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Bill Risser's Real Estate Sessions podcast, which began in 2015, has grown remarkably over nine years, featuring nearly 400 episodes that delve into the stories of real estate professionals. Initially focused on how guests entered the real estate industry, the podcast has evolved to include in-depth interviews with established and emerging leaders. Bill Risser reflects on the history of the Real Estate Sessions podcast, which he has been hosting for nine years. He started the podcast to explore the stories and backgrounds of industry leaders and up-and-comers in the real estate world. Despite the challenges of producing the podcast, Bill Risser takes pride in his unique and evergreen content, highlighting the interesting backgrounds and advice shared by his guests over the years.
00:00:03 - Bill Risser
You're listening to The Real Estate Sessions, and I'm your host, Bill Risser. With nearly 25 years in the real estate business, I love to interview industry leaders, up and comers, and really anyone with a story to tell. It's the stories that led my guests to a career in the real estate world that drives me into my 9th year and nearly 400 episodes of the podcast. And now I hope you enjoy the next journey. Hi everybody. Welcome to episode 394 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. As always, thank you so much for tuning in. And thank you so much for telling a friend. Last week, the Real Estate Sessions podcast celebrated its 9th anniversary.
00:00:40 - Bill Risser
Episode one was published on July 31, 2015. As I've mentioned many times, you all know Jay Thompson was my first guest. So why podcasting? Right? Podcasting was starting to grow and I wanted to build a show, interview some guests, and figure out how to edit and host a podcast. The curious type, to a fault at times, according to Cindy. And I love getting the details of a guests background. So this attempt to build a podcast was exciting because of the curiosity thing. There was no doubt it would be interview style, even if it is the most popular format by far, even to this day.
00:01:16 - Bill Risser
Side note here, one day I would love to do a narrative style podcast with interviews of multiple people woven around a guest or a topic that plays out in five or six episodes. It'd be a ton of work, but it'd also be a lot of fun. What did I use when I got started? I'd go to meeting to record audio. My airpods were my mic imovie, I edited the audio, and Libsyn was my host on the show. The plan was, I don't know, ten or so episodes and take the knowledge I picked up to help any agents looking to publish a podcast.
00:01:47 - Bill Risser
Well, 393 episodes, not to mention 20 ranting and ravings with Joe Rand and numerous real estate session rewinds later. I have not missed publishing an episode every Tuesday for the last nine years. Now I'm reaching a point in my career in personal life that is causing me to consider bringing the real estate sessions to a close.
00:02:09 - Bill Risser
My new role with FNF keeps me extremely busy. My personal daily goal of walking 6 miles a day during the week and up to 10 miles on the weekend also takes at least another 2 hours a day. And of course, there was time with Cindy and Ted. I need to make the quality of that time better. And last but not least, I want to build time into my schedule to continue working on John Biorli's journey, the book. Every week I get a few more tidbits from John, and I need to log these in a more structured manner, and I want to dedicate some more time to that. You know, finding the time to book guests, research, prepare exactly twelve questions. I know a little OCD there, record the interview, edit the episode, create the episode, and captivate, which, by the way, is a kick ass hosting site if you're looking for one, and then create show notes, transcripts, and social content.
00:02:55 - Bill Risser
Now Podflow AI has seriously reduced the time for this step, but still, all of that altogether is just getting tougher and tougher to accomplish. But stopping after nine years seems a bit odd, while making it to ten years evens it out. You saw what I did there, right Sean? So how do I get the real estate sessions all the way to July 31, 2025? I believe the way to get that done is to continue to focus on the shortcuts, these quick ten minute or so catch ups with past guests.
00:03:26 - Bill Risser
They're easy to produce and to be honest, a lot of fun. I also want to work more monologues into season ten. This episode is a monologue. These will be short, say, four to seven minutes that touch on something interesting in the real estate world. Most of the time there'll be other times I want to riff on stories outside real estate. Sports will definitely be a part of this. And as for other topics, we'll see what pops up as we go. And of course, there will be some regular episodes of the real estate sessions. I have one or two in the can already that we're holding back for book launches, so it is going to be a mixture of different things now. I'm proud of the over 400 episodes that make up the real estate sessions. The podcast is a bit different than most real estate interview shows. I wince every time I check out an interesting guest on another podcast, usually for research, and the host says, can you give us the 1 minute quick take on where you were born and how'd you get to real estate? And the fact that I took the time to research a bit about their past enabled my guests to share some very interesting stories of their lives before real estate entered the picture.
00:04:32 - Bill Risser
These ten to 15 minutes opening segments were always my favorite part of the episode. Still are. They're also evergreen, as they will never be outdated. For example, some of the content we covered in 2016 doesn't really apply to the current real estate world, but the fact that Julie Scott, a lender in Fort Myers, was a ballerina in a San Francisco company that catered to tall ballerinas. She's 6ft tall. Or that Karen Carr with Real was an opera singer out of college, by the way, also 6ft tall. Those will always be fascinating to listen to. The final question is also important to me. With nearly 400 answers, it is amazing how many unique answers are given. The question is, what one piece of advice would you give a new agent? Just getting started. This could be a book someday, but one I love to share is from Jeff Seabok of the Seabok team at Exp Realty.
00:05:22 - Bill Risser
His reply was in your 1st 30 days, go visit 200 listings. Perfect. So feel free to share with friends and family that if you want a deep look into the background of some of the coolest people in real estate around the world, check out the episode list on the real estate sessions. Well, that's it for now. Thank you for listening. And if you have a minute to spare, please leave a review at the site that closes every show. Thank you for listening to the real estate sessions. Please head over to ratethispodcast.com resessions to leave a review or a rating and subscribe to the Real Estate Sessions podcast at your favorite podcast listening app.
