WS1905 From Bankrupt to Breakthrough | Erik Allen

In this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking to Erik Allen, a podcasting expert who has overcome many challenges in his life. Erik shares his personal journey of growing up in a broken home, battling addiction, and finding redemption through his faith. He emphasizes the importance of changing one's environment and seeking out positive influences.

We then delved into the world of podcasting, with Erik providing valuable insights and tips for aspiring podcasters. He stresses the significance of launching a podcast on a topic that one is passionate about and finding ways to bring value to guests. Erik also discusses the importance of consistency and not giving up, as many podcasters tend to quit after just a few episodes.

We also touched on the topic of finding guests for a podcast. Erik recommends reaching out to guests through Instagram DMs and using personalized video messages to capture their attention. He emphasizes the importance of offering value to potential guests and focusing on promoting their work.

Overall, this episode provides valuable advice for anyone interested in starting a podcast or looking to improve their existing podcast. Erik's personal story and expertise in podcasting were truly inspiring, and I'm grateful to have had him as a guest on the show.


To connect with Erik Allen and learn more about his work, visit his website at ErikAllenMedia.com. You can also find him on Instagram at @erikgallen and on YouTube at Erik Allen Media. Don't miss out on the opportunity to connect with Erik and discover valuable insights in the world of podcasting and entrepreneurship.

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Transcript

Erik Allen: It was Easter 2004, and I went out and partied with some buddies, and I woke up Easter morning. I don't think that was a coincidence, but I felt God saying, dude, you're going down a path that's going to end your life real quick. And so in that moment, I gave my life to Christ, quit cold turkey drugs, drinking cigarettes, everything in that moment. And I called that girl up and I said, hey, thanks for inviting me to church. Maybe I'll see you at the store sometime. And we were married 11 months later, and now we've been married for almost 19 years.

Whitney Sewell: This is your daily real estate syndication show. I'm your host, Whitney Sewell. Today our guest, and he grew up in a broken home. He was jailed at 18, bankrupt at 21. He battled many addictions. Soon after, gave his life to Christ in 2004. Now he's been married for 18 plus years, sober for 18 plus years, and now he is helping entrepreneurs get known and noticed online. His name is Erik Allen. We're going to jump into a number of things, a lot around podcasting. He is an expert in podcasting and getting you noticed, even getting high profile guests on your show. He laid out some tips that you're not going to want to miss, which which was educational for me as well. Even after we've done so many interviews, we've not, I've not heard of some of these things before. So I know that you're going to learn a lot. Now, if you've not thought about creating your own podcast, you probably should. And this is going to be a great show for you, whether you're brand new to it or whether you've done hundreds of shows yourself. I get questions all the time about podcasting. After doing over 1,900 episodes, I mean, people want to know, man, Whitney, how did you do this? Why did you start a podcast? Should I start a podcast? What's the first step? And how do I get to show 20, right? Our guest today has already told me that it's much lower bar now that people are quitting at, but we're going to get into that. Our guest today is an expert in this topic, in helping people be amazing podcasting. Erik, welcome to the show.

Erik Allen: Man, Whitney, thank you so much for having me on your show, man. I appreciate it. And it's truly an honor to be here.

Whitney Sewell: Yeah. Honored to meet you and to have you, Erik, you know, before we get into some details around podcasting, which I know many of the listeners are, they want to know, all right. And many of them are starting podcasts or trying to raise money for investors or trying to educate investors or trying to, you know, right. They're building their brand, you know, and obviously that's a big thing that we've done through podcasting. And that's why people want to ask me about it more times than not. Right. But, uh, you know, I want to jump back a little bit, uh, but with you specifically and ask you about your background a little bit, getting into the podcasting business. But before that, I know there's some significant things in your life that, man, I know are impactful and will be impactful to the listeners in a big way.

Erik Allen: Yeah, I mean, I grew up in Eastern Washington, a place called Tri-Cities. And I thought I had the typical household. We played Little League. I went to Sunday school with my dad and my mom. And then my dad would take my best friend Dave and I and throw us in dumpsters behind big stores on Saturday morning and say, go find treasure. That was a like, I don't know. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm the only kid who went dumpster diving as a kid. But that was what we grew up on. And I thought I had that typical household. But my parents got divorced when I was 11 years old. My mom got together with a man who was very physically abusive almost immediately after that, where there would be times where I would remember being outside and looking through their bedroom fight and I would see him hitting her in the head with a cordless phone. You know, the police would show up after I'd call him and my mom would never press charges. It was like rinse and repeat all the time, rinse and repeat. And when they They decided then after that to do the smart thing, they got pregnant and they decided to move us in the middle of my eighth grade year to Stevensville, Montana. It was population 1,200 people up there and they rented this house. It was on beautiful property, five acres, two ponds right by the river. The problem was the house only had three bedrooms, right? So it was one for them, one for my little brother who's a couple months old at that time, and then one for my sister who's four years younger than me. And I said, Erik, you gotta live in the garage. So I literally had this plastic tarp in the middle of the garage that separated my bed from the truck. Now, luckily, my half of the garage had a fireplace in it that kept me semi-warm in the middle of the negative degree winters of Montana, but that was where I stayed. And there was a moment when I was about 13 years old that really changed the trajectory of my life. It was, you know, they came home early one night, wasn't anything different than any other night. But I remember being in my bathroom, brushing my teeth, And they came on market, and I just felt God in that moment go, dude, you got to turn around. You got to see what's going on. So the way the house was set up was behind me was the kitchen to the pantry to the garage door where my bedroom was at. And as I peeked around the corner, I saw this man on top my mom in the pantry way just boom, boom, boom. Punched her in the face. And I walked up behind him and I grabbed a cast iron pan and I swung as hard as I could and I split the back of his head open. I didn't knock him out. He turned around and he said, what? Then as he did that, he was met with another swing from the pan and split his forehead open. I fell over that second time. I remember standing up over me and he was yelling and screaming at my mom, like jumped up like mama bear, hit him like six times in a row, blood splat in the wall. This like crazy movie scene. Police finally show up, take him to jail for the night. My mom does a Prince charges, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, right? I thought it was the hero in that moment. And it wasn't actually much longer after that. I had three months left in my freshman year of high school. They kicked me out of that house. So I went to live with a buddy to finish up my freshman year, and then moved back to live with my dad back in Tri-Cities, who rented a house for him and I, put Hunger Man meals in the freezer, there was cereal milk in the house. I was never lacking of any food. He put 20 bucks in a cup for me for lunch for the week, and then he'd go stay with his girlfriend. So I'd see him a couple days a month maybe in passing. But what that allowed me to do was get into drugs pretty early on. So I was getting stoned before school at lunch after school. And by the time I was 18 years old, I was I was a senior in high school. But I got arrested for having a bong. And I had to go stay the night in jail. I was 145 pounds black and white chain gang outfit on bright orange slippers. And two weeks after I graduated high school woke up to a post it note on the bathroom mirror that said you can't comply with house rules. You have 48 hours to get out. So at that point, I was like, all right, we're getting into this adult thing really quick, quicker than I expected, right? And I ended up moving 21 times between the ages of 18 and 21, living on a couch here, couch there, couldn't keep a job for longer than a few months. I was living off credit cards. One of those moves was to Seattle, Washington, where I ended up literally working in the music industry and still battling addictions. And by the time I was 21, I was $28,000 in debt and I had to file bankruptcy. And that really just destroyed me from the internal side where I couldn't even get a savings account at a bank unless I had a co-signer. It was just this real rough time. But I was working for Universal Records, which didn't help my addictions. I was going to two to three concerts a week, and I was working backstage, and I had open tab, and then my one-year anniversary got laid off from them during the days of Napster. If people remember Napster, that really did hurt the music industry. And I ended up working for Starbucks at night. And I would get off work and go to my ghetto apartment there across the street from where Jimi Hendrix is buried. And I'd have a six-pack of beer and drink myself to sleep every night. And that was the rinse and repeat cycle that I was in. And then one night when I was at Starbucks, a girl had walked in and said, hey, we've got a cool college age event down at our church. Would you be interested in going? And I was depressed. I had no friends. And she was good looking. And I was like, yeah, what time do I need to be there? And I ended up going down there and I felt like God was planting the seed in me at that moment. It was a month later, it was Easter 2004, and I went out party with some buddies and I woke up Easter morning. I don't think that was a coincidence, but I felt God saying, dude, you're going down a path that's going to end your life real quick. And so in that moment, I gave my life to Christ, quit cold turkey drugs, drinking cigarettes, everything in that moment. And I called that girl up and I said, hey, thanks for inviting me to church. Maybe I'll see at the store sometime. And we were married 11 months later, and now we've been married for almost 19 years.

Whitney Sewell: Wow. That is so incredible. Eleven months later, and the listeners know this about me, I love you sharing your faith and just what the Lord had done. I think it's only the Lord that can allow you to quit those things. Go ahead.

Erik Allen: I was just gonna say, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for God, man. Definitely, all the glory goes to Him, man, for sure. My wife, who puts up with me, gave me a lot of grace and mercy in the early days, for sure.

Whitney Sewell: Wow. That's incredible. I, uh, yeah, I definitely have a heart for children that are like in your spot, right. When you were younger and, and, uh, uh, anyway, and the listeners know that when you and I can talk about it, but, but I just, I loved, I love your transparency around being able to share, right. The, the hardships there. I think there's, uh, many that are listening that can relate probably, and I've never told anyone, you know, And so I just appreciate your willingness and even giving Christ the honor of what's happened in your life and in your bride. And that's so amazing. Love it.

Erik Allen: Yeah, it's been a fun journey, man. You know, she her and I together breaking the chains of divorce, abuse, addiction and rejection, man. And she came from that crazy kind of home as well. And so, you know, when we said I do, we meant it. And here we are. And we're doing life together. And you know, she's she's definitely the stronghold for sure.

Whitney Sewell: That's fun. Well, well, you know, keep going a little bit to your your business career or now you're podcasting full time. What does that look like? You know, how did you what did that path look like? Why podcasting?

Erik Allen: Yeah, really, how I ended up getting out of that was I had to change the environment, right? So like people get stuck in the same environment where they want to get out of addiction, they want to get out of toxic relationships, but they don't change that environment. And for me, I really had to change that environment. And so I found men in the church that had great walks with Christ, they had great marriages, they were great business people. And I started taking them to Starbucks. This is pre podcast days. And I just said, tell me what you're doing to do right now what you're doing in your life. Like I want to understand what you're doing exact to have this awesome life that you have. And so it was really changing that environment. It was really a lot of time of prayer. And it was a lot of time just my wife and I, we spent the first five years just getting to know each other before we even had kids. And, you know, did Starbucks while realize it wasn't paying the bills that much and got back into like more of a corporate sales job and did that for a long time. And we moved to Idaho in 2014 and took a massive pay cut. But this whole time, God's just kind of been guiding us through. And I started podcasting in 2017. It was actually an MMA podcast when I first started. It was called Top Rated MMA and I was interviewing MMA fighters from around the world and just started asking them like, why do you want to get in a cage and get punched in the face? That was my main question around them. And it was so much fun to just hear their insights on things. But you know, I had no idea what I was doing, I didn't have a good camera, I was looking into like the screen, I wasn't looking into the lens, I had a bad microphone, I literally was in a walk in closet, we ran 100 foot extension around the bed in our bedroom into a closet where I where I had the the show for almost about 100 episodes in there. And yeah, it's, it's been a fun journey. But here we are now I've got two podcasts, right? I've stopped that one at the end of 2021. And now we have the Erik Allen show, and we're 250 show or so episodes into this one. And it's been a fun journey, man. I love helping people launch podcasts and really just showing the importance of podcasts. Because there's so many benefits. There's great relationships, there's collaborations, there's partnerships that come out of it, right? I think it's the greatest, most efficient way to market your brand. But I look at podcasting so much different than that. For me, it's legacy. I wish that I could go back three, four generations deep and hear my great-grandfather's voice and hear his story. from him, I can't do that. But I can do that for future generations down my tribe. They can look back and go, man, Grandpa Erik, he was awesome. He shared his story. I get to hear it from him directly. And that's really my whole perspective on podcasting.

Whitney Sewell: Love that. I have felt that personally. Listeners have heard me talk about it. We haven't talked about podcasting much in the last year or so, maybe, but especially in the first few years of doing our podcast, it was a common thing that we were talking about and people asking about are on the show and wanting me to talk about. but it's been so interesting to see how quickly my network grew. Actually, I want to go back on this for a second. You talked about in your story, you seeking out those men in your church. You saw them, you wanted something that they had, and didn't know how to get it, and so you went and you talked to them, asked them. I love that, that you went out and sought that and that these men were willing to pour into you. I've recently tried to seek that out in more aspects of my life as well. In business, I know I need mentors. I need coaches. I think that way. I didn't always, but there's some hard knocks. I figured out, okay, I need some people that are ahead of me, but I didn't always apply that spiritually. or think about, okay, you know, I need somebody mentoring me spiritually as well. And anyway, we got involved in a great church a number of years ago, and I seen that. These guys, these men didn't even know they were mentoring me, but I saw how they loved their spouses, and how they led in their homes, their children, they prayed with their kids, all these things that I didn't receive growing up either. And it's like, well, okay, I should be doing that. But I saw it. But on the business front, podcasting has brought a lot of that. I've met now almost 2000 different people in the business in one form or fashion who many times are way ahead of me in business. And it builds a relationship, right? It's built a connection. And, you know, and they're reaching back out to me for something, or I'm reaching back out to them to help in some way or to ask a question. And I think the podcast has done that in a such a big way. And like you said, numerous benefits, but why don't you hammer on that just a minute, you know, some of the other benefits about podcasting and, you know, that, you know, Hey, if you're not doing a podcast, here's some reasons why, especially if you're in business or, you know, in the real estate business or whatever, why you should really consider this.

Erik Allen: Yeah, I mean, I think podcasting, like I said, number one, it's a great way to market your brand and build relationships and network with people. You know, I think I've gone on trips, I've gotten free product, like I've gotten awesome collaborations and partnerships, but it's the people that I've met through podcasting that have impacted my life. Some of my best friends today are people that have been on my show. I've been on their show, but it's just been an amazing journey through podcasting of pushing myself like I still worked a full time job up until the end of this last year, and unfortunately, you know, fell to some of the layoffs that are happening across the world, but. through that full time, I knew that I wanted to be able to do a podcast. And so I get up at 4am six days a week to make sure that my podcast is being worked on every single day. It's like any craft out there, but podcasting, again, so beneficial around the business side of stuff. But it's also a mental thing for me, too, because I know that when I get up, I'm excited because this is what I love. I love talking with people and networking with people and hearing their story. And I think it's so important to share your story. And there's a lot of people out there that are shy and they don't want to step into that. But that's really where you see growth, right? You get out of your comfort zone. And if you can do that on your podcast, whether it's a solo show or you're interviewing people, like, get out and just share your story, even if you don't release it, right? Like, just keep it for your legacy, for your tribe down the line so they can hear your story.

Whitney Sewell: You know, why don't you speak to some of the how to's around getting started in podcasts and maybe some crucial things that, you know, even around launching, maybe that, uh, I get questions about that often and it's probably changed. And I, and unfortunately I didn't know any of these things when I started, you know, the podcast, you know, that I've learned now, but I know you're a lot better at this than I'll ever be. So, you know, speak to some crucial things around a successful launch, some things you need to think through maybe before, you know, starting your show that are crucial, solo, you know, versus interviewing, whatnot.

Erik Allen: Yeah, most of the time I would I would tell people that go through my courses is look, find other podcasts out there that are maybe talking about a similar topic that you want to talk about. And when you're launching a podcast, launch something that you're passionate about, right? It could be quilting, it could be shoveling snow, like whatever you're passionate about, there's going to be people that are going to listen to that. And if you go to search on podcasts, and you don't find one, launch it because people are needing that and just someone hasn't launched it yet. But there's probably a likelihood that you will find a podcast out there that's similar to the topic that maybe you want to talk about. So number one, look out there, see what other people are doing. Pick bits and pieces off that you like. Hey, I like how they did that intro or I like how they inserted that ad in there or I like that type of question. Right. Go do your research, find something, but don't let that hold you back from actually launching. I think too many people get hung up and like, oh my gosh, I have so much stuff to do, I want to get this lined up, launch it. Number two, I would say is record five to eight episodes before you launch your first episode. And I didn't do that. But I would say the reason because I didn't know, right, I had to go through this journey on my own. I didn't even know what about Apple podcast, I was 100 episodes, 100 episodes in, I was just releasing to YouTube and call that a podcast. And so I was like, Well, how do I listen on Apple? And I was like, What the heck is that? So I learned through failure in this. So what I would say is record five to eight episodes before you launch your show, because if you just go release one, that puts a lot of pressure on you to release that second one and that third one right away. Build up your queue. then go to release it. And once you do release it, email it to your friends, message it to your family, right? Say, hey, check this out. Please just go listen to it. Even if it's a few minutes, I would just love the support. If you could subscribe to it, leave me a review. That would be awesome. One thing I say is don't approach them and say, leave a five star review. I say leave an honest review, because that's what builds in, I think, trust with your other listeners when they get to your page. If they just see five star reviews and everything's gloating, then that might get turned off a little bit, right? I say just leave an honest review. So one, build your queue up five to eight episodes. And number two, do your research, find another show out there, pick out bits and pieces that you like, and then decide what's the journey that you're going to take listeners on. Are you going to take them through a how-to type show, or are you going to take them through an emotional roller coaster where you're talking with people about maybe the losses, and then how do they overcome that? Figure out what that journey is, write that down. And then you can always adjust that too, but really kind of have those three things in place and then just launch and then stay consistent. That's the one thing. that I think people fail at. You and I chatted before hit record about 90% of people who start a podcast don't make it to episode seven. It's because they don't have that queue built up, they think it's more work, they think they're going to be the next Joe Rogan, right? Like, they, they just need to go launch that thing. And they need to put in a little bit of work, but stay consistent. My show drops every Friday at 7am Pacific for the last four or five years now. And if you can do that, your listeners will start to pick up on it. Plus, they'll get those reminders from Apple and YouTube that, hey, the show's about to launch, right? So stay consistent. That's a big one. That's a big one. And then just don't quit. You want to be successful in podcasting? Just don't quit because everyone else will and you'll end up being successful in it.

Whitney Sewell: Yeah, that should motivate you. If you're really motivated to go do this, right. That most people are going to quit at seven. And, and I, I tell, I often tell people that, uh, you know, your first show is going to be horrible. Just get over it. You're not going to like how you sound. I definitely don't like how I sound even after however many shows, you know, uh, but yeah, you got to get past that. Uh, and you're not going to get to show 20 without getting the first one done or the seventh one. Right. I love that. I love those, um, you know, the three or four things to think through, even the, you know, even down to being consistent and go and even having those batched up in the very beginning. Uh, like you said, it could, it can be pretty overwhelming. You know, and especially in the very beginning, I knew I had to build a team to help me produce the show. And I think if I hadn't have done that, then I would have quit a long time ago. You know, I mean, I would have, there's no way I could have kept up.

Erik Allen: There's it's tough, man. And I do everything on my own. I do all the editing and promoting and publishing all of that. And it's a lot of work, but I love doing it. It's it's really what I'm passionate about. And so I think if people can realize that they're getting into something that's going to either if they have the money to build a team and have them do that, or they have the resources to do that, I think that's awesome. But don't let the work hold you back from sharing your story, put in a little bit of work. and it will pay off in the end, I promise you. Just put your story out there because it will impact. Even if it just impacts one person, you're good. But I think it will impact way more than you expect.

Whitney Sewell: What about the level of equipment that people need? You briefly hit this earlier, but I thought it's worth mentioning again or going in more depth because often people think they got to have a fancy mic like this. I didn't have this till probably two or 300 shows ago. I had an $80 mic from Amazon, which worked great. I've done thousands and thousands of interviews with it. And so I just, anyway, I'd love your opinion about type of equipment or anything specific to get a listener started or yeah, when they're getting going.

Erik Allen: It's so important. I mean, I think that does hang up a lot of people like, oh my gosh, I have to have the right equipment and things like that. Your webcam on your laptop works just fine. If you really want to watch a podcast, just do it. I mean, now you can start your show for free on Anchor in five minutes. You create an account, and you set it up. But when I first started, I had just a laptop webcam. And then I added a Logitech webcam. And I upgraded that a couple of times. And I went to a Canon camera. And then now I have the Sony ZV-E10. So I've upgraded quite a bit over the years. And this microphone, I've upgraded just like four or five mics now. This is now the Shure SM7B, but you don't have to worry about the expensive stuff to get started. You can literally just use your phone and some headphones if you really wanted to launch this thing. Don't let that hold you back. increase, you know, add different equipment as you go down the road. But if you want to get out there, just do it. Don't let that, you know, price points hold you back. I used a $40 snowball bike for the first year and a half that I was snow that I was doing podcasting. So, you know, I think just get into it, find something cheap on Amazon, you might find some used ones on Facebook marketplace, but just get started, man.

Whitney Sewell: Awesome. Erik, you know, one big thing that we've always struggled with, and I get questions about this too, you know, is finding guests. Right. And, and I mean, the finding as many as we've had to find, I mean, I know early on, I just remember this cause it was such a major ordeal to get 30 shows a month. We'd have to, we might have to send three to 400 invites. Okay. Especially early. And we have a lot more people now that want to be on the show. Right. So it's a lot easier now. But early on, I mean, that's somebody is just going nonstop, just find enough guests almost. Right. But, you know, so maybe speak to how you find guests in the beginning and then when when and how you find even bigger name guests, when you should do that and how you pursue them.

Erik Allen: Yeah, I think a lot of people take the same exact approach when it comes to inviting guests on their show. What they have is they have this template of like, Hey, here's my show. I want you to be a guest on my show. And they just send that to their DMs or their email it. I did that at the beginning. Don't do that. Don't don't do that. Here's what I would recommend doing is I would recommend and I've been doing this really since probably episode 50 of the very first podcast I started is I quickly realized that that wasn't very effective. And so what I do now is I actually pull out my phone and I'll send a selfie video, no longer than 30 seconds. It has to be 30 seconds or less. But I might, if I was reaching out to Ed Milet, I might go, Ed, what's going on? This is Erik Allen out here in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. I love your book, Power of One More, man. It's so good. It's impacted my life. Let me help you promote that. I want to help you get sales on that thing. Let's talk about that book. Let's do it, man. Here's below is my calendar link. Let's make it happen. 30 seconds. And the way I approach it is I want to bring value to them. Let me help you promote this. Hey, I saw you launch this course. Let me help you promote that. Oh, you got a new book? Let's promote the book. You got an event coming up? Let's promote the event. Approach it like that. Let me help you promote this. People love free marketing. They love free exposure to their products, right? And so if I approach them and say, Hey, can I pick your brain for 30 minutes or let's go have a coffee chat? No, they're going to say no. But if I say, let me help you promote this product that you have so you can make money. Heck yeah. Let me come on your show and do that. That's the way to approach your guests, bring value to them. Don't, it's not about your show. What can, what value can you help them show bring? And so, man, let me help you promote that book. Let me help promote that event.

Whitney Sewell: Should they do that? I got questions about that as well. But as far, you know, when should they do that? Should they reach out to somebody like that within the first few shows? Should they wait till they got a hundred episodes? Somebody downloads or, you know, how do you, when should they do that?

Erik Allen: Yeah, you can really, I think you can definitely try to reach out to bigger name guests, but I would start at someone who's a couple steps ahead of you. If you've got 10 shows out or you're just starting, find someone who's got 10, 15, maybe 30, or maybe even 50 episodes out, right? Approach them and say, man, I saw you're doing a great job on your podcast or hey, I'd love to help you promote that, right? I would start there. But as you start to grow and you start to increase the number of downloads or increase the number of episodes that you release, then you could start to reach out to those folks. I mean, I got lucky, and I think that it's luck and hard work, but like I had Sean Whalen was episode eight or six, and then Ed Milet was episode 12 on my show, right? And then it just started taking off from there. And now I've been blessed to speak to amazing people, 240 plus shows now on the Erik Allen Show. But I started with doing show swaps. I found people who had similar podcast sizes as me. Hey, can we just do a show swap? You come on my show, let's talk about you, and I'll come on your show and talk about that. That's the greatest way to improve or to increase your exposure, right? Also, be a guest on other people's shows. That's, that's another great way to blow up your show. In 2020, I set a goal to be a guest on 50 podcasts, and I only did 25. And so at the end of the year, it's like, that's all I got 25. And so I went into 2021, I said, I'm be a guest on 100 podcasts this year. Now I was also going to release 100 of my own show that year. So people thought I was crazy. But I finished that show doing 117 interviews on other people's podcasts and released 100 of my own. And that's when my show really hit that hockey stick. And that's really where I started to make a bigger impact.

Whitney Sewell: Some great suggestions. What about, you mentioned, I love the video, the video idea, right? Sending them a video, you're calling them by name. It's obvious. It's something you're very focused on them. It's not a something you're just sending to hundreds of people. Where do you send it? How do you get that to them or in front of them?

Erik Allen: Yeah. Great question. I book 99% of my guests through Instagram DM. I just send it to their DM on Instagram. Now, I might follow up that video with just a very short message. Hey, Ed, podcast question for you, or podcast interview request, right? Like, please check out the video. I don't go into detail in the text. I want them to draw. I want them to be curious about that video where they will listen to it and hear my passion, because I'm very sincere when I send those videos, right? And I want to make sure that when they hear my voice, they go, man, This guy, he he's real, like he's the real deal. Like he definitely is not just trying to get me on there to say he was on my show. Like he's sincere about actually bringing value.

Whitney Sewell: Great advice, man. That is, that is incredible. What about, uh, uh, you talked about, yeah. Guesting on other shows. Is there, are you picking them the same way? Say they're a little bit ahead of you or are you trying to find, you know, is there a certain number of downloads you're looking for on certain shows? You know, how are you maximizing your impact there?

Erik Allen: Yeah, really. So there's a couple things. One, I would reach out, there's a lot of Facebook groups where you can find a guest or be a guest on podcast, right? There's there's a ton out there. And that's what really helped me to launch my show at that time to get booked on 100 shows. I was in probably six or seven different Facebook groups. And I was posting each of those groups once a quarter. And I would say, hey, here's what I'm doing. I have a goal to be a guest on 100 podcasts this year. Here's my story. If you're interested, there's a good fit. Let's make it happen. And I would get 10, 15 bookings off of each of those posts every time. So that really helped me a lot. Now, when it comes to like finding other shows, I really find shows that are more topic similar versus size. And the reason I say that is I want people to understand that don't look at the numbers when you first get started, because it can be very detrimental to your mindset. I'm going to get 1,000 downloads per episode, and you go in there, and you get 20. And you're like, dang it. It's not working. I want to quit. So I always tell my students to come through my course. I didn't look at numbers or downloads for five years. I just didn't care. I did podcasting because I'm passionate about it, and I love what I get to do. And now I look occasionally, but it's like, If I'm bringing value to somebody, I don't care about the numbers. If one person downloads that show, that's all that matters to me, right? Too many people get hung up on the numbers and they end up quitting. So I think when you're reaching out to other podcasts, find a similar topic and find somebody that you follow, connect with them on Instagram, make some comments on their posts, like start to engage with them on there and then reach out. Hey man, I've been following you for a while. I love what you're doing. You're doing some awesome stuff. I'd love to see if maybe you, you know, we could do a show swap or something like that. And that really will help you build your brand, your network, your relationships as a podcaster.

Whitney Sewell: Great advice. Erik, I want the listeners to know we're going to do a series with Erik. We're going to do another show tomorrow. Erik, we're going to stop this segment here, but continue the conversation tomorrow. We're going to dive into some, some metrics that you track, increasing downloads, some techniques around that. I know. And I also want to hear about, uh, you know, nailing down your, your presentation, right. Or your story or things that you should be presenting. We're going to get into a number of those things and some others tomorrow. Erik, how can the listeners get in touch with you and learn more about you?

Erik Allen: Thank you. Yeah. ErikAllenMedia.com. It's E-R-I-K-A-L-L-E-N-Media.com is my website. I'm pretty active on Instagram. So it's just Erik G. Allen. And then on YouTube is just Erik Allen Media. So I post all of my shows on there as well as audio format. And I do a daily shorts kind of push out there as well. So if people want to connect, I respond to every DM, every comment that comes through or contact us on the, on my website there, but love connect with people, reach out. And certainly just an honor to be on your show.

Whitney Sewell: Thank you for being with us again today. I hope that you have learned a lot from the show. Don't forget to like and subscribe. I hope you're telling your friends about the Real Estate Syndication Show and how they can also build wealth in real estate. You can also go to lifebridgecapital.com and start investing today.