The Art of Building Relationships Through Strategic Podcasting with Dave Dubeau

Dave Dubeau is in British Columbia, the great white North. Born and raised. He spent almost 14 years in Latin America (ten of them in San Jose, Costa Rica running a language training company) before dragging his Costa Rican family kicking and screaming back to Canada in 2003. He started over from scratch, fell into a late-night real estate infomercial, ran the creative no-money-down playbook, moved through single family lease options into multifamily, and eventually realized he was terrible at operations. So he stopped operating. For the last dozen years his entire focus has been on a single, narrow problem: helping syndicators and fund managers raise capital from accredited investors using a podcast as the lead-generation engine. The twist on Dave's method is that he runs it the opposite way most real estate operators run a show. Most syndicators start a podcast hoping to grow an audience by interviewing the Grant Cardones and Robert Kiyosakis of the world. That's a lot of hoping and not a lot of happening. Three years ago Dave heard another podcaster describe the inverted model: stop trying to grow the audience, and instead use the guest seat itself as the relationship vehicle. Interview the kind of people you actually want as clients. Shine the spotlight on them. Start the relationship that way. What landed in this conversation: Who the accredited investor actually is. Successful business owners, successful entrepreneurs, doctors, dentists, accountants, C-suite executives. The kind of people Dave used to work with in Silicon Valley. A lot of them are interested in publicity and exposure, and almost none of them have ever been invited onto a podcast. Dave has one client whose first booked guest runs a billion-dollar fund (with a B). The guest had never been on a podcast in his life. He was nervous, out of his depth, and excited. The client put him at ease, had a wonderful conversation, took him out to coffee, took him out to lunch, and built the relationship at warp speed. Cold-calling that same guest to get coffee would have been almost impossible. The conversation flow that converts. The show starts on the guest's business or profession (what's their secret sauce, what comes easier to them than to their competition). Then a few questions on work-life balance. Then a soft pivot toward the financial side: "It sounds like things are going amazingly well, Dr. Smith. A lot of busy doctors like you are making excellent income now but want that income to keep going when they don't want to work so hard. What are your thoughts about creating passive income?" That's it. No pitch. Dr. Smith answers (stocks, bonds, crypto, whatever) and you note it. The magic happens after you stop recording. "Dr. Smith, congratulations on all your success. You mentioned you're dabbling in stocks and bonds. How do you feel about the returns, the security, the stability of those investments? Is there maybe a little room for improvement?" The answer is yes 100% of the time. Even Warren Buffett would say there's room for improvement. "Cool. We're doing something really interesting with other busy doctors in the alternative investing space, getting solid double-digit returns secured by real estate with significant tax breaks. Is that something you might be interested in taking a look at?" Book the discovery call. The first call doesn't close a check. It opens the door. Lead with the giving hand. Dave's framing for the whole model: provide value first, before you ever ask for anything. Give them the spotlight. Make them look good and feel good. After the interview Dave's agency packages three or four short-form reels, LinkedIn articles, and social posts the guest can use on Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, wherever they live. The guest gets to strut. Dave's client gets reciprocity, eyeballs on the show, and the conversational permission to circle back. One client had an audience member (not a guest, just a listener) reach out and invest $75,000. The advice that shaped Dave was counterintuitive. When he was packing his bags to go start a business in Costa Rica, his father took him aside and said, "Son, I love you dearly, but you don't have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. I've tried it. I failed at it. I know you. I don't think you've got it in you." That ticked Dave off so badly that he went and did it anyway, just to prove his old man wrong, and the spite carried him through stretches when he would have otherwise quit. Five or six years in, his father took it back. "I was wrong." The biggest professional regret was trusting greed over intuition on a rent-to-own tenant whose spidey sense Dave overrode. Family of five trashed the house, months of cleanup, very expensive lesson: pay attention to the little voice. His wife has the same gift, and Dave learned in his thirties to stop overriding her too. Book mentioned: The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes (the originator of the Dream 100 concept). Dave is currently rereading the updated 2.0 edition. Find it on Amazon. Get in touch: grab a free copy of Dave's book at 20accreditedinvestorsbook.com. Trade your name and email, get the book, land in his ecosystem. Real Estate Underground with Ed Mathews. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, at clarkst.com/podcast or elevista.com/podcast Elevista - Speed as a Service™Elevista Connect is the first AI-powered lead conversion system built for real estate investors. 🎧 Subscribe to Real Estate Underground for weekly insights on building wealth through real estate, without sacrificing your sanity.Additional Resources:Clark St Capital -> Passive real estate investments for busy business owners and executivesElevista -> AI SaaS for real estate investorsClark St Academy on YouTube -> Learn how to invest in real estateSocial Media:LinkedIn -> Ed Mathews (President at Clark St and Elevista)Heads up: If you find this week's book intriguing and you buy using our link, we receive a small commission that helps support the show. Thank you!