Nightline Called Me Yesterday to Talk About Orange County Short Sales

I was at lunch at a conference yesterday when I received a very unexpected message.  It was from ABC News’ Nightline.  She wanted to know if I would be able to do an interview with one of my short sale clients in just a few hours to talk about Orange County Short Sales.  A short sale occurs when the bank accepts less upon the sale of the house than it is owed. It is an alternative to foreclosure.

I called her back for more details, just containing the excitement.  They wanted to do an interview with me and one of my clients currently going through a short sale.  All of my clients who are currently in the process are out of state.  She’d make a few calls and see if that would work or if they would be willing to consider talking with a client who had just completed a short sale on their home.

In the meantime, I was making phone calls to past clients who had recently completed short sales on Orange County homes to see if they could be available on very short notice and thinking I’m really glad I didn’t go out of town this week.

I found a client who was happy to help, and the producers agreed that a recent short sale seller would be acceptable.  Now, we had to figure out everybody’s schedule and work around Southern California traffic.

Now, I was starting to get excited; was I really going to do a piece for Nightline?

The producer wanted to know if I could let her in a little early so she could set up before my client got home.  Check.  We’ll do that.

A quick change, with some help from a few good people – more on that in another post – and I was off to my interview.

It was a lot of fun to see the behind the scenes way this works.  The producer and I helped set up the interview area, and then I sat in so she could check lighting and sound.

My client got home, did his interview, and I did mine. Then we shot some B roll. Isn’t that a great term?

Afterwards, we sat back to wait for our TV premiere.  Then, a call from my sister just after 8:45 pm my time.  “What happened?  I didn’t see you on the short sale part!”  They get the show much earlier than we do.

I made a call to the producer.  Apparently, there was a technical difficulty uploading the tape to New York.  I’m told that we may be on in the next few weeks and need to check in with New York.

Keep your fingers crossed, and I’ll let you know when it airs.

 So, the big question is how did Nightline find me?  I wrote a post about Orange County short sales, that was picked up in the Orange County Register.  The producer was scanning the paper, found my article, clicked through to my blog, liked my personality, and called me.

So, do I think that blogging works?  Do I think that letting your personality come through is important?  You bet I do!