your podcast long enough to know that you ask this question. And I should probably have. been more prepared, which is hilarious. But I think the biggest thing, I don't know what the question version of this would be, but I think the biggest thing that I just hope people take away from this is that you don't have to be techie. I hear this all the time, people saying, I'm allergic to tech or I don't know anything about technology. You don't have to be a tech nerd to launch a podcast. Podcasts have been all around for so long. And for so many years, it was such a small group of people who did it. And I think because they had to figure out how to do all this coding and complicated stuff on the back end when at this point it is so mainstream and it's

becoming more and more mainstream that it's so freaking easy to do and anybody can do it on any budget so it doesn't matter what your experience is it doesn't matter if you just started your real estate business or even if you haven't started it yet and you're still in school or you're thinking about real estate school or of course if you're not in real estate at all lots of people can just have podcasts um and so it doesn't matter what your experiences. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter if you already have an audience. This is a way to create one. If you do already have an audience, this is another way to connect with them or to grow it. It doesn't matter if you have a fancy microphone. Kevin is, if you're watching the video, he's wearing, he's using a fancy microphone, but he's wearing his wired earbuds that come with your iPhone. And the reality is when he first started podcasting, we talked about this. That microphone is actually. quite good for free 99, right? Exactly.

It's actually really pretty good quality. So you can literally start a podcast with just the microphone on those wired earbuds. And you'd be shocked at how passable the quality is. So you don't have to have fancy equipment. You don't have to have a big budget. You don't have to have any technology know-how. And you can launch a podcast. And I want to help because I want to help more people take this.

opportunity to literally build their own platform. You don't have to wait for somebody to let you in the door or to open the door for you. You build your own platform and use your voice because your voice matters. And people are waiting to hear what you have to say and waiting to be connected to the network or the community that you want to be part of and that you want to create. There are other people who are just wishing that existed. And so I want to help more people do that and also make money in their business. So that's that's what I want to do. And I really hope that this inspires some people to know that if this sounds, if you like to talk, because that's a big part of it, then podcasting could be a great fit for you. Yeah. Guys, check it out, the scrappy podcaster, sarah kheater.com. Of course, we'll link to that in the show notes and launch my show.com. And Sarah, thanks a lot for being a guest and allowing me to put you on the hot seat, so to speak. Yeah, this was so fun.

I'm glad we finally got to do this. Me too. I'm sure we'll hope maybe we do it again sometime soon. I love it. I'll talk to you soon. All right. Talk to you guys later. Have a good one.

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