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Feb. 18, 2025

Mastering Podcast Guest Relationships: Stefan Lubinski on Building Podcasting Success and Audience Engagement

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Podcasting Tech

Many podcasters dream of using their show as a powerful relationship-building tool—but how do you do it effectively? If you’re looking to create meaningful business connections through podcasting, this episode of PodcastingTech is for you!

This week, Mathew Passy sits down with Stefan Lubinski, creator at Audience Builders, to explore innovative ways podcasters can leverage their shows as strategic relationship acquisition tools for business growth.

Stefan Lubinski is a seasoned sales trainer, speaker, and podcast producer, with experience hosting television, radio, and online productions. With a strong background in sales and business development, he has helped transform multiple podcasts into thriving thought leadership platforms.

Tune in and discover how to turn your podcast into a networking powerhouse!

IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVER:

  • From Sales to Podcasting: Stefan shares his journey from sales to podcasting and how his accidental entry into media led to the creation of successful media brands. (00:01:14)
  • Turning Podcasts into Relationship Bridges: Stefan shares his model of involving select industry movers on a podcast to foster beneficial partnerships and joint ventures. (00:04:17)
  • The Strategy behind Content for Business: Stefan breaks down the concept of using podcasts as relationship acquisition tools rather than focusing solely on audience downloads and using podcasts for long-term business growth. (00:05:48
  • Mastering Guest Relationships: Stefan explains the do's and don'ts of leveraging podcast guest appearances for business and the importance of relationship nurturing. (00:10:13
  • Pay-to-play Models in Podcasting: The pros and cons of pay-to-play models in podcasting and how they can offer value when done transparently. (00:18:02
  • The Future of Podcasting: Stefan's vision for an all-in-one podcasting platform, covering everything from guest management to publication and social syndication. (00:24:42

 

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

  • Connect with Stefan Lubinski:
  • Follow Steven on Linkedin - @stefanlubinski 
  • Connect with Stefan’s podcast recommendations

 

           Tim Ferriss' Podcast

           The Diary of a CEO

 

Understanding the power of podcasting in fostering relationships and business growth is crucial. Subscribe to Podcasting Tech on all major platforms and follow us on social media for more insights and updates.

**As an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases of podcasting gear from Amazon.com. We also participate in affiliate programs with many of the software services mentioned on our website. If you purchase something through the links we provide, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The team at Podcasting Tech only recommends products and services that we would use ourselves and that we believe will provide value to our viewers and readers.**

For additional resources and insights visit podcastingtech.com or follow us on social media:

 

 

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Transcript

Speaker:

Welcome to Podcasting Tech, a podcast that equips busy

 

 


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entrepreneurs engaged in podcasting with proven and cost effective

 

 


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solutions for achieving a professional sound and appearance. I'm

 

 


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Matthew Passi, your host and a fifteen year veteran in the podcasting

 

 


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space. We'll help you cut through the noise and offer guidance on software and

 

 


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hardware that can elevate the quality of your show. Tune in weekly

 

 


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for insightful interviews with tech creators, behind the scenes studio tours, and

 

 


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strategies for podcasting success. Head to

 

 


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podcastingtech.com to subscribe to this show on YouTube or your favorite

 

 


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podcast platform, and join us on this exciting journey to unlock the full

 

 


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potential of your podcast. Gonna take you

 

 


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up to New England and chat with Stefan Lubinski. He is

 

 


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the creator at Audience Builders, and you can find more about him at

 

 


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stephanlubinski.com. Well, of course, I'll have a note, a link to all

 

 


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that in the show notes. He's a coach, consultant, and producer.

 

 


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Stefan, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Good morning. Good to be

 

 


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here. Thanks for having me. Oh, it it's my pleasure. So you have an interesting

 

 


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background. You didn't really start in the the media role per se. How did

 

 


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you find yourself in podcasting? Yeah. It's funny

 

 


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because I did we we met through, through an online podcasters

 

 


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group, and and I listed that I was an accidental podcast

 

 


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producer. So my background has been in sales pretty much my

 

 


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entire professional career ranging from restaurants to real estate,

 

 


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technology to television, all kinds of, of different

 

 


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industries, always in business development. One of those experiences

 

 


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was for a company that owned two television networks and we

 

 


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were the first social television network and Mark Burnett was an

 

 


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investor. Now unfortunately, U2 TV didn't make it,

 

 


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as many startups that I've been involved with, although I don't think that it's my

 

 


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fault. But, yeah, it didn't make it, but at that time it was a

 

 


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hot television startup and I got an opportunity one day

 

 


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to actually take a producing role. We had lost somebody and the

 

 


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CEO was like, who I'd known for many years, and he knew I

 

 


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was a creative and he was like, guess what? You're now the producer of this

 

 


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show. And I had no experience in it, and it was television,

 

 


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and it was an interview format. And it was, it was a pay to play

 

 


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format. It's called a buy on show. So the guests literally pay to be

 

 


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on television and to be interviewed as a media asset and a

 

 


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kind of a PR ladder. So I did that, I loved it, I really

 

 


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enjoyed that, and then many years later as I started to wind down

 

 


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my sales leadership roles, I decided

 

 


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I wanted to do more, creative things that help,

 

 


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my clients kind of grow their business, and I landed on,

 

 


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using a show, whether that's a limited series in some cases,

 

 


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whether that's, quote, unquote, a podcast,

 

 


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as a relationship acquisition vehicle for my clients. So early stage

 

 


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startups that are looking to be more visible and credible to have c suite relationships

 

 


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that they don't have, we used, a thought leadership platform

 

 


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as a means to establish those relationships. And so that became so successful

 

 


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for one of my clients that it literally turned into a brand.

 

 


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Rising Stars is now the most recognizable media brand in the Medicare

 

 


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stars space. We're invited to speak at conferences. We now do

 

 


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live events, and next year, we'll look to get into I

 

 


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don't wanna call it credentialing, but, industry education.

 

 


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So all started from just a a strategy to help a client

 

 


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be more visible and has now turned into a brand with three legs to that

 

 


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stool of of live events, education, and and the show.

 

 


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Very, very cool. Congratulations on all that. I I wanna go back to what you

 

 


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were talking about relationship building through thought leadership and and this idea

 

 


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of pay to perform or pay to play or pay to appear.

 

 


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You know, so many podcasters, they get in this and they immediately look at

 

 


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downloads as their biggest metric. And I remember when I

 

 


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first started with clients and podcast production, one of my first clients was like, listen,

 

 


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if people listen to this, great, but having this podcast is gonna open a lot

 

 


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of doors for me and, you know, at first their target really was the guest,

 

 


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not so much the audience. Why is that

 

 


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a successful strategy for some? Because it's an instant payoff.

 

 


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Because with with when you're doing content for business,

 

 


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whether you're a B2B, whether you're a Fortune 500, or whether you're a solopreneur,

 

 


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the payoff for content to business, unless you're selling like an

 

 


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e commerce product, but if you're a realtor, a lawyer, a

 

 


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consultant, a coach, the amount of time it's gonna take

 

 


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to go from content to new business is a long tail.

 

 


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You not only have to build up an audience, you have to have content

 

 


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in front of them multiple times. Some people say seven to

 

 


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eight times, some people say 12 to 18 times before they really get a sense

 

 


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of familiarity, trust, and want to execute on a call to action.

 

 


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So, if you use a podcast

 

 


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for your clients, if you're a producer or if if you're

 

 


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a podcaster thinking about how can you make money with your skills,

 

 


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being able to explain to whether they're a consultant,

 

 


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a coach, an executive in sales, all of those people wanna be

 

 


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connected with the movers and shakers in their space.

 

 


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So if you can create a well enough produced

 

 


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program and if you can ask smart enough questions,

 

 


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you will find that most of the time subject matter experts will say yes.

 

 


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And now all of a sudden my client has a relationship with that

 

 


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C suite target. And I wanna be really clear for

 

 


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those of you that are like, wait, so you're saying these guests are

 

 


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more the target than worrying about the content for the audience and the answer

 

 


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is yes. And not only that, what I would tell you is when I sit

 

 


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down with my clients I say, because I do a 10

 

 


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episode year for a client, like that's a season, So

 

 


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I'll say, who are the 10 people in your industry that will move the

 

 


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needle for you? Whether that's as a joint venture, a partner, a prospect, whatever

 

 


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it may be. And so they list out, these are the 10 people I'd like

 

 


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to have a relationship with or these are the 10 people I'd like to strengthen

 

 


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the relationship with. They know me, but we're, you know, we're not friends.

 

 


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And so, yeah, we'll build the episodes around those

 

 


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targets and we'll we'll get a hold of them and say, hey, listen, we're

 

 


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doing an episode about and of course whatever it was about is tailored to what

 

 


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they do well. And, we know that you're crushing it in that

 

 


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space or that strategy or whatever, and we'd love to have you come

 

 


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on. And it's rare that guests say

 

 


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no. And when they do say no, it's typically scheduling. It's

 

 


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not, no, I don't wanna be on your on your program. Well, so that

 

 


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that's interesting because I did run into lots of clients and lots of other podcasters

 

 


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who who had that route. Right? They wanted to land big name guests on

 

 


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their show as a way to network and grow their, their

 

 


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relationship and their community and and, you know, gain access to people who might not

 

 


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chat with them. But sometimes and and it's rare, but sometimes they were

 

 


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often hit with the, well, how big is your show? What's your audience like?

 

 


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And and so what do you do in that situation? Yeah. So first of all,

 

 


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there's a few things. Number one, I think sometimes people there's a

 

 


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disconnect between when I say the people they're gonna move your,

 

 


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needle, they don't say, oh, yeah. If I knew Gary Vaynerchuk, that would move my

 

 


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needle. Right? So they're not telling me famous people or

 

 


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authors or, you know, somebody that

 

 


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is commanding a million dollars from the stage. They're listing

 

 


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senior vice presidents, CMOs, and CEOs of the companies

 

 


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they do business with. In this case, these are large insurance companies.

 

 


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So look, getting to a senior executive at an

 

 


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insurance company, spend an hour with you, sure, it is a challenge, but again, we

 

 


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position our show as the leading thought leadership platform in

 

 


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Medicare stars so people literally do wanna be on it. The answer

 

 


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to how do you deal with that, number one, don't be over aspirational,

 

 


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you need to ladder up. So you start with

 

 


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a guest that's just happy to be able to tell their story and to be

 

 


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able, so that you can give that back to them and package it up and

 

 


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they can use that for their own benefit. And then you leverage

 

 


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the fact that you had a guest with credibility that, you know, hey we had

 

 


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so and so on from Patagonia and now we'd love to have you on mister

 

 


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CEO. So you do have to kind of earn your bones and level up and

 

 


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not start with too aspirational of a

 

 


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target. So yeah. And then

 

 


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what do you do after that conversation? Right? So you you you the

 

 


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person agrees to come on, you talk to them, you ask good questions, you have

 

 


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a good conversation, you release the episode, But then how do you really

 

 


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convert that experience into a long lasting fruitful

 

 


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relationship for yourself? Are there things to do and avoid? I'm I'm

 

 


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not I don't coach listen. My clients are sophisticated,

 

 


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successful, either 7 figure earners or 6 figure earners,

 

 


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so they know how to take a relationship and continue to nurture it. I they

 

 


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don't need my coaching for that. But what I would caution you is this. You

 

 


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do not use this strategy to bring on a

 

 


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guest and then immediately sell your services. So I'm gonna say that

 

 


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again for the people in the back of the room. If you are thinking, oh,

 

 


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I love this idea, I'm a company, I sell this widget, I'm gonna

 

 


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bring on prospective customers of this widget under the guise

 

 


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of being a guest and telling me what great stuff they're doing and then I'm

 

 


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gonna turn around and whether it's at the end of the show, whether it's the

 

 


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next day, whether it's the next week, I'm like, oh, by the way, did you

 

 


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check out my widget and my thingy and my whatever? That's

 

 


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not the way to go because then the sense is, oh, this wasn't really

 

 


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about either my expertise or establishing a relationship, this was really like,

 

 


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oh, you just wanted to like get an opportunity to sell me your thing.

 

 


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So what I would argue is the best way to use this is what I

 

 


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call at the beginning, a relationship acquisition vehicle. It

 

 


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establishes a relationship, you nurture that relationship, deliver

 

 


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value to that relationship over time, and

 

 


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then you will typically find those people are asking to do business with

 

 


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you or referring business to you. So you don't need to, quote, unquote,

 

 


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sell or or convert, if that makes sense. No. And I I

 

 


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think it makes a ton of sense. And so all this is done under your

 

 


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audience builders brand. Right? Yeah. I mean, I I haven't even

 

 


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trademarked that, but, yes, I, let

 

 


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me back this up. I have not marketed for any of my business. I

 

 


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have been fortunate enough that I don't need a lot of clients.

 

 


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I'm not looking to be a wealthy person. I think life gets more complicated when

 

 


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you're I see my clients who make a lot of money, and I don't want

 

 


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that in life. So I've been lucky enough that people have

 

 


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referred business to me, and and and so that's how I get my clients, I

 

 


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don't really have to go out there and market per se. That said,

 

 


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I wanna move to a new phase for my business. I'm really interested in doing

 

 


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group coaching. I wanna reach out and have more

 

 


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people that aren't looking to spend what I charge clients and businesses

 

 


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to learn about how they can do less selling and help more people

 

 


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buy by building audiences of prospects. So I came up with a brand

 

 


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called Audience Builders and in 2025 my goal is to launch Audience

 

 


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Builders Live in Q1 and that will be a free

 

 


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weekly live Zoom call for 6 figure service

 

 


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professionals who would like to leverage content to build an audience to grow

 

 


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their business to come in every week, ask whatever question they want. It's gonna be

 

 


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an ask me anything format. And first come first

 

 


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serve, ask whatever question or what's keeping you stuck or what strategy

 

 


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is not working and I'll give you my best and that's it. Every week it'll

 

 


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be free for as many people that can log in and get their question

 

 


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in. And information on that will all be at

 

 


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stephanlebinski.com? Yeah, absolutely. If you go to

 

 


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stephanlebinski.com or if you just, if you're ever interested in that, if you go there

 

 


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you can contact me or send me an email stephanstephanlebinski dot com and say, Hey,

 

 


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have you started up Audience Builders? And by the way, if anybody's listening to this

 

 


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and wants to just book thirty minutes of my time, you can just go to

 

 


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my website and you can book thirty minutes of my time, no charge, and I'm

 

 


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happy to listen to what it is you're trying to get done and and give

 

 


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you my 2¢. So before we move on to the questions I like to ask

 

 


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everybody, one thing you brought up in the very beginning that could be a sore

 

 


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spot for podcasters that I'd be curious to get your take on is you had

 

 


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you were working for this business that was doing right to pay to appear, you

 

 


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know, model. What are your thoughts on that in podcasting? Is

 

 


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that something you encourage, discourage, work with? I I love

 

 


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it. I love the model, because the client is getting what they want.

 

 


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So let's understand what the client wanted in the television model. We

 

 


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had a television network with about 15,000,000 subscribers

 

 


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in cable and OTA over the air and what they wanted

 

 


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wasn't as much about getting in front of the audience with their content,

 

 


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that's part of it. What it really was about is having a professionally produced

 

 


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package that they can use over and over, that they

 

 


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can use on their social, that they can send to their list, that they can

 

 


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cut up into pieces. And so that's really what they're getting. And so it's the

 

 


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same thing for you podcasters that are listening, you podcast producers that are listening, which

 

 


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is, you know, clients, if you're gonna

 

 


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do the model of I've got a pay per play interview podcast,

 

 


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what clients want are two things. One, yes. They would love to have some reach,

 

 


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and they would love that that reach has impact. That is the audience that

 

 


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you have is the audience that they speak to. That's obvious. So the

 

 


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bigger size you have and the more engaged that audience is,

 

 


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not just downloads. If you can show that you've got an engaged community online, whether

 

 


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that's a Facebook group or Discord or whatever it may be, but you have an

 

 


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engaged community, not just anonymous downloads

 

 


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that you really can't even describe much about the demographics to the client. And the

 

 


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other is really a professional production and really smart questions.

 

 


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That is, were they able to tell a story in a way

 

 


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that they have not been able to do before and they were able to articulate

 

 


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their value in such a more creative,

 

 


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smarter way that came off exactly as they wanted and

 

 


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they're not the one They're being asked, right? They're not the ones getting

 

 


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in front of a camera and going, Hi, we're Acme Corp and we're awesome because

 

 


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of these reasons. That's lean out, nobody, that's an advertisement, that's when we'd get up

 

 


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and go to the bathroom and leave. You're being asked like, Hey, you guys invented

 

 


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the yada yada thing in my jiggy and that influenced the

 

 


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whole industry, that's amazing, tell us about that. And so now there's a

 

 


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story, there's credibility for the client, if you've got production value and it looks

 

 


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good and you've produced it well and you've edited it well, this is an

 

 


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asset for them that they can't create or if they could create it's gonna cost

 

 


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them money. So that's why it's valuable. So if you have a

 

 


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big enough reach or if you produce such a glossy,

 

 


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beautiful piece of content with such great editing and on screen

 

 


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graphics and everything else, yeah, people might be willing,

 

 


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to pay for that. In my model with my clients, we're not doing that. We're

 

 


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not we're not asking the senior vice president of Aetna to pay to be on

 

 


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the Rising Stars show. Oh, no. And and I wasn't trying to accuse or

 

 


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or imply that. I was just, it's just such a hot button topic. If you

 

 


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often bring up the idea of pay to blame podcasting, you'll get a deluge

 

 


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of comments from people, most of them against it, a few for,

 

 


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and it's just such a hot button issue. Are the ones that aren't making probably

 

 


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aren't making money in podcasting, to be candid, and they're jealous of people

 

 


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that are making money in some way because here's the thing, if you

 

 


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are open about the model, if you're honest with

 

 


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clients, yeah, but that's the case with anything, doesn't matter what your

 

 


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business If you're dishonest then that's shitty. Oops. Maybe you bleeped that. I don't know

 

 


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what your podcast is like. So, but Well, like,

 

 


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I've I've been approached I've been invited to be on a podcast. So someone

 

 


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reached out, hey. We love your insight blah blah blah. Please come on the podcast.

 

 


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Great. We'd love to do it. You know, fill up the thing blah blah blah.

 

 


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Then the next thing I do is I get an invoice. Says, alright. If you'd

 

 


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like to appear, it's blah blah blah. It's like, you asked me. Like,

 

 


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one, disclose that right up front, and two, make sure you're disclosing it to your

 

 


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audience as well. That's bait and switch. And by the way, we didn't so in

 

 


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in the television model again so I don't do the buy on model for podcasting

 

 


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and I have no problem with it. If you're doing it out there great, good

 

 


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for you, that's awesome. By the way it just means you're delivering enough value

 

 


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that a client is willing to pay to be interviewed on your show.

 

 


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It's as simple as that. But I will tell you, Matt, what you just said

 

 


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is so accurate and I've seen it in television as well where

 

 


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the prospecting is an associate producer, air quotes,

 

 


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associate producer reaches out and says, Hey, we've been following your stuff on

 

 


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social or whatever and we'd love to have you on as a guest. You get

 

 


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all pumped up and you're on the and the next thing you know you get

 

 


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this separate communication that's like, just so you know, there is a cost in order

 

 


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for us to deliver your meetup package and your this and your that and that's

 

 


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bait and switch. And what we did we were talking to PR agencies

 

 


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and we were saying, Look if you've got clients that need to ladder up the

 

 


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media ladder which means they need to kind of prime the

 

 


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pump, they need something that says, Hey look we were on America Up

 

 


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Close on Family Net TV, check it out, they've got something to

 

 


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send out to the other stations. So then when Good Morning

 

 


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Poughkeepsie sees it and says, oh, that's not

 

 


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bad. They're not bad on air. Those were decent questions. You know what? Put that

 

 


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in my Rolodex. I might call for them. And so that was the purpose. That's

 

 


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why the clients paid for it, because and by the way, nobody else was calling

 

 


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them to do free TV. So this is paid media that you then

 

 


Speaker:

hope, turns to earned media.

 

 


Speaker:

Yeah. No. I I love that explanation. Love the way you describe it. And, you

 

 


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know, my past life when I was a radio producer, often when we were

 

 


Speaker:

looking for experts, you know, one advantage would be if you presented

 

 


Speaker:

someone who, you know, had good opinions where I was topical to what we were

 

 


Speaker:

talking about. But also if you said they've appeared on such and such, it's like,

 

 


Speaker:

great. I know they won't freeze up. I know they won't give single word answers.

 

 


Speaker:

Right? Like, I know they'll be engaging for the audience and so yeah. I love

 

 


Speaker:

the way you put that. The the paid paid for appearance can

 

 


Speaker:

work, but, as as you said, be honest, be

 

 


Speaker:

upfront, disclose it, don't bait and switch. That's terrible, and that's giving people

 

 


Speaker:

who are doing this very well and very successfully and very honorably a terrible name.

 

 


Speaker:

Yeah. Be be proud of your product. If your product is listen. We we first

 

 


Speaker:

of all, we buy eyeballs. That there's nothing wrong with that either. Let's be super

 

 


Speaker:

clear. So if you have a and they do this in television, what do you

 

 


Speaker:

think an ad for a show that you're not

 

 


Speaker:

watching is that's paid advertising to say

 

 


Speaker:

please put your eyeballs on this show? Okay? And so,

 

 


Speaker:

if you're buying eyeballs, if you're buying traffic to put

 

 


Speaker:

it on your content there's not in fact, let let me say this before we

 

 


Speaker:

go. Not only is there nothing wrong with it, it's the single biggest mistake podcasters

 

 


Speaker:

and anybody that's a quote unquote showrunner is making. If

 

 


Speaker:

you are not spending to put eyeballs on your content and

 

 


Speaker:

then corral them off into a custom audience that you can nurture

 

 


Speaker:

them because it is familiarity that leads

 

 


Speaker:

to this sense of likability and trust. It is seeing

 

 


Speaker:

that person or hearing that person on a frequent basis. When you turn on your

 

 


Speaker:

TV in the morning and you see that same weatherman, over time you get that

 

 


Speaker:

sense of familiarity and trust. So, if you think that you

 

 


Speaker:

launch a podcast and, like, people are gonna find

 

 


Speaker:

it, like, you they go to Spotify and,

 

 


Speaker:

like, type in a and then just see what comes up in school. Let's

 

 


Speaker:

see. Oh, Adam's Apple, Mobile Energy. Oh, that looks

 

 


Speaker:

like an interesting name. Like that's just not how podcasts are discovered, right? And

 

 


Speaker:

then putting your podcast in your email signature and your face

 

 


Speaker:

great. So your friends and the very small group of people that know

 

 


Speaker:

you, they already know you have a podcast. They're already not listening to it. You

 

 


Speaker:

know what I mean? Or the three friends that are really nice are listening to

 

 


Speaker:

it. Shout out to Mark Serkin. So so,

 

 


Speaker:

you know, so the the truth is if you really want to get

 

 


Speaker:

listeners or viewers or grow an audience, you have

 

 


Speaker:

to pay like everybody else. Organic reach is dead across all

 

 


Speaker:

platforms, every single platform. There's no more okay. Except for

 

 


Speaker:

TikTok Except for TikTok where you still can get a ton of

 

 


Speaker:

vanity views, but what I'd argue is to what end? Even people that are like,

 

 


Speaker:

oh, this got 300,000 views. Okay. How many people signed up for your

 

 


Speaker:

newsletter? How many people joined your your your group your Facebook group?

 

 


Speaker:

Like, how how do you take them from an anonymous like that just gave you

 

 


Speaker:

a dopamine hit, oh, you got 10,000 likes. How

 

 


Speaker:

My bank currently does not take likes. When I go to Chase for a

 

 


Speaker:

deposit, they do not I tried. I brought a shit I was like, I have

 

 


Speaker:

7,000 likes to deposit, and they were like, yeah. We don't give a shit about

 

 


Speaker:

that. So so you shouldn't give a shit about that either, and

 

 


Speaker:

you shouldn't give a shit about 10,000 downloads unless that 10,000

 

 


Speaker:

downloads is what is allowing you to sell that sponsorship and you're

 

 


Speaker:

monetizing it. Right? So, yeah.

 

 


Speaker:

Love it. Steviele Bimste. Put put put people in fact, here's

 

 


Speaker:

the other thing I will tell you, whether you do YouTube, which means do mid

 

 


Speaker:

roll and pre roll ads, and and and that mean meaning about your content. So,

 

 


Speaker:

like, hey, I've got a video podcast and, but I'm not a

 

 


Speaker:

YouTuber, that's fine, go on YouTube and buy ads and

 

 


Speaker:

put your pre roll or mid roll on content that

 

 


Speaker:

is similar to yours. If you speak to accountants and there's

 

 


Speaker:

some YouTuber that does accounting videos that they're really into, you can put your ad

 

 


Speaker:

about your accounting videos that they're really into, you can put your

 

 


Speaker:

ad about your accounting podcast, your take on

 

 


Speaker:

accounting on that dude's YouTube channel, and guess what? If they

 

 


Speaker:

click skip, you don't pay. And the and the other place I would think about

 

 


Speaker:

that that most podcasters are not thinking about at all is

 

 


Speaker:

Facebook. It it Everybody is still there. People are like, oh, it was It's

 

 


Speaker:

full of shit. Everybody is still there. If you go there and you run Here's

 

 


Speaker:

what you can't do on YouTube and these other places, you can't

 

 


Speaker:

retarget the way you can on Facebook. So if somebody watches five seconds of my

 

 


Speaker:

video about building an audience, so, hey, are you a 6

 

 


Speaker:

figure service professional looking to build your audience to grow your business? They watch five

 

 


Speaker:

seconds of that, I put them in a custom audience. And now I'm gonna make

 

 


Speaker:

sure that they keep seeing my stuff until they

 

 


Speaker:

take my call to action which is just show up to audiencebuilders.

 

 


Speaker:

Live every Wednesday at whatever time it is, two p. M. Eastern,

 

 


Speaker:

whatever time I'm doing the thing and that's the call to action every single time.

 

 


Speaker:

My point is you gotta take somebody from an anonymous download or an

 

 


Speaker:

anonymous like or an anonymous anything and you have to convert them

 

 


Speaker:

into a member, a user, somebody on your

 

 


Speaker:

list, somebody getting your newsletter, somebody on your substack,

 

 


Speaker:

then you've got their name, and you can start establishing a relationship. And once you

 

 


Speaker:

get to the relationship stage, you can start making money.

 

 


Speaker:

Love it. He's a growth coach, consultant, producer. His name is Stefan

 

 


Speaker:

Lubinski. You can learn more about him at stephanlubinski.com and keep an eye out

 

 


Speaker:

for his audience builders program that is coming out soon depending on when

 

 


Speaker:

you're listening to this episode. Before we let you go, a couple of questions we'd

 

 


Speaker:

like to ask everybody who appears on the show. One, in

 

 


Speaker:

podcasting specifically, is there a place where you'd like to see improvement, whether that's

 

 


Speaker:

from listening, production, discoverability, monetization, like, anything in particular

 

 


Speaker:

where you're just like, god. I wish podcasting could do

 

 


Speaker:

this. Not that I wish podcasting per

 

 


Speaker:

se could do something, but I would love to see one of the platforms,

 

 


Speaker:

Riverside, as we're both fans of Riverside and

 

 


Speaker:

use it, and the other player in the space is Descript,

 

 


Speaker:

truly become one stop shop platforms where you can accomplish

 

 


Speaker:

everything you're looking to accomplish, and and I mean everything. There's not

 

 


Speaker:

the platform that is thought of guest booking, guest

 

 


Speaker:

tracking, a guest portal for their

 

 


Speaker:

files once it's done that they're immediately issued upon

 

 


Speaker:

registering in with you in the first place. Right? Then

 

 


Speaker:

the recording, then the editing, then the publishing, then the social

 

 


Speaker:

syndication, then the reformatting, and the, you know, I want this in

 

 


Speaker:

audio, I want this in transcript, I want a blog version of this, and because

 

 


Speaker:

of AI, this is right around the corner. And I've always told people

 

 


Speaker:

stop producing and just audio, stop, stop, what are you

 

 


Speaker:

doing? When you produce in video, you get all three formats

 

 


Speaker:

baked in. You get your video for and by the way, here's the other thing.

 

 


Speaker:

It's not about what format you like in media. Well, I like audio. I'm in

 

 


Speaker:

a podcast. Give you shit what you like. It's what your audience likes.

 

 


Speaker:

And what they like is media consumption based on what they're doing.

 

 


Speaker:

So when they're in their car, they can't play a scroll with their finger so

 

 


Speaker:

they listen. When they're in their whatever, they're watching,

 

 


Speaker:

and when they feel like reading really quickly, they're reading, and what I would say

 

 


Speaker:

to everybody listening is you know darn well you're a listener, you're a watcher, and

 

 


Speaker:

you're a reader, you're all three. What is different is about where

 

 


Speaker:

and when you're doing these things to make it the best

 

 


Speaker:

experience for you. So why would you produce in

 

 


Speaker:

one format? Well, I just blog. Well, you're insane.

 

 


Speaker:

I just do audio. Also crazy. Do it in

 

 


Speaker:

video. I've got the blog. I've got the audio podcast. I've got the

 

 


Speaker:

video. I'm now gonna deliver content in a way that

 

 


Speaker:

however you wanna consume it, it's available to you. That's how you should be

 

 


Speaker:

approaching it. So, yeah, I would love to see a platform that literally I log

 

 


Speaker:

in and I handle my entire

 

 


Speaker:

tech stack. The entire tech stack, including

 

 


Speaker:

managing my including it's a CRM because it's gonna literally manage

 

 


Speaker:

my clients and the guests of my clients. Yeah. I think

 

 


Speaker:

I think there's a lot of companies that are taking lots of pieces of it,

 

 


Speaker:

grouping it together, and the Venn diagram of

 

 


Speaker:

everything you need is getting there, but it's not no

 

 


Speaker:

one is quite doing it where the entire circle overlaps with everything that you need

 

 


Speaker:

to do. You have, you know, like, three quarters of it being handled by Riverside,

 

 


Speaker:

another three quarters being handled by hosting companies, another three quarters being handled by

 

 


Speaker:

Spotify. Right? But no one has the entire single

 

 


Speaker:

package of one. So I love that idea. I love that concept. Want them to

 

 


Speaker:

be once it's left to go to its like, they're not a

 

 


Speaker:

destination, so you still need to publish at the destination, whether that's

 

 


Speaker:

Spotify or Google or Well, I just need Spotify with with Anchor being

 

 


Speaker:

able to host and submit and, you know, be a listening platform

 

 


Speaker:

and, monetization. Right. All that. Like they, they do things other than

 

 


Speaker:

just be the place where people listen to podcasts, but yes, there's,

 

 


Speaker:

but yeah, I love this idea of just this all in one, every aspect from

 

 


Speaker:

start to finish. LOUIS, I did both. From the start of reaching out to a

 

 


Speaker:

guest all the way through to I'm hitting send this to my

 

 


Speaker:

YouTube channel to publish, and by the way again including like the

 

 


Speaker:

spit out of the blog post, the infographic, like because again

 

 


Speaker:

once you create one thirty or forty five minute piece of content guys,

 

 


Speaker:

you have a a month. I only meet with my clients once a month, that's

 

 


Speaker:

my executive production package because they're too busy. But I can get a

 

 


Speaker:

month's worth of content out of that one hour that they spend

 

 


Speaker:

on air with their clients and and with their guests and remember when they walk

 

 


Speaker:

away from that they're stoked because those were guests that they want a relationship with

 

 


Speaker:

and now they're kinda chummy with them, so they're all feeling pretty good, and then

 

 


Speaker:

I can give them a pile of content that their assistants can load up on

 

 


Speaker:

their LinkedIn and elsewhere for the rest of the month. Love it.

 

 


Speaker:

I guess, I mean, this might be the same question, but is there any tech

 

 


Speaker:

on your personal wish list, whether it's, you know, something you've wanted to

 

 


Speaker:

buy and and haven't yet or something that hasn't been invented yet that you you

 

 


Speaker:

wanna get your hands on, camera, mics, off, or something like that?

 

 


Speaker:

You know what? Elgato is getting closer to

 

 


Speaker:

creating a teleprompter that I think makes sense. I still have in a

 

 


Speaker:

box somewhere like one of the traditional glass teleprompters that I never

 

 


Speaker:

set up because I am one of those idiots that's like, I'll just get it

 

 


Speaker:

done in one take. I'll just I don't need a script. But there are

 

 


Speaker:

times when I really, really would have loved to have had a script and then

 

 


Speaker:

I wouldn't have done 728 takes.

 

 


Speaker:

And Elgato has one that is much more electronic and you have much more electronic

 

 


Speaker:

and you have much more control over it, but I read some reviews

 

 


Speaker:

that it wasn't quite there, so I guess I'll wait for a few more

 

 


Speaker:

generations. It it it works well,

 

 


Speaker:

but you have to be using all Elgato products. I tried to use it

 

 


Speaker:

with, like, my BRIO, and there's still glare. You know, if you have,

 

 


Speaker:

like, a really fancy camera with a lens, yeah, that's okay too. But, right,

 

 


Speaker:

it's it's very good, but, right, it's just just a

 

 


Speaker:

falls just a hair short. Yep. That's about that's about it.

 

 


Speaker:

One of these days, I probably would hire Luria Petrucci to,

 

 


Speaker:

design a set for me other than what I've got here, which is, you know,

 

 


Speaker:

it's clean, it's simple, and you can tell that, you know, I do something with

 

 


Speaker:

with media. But, yeah, if I were to get fancy, I'd call

 

 


Speaker:

Luria up at, Live Streaming Pros. Shout out,

 

 


Speaker:

Luria. And, in fact, quick side story, her

 

 


Speaker:

name when she was in television was Callie Lewis. That was her on air

 

 


Speaker:

television name, and she was a tech reporter, and she would cover CES and all

 

 


Speaker:

that other stuff. And when I was, working

 

 


Speaker:

for U2 Television, I signed Callie Lewis, and we put her on

 

 


Speaker:

our on our network, and, and we ran, The Callie Lewis

 

 


Speaker:

Show for for a while. So Shout out to the old days, Luria.

 

 


Speaker:

Love it. Alright. And the last question is, is there a podcast or

 

 


Speaker:

two that you are listening to that, like, no matter what, when they

 

 


Speaker:

drop new episodes, you're gonna stop and check those out, or you're not gonna let

 

 


Speaker:

them go without checking out the latest episode? I mean, honestly, I don't have that

 

 


Speaker:

about anything, and that's probably more to do with my ADHD. But,

 

 


Speaker:

I would say that, I really like Tim

 

 


Speaker:

Ferriss. I I appreciate his long form podcasts,

 

 


Speaker:

and I also I don't know if he's a pod I guess he's a podcaster,

 

 


Speaker:

but is he a YouTuber? The diary of a

 

 


Speaker:

CEO, podcast. So I guess, yeah, it's a

 

 


Speaker:

podcast. I find that there's some really, really interesting, guests

 

 


Speaker:

on there, so I guess those would be the two that I that I really

 

 


Speaker:

do like. If you haven't seen diary of a CEO on on,

 

 


Speaker:

YouTube, check it out. He has some pretty interesting,

 

 


Speaker:

guests. Very cool. Stefan Lubinski, growth coach,

 

 


Speaker:

consultant, producer. You can learn more at stephanubinski.com. Thank you so much for joining us

 

 


Speaker:

today. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks for

 

 


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joining us today on Podcasting Tech. There are links to all the

 

 


Speaker:

hardware and software that help power our guest content and

 

 


Speaker:

podcasting tech available in the show notes and on our website at

 

 


Speaker:

podcastingtech.com. You can also subscribe to the show on your favorite

 

 


Speaker:

platform, connect with us on social media, and even leave a rating and review while

 

 


Speaker:

you're there. Thanks, and we'll see you next time on Podcasting

 

 


Speaker:

Tech.

 

 

 

 

 

Stefan Lubinski Profile Photo

Stefan Lubinski

Growth: Coach | Consultant | Producer

Stefan Lubinski is a multifaceted professional with a rich background in sales, media production, and thought leadership. Initially carving his career path in the sales domain across diverse industries like restaurants, real estate, technology, and television, Stefan’s journey into podcasting came serendipitously. Despite having no prior experience, he was thrust into a producing role at U2 TV, a television network backed by Mark Burnett. This unexpected opportunity ignited a passion for media production, steering his career toward assisting clients in leveraging creative content to build visibility and credibility.

Stefan is the driving force behind Audience Builders, where he employs his expertise to help early-stage startups and professionals use podcasting as a relationship acquisition vehicle. His strategies have turned initiatives like the “Rising Stars” podcast into notable media brands with strong footprints in live events and industry education. Stefan's approach focuses on creating high-value connections through thought leadership, eschewing traditional metrics like downloads in favor of meaningful engagements with industry leaders.

With ambitions to democratize his strategies, Stefan is gearing up to launch Audience Builders Live—a free weekly Zoom call designed to offer group coaching to 6-figure service professionals. His goal is to help more people build audiences and grow their businesses without the hefty price tag.