Podcasting For Lead Generation With Dave Dubeau

 

Aside from the traditional networking strategies, one of the most effective ways to generate leads these days is podcasting. While you build connections with your guests, this also allows you to build a relationship with your audience. Kevin Shortle is joined by Dave Dubeau of Money Partner Formula, who discusses how real estate entrepreneurs can scale their portfolios through the podcast investor pipeline. He explains how a well-crafted show can lead you to accredited investors while securing audience engagement and growth. Dave also explains the right way to gather testimonials, invite referrals, and encourage reinvestment to raise your target capital in the most organic way possible.

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Podcasting For Lead Generation With Dave Dubeau

Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing the show, too. If you belong to a real estate investment club or meetup group, Facebook group, whatever it is, let them know about the show, if you will. Don’t forget, we rebroadcast the video portion for you on the YouTube channel. Also, on the YouTube channel, like and subscribe to that as well. I do appreciate that. I have another series on my YouTube channel called the real estate note investor tip of the day, and there are hundreds of those videos on there. Take a look at that as well.

I’ve got a great guest for you because one of the most common things I hear in the note investing business, once people get into the business and they start to deploy capital and they start to invest in these notes, it always comes down to what do I do now that I’ve run out of my own capital? How do I continue to build my business? There are a lot of ways to do that, but one of the ways, of course, you want to take a look at is raising capital. How do we do that? I brought in an expert for you here. Dave Dubeau has joined us, and he’s an expert at raising capital and doing it very quickly. Dave, welcome.

Kevin, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

You bet. I’m excited to hear about this and what you do, because that’s exactly what happens in our industry. Just like real estate investors, we deploy the capital and then we really want to continue that momentum and build it up. How do we get started in raising capital? What purpose?

How Much Money You Have To Raise

Let me ask you a couple of questions first, Kevin, just to get a better scope of how this works in the note business, because a lot of the work we do is with apartment building syndicators, fund managers, those kinds of folks. When you’ve got an associate, student, or client of yours who’s really rocking and rolling with notes. What volume are they looking at doing per year? How many hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars do they want to deploy in notes to really make this a full-time gig?

It’s commonplace for funds. You don’t want to under raise in a fund. You can’t be competitive. If you want to be become a big buyer, you probably need to target about $20 million in a fund, and then you can start to participate at big levels where you can get bigger discounts and that thing. Now, if you’re a smaller investor and you just want to build up a nice portfolio and arbitrage the difference between what your borrowed capital is versus what you’re making on the notes, then you’ll see funds as small as $5 million or so. They’re not big enough to compete and buy at the big government auctions or anything like that. It really depends.

$5 million to $20 million kind of thing. That would make sense. Would you say that a lot of the people who invest in those funds would be considered to be accredited investors, high-income, high net worth type of folks that are looking for passive income that way?

I think it’s been proven in our industry that it’s best to deal with accredited investors. As much as we’d like to open the opportunities up to everybody, everybody who’s tried that has run into the same thing. Non-accredited investors typically want their money back quicker when that’s not how the arrangement is. That’s been a problem in our industry. I would say if I’m looking at doing a fund again, it’s going to be, which I did before, accredited investors.

Connecting With And Interviewing The Right People

This whole strategy could work very well in that instance. Basically, Kevin, what we’ve started doing is working with fund managers and syndicators and professional real estate capital raisers to connect with accredited investors on a very consistent basis. On average, 5 of them a week, 20 a month, like clockwork. The methodology we use is a podcast as a platform.

Now you’re in the podcast world, I’m in the podcast world. You’ve been doing this for a long time, so have I. I don’t know about you, but in the early days, what I did with my podcast is I just saw what everybody else was doing and I copied them. It’s like I’m a real estate guy, so I’m going to create a real estate podcast. I’m going to try to interview the bigwigs, and I’m trying to grow an audience. Hopefully, some of them will figure out that I’m smart and want to work with me and all this stuff.

It was hit and miss. I probably didn’t do it the best way. Anyhow, it was a little bit of hit and miss. A few years ago, I heard somebody way smarter than me on a podcast talk about how he just flipped the switch with podcasting. The guy’s name was Jamie Atkinson. He said, “I don’t focus on audience growth anymore. I focus on interviewing the exact people I want as my customers, as my clients. I do a whole bunch of these interviews. Instead of worrying about audience growth, worry about guests, worry about who you are talking to on your podcast, and use that as a way to get your foot in the door with people who might not otherwise want to talk with you.” That lit a light bulb in my head, and I said, “That’s brilliant.”

 

I switched my model completely and went from trying to interview the gurus and whatnot, doing a weekly show to interviewing exact people, in my case, real estate investors are looking to raise capital, interviewing them and providing a platform. I’m providing them with kudos, free publicity, and marketing by being a guest on my show. It’s all about leading with the giving hand. That’s a long roundabout way of explaining how I got into this.

For raising capital, it’s pretty simple. You build a show, a podcast, that appeals to your ideal investor avatar. That’s everybody’s favorite word these days, as a guest and as an audience member. Kevin, in your experience working with the credit investors, would you say that most of them were either successful business owners, successful self-employed professionals, like doctors, lawyers, dentists, or high-level executives? Does that fit the criteria?

Yeah, a lot of high-tech people attracted to this, a lot of analytical mind, a lot of engineer mentalities and physicians as well who don’t have the time to go out there and actively pursue real estate. It’s typically that who are looking for a more passive way to make double-digit returns.

Exactly. I’ll give you an example. We’ve got one of our clients, Dr. Tudor Francu. He’s a medical professional. He’s a medical doctor, and he’s a syndicator. He does multifamily real estate investing. Guess who he connects best with and who he likes as his investors? Other doctors. What we did is we built a show for him that had nothing to do with real estate. It’s called STELLAR SUCCESS: Leveling Up for Medical Pros.

Nothing to do with syndications, nothing to do with apartment buildings. It’s 100% focused on the guest, again, leading with the giving hand. We get him 5, 6, 7 of these interviews every week. We make it efficient. He time blocks, couple hours, twice a week where he does these interviews back-to-back on Zoom. It’s all about making the guest look good, feel good, sound good.

It really has nothing to do with Tudor on the actual interview. He interviews the guests, they can speak the same medical lingo. They have a really good conversation about the guest’s professional success, their personal success, and they talk a little bit about financial success. That’s where he starts to shift the conversation a bit towards what their thoughts are about investing. What are they thinking about creating passive income in the future when they don’t want to work so hard with their money? That sort of thing. He doesn’t push real estate down their throat at all. He just opens the conversation around that.

The magic happens after the interview ends. He’s still on Zoom with the other person, and then he’ll circle back. He’ll say, “Dr. Smith, great interview. By the way, you said you’re starting to dabble in stocks and bonds to create some passive income. How do you feel about the kind of returns you’re getting with those investments, as well as the security and stability of those investments? Is that something you’re 100% happy with, or is there maybe a little bit of room for improvement?” Guess what they say all the time, Mr. Kevin?

“Sure. There’s always room for improvement.”

I don’t care who you interview, you can interview Warren Buffett, he’s going to say, “There’s always room for improvement.” Tudor says, “Cool, well, we’re doing some things with busy doctors just like yourself in the apartment building space. We’re getting them Steady Eddie, double-digit returns of their money, getting some significant tax breaks, and they don’t have to worry about tenants and toilets. Is that something you might be interested in taking a look at?” Book them into a follow-up discovery call. Does that make sense?

Same idea in the note field. You could do the exact same idea and just pique that curiosity about notes and get them booked into a follow-up discovery call, and then that leads to taking them down the path to becoming an investor. Build the show and figure out who your ideal avatar is. Make the show all about them. Fill up your calendar with 5 or 6 of these interviews a week, 20 a month on average, and then convert those interviews into discovery calls, and then the discovery call into capital. Does that make sense?

When building a podcast, you need to figure out your ideal avatar, fill up your calendar with interviews, and convert them into discovery calls, which ultimately lead to capital. Click To Tweet

Is that the main method that your people use or the people that you train?

They do the normal networking, schmoozing, all that stuff as well. This is a great thing to do in addition to that, and also helps them with a lot of those different outreach techniques they’re already using. For example, if you meet somebody interesting in a networking event, instead of trying to convince them to jump on a sales call with you, invite them to be a guest on your podcast. That’s a way more appealing ask. It’s an offer.

You can also use your podcast to create content. I know you’re a master of this, Kevin. You create tons of short-form video content. Most of our guys, our clients, are not very good at that. By having a podcast, we can slice and dice reels out of their episodes. We can take the transcripts, convert that into LinkedIn articles, Facebook posts, Instagram posts, all this stuff. There’s a lot of content that can be created from that.

As you do with your podcast, you can leverage it in other ways. You can have solo episodes where you are just talking, in addition to those guest episodes. You can reach out to people that you’d like to have as potential cross-promotional partners. That’s a great way to meet those folks. It’s a great way, just like you and I have done, to do an interview swap. You’ve got a podcast, I’ve got a podcast, I interview you, you interview me. It’s a very good way to get your foot in the door for that as well.

Overcoming Your Fears And Doubts

What would you tell somebody who’s intimidated or the thoughts go in your head, like, “Why would someone want to talk with me? It’s a brand-new show, and I can’t show them like I’ve had a bunch of guests on. It sounds like it might take a lot of time.” I could see where a lot of folks’ minds would start going that direction. What would your answer be to them?

That’s a really good point, and a lot of people do have that concern. I’ll illustrate with a story. One of our clients, Matt, is a syndicator, not a huge big-time indicator. One of the very first guest we got booked in on a show like a month in was the operator of a billion-dollar fund. We invited this gentleman to Matt’s show, which is a brand-new show. He only had like less than ten episodes released at that point.

However, here’s the trick. You and I live in the podcast world, like this is what we do. Most of these accredited investor people, even very successful ones, have never, ever been invited to be a guest on a podcast before. It’s a big deal for them, and they aren’t really poking around, checking out how many downloads you’ve got and how long the podcasts been around, all that stuff.

It is a huge thing for accredited investors, even the most successful ones, to be invited as guests on a podcast. Click To Tweet

It’s just like a little bit of a thrill for them just to be asked and invited. It’s an honor. It’s like back in the day, being invited on the local midday show on TV or something like that. It’s that same feel. No, that’s typically not a problem. Time-wise, yeah, that’s a concern. The way we set it up involves some time. It involves two hours twice a week.

Usually, our clients do like a Tuesday morning and a Thursday afternoon or whatever works into their schedule, and we book them in these interviews back-to-back on Zoom. Yeah, you block out that time. If an interview cancels or rescheduled or whatever, you can do some paperwork in the meantime, but just add that into your schedule. A lot of people are wasting way more time than that doing other activities that aren’t really generating any relationships or connections.

I use Calendly. I’m sure you use that program or something similar to schedule, so scheduling’s not a problem for that. It really is the evolution. I’ve got a couple of clients of mine that are falling into this where they’ve done well. I think one guy in particular, I’ll use him. He’s built up a portfolio in about two and a half years of about twenty-some-odd notes, which is good.

He’s had some loans pay off. He’s had to take one back but he is doing very well. I went to a convention, one of our industry conventions, and the owner of the convention said, “I’m looking for a panel of some new people who’s maybe been in the business a year or two and can share their experiences of just what it was like to do this and build it up.”

I immediately called him and I said, “I really think you need to do this.” He did not intend on being there. I said, “You really need to do it.” He drove, I don’t know, 5, 6 hours to be there and got on the panel and for the first time ever talked about in front of an audience and that thing. He was certainly a little bit intimidated, but he did a great job.

I can tell he is got the bug now because now he’s posting on his social media, “Here’s things I learned on this particular deal,” and just putting it out there. That’s really how it starts. I don’t think he cares about or knows how many people are actually reading this stuff or not through social media, but I could see someone like him the next logical step. He can talk about this and meet people at these other events and just start putting some shows together because the video’s the medium now.

Yeah, for sure. Good thing we’re both so good-looking.

My face is made for radio. I think more and more people don’t want to read the stuff. If they’re learning stuff or want information, I think it’s audio or visual or both.

Here’s the thing, Kevin. Here’s the big shift I had to have with this. The audience is a bonus, really, with the particular methodology I’m talking about. The audience is a bonus, and it does happen. It happens organically. It’s probably the best audience you can build because you’re interviewing your ideal avatar. We’re encouraging them to share their interview with their network, which tends to have a lot more of people just like them, which is our ideal avatar, so it grows that way organically.

However, the number one focus is who you’ve got as a guest on the show for this methodology. It’s all about a direct lead generator. It’s an investor-led generation mechanism using a podcast in this way. I call it the podcast investor pipeline. That is what this is. It’s all about who you’re talking with, who you’re interviewing.

Finding Success Through The Podcast Investor Pipeline

I do want to hear a couple of success stories from you. Before I do that, I just want to remind everybody that I’m talking to Dave Dubeau. He has a book on this that you can get at 20AccreditedInvestorsBook.com. Dave, tell me about a couple of success stories people have taken this model and really run with it and what they’ve been able to accomplish.

Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of them that are really pretty cool. I told you about the billion-dollar fund manager guy. That was awesome. My client, Matt, was able to connect with them. They both lived in the same city. They ended up going out for lunch, then having coffee. They created a relationship where that would’ve been very difficult to do outside of the podcast.

Now, direct benefit, one thing that has worked well with the whole podcast has been getting our clients to interview their past and existing investors first. We start off with these warm investors, people that are already doing well with them. Have those folks as your first interviews, and then that’s going to accomplish a bunch. Number one, it’s going to get our new hosts some friendly at-bats with people they already know, so they’re less nervous about doing the interviews.

Number two, it creates a bunch of content to launch the show with a bang. Instead of trickling out 1 or 2 episodes at a time, we launch with 10, 12, 15, and 20 episodes in one fell swoop. Financially, it’s very beneficial because when you’re interviewing a happy investor, then at the end of the interview, what I encourage our clients to do is do a little bit of homework ahead of time. Pull up the notes on the investment that person did with you.

At the end of the interview, have them stick around with you for a few minutes on Zoom. Do a quick little recap, an update on how that investment went or how it’s going, just to remind them because they’re not going to remember. Start the recording again, and then ask some open-ended questions. Let’s pretend, Kevin, that you’re one of my happy investors.

Let’s say I’m a note guy and you’ve been investing with me and you’ve been making good money on the notes, and you’re a happy camper. I remind you how the latest note’s going. “Kevin, you invested $50,000 in this note and we’ve been paying you out for the last two and a half years. Every month, you’ve been getting a monthly payment of whatever. Total return has been this. Total return on investment has been that,” just remind you what it’s all about. I’d open it up. I’d say, “Kevin, so just let me ask you, man. How do you feel about your investment with us so far?”

Yeah, it’s been great. I’ve been getting, like you said, steady returns. I haven’t had to put any other effort into it, and I’m real happy. Yeah, it’s awesome. Anybody would.

You get the idea. I say, “Kevin, I know you were investing or you’ve done some investments in stocks or bonds or crypto or whatever that you’ve done. How does this investment compare to some of the other investments you’ve done? Especially when it comes to the security and the regularity of those payments.

I hear what you’re saying. I did a notes versus type of series. These are all good questions, but there’s a skill behind that. People have to be coached up a little bit on how to interview and how to prompt those.

It’s prompting, but here’s what I’m looking for. I’m not looking for a polished testimonial. I’m actually looking for sound bites. I’m looking for 5 to 10-second little snippets that are just pure gold. For example, you asked for a success story. We had one of our clients, Alex. He did this with one of their investors. He did the whole process I just mentioned, and she went on and on. We had to edit it down, but she basically said, “The investment with you guys in 1 year caught me up for 10 years of investing I wasn’t able to do, raising my kids.”

Yeah. That’s all you need.

That’s all you want. That’s all you need. You pull out 2 or 3 little snippets like that, and that is pure gold. You’re able to get testimonials. The second thing you can get is referrals. It’s so easy to get referrals. Let’s pretend you’re my guest again, Kevin. You’re my investor, my guest. Kevin, it’s great having you on the show. You’re a very successful business guy. Do you have any other business associates who you think would make a good guest to be on the show with me as well?”

Yeah, absolutely. I’ve got so and so and they’ve done very well.

Exactly. How are you going to feel about referring that person to me as a guest on my show?

Yeah. If I’ve had a great experience, then why not?

Yeah, because it’s free publicity, free marketing for your friend. You’re giving them value. It’s like a win-win there versus if I said, “Kevin, you’re doing really well with your investment. Do you know anybody else who might be interested in investing in notes with me?” Even if you’ve done well, that’s a big ask, referring close friend with money and all that. People get weird about that.

It’s so much easier to get a referral for a guest. When I’m interviewing Joe, your referral, at the end of the interview, I could say, “Joe, by the way, Kevin’s one of our most valued investors in some notes. He’s really enjoying the returns he’s getting there. Is that something you might be interested in taking a look at as well?”

It’s much easier to get that conversation going that way. Last but not least, Kevin, it’s a great way to get reinvestment. You’ve just reminded the guy of the kind of returns that they’re getting, all that stuff. I’d say something like this. “Kevin, you always get first dibs on any new notes and opportunities that we’ve got coming down the pipeline. If we have a really good one coming up in the near future, would you like to take a look at it first?”

“You know what? I might have one that’s coming up. Would you like to book a follow-up conversation? We could talk about that.” Get them booked for that, and get them for a reinvestment that way. We had one of our clients, Desi, who did exactly that. He interviewed one of his existing investors. She loved it and said, “I’m going to pull another $50,000 out of my stock portfolio and invest it with you.” That’s exactly what she did.

There is a process there, and I like that because you can’t come in cold to an investor. They’re going to run the other way. I used to tell people all the time, especially if it’s a friend or relative, somebody on a warmer relationship they’re starting with, I’m like, “Don’t go telling them you just spent the weekend learning about this stuff and jumping in. They’re going to run the other way from you.”

Make sure every guest you feature on your podcast looks good, feels good, and sounds good. That naturally creates rapport and reciprocation. Click To Tweet

I used to tell people, I said, “Why don’t you do a nice little write up on a note that somebody else bought or that you’re looking at,” just an example and approach them in a very similar way, asking them for advice? “You’re a successful business person and I think this is a good deal, but I don’t know. I wanted you to take a look.”

That way, they can input without feeling like you’re pushing them to get in there. I see some similarities with this, such as “Just get on the podcast, let’s just talk,” and that’s where everything starts. It starts with a conversation and that leads into something else. You start to start to build. That’s a unique model that can be used through that format.

It’s nice too, because I call it leading with the giving hand. It’s all about them. It’s all about featuring them on your show, making them look good, feel good, sound good. That naturally creates rapport. That naturally creates reciprocation, so they’re much more open to the idea of having a follow-up conversation with you. It just opens a lot more doors. It’s the oil for the hinges there.

Get In Touch With Dave

That’s absolutely something worth looking at and exploring for more information. Where should people go?

Yeah, they can find me on LinkedIn, Dave Dubeau. I’m the guy that’s inviting you to be a guest on my podcast on LinkedIn or if you’re interested in this whole thing, you can check out 20AccreditedInvestorsBook.com. Grab a copy of the book. It’s how to get twenty accredited Investor meetings every month using a podcast. If you want to book a call, you can do so right there.

Excellent. Worth looking into, everybody. Get that book and read about it because the podcast shouldn’t be intimidating until you’re talking to somebody, interviewing them, and it becomes quite natural at some point in time. Dave, thanks a bunch for being on. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure. Thank you, Kevin.

Alright. Thanks, everybody. Don’t forget to give a nice rating if you enjoyed the episode and if you want to see the video replay, go over to YouTube and check that out as well. I look forward to putting together another episode for you real soon.

 

Important Links

• Kevin Shortle on YouTube
• Dave Dubeau
• Dave Dubeau on LinkedIn
• How To Get 20 Accredited Investors Every Month

 

About Dave Dubeau

Dave Dubeau helps real estate entrepreneurs to scale their portfolios by attracting investors/jv partners and their capital instead of chasing after it. He created the Money Partner Formula process that raises 6-figures (or more) in 6-weeks (or less) by getting the right investors coming to you.

Dave is the CEO and founder of Results Enterprises Inc. / the Money Partner Formula, which offers a proven strategy to help clients find their ideal investors and quickly raise the capital they need to grow their real estate portfolios fast. He is also a passive investor, best-selling author, and sought-after speaker.

 

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