Next Level 277: How to Generate an Endless Supply of Leads with David Dubeau

It's pretty hard to monetize a podcast if you don't really know what's going to be happening. You've got no control over your audience. You've got no control over going to be listening or when they're going to be listening or if they're going to be listening. But you can control who you interview.

Welcome to the Next Level Income show, where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host, Chris Larson. If you haven't yet, get a copy of our book for free, free at our website, nextlevelincome.com. that's www.nextlevelincome.com. just click on the book link and I'll even send you a copy if you put your address in. On today's show, we're going to be tackling a cool topic with Dave Dubo. Dave helps syndicators and fund managers land $100,000 investors by turning podcast interviews into high trust sales conversations. And now he's even working with others that have other high ticket sales items, coaches. So if you're listening, you say, well, that's not me. Have a listen to this episode because Dave's going to talk about how you can use a podcast to generate leads for your business. His system is built for busy real estate investors who are tired of chasing leads and just want consistent, qualified conversations. His team then handles the outreach, the booking, the production, the promotion. All you do is show up, interview your prospects and work on the conversion. If you've ever tried content marketing funnels or networking and still struggle to get high paying clients, Dave's going to show you how to make every podcast conversation count. And we're also going to share how you can get a free copy of his new book. Dave, welcome back to the show. How you been, Chris?

I'm doing great, my friend. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

You're on Next Level.

Absolutely. Yeah. My. A lot of listeners know that. My wife's from Canada and you're joining us from British Columbia. Our northern neighbors up there.

Don't hold it against me, man. Yeah, that's where I'm from. That's where we're based.

You guys are like family. I consider you guys like family. Despite all the crazy stuff that goes on politically, this too shall pass. That's right, that's right, Absolutely. But no, I'm excited to have you on and we're going to talk about kind of a little bit of a different subject than we normally get into on the Podcast, but I think it's something as we get into kind of new media, you know, from a business perspective, it's just been amazing. Dave, you've been your, you've been doing your property, property profits podcast. That's a lot of peas for.

For several.

How many years have been. You've been doing that now?

Well, since 2018, whatever that is. By the time people are watching this. So it's. Yeah, seven years in podcast years. That's a long time.

It is, yeah. We started ours in 2018 too. You might have beat us to the punch because we, we started recording in 2018, but kicked off the official episodes the beginning of January 2019.

Hats off to you, my friend, because I think the official stat is most podcasts never make it past episode seven. So you're doing.

How about that? How about that? Well, likewise. Likewise. Yeah. So yeah, you have walked the walk in the new media world, Dave, but I'd like you to share, before we get into that topic, I'd love you to share a little bit more about your background, what you do in the real estate space, because we've got a lot of overlap. There's a.

Okay, great. Yeah. So I am from Canada originally, but after I graduated from university I went and lived for about 13, 14 years in Latin America and actually settled down in Costa Rica. Had a language training company down there.

It's one of our favorite countries. Love it.

It's a beautiful country. So got married, had a couple of Costa Rican kids, And then in 2003 I decided to drag my poor little Costa Rican family kicking and screaming from tropical Paris to British Columbia. Everybody goes, Dave, especially Canadians. Ago, tropical paradise, Costa Rica, frozen lands, Canada. Why the heck would you do that? Well, Chris, you know, when you got kids, your perspective changes a little bit. So our kids are getting towards school age.

Yeah.

And my ex wife and myself decided, you know what, Costa Rica is great, but Canada is going to be a better place to raise our kids. So we uprooted, we moved up north and I had to start all over again from scratch. So I'd left Canada when I was 21 and had been gone for however many years. And then when I came back, I was pretty much starting from scratch. Like I didn't have bad credit, I had zero credit and I hadn't been able to sell my business in Costa Rica, so I didn't have very much money and I'd been self employed for a whole bunch of years. So I was pretty much unemployable. So it was either get a job at McDonald's or figure out something entrepreneurial and I don't know, you're kind of young, but you might remember those, you remember those late night infomercials?

Oh yeah.

Like two o' clock in the morning.

YouTube.

Rich in real estate with little or no money down.

Oh yeah, you had George Allen. You had. Who was the, who was the rap guy? The.

I don't, I don't remember the guy. The Kool Aid that I bought into was a guy named Ron Legrand.

Ron Legrand. I remember Ron Legrand. Yep. All the suits and everything. Yeah.

Oh yeah. So I got, I sent away for this course and at that time I think I got a whole bunch of VHS cassettes and all this kind of stuff.

Oh yeah.

Big box stuff and went through that. And that's, that was my first kick at real estate. So from about 2003 to 2005, I did 18 deals in 18 months. Creative, low money, no money down type deals. And yeah. In the small city I live in in British Columbia. And then one thing led to. Caught the eye of an up and coming real estate guru up here, kind of the Canadian version of Kiyosaki, and started working with him. Because I've always been a fan of marketing. So I helped him with, with marketing for a number of years, helped him grow his, his company from three employees to 128 and seven branch offices and about $200 million in sales and all this kind of stuff. So. So that took my time for quite a while. Did different things in real estate, on and off, creative stuff, rent tone type stuff. And then got into doing a bit of syndication work, getting into apartment, got into using my marketing skills to raise capital. And then the last dozen years, it's been really focused on helping other people raise capital for their deals because I realized along the way I suck as an operator. That's not my strong suit. Like I'm, I'm not the guy you want talking to your tenants and fixing your toilets or any of that kind of stuff. That's, that's not my strong suit. So I, I focus on the marketing side of things. And the last dozen years, like I say, we've been working with hundreds of private clients. Cumulatively, we've helped them raise well over $350 million in capital for their deals. And that's kind of. That's the space I'm in.

Yeah. No. Incredible. And yeah. So you did, you started in residential as we did. It sounds like Dave.

Creative, you know, like the.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting. You know, we've seen, we've seen. Seen things cycle, you know, now we're starting to see some of that creative stuff come back, and even in the commercial space, um, you know, we've seen a lot of loan assumptions and, you know, we're stepping in with our private credit fund, for instance, to, to bridge the gap with some of those. But why did you decide to start the podcast back in 2018? I'm curious about how that started.

Yeah, well, I was taking some training, a guru training or something like that, and they said podcast is a good thing. A couple of reasons I started a podcast, Chris. One was I was getting sick and tired of having to come up with new content all the time to. To keep in touch with people on my list. So I thought, hey, if I start a podcast, that will fill that content gap and I'll interview smart guys like you and you'll say smart stuff, and that'll, that'll be great content for my list. So that was one reason. The other reason was I wanted to connect with other people in the space, like yourself, and potentially do some sort of cross promotions or joint venture partnerships. And then the other reason originally was, like everybody else in podcasting, I thought, hey, if I do this, maybe I'll. I'll get lucky and be like Joe Rogan and grow this massive, massive following. And then a whole bunch of those people realized he was a smart guy and they'll reach out to me, and I was hoping that they'd connect with me, and I was hoping that it turned into business. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way consistently, Chris. Hoping, hoping, and not a heck of a lot happening. So my podcast was a traditional type thing for the first number of years. Sporadic, you know, weekly, every weeks of week, here and there. So it was kind of very hit and miss for a number of years. Yeah, until I was listening to another podcast for about three or four years ago now, and the young guy on there ticked me off because he's so darn young and smart. Smarter than me. And he said this, he said, you know what, podcast, I really don't care that much about audience growth. My whole podcast. My goal is I want to interview the exact kind of people I want as my clients. I want to make them look good, feel good, sound good, start that relationship and convert that into a sales call. Oh, and then I'm not going to do one a week. I'm going to do multiples of these weeks. My whole focus is on interviewing. But my avatar and interviewing as many of them as possible and converting those into sales conversations. And that's. Light bulb went off. And I said, you know what? That is brilliant. Because otherwise my experience anyhow, Chris, is it's pretty hard to monetize a podcast if you don't really know what's going to be happening. You've got no control over your audience. You've got no control over going to be listening or when they're going to be listening or if they're going to be listening. But you can control who you interview.

Absolutely.

And that completely revolutionized my business over the last four years. Now, using my podcast as a direct lead generator has been the number one way that I've been creating business for myself. And for the last year and a half, almost two years now, we've been working with real estate syndicators and fund managers and capital raisers, helping them to connect with, on average, 20 accredited investors every single month.

That's solid. Yeah.

Platform idea.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And that is. That is quite innovative. And because you don't think about that, right, you're like, oh, we're actually going to have our clients or future clients or prospective clients on the podcast and interview those. And it's a little different. But no, we want to hear perspectives of others. It's like testimonials. Right. We want to hear the experience and the perspective of other people. So. Especially in the alternative investment space. Right, Dave? It's like, you know, you're like, am I?

Here's. Here's the thing. It's really different, Chris. And it takes away. It took me a while to get my head around this. Right, yeah. So, for example, when we're working with a client, let's say a perfect example, we've got a client, he is a medical doctor and a syndicator. So obviously, his happy place is talking with other medical professionals. So we did not build him a show that said, hey, Dr. Franco's syndication show, because no other medical professional wants to be on that show. Right. We built him a show called what is it? Leveling up for Medical Professionals.

Right.

That's what it's. That's the name of the show. So, Leveling up for Medical Professionals. And we go out, we find him five or six doctors, dentists, anesthesiologist pros every single week. And we get these interviews booked in for Dr. Franco. And he's a busy guy. So we've got basically two days a week, two hours each. That's his interview times.

Yeah.

He does these interviews back to back, they're 20 to 30 minutes each. Pretty short and sweet. And that way we're getting him connected with five or six doctors every single week. But here's what's in it for the doctor, right? It's. It's not about real estate. So we bring them on as the guest, and Dr. Frank interviews these guys and gals, and he really talks to them about what is their secret sauce when it comes to their professional success. What do they do a little bit differently, how to. Where they are, what does. How do they. What does personal success look for? How do they balance work, life, you know, balance all that kind of good stuff.

Yeah.

And then start talking a little bit about financial success. And this is where we start to work our magic. Right. So towards the end of the interview, Dr. Frank, who will ask the other medical doctor, Dr. Smith, sounds like things are going really, really well with your practice. Now, a lot of busy doctors in our position were making very, very good money right now. But it's active income. A lot of doctors are looking at, hey, how can I keep that level of income high without having to work so hard for it? So, Dr. Smith, what are your thoughts about that? So you notice that he doesn't try to push real estate on them right away. He just wants to open the conversation. And then whatever Dr. Smith says, great, he remembers that. And then when they stop the recording and they're still on Zoom together in the zoom green room, so to speak, then he'll circle back, he'll say, doc, sounds like things are going really well with your practice. Now, you mentioned that you're starting to dabble a bit in crypto or stocks and bonds or whatever. He said, how do you feel about the kind of returns you're getting with those investments? Is that something that you're 100% happy with, with the returns and the stability and the security, or is there maybe some room for improvement?

Yeah, very easy.

What are they. What are they going to say?

That's. Oh, nobody's. Nobody's thoroughly happy with anything.

You could interview Warren Buffett. He's got every say. There's always room for improvement, Right?

Yeah, and that's. That is a great. Yeah, and that's a great, you know, spending my career decades in sales, you know, that's really how I think is the most effective way to approach a sales call. Right. Is to. Is to talk and let the client ask a question and really just let the client explain, you know, what their biggest challenges are, what's working for them, you know, not from A technical level, but from, you know, a broad level. And, you know, I think that's where salespeople get it wrong. And they come in and they say, hey, here's my widget. Here's my investment opportunity. Here's my product, whatever it may be. And then they're dealing with these objections on the back end, right, from the surgeons where I used to walk in with my sales reps, and, you know, they say, okay, like, what. What are we. Like, what are we selling today? And I go, not, nothing. And they're like, wait, what? Like, I got to. I got to have this product. I go, no, we're actually going to take nothing. And they would be like, you know, their jaw would drop and they're like, this dude knows, like, doesn't know what he's doing.

Yeah.

And we would just talk to the surgeons about their practice and their family and what their goals were, and. And then they'd say, oh, yeah, you know, I'm having a really hard time getting home to my family at 4 o' clock because my surgeries are running long and, you know, the hospital is upset with me. And it's like, well, what if we could cut your surgery time down by. By 30 minutes per case? And they're like, that'd be great. And you're like, okay, let's talk about, let's talk, talk about, you know, how this system will do that for you. And they're like, yeah, I would love to hear that. And, you know, next thing you know, it's like, well, you're helping them get what they want, and they're, they're sharing. They're sharing their challenges on the front end without actually, like, quote, unquote, selling them on something. You're providing a solution.

Well, that's the beautiful thing about the podcast, too, Chris, is. Yeah. You know, when we approach people this way, instead of trying to convince Dr. Smith to jump on a sales call with us, Right. What we're saying is, hey, Dr. Smith, we think you're great. We'd love to have you as a guest on our show. It's going to get you some free PR exposure. Bottom line is, we don't say this, but this is what's. It's gonna. It's gonna elevate your status. It really is. You're gonna be featured as an expert guest on the show. So it really is kind of an honor for that person to be a guest on the show. So we lead with the evening hat instead of saying, hey, I want some of your time to pitch My stuff. It's like, hey, I want to elevate you. I want to feature you on my show as my special guest.

And they probably get to share it with their friends and colleagues.

Exactly. Who and then where their friends and colleagues. More doctors.

Your avatar. Probably.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

We make it easy for them to do that as well. We create, yeah. Shorts and reels and social media con content and LinkedIn articles and book posts and Instagram posts for them so that they can, you know, they can really share it.

Yeah, well, Dave, I mean, you know, you're talking about using this for, you know, syndicators, operators that are trying to raise money, but this seems like a concept that could work more broadly for business owners in a lot of different spaces. What are your, are you doing that or what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, we're, we're starting to branch out into working with what I call high ticket coaches, consultants, advisors, those sort of folks, people that, you know, have a high ticket product or service and it's kind of a relationship based sale. Yeah, this works really, really well because as you know, Chris, after having, doing hundreds and hundreds of interviews, when you bring somebody on your show, that is a massive shortcut to getting a relationship. Creating that whole know, like, and trust factor, Creating rapport, creating reciprocity. Oh yeah.

I've developed friends that I've had for years from pot. I just, I just ran into a friend up in New York City at a, at a real estate like summit from one of my partners and I saw the dude, name's Arnold. Awesome, awesome story guy. Guys from Soviet Union ended up immigrating here. Multiple, you know, serial entrepreneur, incredible guy. And yeah, it was like, you know, we, we felt like we've known each other for years, you know, because I've been interviewed. Yeah, because it's like you get, you get pretty deep into some stuff pretty quickly. It's pretty wild.

Exactly.

So that's amazing.

Beautiful thing about a podcast.

Yeah. So let's talk about, let's talk about your book. We're going to have the link in the show notes here. 20 accredited investors, book.com why did you write it? How does that, how does that integrate into all this, Dave? And what are our listeners going to learn if they get that book?

Yeah, well, I mean, if you are a real estate capital raiser and you're looking to connect with accredited investors on a consistent regular basis, then this is a great book for you. I wrote it for that exact avatar for real estate syndicators and fund managers.

Why do I Not have it yet. Dave, I got to get this book. I got to get this book. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna order it as soon as, as soon as we.

Well, you know, I'm giving away for free, so, so you don't have to, you don't have to go too much of a stretch there, my friend. And so it gives a big broad strokes of how we do what we do. And it's like, you know, how to set up your podcast and how to appeal to your ideal target avatar and how to find them, how to get them on the show and how to do the whole interview and how to convert that interview into discovery call and that discovery call into a warm commitment, the whole process. Go through it in big broad strokes. Pretty short book. 68 large print pages in a PDF. And again, yeah, people want to get that. It's at 20 accredited investors book.com again, that's the number 20 accredited investors book dot com. And the reason I wrote the book was to kind of educate people about this concept because this is, this is new, this is different. I mean, you and I have been in the podcast world for a long time and been doing this for a long time, and a lot of people haven't heard of this concept of using a podcast as a direct lead generator. So I want to educate people with case studies in the book and examples and all that kind of stuff as to how this can work for them. And then selfishly, if they're interested in getting it done quickly and efficiently, that's exactly what we do, is we, we help these folks, we build out their podcasts, we fill it up with their ideal avatar, we help them convert those interviews into discovery calls and then into commitments, and we do all the nitty picky production and content creation and editing work for them.

I love it. And you know, Dave, you, we, we talked about this earlier, but you know, whether you're raising money or you've got a high ticket sales item or, you know, you're a coach, this type of person, this is a great concept. I mean, look, you and I have been doing it for seven years, as you mentioned, and that's why I wanted to have you on because you've, you've walked the walk. You didn't just up with this concept, you've actually been using it yourself and building that out. So if you're listening today, you want to learn more about Dave and what he does and how he can help you out, check out 20, the number 20 accredited investors book.com we'll have that in the show link. And Dave, always great to see you from our our neighbors up there in the north.

Chris, always a pleasure. Thanks for having me on your show, buddy.

Thank you. Hey Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to give to you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also, please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.