How Real Estate Pros Can Turn Podcasting Into a Lead Generation Machine

Mischa Zvegintzov (00:00)
my gosh, the connections you can make. I’ll tell you what I would do if I was a real estate pro, I would start a podcast and I would create the angle of the podcast about how I could make my target audience shine. So for example, if I was a simple real estate agent, I don’t mean simple, but if I was a real estate agent to keep it simple, I would start a real estate.

I would start a local business podcast that highlighted the local businesses. And then I would start calling all business owners saying, hey, I want you to be on my show. Would you love to be on my show and tell me your story?

Scott Bursey (02:15)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pro Podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host Scott Bursey and today we’re diving into the world of media and connection. We have a game changer in the studio who’s bringing the absolute fuel you’ll need to accelerate your network and elevate your deal flow. He’s the creator of Podcast Email Finder and the founder of Be Love Media. Mischa.

Zvegintzov is here to show us how to transform digital connection into real estate gold. Let’s hit the gas. Mischa, welcome to the show and please tell us how to properly pronounce your last name.

Mischa Zvegintzov (02:56)
Zweg and Zav. Zweg and Zav.

Scott Bursey (02:59)
Okay,

well welcome to the show. This is awesome having you here.

Mischa Zvegintzov (03:06)
pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Scott Bursey (03:08)
For our guests who may not be familiar with your journey, please tell us how did your career begin and what is your main focus now?

Mischa Zvegintzov (03:19)
Yeah, boy, that’s such a great question. So when I got serious about my professional career, I got my commodity broker’s license, which is your series three, I think it is, whatever. But basically what that meant was in the ⁓ late 90s, that’s the 1990s before 2000, anyone listening if you’re like, my gosh, there was actually a different century? Yes, there was, but I… ⁓

got into boiler room telemarketing sales. So I was hand dialing 150 to 200 calls a day. I was handed a script, say this, and ⁓ I started getting my chops, did that for about three years. TechBoom was in full swing in sanfranciscobayarea.com bubble, you know, the 2000 timeframe. So jumped into there. They loved my… ⁓

Aggressive phone nature my phone skills. I was getting really good on the phones, but there I started doing some door-to-door sales as well business to business so I would cold call ⁓ dot coms in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dot com market crashed and the only job I could get was in the San Diego area as a loan officer and I was like anything but loans. I’m gonna have to wear a suit and tie.

That’s gonna be hell. So in 2001, I became a loan officer and everything came together for me and I crushed it for about 15 years, just lots of telemarketing, built telemarketing teams, sent flyers out to get the phones to ring. ⁓ You know, went through your standard midlife crisis, divorce, failed relationships, blah, blah. These days, I help people guest speak on podcasts and…

and ⁓ do outreach. So many of us get stuck on the literal outreach and I have a gift for it. So I’m just like, hey man, take the messy action. Let’s go take the action. So yeah, I’ve got my Podcast Email Finder so you can find the podcast email. Then you can pitch that podcast, get on the show. And man, there’s so much ⁓ value in guest speaking on podcasts like

save that for later. But go ahead, does that answer your question?

Scott Bursey (05:42)
Okay,

it most certainly does and that’s an incredible journey and I for one really tip my hat to you for you know overcoming a lot of hurdles and and having a huge impact in the space. That’s incredible.

Mischa Zvegintzov (06:48)
Yeah, thank you.

Scott Bursey (06:48)
You know,

Mitchell, what really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to leverage podcasting and media connections to create highly targeted business opportunities, essentially turning an interview into a lead generation machine.

Mischa Zvegintzov (07:09)
Yes, exactly. It’s incredibly powerful. But really guest speaking on podcasts is so powerful. Most people just think of the call to action that you give at the end as the value of guest speaking on podcasts. So for example, you’re going to say, hey, Mischa, can

people find you and I’m gonna say go to podcastemailfinder.com and you know, find me there and join my thing, right? That’s great, but the reality is is that the host himself or herself will be a prospect. So you having me on the show shows that you’re interested in what I do and are like, wait a minute, I might actually want to do what you’re talking about.

So one out of, these are the numbers, one out of 10 shows that I speak on, the host buys my product and joins my thing. Okay? The host, if they like you, will recommend you to somebody. Because they’re gonna like, man, this Mischa guy’s smart. I got some clients, you’ve got real estate investor clients who wanna get the word out. And so you’d be like, you know what, gotta talk to this guy Mischa, you’ve been talking about.

You want to get on stages, want to get on podcasts. Talk to me. One out of 10 hosts at least will recommend you somebody who will buy. There’s collaboration opportunities. might tell me go, you might go, hey, I got a group. Man, would you talk to my investors directly? Like let’s do a big zoom. Right. Then there’s the repurposing of the content. There’s the branding, there’s the SEO, there’s.

That’s incredible. And then there’s the bonus eighth, which is the transformation. Like if you commit to a podcast tour, you will be a different person from beginning to end. You will be a different person. You’ll be better on stage. You’ll be better on camera. ⁓ You’ll have more confidence. Maybe some of us don’t need that, but.

I could go on. ⁓

Scott Bursey (09:18)
Mischa, I

for one will recommend you anywhere, anytime. It’s time to fuel up. And Mischa, curious on your view here, what’s the biggest strength a real estate pro gains by having their own niche podcast?

Mischa Zvegintzov (09:25)
Thank you, Scott.

my gosh, the connections you can make. I’ll tell you what I would do if I was a real estate pro, I would start a podcast and I would create the angle of the podcast about how I could make my target audience shine. So for example, if I was a simple real estate agent, I don’t mean simple, but if I was a real estate agent to keep it simple, I would start a real estate.

I would start a local business podcast that highlighted the local businesses. And then I would start calling all business owners saying, hey, I want you to be on my show. Would you love to be on my show and tell me your story?

Let’s promote your business, right?

Well, I don’t know, one out of 10 business owners is going to be buying a piece of property, selling a piece of property, have a kid that’s buying or selling a piece of property, or maybe they want a second home or like now you’ve got a reason to talk to them. And as you’re putting out the content, you could break that content out over a year’s time and say, I just put out a piece of content. I just put out a piece of content. I just put out a piece of content. And then your top of mind.

to that potential customer. Does that make sense? That’s like a super simple idea.

Scott Bursey (11:35)
Mischa, I’d say that strength is the instant authority and trust you need to build as the go-to expert. Spot on.

Mischa Zvegintzov (11:45)
Yeah.

Scott Bursey (11:48)
Let’s go under the hood and listen to the engine. What is the most common pitfall people make when trying to secure high value podcast guests in the real estate space in your view?

Mischa Zvegintzov (12:03)
In my view, in the real estate space, they overthink the pitch and they write too long of a story and they get too dependent on AI. So keep the pitch simple. That would be what I would say. And I can go deeper on that if you want me to.

Scott Bursey (12:23)
Please yes if you could take us down a little bit of a ⁓ little further down the path.

Mischa Zvegintzov (12:30)
Sure. So I’ve got various style pitches, but one is called the five sentence pitch that works. It’s my myth buster pitch. And basically it’s the ⁓ framework is this, get your pens ready, anybody watching listening. So ⁓ subject is, you know, ⁓ founder of blah, blah, blah, real estate or what have you, right?

you want to have an industry shift. You’re looking for a hook, right? So it is, hey, person, I’m the founder of blank. ⁓ I have a counterintuitive take on industry trend that your audience might find valuable. And then you put a little value bridge in there. And then if you think this would serve, please let me know the next steps. Applied to me.

Hey, Scott, most founders think that getting on top tier podcast requires warm intros or a $10,000 a month PR retainer. That’s wrong. The real bottleneck is simply finding the right contact. If you fix the finding problem, pitching takes 30 seconds. I’d love to share how finders are booking themselves without agencies. If you think this would serve, please let me know your next steps.

the value bridges, I’d love to share how founders are booking themselves without agencies. Make sense?

Scott Bursey (14:05)
Mischa, I love the cadence. The cadence is so, so critical in connecting, isn’t it?

Mischa Zvegintzov (14:14)
Yes. Yeah. Most pitches are overwritten, meaning that they’re really, really long. We tell too much about ourselves. We don’t really frame how we can serve the host’s audience. It’s like mostly comes across as self-serving, right? So we think we’re like, we’ll tell your podcast, your ⁓ audience this, which is like, how great I am versus like, here’s something that they can apply.

to real life, for example.

Scott Bursey (14:45)
Always put the focus on the guest.

Mischa Zvegintzov (14:49)
Yes.

Scott Bursey (14:51)
If you could take us down the road on this particular question here.

Now as far as untapped opportunity for you know our listeners out there in the media connection space if they would like to implement to start their own podcast some words of wisdom.

Mischa Zvegintzov (15:14)
my gosh. One, we don’t have an audience to offend. So I think the holdup for most people is like, I don’t want to offend anybody or, or look bad, you know, start a podcast and look bad, but you don’t have an audience. So there’s no one to look bad to, right? Yet. When you start, I think the biggest opportunity is, ⁓ doing what we talked about earlier. And is that is starting a podcast.

and bringing on your target market and making it about them and whatever that is. Like, can you frame that podcast so it’s about that target audience? I don’t know if that’s too ambiguous for you, I think that that’s what, yeah.

Scott Bursey (16:51)
It makes sense. tell me, how does that shift the needle for your bottom line?

Mischa Zvegintzov (17:00)
Well…

Number one, you have an excuse to reach out to the person, to your target audience, and so you will learn how to communicate with them better. You will learn their true pains. You will learn their ⁓ frustrations. You’ll learn their language.

You will literally learn how to sell them better.

So there’s that. God, there’s just so many benefits to it.

Yeah.

Scott Bursey (17:39)
like the real estate pros out there, our listeners, our target group, if they wanted to start a podcast, what would you recommend as far as being able to have a high level podcast? Connecting with people, you’ve hit on a little bit of that and some other advice that you could give our listeners if they wanted to start a podcast to spread their message.

Mischa Zvegintzov (18:06)
Yeah, so there’s two kinds of podcasts you can do generally. I call them like interview podcasts or riff episode podcasts where you’re just riffing. You’re not interviewing anybody and you’re just talking about if you’re riffing. So if you want to do that kind of a podcast and you want to talk about your what you’re learning, what your journey is, give out real information. And when I say that, I would say your secrets. Right.

⁓ If you’re interviewing people, ⁓ you did a great job Scott of doing some research on me upfront and that’s how you make a valuable podcast. You do some research upfront, find out about your person you’re interviewing and then have questions ready. Have questions ready. I think winging it is not a good way to go.

And I think a lot of popular podcasts where it looks like they’re winging it, it’s cause they’re pros and they know how to make it look like they’re winging it when they’re not. It’s like a comedian doing his show on stage, the gifted comedians. It’s like, man, this guy is just like, where is he coming up with this stuff? It looks like it’s spontaneous, but those pros, man, they have it down to a science. know what they’re going to ask when, et cetera, et cetera.

Scott Bursey (19:36)
Preparation is key, no question about that. The behind the scenes work, I think, really makes a podcast. What’s the biggest opportunity out there in your view right now for people that would like to create their own podcasts?

Mischa Zvegintzov (19:56)
Yeah, well let’s talk about real estate. mean I think that there’s so much change happening

In real estate on one hand and there’s constant. Well, what would I want to say?

If I was trying to, I was in home loans for 15 years. I have a finance degree. And then when I was in the commodities markets, ⁓ I sold S and P futures and bond futures and options and stuff like that. So I’m very versed in interest rates. I’m very versed in that language. I can give a strong opinion on where I think the market’s going, things like that. ⁓

I would say find what your skill is or what you know about and lean into it and learn more and talk about that. So I look at it go, well, man, if I was going to start a real estate podcast today and I wanted to become a more knowledgeable and known and grow that audience, man, I would be talking about interest rates every day. I’d be talking about the debt. I’d be talking about money supply. I’d be talking about Trump and the Fed and the battle there and,

You know, if I was gearing it towards home loans, I would be saying now is the time to lock in your rate and buy. Right? I don’t know. There you go. A few minutes on that.

Scott Bursey (21:28)
Yeah, the focal points.

Absolutely. Tell us a little bit about your, your coaching as it relates to podcasts, please.

Mischa Zvegintzov (21:35)
Yeah, indeed. So excuse me. I’m very much about taking action, taking action, taking action. So ⁓ my influence army, I help people go on what’s called a podcast guest speaking tour. That’s what I like to call it. Like how would your life change if you guest spoke on 50 podcasts in a hundred days? How would your business change if you guest spoke on 50 podcasts in a hundred days? Like it would transform.

There’s just no way around it. Your business would have tremendous growth. You would have tremendous personal growth, things like this. You would learn so much. ⁓ But what I say, so what I do around that is like, okay, like let’s build your target list. Let’s get your pitch in order. Start sending the pitches. ⁓ know, things like that. And most people go like this. go, well, I don’t have my one sheet ready.

I still don’t have a one sheet, Scott. I’ve spoken on over 100 podcasts. I’m on stages. I’m here. You didn’t get a one sheet from me. I’m like, you don’t need a one sheet until somebody asks you for a one sheet. Start sending pitches. Right? And then it’s basically what’s going on. And then I have a ton of frameworks. I just have all these frameworks to teach people how to maximize the opportunity, how to. ⁓

build their business by guest speaking on podcasts. That’s the influence army. That’s what I call it.

Scott Bursey (23:08)
And I loved how you framed that. Mischa, you’ve given us so much wisdom and good solid advice here today. What are some golden nuggets or some additional words of wisdom that you could leave with our listeners today?

Mischa Zvegintzov (23:25)
Yeah, let’s see.

I’m gonna say that the best is the enemy of more than good enough.

The best is the enemy of more than good enough. So many of us are taught and have the message pounded in our head, be the best, be the best, be the best. But a lot of time we don’t need to be the best, we just need to take messy action. So the enemy, ⁓ the best is the enemy of more than good enough, more than sufficient. I would also say that when I get in a bad head space or I’m like, what should I do next?

How am I gonna show up in a good space for Scott’s podcast? I always like to say a little mantra, prayer, call it what you will. And I’m constantly asking myself, how can I be of service? What can I bring to the table? How can I be of service? What can I bring to the table? And that helps get me in the right service mindset. And when I’m in a service mindset, the sales work is so much easier.

Scott Bursey (24:33)
spot on. before we wrap up, here’s a tip for all the listeners out there. Just as Mischa highlighted, don’t just think about who you can interview. Think about who needs to be introduced to the person you are interviewing. Facilitating connections is the fastest way to become the most valuable person in the room. Mischa, your insights were most valuable.

For those of our listeners who would like to follow your journey and collaborate with you, what is the best way for them to reach you?

Mischa Zvegintzov (25:11)
LinkedIn and it is ⁓ Mischa Zvegintzov. It’s technically it Mischa Z is my handle on LinkedIn. So just go to LinkedIn.com search for Mischa Z or Mischa Zvegintzov DM me connect with me there. You can always go to podcastemailfinder.com and ⁓ join ⁓ that and start getting podcast emails and sending pitches as well.

Scott Bursey (25:41)
And Mischa Z, thank you for joining us today.

Mischa Zvegintzov (25:46)
Indeed, Scott, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for sharing your stage.

Scott Bursey (25:50)
This has been just a great conversation. And to our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ve got a lineup of exceptional guests, just like Mischa Z, who are making huge moves in the market. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you on the next episode, everyone.