Stefan Lubinski - Stop Chasing Strangers: How to Build a Six-Figure Referral Engine with Interview Content

Stefan Lubinski  0:00  
What I'm saying is it's not about creating quality content. I mean, yeah, we need that as an output that goes without saying, but that's not the objective. The objective is relationships with high value targets that you don't know. And by the way, when people say like, you know, it's it's who you know, that's bullshit. It's who knows you. Which is more powerful? If Oprah knew me, knew Stefan, that's way more powerful than me knowing her.

David Bush  0:27  
Welcome to the Business builder's playbook, the show that breaks down the systems and strategies behind Predictable Revenue Growth to win in business. In each episode, we're diving into the proven strategies that separate the winners who scale from the losers who fail. This show is sponsored by bdr.ai the AI powered business development platform that automates your outbound prospecting so you can focus in on closing deals instead of chasing leads. Let's get started. Hey, welcome everybody. David Bush, alongside a good friend of mine, Stefan Levinsky, who I've known for over 20 years, and Stefan's doing some amazing work in kind of flipping the script on what it means to be successful as a service, professional, solopreneur, coach, consultant, advisor, all of those positions. If that resonates with you, listen in to what Stefan's about to share with you, because most of you have been doing business development through social media, wrong, so be prepared he might challenge your concepts. Now, again, what he's about to share with you, I think, is going to be controversial to certain people. However, I think that our experiences and expertise will tell you differently, and hopefully you'll do some research for yourself and talk to Stephen Stephan, Steven said, Talk to Stefan personally and do a strategy call with him to talk about how you are wanting to build a platform on technology, bringing your expertise and your experience and creating an annuity stream of new opportunities. So Stefan tell them a little bit about your back, about your background, and then let's jump into what it is that you're doing right now to help these individuals to scale their businesses. First, I have

Stefan Lubinski  2:07  
to blow a little sunshine your way that take, ladies and gentlemen, was one time that intro that David just laid down just came out of his mouth. I have to give you credit for that, because I work day in and day out with people who I'm not the one on the mic and camera my clients are, and I will tell you, it's a struggle to get that intro out in one take. So hats. Tip of the hat to you, sir, thanks for having me. Stefan lubinsky, I am a lifelong business development person. I mean, I was in the restaurant business until I was in my late 20s, but after that, I ended up in San Francisco during the first internet boom. And after that was in kind of startup Ville for a while, SAS startups, tech startups, social media startups, a lot of startups and and frankly, I wasn't lucky enough to get at one of those where you have a successful exit. All of our exits were just we shut the doors because we're out of money, and that happens. And so I decided at that, you know, after the last one, which was YouTube, social TV, to get off of the startup bandwagon. My thought was, I can fail by myself. If I'm going to fail, I don't, I don't need to be with a team to fail. So so I went off on my own, but I've always been in sales and business development. And then after 2017 I had the proverbial midlife crisis and decided that I just wasn't happy doing what I was doing, and I wanted to do something in a much more creative space, kind of writing my own rules, whatever, all that other stuff. And it took a while to kind of figure it out, but luckily, I have had media experience, meaning one of those startups was television, and there was television, and there was two television networks and a radio network and and I've always really been interested in that. I was teaching people in the mortgage business, in the real estate business, to use YouTube, literally before it was acquired by Google. And that's an 18 month window. So I've just always really been excited about media and the democratization of media through the internet and tools like this where you can record yourself like what we're doing today. So I went to a former client of mine that I did business development consulting for, and said, Look, you're starting a new company, and you're selling to Fortune 100 companies, and you're a teeny tiny nobody. I have an idea that I think can move your ball down the field. It will create visibility and credibility for you. But more importantly, it's a business development strategy, and actually I defined it as a relationship acquisition strategy. So now let me back up a little bit and play on what you teased out at the beginning, which is, you know, most, most professionals that are leveraging content are following the wrong playbook. And what I mean by that is, I would, I would say 80% just use Pareto as principle of. Service professionals, that's attorneys, consultants, coaches, startup founders, etc. 80% of them are following a content creators strategy playbook, and that means I'm going to like I'm going to make valuable content, I'm going to push it out on these platforms. I'm going to slowly grow an audience of people that engage with likes and comments and shares, and if they like my content, they're going to kind of stick around, and over time, they're going to get to know like and trust me. And then there'll be a client that's kind of the math. The reality is for attorneys, consultants, coaches, startup founders, etc, these aren't low ticket items. These are very high ticket six figure plus engagements, that means they require a tremendous amount of trust for the conversion. And in my opinion, and what I've seen played out over and over and over, and kind of bear out in the data, is that trying to convince strangers on the internet through your wonderful content, you know, yes, great points, great tips, great strategy, whatever it is you're sharing, has a very low payoff in terms of them choosing you as their attorney, their consultant, their coach, their whatever. And when I grew up in New Jersey, there's a saying like, I got a guy, right? You get into a fender bender. Need a body guy for your car. I got a guy. Need a plumber. I got a guy. And the reason that's so powerful I got a guy is it saying you can skip searching. I already you, trust me, David, this is my plumber. He's the greatest plumber of all time. You don't need to get on the internet. I'm just going to give you this guy's number because I got a guy, and you're likely because we've known each other so long to go, perfect. Great. Give me that number. Let me go. That's the business model you want to be in. You want to be in the referral business because high trust conversions are shortcut. They are hacked, if you will, by a high trust referral. Okay. So Now stick with me here, folks, I'm saying a piece of content on Instagram is not likely to get somebody who doesn't know you to engage with you for your six figure service, or whatever, however much your expensive service is, however, if one of their close colleagues, friends, family Members, whatever were to say, I got a guy I know the person that can help grow your business, you know, like, if you need AI prospecting, I got a guy. It's David. I'm going to tell you, Look, he's a good guy. You can trust him. He doesn't lie. Go check out his his solution.

David Bush  7:36  
So if this show is resonating with you and you're ready to take action because you want to scale your business faster, smarter with more AI and technology and less labor. Check out. Bdr.ai, we help entrepreneurs and executive sales leaders to automate the grind of prospecting so you can focus your time on closing deals and growing revenue where you should be spending your time with AI powered data, digital outreach, automation and done for you. Prospecting systems, you'll connect with more qualified leads, book more appointments and build Predictable Revenue without adding more hours to your week or the week of your staff. Visit BDR today and discover how our AI prospect finder and digital BDR agents can help you to build your pipeline and your profits, visit bdr.ai where business builders learn how to automate and scale their playbook. Yeah, I love the fact that you're challenging the status quo, because I do think that there's so many people out there that have believed, which right in the middle of the word believe, is the word lie. They believe the lie that if they just post more consistently, if they do a podcast, then they're going to develop a annuity stream of opportunity. And that's not typically the case for majority of the professionals that we talk to on a day by day basis. They're better off doing quality, not quantity, and they're better off doing more direct outreach to the people that they already have trust and relationship with, as well as expanding on those opportunities with people that are connected with the people that they have trust and credibility with. And so talk a little bit about the solution. You just launched this new program. I'm super excited about seeing how this can come into play, because you kind of do a done for you service where you bring that quality content, and people don't have to spend a lot of time, energy, effort, money, trying to organize a bunch of things that is not going to generate additional income, and they can stay focused on the main thing and keeping the main thing, the main thing is really valuable to these, you know, high digit, high high volume or high revenue, high ticket clients. So talk a little bit more about

Stefan Lubinski  9:51  
that. Yeah, so the nuance is this, right? It's not about the content. So I'm going to say that again, because we're not following a content creators. And you're like, wait, I understand. I thought you produced, like, podcast. Some shows and stuff, but it's not about the content. So I'm going to say that again, the words that you need to be writing down, folks, if you are in this position, which is a relationship acquisition strategy, then slash, or, I don't know what the algebra is, but then referral partner. So. So now what you should be understanding is that the reason the interview show is so powerful, is it is not about the thought leadership content. That is our exhaust. I'll say it again. That's that is the output. That's not that wasn't the objective. It's not the KPI, that's the exhaust. And we do end up getting the same content creators long tail ROI, meaning we have great content, and we get more eyeballs, and it grows year over year, and we get engagement. But my clients don't generate money from that. It does help their credibility. It does help their visibility. It does help in due Dili, when somebody was referred in due diligence, when somebody was referring, they go, let me go check out. I don't suppose let me check them out, and then they see that there's this great, well produced content, then that validates that the referral person that sent you to them was like, oh, man, that's great. That's now I'm going to get a hold of them. So what I'm saying is it's not about creating quality content. I mean, yeah, we need that as an output that goes without saying, but that's not the objective. The objective is relationships with high value targets. Now let me tell you what a high value target is. A high value target is either a prospect themselves, that is an organization, a company, a person that could be a client of yours if they knew how amazing you are, or they are, and I hope this is the case a referral partner. Why? Because a prospect is one. A prospect is a deal. Even if that's a deal for years, it's one deal. A referral partner is a engine of business, like, hopefully more than once a year, but even once a year, if I've got 10 referral partners. That's 10 deals a year coming. My like, you're doing the math now, right? So, so the highest value target is a referral partner. Now, what do they want? Well, they want to be visible and credible. They also struggle to make content that sounds good and looks good and that's professional and that puts them in the right light. So when you have an interview show for your industry, and you reach out to high value targets that you don't know. And by the way, when people say like, you know, it's it's who you know, that's bullshit. It's who knows you I know Oprah Winfrey. Oprah Winfrey does not know me. Which is more powerful? If Oprah knew me, knew Stefan, that's way more powerful than me knowing her. So it's not a who you know world. It's a who knows you world. And if these high value targets don't know you, how you can get to know them is reaching out with an opportunity of value, not reaching out saying, I would love to get to know you, not reaching out with a LinkedIn connection. Where's the value in that? For them, they don't know you. They didn't need to know you. So saying, like, let's be connected on LinkedIn. Why are you a higher value target than them? Then they'd say, yes, but then that doesn't make sense for you. So if they're at the high value target, you represent lower value than they do, and you know it. So why is reaching out on LinkedIn going to be anything? You have to go to them with something of value. So if you go to them and say, Listen, I have a show. Like, in my case, I have a show called the hot seat for the C suite, and I interview CEOs of AI startups, and you have seven direct questions. You have 60 seconds to answer each question. That's my particular flavor of show. Okay, the reality is that each one of those CEOs are CEOs of companies that I serve and do business with I don't know them. I'd love to know them. Love to know more about their business. Love them to know more about my business, so that they might say, would would us doing an interview? Would this make sense for us? And they go, oh yeah, make a lot of sense for you. And boom, now they're a client, okay, but I delivered value first, which is, I'm going to interview you. I'm going to collaborate with you. What do you guys what makes you shine. Then we're going to record that, then I'm going to have it professionally edited, then I'm going to create clips, and they're going to be, you know, formatted for social with captions and all that stuff, and I'm going to deliver all of that to the client. All they had to do is show up and answer these questions, questions they need to answer anyway, questions they need to answer for their own investors, their own prospects, their own clients. So any opportunity that a company can get out there and say, here's why we're great at what we do, here's why our customers love us, et cetera, they're going to take you up on it because it's valuable to them. So this isn't a bait and switch. Valuable. I'm investing time and actual money to get this show done, and I'm going to make you look great, and we're going to talk about your awesome company. And there's no quid pro quo. They don't have to pay me anything. They'll have to do business with me. The quid pro quo is they now know me, and hopefully they like me and know what I do, and possibly do business. So take that business model. I literally when we're when we're chatting, when it's all over, I go like, you're in the matrix, right? You understand that you're you're in my prospect. And flow right now, in this moment, while I'm talking to you, you're in my funnel. And if you do this for yourself, the people you'll be talking with will be in your funnel, right? So just to kind of wrap it up in a bow, what I'm saying is yes. Make content Yes. Make it valuable to your audience. By the way, by being the host and interviewing an expert. You're not trying to say, I'm the expert. Look at me. Look at me. I'm listen to what I have to say. That sounds like can be a turn off, if everything is like self facing, right? Instead, be the be the Sherpa, not the guru. Don't be the know it all. Be the person that's asking questions and saying, I don't know you. Tell me you're the expert, and then share that with your audience, right? So that takes you off the hook in what I'm going to create content. What am I gonna be an expert? I gotta keep coming up with things. I gotta be consistent. Now, what you need to do is figure out who are the 10, 1215, people that would move your ball forward, what referral partners you're a realtor, divorce attorneys, CPAs, financial professionals, right? So whatever industry you're a lawyer, other lawyers, right? So if you're divorced or you get it from, you get my point. You guys know who your referral partners or sources are, by role, by ICP, ideal instead of ideal customer profile, let's call it ideal referral partner profile, whatever that is, irpp or something. So figure that out, and then build a show around those people and develop those relationships. And what you will see is an immediate payoff, not like, oh, three years from now, I will have critical mass in audience, and finally, start getting clients out of this. And I guess one of the last things I would say is I get why people get sucked into the content creators because it's an ego stroke, those likes and those comments and watching those numbers of followers grow like, Oh, look at me. But when I asked people to tell me which of those followers are clients, which of them sent money, they get real quiet. And as I said to David in the in the preamble, my bank Chase. They don't take likes, shares or comments as deposits. They take cash or checks or wire transfers. So what I'm asking you out there is, while you're telling yourself how great you're doing with your likes and your comments and your shares, some of you are able to turn these into clients again. Perez principle, maybe as many as 20% I doubt it. It's probably five. It. It's probably five. So Are there exceptions to the rule? Yes, but I know that I'm speaking to you out there, you're probably in the rule. And if you stop all that and focus on referral partners and focus on great conversations that make them look good and then give them those assets, you're going to start seeing the relationships pay off Absolutely.

David Bush  17:42  
And my friend Jim Cathcart has this concept of building relational assets, that because once you build relational assets, you can make withdrawals and you have the positive balance because you've added value and you've made deposits into them, that when you ask for a referral or you ask somebody to share an upcoming event that you're doing with those people that they know, like and trust. They are more likely to do that if you have made the investment into them. And you know, Stefan, we've talked about this over 20 years, you know, the idea of building a team of referral partners. I mean, I played football, and there were 11 guys on the field at one time, and they all had a common goal of winning the game, you know, doing things together. And if I could just challenge those people that are watching this video right now, is who's on your team you know, who are the 11 people that are on your team that you know, know you like you trust you refer you consistently to their influence or their followers, or the people they're connected to that know, like and trust them. And if you don't have those people, you don't need to leaven today, you can start, you know, working with Stefan, and start working on developing a monthly show where you're going to divide, or you're going to deposit value into these team members and showcase their experience, their expertise, their services, and then you're going to use that content to add value to your followers. And Stefan's going to do it all for you. It's all done for you. And now you're building those relationships. And month over month of after month, you're going to be expanding these referral partner what do they call them? Relational assets? And you're going to develop, you know, a diverse accounting system that you are going to have a lot of balances that have positive balances, that are going to have a little annuity stream of income, because they're going to refer big ticket clients to you. And I can't wait for you to meet with the vote those people that are watching this video, Stefan and and really educate them on how it all works. And so would you just give us a brief kind of like what to do next to learn more about working with you?

Stefan Lubinski  19:47  
Well, you know what's funny, you're so nice. First of all, I never plug I certainly don't plug hard. That was the hardest plug I've ever had. So that's really sweet of you. And thank you. Here's the first thing I would say, I have very few slots left, so the likelihood. It is, I won't be working with it. I think I've got three slots left. I only work with 10 clients at a time, partly because work life balance is more important to me than making money. That's my own personal thing, and I have a really great work life balance thing. So I don't work with more than 10 clients. And the truth is, the reason I'm on here, I like Dave, and I like that. He always is kind of putting value out there and like, you know, trying to be genuine. So I genuinely would like anybody out there to listen to this and take action, not get a hold of me, you can. But that's not the next step. The next step is you can do this on your own. Okay, this isn't complicated. Yes, companies pay me to do it, so I can make it turnkey, and I can make it easy, and I can get all the edits done. Yes, and I'm not cheap, so you know, but you don't need me that, that's my message. Okay, you do not. I hope my clients don't see this shit, but you don't need me to do this. Will, Will I take it to a next level? Of course, yes, yes. But doing this getting started so, like, don't look for another guru. Don't look for somebody. Like, Oh, now I got to go find a guy. Nope, nope. You can go find any of the interviews on my LinkedIn that I've released of my clients and see that this is not, I mean, honestly, it's like what David and I are doing right now on Zoom. And you can do it on Zoom. I use Riverside. You can use Riverside and check that out. And yeah, so you can, it's not hard to collaborate with this referral partner, come up with some questions together. You don't just meet and then record. You do a pre production call. You work out, hey, what do you want to talk about, and should we focus on this? And so you work that all out, and then you're on the same page, and then you get up there and go and record it, and you're going to like, release it on your LinkedIn, and you're going to release it on your Facebook and and stuff like that. So my big message is, please focus on referral partners. Please use the interview method, because it's hands down the best method to do that for so many reasons. You can go to my website, which is Stefan lubinski.com and you can see how I've articulated that, just so that you're like, Oh, now I really okay. I get this. I get how this whole works again, not because I'm soliciting you to do business with me. If I can't answer any questions, by all means, you can book a free strategy session on my website. But the big message is, focus on referral partners. Stop trying to convince strangers on the internet to be clients, and instead focus on making referral partners. Shine your own personal ones, like what David said, your own 11, if you have them, or five, or three or two, but then branching out to new ones. That's really the key, the value of this relationship acquisition strategy, if you already have the 11, maybe strengthening the relationship with a few that you feel need to get warmed up would be guests. But my truth would be like, I don't need that. I'm going to get on the phone with those 11 and go referrals, please. But the referral part is I don't know, in my town, in my state, in the country, if I'm a national business, those are the people that I want to know. And one last thing that I will say about high value targets. If you pick high value targets that themselves have a decent digital footprint, audience size. Then when you have a really good interview with them, and you will because you collaborated with them to figure out what is going to be great. And then you do that, and then you hire an editor, or you learn editing yourself. There's tools like descript and Riverside that allow you to edit without a linear edit. You can edit from the text. Okay, so, for you watching, you don't need to anymore guys, you don't need to hit record have a conversation. AI tools will edit for you, or descript or Riverside or whatever. It's so simple, there's no reason that you can't go out there and start doing this.

David Bush  23:33  
Yeah. Well, I appreciate it, and that's why, the reason why I want to do this interview with you, Stefan, is because of you know you have a heart to serve. You're a serve first guy. And you know, for those people that want to take on Stefan and what it is that he's offering in the three spots that he has opened, I encourage you to go to the website. It's just his name, Stephan lubinski.com, get some more information and Stefan, it's always a pleasure to be able to share this time with you and to learn more about what you're doing. I learned a few things along the way. So thanks so much.

Stefan Lubinski  24:03  
Thank you, man, I really appreciate you asking me. It's very sweet of you. Thanks. Take care, everybody.

David Bush  24:09  
Thanks for tuning in to the Business Builders playbook. If this episode gave you some plays that you can start running in your business today, hit subscribe and share with another revenue leader who's tired of the pipeline grind. Building Predictable Revenue isn't something you figure out alone. Whether you're looking to automate your prospecting with bdr.ai, or you just want to talk through the growth challenges you're facing, reach out. We help business leaders just like you to build systems that actually scale. And if you're ready to stop being your company's Highest Paid Prospector, let's have a conversation. Reach out to us@bdr.ai until next time, let's keep building. You.