A Blogging Success Story

Many journalists, talk show hosts, and others in the media subscribe to Google Alerts in order to keep informed on specific issues (this is a great free, tool that I strongly recommend). I have several, including one called "Houston Real Estate" which I use to prepare for the Houston Home Show I host with Mark Jeffrey of UBuildIt (Friday at 1 PM on CNN 650). Recently I received an alert that included a blog post that discussed Houston's booming economy and how that should contribute to continued growth in Real Estate in the future.

That post was written by Rose Stabler (photo at left, a local business broker), who ironically just decided to start a blog in the last few weeks. It was an excellent piece and clearly shows that Houstonians can expect this economy to continue to grow, that unemployment should be well below the national average, and that housing should continue to improve for investment and other purposes. I asked her to be on today's show and she did a fine job pointing to the reasons for continued optimism. Her interview will be available online at the Houston Business Review (I suggest getting a free subscription to it by clicking here so you can be kept up to date on all our media). I encourage sharing that segment of the show with others who wonder about the future of Houston's economy.

I'm not suggesting that if you start a blog you will be on the radio speaking to thousands in a few weeks. I do believe, however, that starting a blog can differentiate you as an expert (something Rose is doing very well in her blog), can attract attention from those who can help your business, and can provide discipline to help you become better at what you do. For those of you who spend hours reading blogs, but debate whether or not you should get in, the water is great.

Kevin Price... A Great Face for Radio

On today's show I had Andy Valadez on as a guest and he took the liberty of creating a video and placing it on YouTube. This is the kind of innovative marketing that Andy is famous for and has created quite an archive on the Internet.

In it you hear an overview of today's program and it epitomizes the type of quality content we provide each week. For an archive of recent shows visit the Houston Business Show site and follow the links to our radio programs. While you are there, visit the Houston Home Show brought to listeners by UBuildIt.

As you can clearly see, I have a great face...for radio.

Houston Business Show Celebrates Five Years

The Houston Business Show is celebrating its fifth year this month and over the last half decade the show has undergone enormous change. Here are a few highlights:

* It started off with my old friend Kent Batman as co-host, which he held that spot for about 5 months. Shortly after that Aubrey Theode was the host until January of this year. Then, Mark Jeffrey of UBuildIt served in that spot for six months and is now busily hosting his own show with me (the UBuildIt New Home Show). Currently I am hosting the show on my own with several guest co-hosts including Jim Stein of the Bank of Houston and others. Each of these people have made a great contribution to the show.

* When the show started there were many concerns of whether it could last. Remember what happened in September of 2001? By the end of the week that included September 11th I had lost roughly half of my sponsors for a show I had worked on for four months. I decided I wasn't going to allow terrorists to destroy my new venture. Today, the Houston Business Show is the longest running show on CNN 650. I guess we made a great choice.

* The show went from being on Sunday at noon to the very popular time of Monday at 1:00 PM. This is, of course, a much larger audience.

* There was no Business Show Advisors at the beginning, now we have them in virtually every business discipline and they play an important part of this show.

* There wasn't a HoustonBusiness.com or Houston Business Review, and you couldn't hear it online. I received an email around three years after starting the show from Steve Carr of HoustonJobs.com in which he asked if I would like to buy HoustonBusiness.com. I did want to and did so with the help of Henry Fasthoff and others. Today, thanks to excellent PR, web development, content development, huge directory development, news content and other efforts, HoustonBusiness.com has become an Internet monster with around 80,000 unique visitors each month, a Google ranking of 6 (the same as the Houston Business Journal and the Houston Chronicle), and now literally hundreds of pages of content.

* There was no Business Plus blog which has already developed a Google ranking of 4 in only 4 months.

There have been many changes since the show began in 2001, but our commitment to providing sound business news, from a solidly local perspective has been unchanging. If you want to learn more about the show, newsletter, or HoustonBusiness.com, email us at kj_hbr@sbcglobal.net.