Radio Personality Rich Novak Discusses Recently Released eBook Panama—The 62 Things You Need to Know, with Chuck Bolotin of Best Places in the World to Retire
Oro Valley, Arizona, USA—October 15, 2014— On October 21, 2014, The “Panama!” Show, with Rich Novak, of Overseas Radio Network will air the interview with Chuck Bolotin, of Best Places in the World to Retire, where Rich and Chuck discuss the new eBook just released by Best Places titled Panama—The 62 Things You Need to Know.
Rich and Chuck discuss how the book will benefit his listeners and what they can expect in this entertaining eBook edited, compiled and designed by Jet Metier.
To download the free eBook, go to http://bestplacesintheworldtoretire.com/download-free-ebooks
To listen to the show, go to the http://overseasradio.com/panama/
The transcript of the interview is below.
Rich: … we welcome back to our show Chuck Bolotin, of Best Places In The World To Retire. Frequent listeners to our show will may remember that Chuck has appeared twice before: once when his company first launched the Best Places In The World To Retire website, and then, several months later, to give us an update.
Today, Chuck is here to tell us how Best Places In The World To Retire can be useful to us and to let us know how we can get the 242 page eBook they’re offering titled: Panama—The 62 Things You Need to Know, by Jet Metier, all for free to listeners of my show.
Chuck, for the listeners who have joined the Panama! show here on the Overseas Radio Network since your last appearance, please give us a short overview of the Best Places’ site, and specifically how it can help our listeners, and then we’ll talk about the book and how they can download it right afterwards.
Chuck: Thanks, Rich, I’d love to. And, thanks once again for having me on. Its great to talk with you again on-air.
Put simply, Best Places In The World To Retire was created in order to provide anyone who is looking for credible, no spin, and comprehensive information about moving overseas with exactly what they’re looking for, and all in one place. We have over 3,500 answers to questions about Panama, and well over 100 Expat Stories. In addition, we also have what we call the Location Advisor, which is where your listeners can input their preferences, and our real-time, interactive guide will make recommendations for them.
Rich: I know you like challenges, Chuck, so I’ll give you some. There’s lots of sites that give information about moving overseas. How is Best Places In The World To Retire any better?
Chuck: Thanks, Rich. As always I appreciate your challenges and good questions. There are lots of ways that Best Places is different.
The first, most important one is that, for those 3,500-plus questions we have on the site, I didn’t answer a single one, and neither did anyone on our staff. 100% of the answers on our site are provided by experts like you, Rich, who have real life experience. At last count, we have over 300 contributors. Best Places In The World To Retire, as a company, doesn’t have any opinion or point of view, and we’re not pushing any agenda. That’s incredibly important for your listeners. That way, they know they’re getting good answers.
The second most important difference is that almost all of the questions on our site are answered by more than one expat.
Rich: Why is this important?
Chuck: Again, thanks for the challenge, Rich. It’s important that your listeners get more than one answer to any question because some questions can be answered honestly, but differently, by more than one person with different perspectives.
Rich: OK, give me an example.
Chuck: OK. Let’s take clothing. The number one most looked at answer on our site is to this question: What’s the dress code in Panama?
Rich: You would think it would be about safety or cost of living or maybe about healthcare.
Chuck: We definitely have all those questions as well, and they’re very popular, but the dress code question is number one. Now, I know how you dress because we met in person once and I’ve seen pictures of you. I’ve also met your wife, Janet. Both of you are going to have very different answers to the question about fashion in Panama.
The way that you answer the question and the different way that your wife Janet answers it is exactly what we want to display to our visitors. Both your answers would be on the site, and both have value to someone who’s doing research because, when there’s more than one point of view, your listeners will get a more complete, and ultimately, a more accurate and useful answer.
We have lots of different opinions, and they’re all presented in a respectful way that’s useful to your listeners.
Rich: Right.
Chuck: Now that I’m thinking about this, can I give you one example?
Rich: Sure. Go ahead.
Chuck: One of the questions on our site is: How much does clothing cost in Panama?, and we have 5 answers to the question. One contributor focused on high end men’s clothing stores (including where to buy suits), one woman focused on the malls, one guy told our visitors about the cost of tee shirts, and so on.
Once again, all these answers are valid for the question, and gives the visitor a balanced sense of the overall answer. The funniest answer, however, was given by Ian Usher. Ian is the guy who “sold his life on eBay”.
Rich: I remember that. Is he living here in Panama now?
Chuck: Yes, Ian has his own island in Bocas Del Toro, and, coincidently, its for sale. Well, Ian answered the question honestly, and about his own wardrobe. He even took a picture of it.
Rich: He took a picture of his wardrobe?
Chuck: Yes, he took a picture of his entire wardrobe. If you go to the site, you can see it. Ian’s wardrobe consists of about 10 blue, plastic hangers strung up on some sort of wire hung between a column in the house he built, and the wall, with his clothes hung up on them. He then included a separate picture of his entire shoe collection: 3 pairs of flip-flops. Ian was accurately answering the question, from his perspective, and living in Bocas del Toro.
Now, I found this very funny, and I found Ian’s fashion sense very attractive. My wife, however, was horrified.
Rich: Mine would be horrified, too.
Chuck: But that’s the point. While our wives may be horrified, I think it’s great. As they say, “some people like blue, while other people like green”. There’s more than one accurate answer to the question, depending on your preferences and lifestyle. That’s why the sites where they just have one opinion don’t work well, and, quite frankly, ours does.
Rich: You also have another area of the site called Stories. Tell us very quickly about that.
Chuck: After your listeners get the answers to their questions about cost of living, safety, healthcare, and so forth, their next need would be to ask someone like you “Rich, what’s it really like to live in Panama? What surprised you? What was harder than you thought? What was easier?”, that type of thing.
Rich: I get asked those questions all the time.
Chuck: Exactly. That’s why we created the Expat Stories section of the site. This is where expats like you write about these topics. It’s very popular. There’s all sorts of stories, everything from Christmas in a different country, to how one woman fit into the local expat community, to all sorts of wonderful stories about charity work and how to get involved. This area provides even more of what I would describe as the “human” or “personality” part of the site. It’s great.
Rich: Tell us about the interviews on the site.
Chuck: OK. Speaking of human interest, we also have 15 or so interviews of our most interesting expats. What we say is that we introduce our visitors to the most interesting people in Panama.
Rich: Tell us about the interviews.
Chuck: OK. The interviews are a bit unusual, as you discovered.
Rich: Right.
Chuck: I should tell your listeners that The Man In Panama, Rich Novak, was one of our interviewees. All of the interviews are done by Jet Metier, who, as you saw, Rich, has a sort of quirky way to go about it. Jet specializes in asking unusual questions that really give our readers an interesting insight into the person being interviewed, and, very importantly for your listeners, how these people really live in Panama. They’re great human-interest pieces. I think your listeners will really enjoy it.
Rich: That brings us to the free eBook.
Chuck: Right.
Rich: The eBook was also written by Jet Metier, isn’t that right?
Chuck: Well, yes, sort of. We say that the book was “edited, compiled and designed by Jet Metier”, but, strictly speaking, she didn’t write it.
Rich: What do you mean?
Chuck: Just like on our site, Rich, the content in the book is from the contributions of over 100 independent experts, not from Jet Metier. What Jet did was to cull the most interesting and useful content from the answers, expat stories and interviews, arrange it all in a very useful, visually pleasing format, and add stunning graphics. She really did a great job. We’re very pleased with it.
Rich: Yes, the graphics are really wonderful and very creative. It’s a great way to present content about Panama that’s really useful.
Chuck: Thanks, Rich. We appreciate that.
Rich: OK, Chuck. Here comes another challenge.
Chuck: Fire away, Rich.
Rich: OK, I will. Why do you call it “The 62 Things You Need to Know” about Panama?
Chuck: Well, first off, we have sections on a full 62 topics, everything from cost of living, safety, healthcare, what are the expats like, and other topics we found that people wanted to know about.
Rich: Like “the dress code in Panama”?
Chuck: Right, like “the dress code in Panama”. But we also have other topics that sometimes people don’t immediately think about, but, eventually, they should.
Rich: Can you give me an example?
Chuck: Sure. We have a section on bugs, insects, and mosquitos, that type of thing. Some people think to ask about that right away, but others don’t, and they should. The answer to “How bad are the mosquitoes?” is a good question and before someone moves to a new place, it’s a question they should have answered.
Rich: OK. That sounds really useful, and I agree; my listeners do need to know the answers to these questions. Tell our listeners again how much the book will cost them.
Chuck: Thanks, Rich. For now, it won’t cost them one cent. All they have to do is go to our site, and download the book. Can I give the web address?
Rich: Yes, please go ahead.
Chuck: Just go to BestPlacesInTheWorldToRetire.com to download the book.
Rich: We’ll put the link up on the Overseas Radio Network website. Please tell us again, Chuck, just to make sure we get it.
Chuck: OK. We invite all the listeners to the Panama show to go to BestPlacesInTheWorldToRetire.com to download the free eBook Panama—The 62 Things You Need to Know, Plus Meet the Most Interesting People of Panama. It’s all at no charge. BestPlacesInTheWorldToRetire.com
Rich: Thanks, Chuck…. Chucks’ website, and where you can download the eBook Panama—The 62 Things You Need to Know, and to meet the most interesting people of Panama is BestPlacesInTheWorldToRetire.com
About Best Places in the World to Retire
Funded and run by an experienced group of entrepreneurs and investors based primarily in Southern Arizona, BestPlacesintheWorldtoRetire.com is dedicated to providing anyone considering moving, doing business, or visiting overseas with organized, unbiased, credible information, all in an easy to use format. The four main areas of the site are: 1) Community Q & A, with thousands of answers to questions, provided by a community of experts; 2) Location Advisor, a real time, interactive, fun and informative questionnaire that recommends the best places to retire; 3) Expat Stories, where real expats tell their experiences; and, 4) Marketplace, where for-profit and non-profit organizations have their commercial listings, all tied into the questions they answered and the stories they posted.
Contact:
Chuck Bolotin
Vice President, Business Development, Marketing & Sales
(520) 498-0427