Velocitydrift

New contributor Tim Garrity shares tips for building your brand reputation and client relationships by staying consistent with your podcast.

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Have you ever woken up in the morning, brewed a fresh pot of coffee, hopped on a treadmill or bike, and turned on your favorite podcast? You may have thought, “This is cool; I should start one of these.”

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Well, you’re not alone. Podcasts have grown in popularity. Pew Research reported the following in September 2025.

Just over half of U.S. adults (54 percent) say they’ve listened to a podcast in the past 12 months, a slight increase since we first asked this in 2022 (49 percent). Younger people are far more likely to listen to podcasts, with 67 percent of those ages 18 to 29 saying they listened to a podcast in the past 12 months, about twice the share of those ages 65 and older (33 percent).

With a wide and willing audience, many real estate agents want to start a podcast to help with their marketing reach and to showcase their expertise. The problem with starting a podcast? Ninety percent do not make it past episode three, according to a survey by Forbes, and of the surviving 10 percent, 90 percent of those don’t make it past episode 20.

As someone who has started his own podcast, built an audience and published over 100 episodes, I can say with confidence that podcasting is not easy, and I’m not shocked that those statistics exist.

How to ensure your podcast makes it past the first 3 episodes

Ready to start a podcast and to keep growing it? Here are my five podcasting questions to ask and tips to follow that have helped me build Bricks & Risk into a 100+ episode catalog.

Step 1: Why do you want to start a podcast?

Don’t give me that “I’ve always wanted to start a podcast” crap. Tell me why you truly want to do it. Marketing content? Grow your business? Help others?

Be honest here: Having a purpose for your show is what guides you through the minutiae. Commitment and consistency may sound simple, but that’s what it takes.

When Sean Mooney and I started the Bricks & Risk podcast, we had three reasons:

Grow our businesses
Build more relationships
Help others and give back

After over two years of shooting, we have both realized benefits from all three reasons.

Protip: Come up with your own reasons why you want to start a podcast. If your reasons have purpose and help grow your business, you’re starting off on the right foot.

Step 2: DIY or professional studio?

This one is key, and often overlooked upfront, because it allows you to understand the time and effort involved with starting and consistently growing a podcast.

And believe me, it’s a ton of work.

For Bricks & Risk, we started shooting in a studio because they offered top-notch equipment, production expertise and handed us our finished product.

Look, I have no problem with the DIY approach, and I actually believe that it may be a good option to consider once your audience becomes established. But to start, shooting in a studio provides nothing but benefits and credibility. Our guests appreciate it, and we value it.

As for content, some of our best conversation-starter episodes have been about local Philadelphians building their businesses, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. For eyeballs alone, interviewing Ryan Serhant early on is still one of our best.

Protip: One word sums up why shooting in a studio is better than DIY: time. While the cost is higher, the time you save is invaluable. If you’re truly serious about building an audience for your podcast, it’s the best way to go.

Step 3: How often do you want to release episodes?

One of the biggest mistakes I see others make is failing to commit to a cadence. Meaning, if you want to have an actual show, your audience needs to know how often they can tune in for new content. Put another way, your audience needs to be able to rely on you, if you want them to keep coming back.

If you don’t have much time to devote, consider going monthly. If you have the time, go weekly.

With Bricks & Risk, we decided on a weekly show, and have not missed since 2024, but we’ve been close to missing a few times. Weekly also provides more social content, which helps generate more business.

Protip: When you start shooting content, build a content database (aka bank content) before you release a single episode. This will help you to always stay ahead of it. Life happens, and it’s easy to miss a shoot or episode release. For monthly, record/produce at least three episodes. Weekly, record/produce at least 12 episodes. You’ll thank me later.

Step 4: Who is your audience?

More specifically, who do you want to speak to and why?

This is super-important because if you don’t know who your listener is, what the hell are you even going to talk about? Knowing your audience will make your ideas flow like water, and you’ll have more things to talk about than you even know what to do with.

More episodes equal more business and relationships, and the more value you get out of your podcast, the more you’ll never want to stop doing it.

Plus, it’s pretty fun.

Protip: If you return to your purpose, it will guide you on who your listener will be. Consumer-facing? Industry-facing? There’s no right or wrong answer; go with your gut.

Step 5: Start shooting content and stop overthinking it

One of the main reasons why people shy away from content creation is fear of embarrassment; totally natural and normal. My advice: You need to find a way to blast past that nonsense if you’re serious about starting a podcast.

Podcasting is all about the reps. The more you do it, the better you get at it. We all stink at the start, period.

Content not only helps build an audience, but it also builds confidence, and you will have endless social media posts and stories from it. This builds trust with your audience and attracts more business.

Protip: If you dislike cameras or the sound of your own voice, no sweat. Shoot a few test episodes and then ask others what they think; then practice, practice, practice. Remember, the reps will help build your confidence.

Where do you go from here?

My advice is to go one-step-at-a-time. You don’t need to figure everything out in a day or even a week. Give yourself a few weeks or months to map it all out and understand what you are committing to … and why.

Building the Bricks & Risk podcast brand has not only brought both of us business, but has also helped build relationships that would never have come without it … and we’ve built a community and inspired others along the way.

Tim Garrity is a Realtor and the Founder of The Tim Garrity Team, as well as an Associate Broker at Real. Connect with Tim on Instagram and LinkedIn.

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