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The LFG Show
Scaling Finance With Marketing: ETFs, Leads, And Global Networking ft. Dion Pouncil
The LFG Show | Dion Pouncil — From Marketer to Wall Street Operator
Ever wonder what happens when a battle-tested marketer learns the language of Wall Street—and refuses to stay quiet about it?
In this episode, we sit down with Dion Pouncil at Affiliate World Bangkok to trace an uncommon arc: from agency grind to licensed trader, from eight-figure education funnels to launching an ETF on the New York Stock Exchange—built to scale with paid media, affiliates, and pay-per-call.
Dion breaks down a simple but powerful growth thesis: if you can acquire attention efficiently and convert with operational excellence, you build a moat in markets where most players never advertise. We go deep on acquiring financial service practices—insurance agencies, RIAs, CPA firms—and feeding them with high-intent calls and clean routing.
We connect operator math (CAC, LTV, conversion rates, payback) with finance math (risk bands, drawdown, spreads) and show how distribution becomes the real product. This episode is a blueprint for ETF marketing, performance partnerships, and lead generation that actually compounds.
If you’re raising capital, acquiring firms, or building a real distribution engine, this conversation is for you.
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SPEAKER_01:Boom. LFG Familiar. We are here, Bangkok, Thailand. Dave got nervous. He couldn't make the trip. But I ran into someone. I ran into Porta Potty Sean. And anytime, if you know Porta Potty Sean, he's the most interesting man in the world. And so anytime he introduces me to someone, it's mutual respect, instant respect off the rip. So I'm here with Dion Pouncil, El Presidente of Hybrid Advisors. Sounds like you got a lot going on, just like Sean. You got a lot of different things going on. But welcome to Bangkok, brother. Appreciate you. And you've been here before. So this is not a first time for you. You've made this trip, you've seen the land. This is my first time. Oh, okay. I did the 27, 28 hour trip. Insane. Not sure. I know why Dave didn't come. Like I understand now. But beautiful place, beautiful people, beautiful culture. Dion, what brings you to Bangkok?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, man. I've been back and forth for Bangkok for a while, but um for this conference, really wanted to tap into the affiliate world, no pun intended, and um really get this affiliate and paper call and pay-per-ly uh world on things that we got coming to the market.
SPEAKER_01:And what are the things you got coming to the market? Tell the people, which what's your bread and butter, first of all? I know there's a lot of different things, but what's your bread and butter?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so for me, it's a unique spin. So we actually have an ETF going public on the New York Stock Exchange in Q1. And um, the interesting story for that is about 10 to 12 years ago, I made my first million because I had a digital marketing, digital advertising agency. So I started a company at 25, made my first million at 28, but I was broke again by 29 because I knew how to hustle and make the money, but I didn't know how to protect it and grow it. So that led me to study finance, became a licensed professional trader. Trading and investing changed my life, and then started a financial education platform, grew that from zero to 20 plus million dollars in like less than 20 months through Facebook and uh Instagram advertising because the trade and investing was what I was doing on the professional side. But because I knew how to scale brands and offers from my ad agency, I just threw that on there and it and it went heavy, right? But the thing is for my hedge fund, you have to be accredited investor or a QP and you have to have a hundred thousand dollar minimum. And a lot of people don't have that. And so when I decided to launch the ETF Public on New York Stock Exchange, the big difference is you can run ads. So you can run Facebook and you can write Instagram ads. And so I'm like, well, if we can do that, we can go back over here to the digital market and digital advertising world. And when I started thinking about it more and more, I'm like, okay, well, I don't really have the time to focus full throttle on that like I did before. Where's the way that we can get some arbitrage in here and like buy some leads and buy some things? I started going down a rabbit hole. I reached out to my boy Bowski, who's down in Miami, because he's done like over a billion in insurance sales. Shout out to Bowski. Shout out to my boy Bowski. And uh he's like, man, you should talk to my boy Adam. He runs this thing called Ringba. And uh they do something called pay-per-call. And I was like, so I started doing research on paper call. Bowski made the intro to Adam, got the book. I'm like, yeah, this is it. And we're gonna run some arbitrage on this, get some calls, and people just feed that. So on the private equity side, we buy financial service practices. So we buy insurance agencies, we buy RAs, we buy CPAs, and all of those need leads. And all of those are in our financial wheelhouse, but these people don't understand marketing advertising like we do. Um, so from the finance side, I'm looking at what's the spread, what's the ARB, what's the math, keep it super simple. And then over here, I'm like, we can buy these leads up front as people who are literally used to being paid for a performance. And if they cook, we all make money. So that's kind of why we're here now. Uh with the with shout out to the Ringba Boys and catching up with Ross and the team that are here. And uh they're feeding us paper call guys, and that's that's why we're here.
SPEAKER_01:And I know you mentioned too that you seen the episode with Dave and Adam. So you've tuned into the LFG. Yeah. And I love that, right? When people say, hey, I seen this episode, I really like that because we know we're getting the word out too, and then maybe, you know, you've you got a nugget from that episode or something. So it shows that, you know, we're shaking and baking.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because the thing is, just because you have success in one lane, one vertical, one industry, doesn't mean that someone will always cross over, right? And so you also have to be humble enough and willing to learn no matter what it is, right? And so I've always had that approach, and I've I've I've been able to have some success in different lanes and millions of dollars in different lanes. But at the end of the day, one, starting out with gratitude, and then two, um, being a sponge and being willing to learn because that's how you really grow. Um, and then teamwork made the dream work, right? You know way more about X, Y, and Z than I do. So if I can have some value from what I know, you can add some value from what you know, we can all make some money and do good things with good people.
SPEAKER_01:I read the room quite well, I would say myself. I talked to you for like five minutes, and I could tell you didn't have all your eggs in one basket. So that that made me interested. You know, I heard you talking insurance. I heard you talking about uh acquiring a business in Texas somewhere. I'm like, okay, he does a lot of different things. I'm like, where you know, where are you from? You're like, an airplane. You said you did like over 200 days of travel or or something, something crazy like that. You're like, you haven't you have no home. Yeah. Like so talk about that, traveling. Because we travel a lot. So Dave, Dave travels tons, and I get dragged along with him on these trips. Not Bangkok, though, right? Like, go figure. But talk about that. Yeah, so I'm from the Shah, I'm from Chicago. Um shout out to Ron Hart.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but this year, um, because we've been shaking hands and kissing babies, getting ready for the raise and the and the going public and all of that, I got a business in Dubai, I got residency in Dubai. I'm an advisor of the two companies in Seoul, South Korea, the the company here and the business here in Bangkok, and then a couple businesses in America. I'm pretty much always on the international business scene and then the conference scene, right? So you combine all of those. I looked up, it's December now. I looked up and I had literally been on a row over 200 days this year. So people are like, man, where do you live or where are you based? And I'm like, in a plane. Yeah. Uh, because I'm always traveling and and all of that stuff. So um super grateful for it. You know, it it catches up with you sometimes because you so you got to balance out when you got the downtime, like actually take it. Um, you know, I had American calls last night from midnight to 6 a.m. here, right? And we pop up, we're right back at the conference. I was here at like 9:45, 10 a.m. right for the conference, and you just kind of push through. So traveling also gives you a lot of exposure to cultures, to people, to perspectives, and give you insight on the game. It's like hand-to-hand combat. Like, it's certain things you're gonna learn from a Zoom or from a video or from a call, but it's nothing like building that relationship and that human connection, that rapport as well, right? Because that's what really closes the deals. The deals don't really happen in the office, they don't really happen on the Zoom. It's like, did we break bread? Did we feel each other's vibe? Can I trust you? Can we do business? And can I believe for you to execute? And you can't really get that from a screen, right?
SPEAKER_01:You know, talk about Dubai, right? I I've been twice now and definitely will be back. It's a different atmosphere. You could be in an elevator, you could be pissing next to a dude, no ditty, in the stall, and you know, what do you do? You know, it's everybody's networking. Talk about how Dubai has maybe elevated, taking you to that next level and networking alone, right? But just mindset.
SPEAKER_02:Man, Dubai changed my life for a lot of different reasons. Like, literally, the first time I went to Dubai in 2018, I met the guy that became my mentor that I used, I went to go work at his hedge firm, and that's it literally how I got into finance. And so I was at a conference in Dubai, met the guy who's the keynote speaker. We kicked it for a while. He was like, yo, you should go work for my hedge firm. And so that's how I got into finance. And then I got my residency in Dubai in 2023, opened a business there, um, and really believe in expanding and building that bridge of international, you know, relationship and reciprocity. And then now, uh hybrid advisors, we're the official sponsor of the polo event for um the end of F1 and the kickoff of Abu Dhabi Finance Week this week. So I'm leaving here, going straight to Dubai and Abu Dhabi for F1 and Abu Dhabi Finance Week. So you need some content or what? I don't know. Hey, pull up on me. Yeah, so I'm leaving Saturday. Uh we'll do uh F1 and then Sunday morning is the polo event. And uh is that in Dubai? So F1 is in Abu Dhabi. Okay. So it's an hour away. Um so I'll split time between that, between all the meetings that we have, and then literally F1 finishes Sunday afternoon, and then Abu Dhabi Finance Week starts that Monday. It's Monday through Friday. And you're talking about all the big money and all the big wigs in the world and the finance game. So every so it's a very good week to be there and shake some hands and kiss some babies.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I never understood that. I just left Vegas a couple weeks ago. F1 was just there. So I had this crazy taxi driver. I say, Hey, can you get me there? Oh, I can get you there, no problem. We're literally on the track that they're gonna race on in a couple days. He's doing like 70 through the thing. But I don't know where I was going with that. No, so Dubai, so Dubai, Dubai.
SPEAKER_02:So the obviously it's the to me, it's like Miami of the Middle East, right? Because you got the party scene, you got the turnip scene, you got the vibe, but there's a lot of business opportunity there. You could you can connect, like you said, with somebody organically. And most people, if they're there on the international side, they're doing some business. You still have to be a little bit leery. You want to make sure that everybody can cook and do what they say they can do. But then the the culture and the the government and the people are also very welcoming and encouraging people to come in, do business, spend money, connect, and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01:So that's where I was that's where I was gonna go is I I don't understand F1 from a fan perspective. Like you go there to see the car maybe pass for a second and a half on whichever corner or place you're at. Yeah. But really, I think it's more of a networking opportunity. People just there spending unnecessary amounts of money for no reason. And but they're they're just meeting each other. Uh F1 in Miami, I went there and I was like, I don't get it. But I networked with some people. I met some amazing people, seen some celebrities, seen some high-end guys. So uh outside of Dubai, because that's probably networking, like business capital of the world. Would you say Miami is probably the Dubai of America?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Miami top tier for sure. Miami is a bubble with its side of the bubble. Like, Miami is not America. No, it's it's an international hub, international business. Anything you want and need, you can get in Miami. Um, I've been living in Miami off and off like the last since 09. So got a place downtown, lived all over South Florida. One thing I love about Miami is you can also connect and meet with somebody any and everywhere. But if you actually execute, you can have a certain level of dominance there because it's still relatively early. Like Miami, the city in and of itself, is really like only 100 years old. So 100 might sound like a big number, but when you look at DC or New York, you're talking about two, three hundred years of that being around. So Miami has a good opportunity to really go in and still establish yourself as the guy or the company for this, if you could actually execute and deliver.
SPEAKER_01:I think Christopher Columbus and them, they landed like in the wrong part when they came. Like people was dying in the cold, like they was catching illnesses, they had to learn how to grow corn. Like, but but if people who are from Miami, like old school Miami, you're talking about 80s, 90s, like, yeah, this used to be all grass or Everglades. And so you're right, like it is a new, new place and it's still growing, but it's way past like it's surpassing so many other cities in America.
SPEAKER_02:Bro, if you look at Miami and Dubai over the last 30 years, they've basically grown. We've we've basically seen two cities become their own metropolis, right? Like 20, 30 years ago, Dubai was literally sand.
SPEAKER_01:You've seen that time-lapse video? Wow. Yeah, right. It was literally sand. I would like to see something like that from Miami.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know if there's something out there, but same thing. So if you go into the Miami airport, you can see like they have some of the areas where they'll show you the last 20 years of development because it wasn't a lot of that stuff there, right? And so Miami and Miami Beach are actually two technically different cities. And so it's a different lifestyle. Like Coral Gables is a little bit of old money, Weston, you know, Fort Lauderdale, a little bit of older money, Palm Beach and stuff like that. But like Miami proper, it's really just getting the game. When I first moved down there in 2009, bro, I lived on South Beach and I had a studio apartment of the 21-year-old on Fifth and Meridian. It was like$800. Then when I moved there in Brickle in 20 Not anymore. Not anymore. 2013, I had a two-bedroom, two bathroom on the 30th floor in Brickle in the wind. It was$2,000 a month. That same unit right now or that same area, you're easy at six to eight minimum, right? Um, and and now you got since COVID, you got all of Wall Street coming down, you got Silicon Valley coming down, you got a lot of uh LA coming down, the taxes, all those things. Like, I think Miami did like 250, 300,000 new people moved into Miami proper like last or this year, last year. Have you been to the affiliate worlds before? Have you been to the one in Dubai? This is my first affiliate world period ever. Yeah. Like everything I've been doing for the last seven years is just locked in on finance. But when we decided to go public, I was like, you know what? This is a vertical where nobody's really, really touching it, understanding it. And finance, traditional finance bros, shout out to the finance bros for sure, but they don't necessarily really understand marketing because they're deep into their finance, which is great. But because I had that exposure from earlier on in my career, I always tell people, you can have the best product or service in the world. If nobody knows about it, it doesn't matter. Right. Right. So you once you have your product or your service and you can actually deliver on it, the rest of the game is telling as many people as you can because then it becomes a numbers game. And that's where the finance bros could have some leverage. It's like, okay, if I get X amount of people to see this ad that ends up getting to this landing page, that gets to the leads, that gets to a book call, that I look at my conversion rate, then I can start to run the financial modeling and the numbers. But if I really understand that I can actually get an army of people that want to drive me traffic and they're incentivized so that they can get paid off of it, it's a win-win, excuse me. No, it's only it's a win-win.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I think a lot of people, they don't come here because, well, it's a lot of black hat stuff, right? You got a lot of dating sites and uh lottery, casino, uh things, things of that nature. And so they feel like there's no benefit to them in their business. Like you said, you're in the insurance space, right? A lot of do a lot of insurance space. Like there's really not, you're not gonna meet a lot of people like that around here. But what you are going to meet is people with very bright minds and different business models and structures that you can implement and and take some of those things, you know. If you just talk to people, like there's there's value. There's value in every room. I always say, like, people are like, Yeah, this show's dead. I'm like, have you talked to everybody? Did you did you talk to enough people? How many how many hands did you shake? Because I guarantee there you can break bread and you can make money and figure something out with someone in the room. It just takes a go-getter, right?
SPEAKER_02:But and that's the thing between people who see problems and people who see opportunities, right? It's like, okay, for an example, I was in Bali uh last week and I'm I'm with my boy from Australia. He's like, man, look at this and look at that. You got wires hanging here, you got things over here. And I'm like, everything that you andor somebody sees as a problem, the right person is gonna see that as a business opportunity. So if I can look at this and say, okay, well, it's a bunch of hanging wires here and nobody's doing anything about it. Or I can say, there's a bunch of hanging wires right here, and I can create a company or I can create a product or I can create a service that we can come and fix these wires. So we can come in and clean these wires, or we can come in and cut these wires down, because business is nothing but solving a problem or a pain point for profit. So if I can go and fix those wires or trim those wires or take that pain away from you, when you're willing to pay me for it and I'm able to keep a spread on that, now that's an actual business opportunity. So when we come to these conferences and networks, I don't care if it's finance, I don't care if it's trading, I don't care if it's affiliate. If I can see an opportunity that I can be able to create a moat or a business or product or service that I can then sell to somebody. So if finance bros don't traditionally understand marketing advertising right now, and there's some type of edge there, then now I'd be able to create a moat and separate myself from the pack because it's 2,000 ETFs in the market right now. Only four or five of them run marketing. So now you got a blue ocean opportunity of millions of people that are interested in investing, are interested in buying shares in something, or interested in building generational wealth, but they don't know who you are. They don't know your company name. They don't know that your ETF is public on New York Stock Exchange. And so now you're able to separate yourself from the pack. So I used to play baseball growing up. I played uh high school, college, and a little bit of affiliate pro baseball. And I I got offered out of high school by the Tampa Bay race. I'll never forget it. And I talked to the scout and I said, hey man, how do you look at a kid from 12 to 16 or 14 to 18 years old and know that you want to draft them and give them millions of dollars to represent your organization to see if they got a chance to go to the league? He was like, When I'm scouting, the alpha will always separate itself from the pack. The cream will always rise to the top. And so he said, if they all look the same, leave them all alone. If nobody's going to do what they got to do to separate themselves from the pack, then we don't want them, and that's not the type of person we want in our organization. And so that's the first thing we look at even before we see the talent if they can actually play. And when he told me that, I was like 14 years old, that always stuck with me. And I was like, you gotta always find a way to separate yourself from the crowd. And in business, that becomes spread, that becomes profit, that becomes a moat that separates you from other people.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. I played college ball too, I played Central Michigan. I was I was a quarterback. I played um some semi pro and some arena pro. I went overseas. I played in Germany. Nice. And I had to figure out that that's where my create my creative uh marketing started. Grew up in Flint, Michigan. We had no camera people back in the early 2000s. There was no And one was just kind of get going with the highlights and stuff like that. I had to figure out how to market myself, right? I had to figure out how to put myself out there so people could see it. And now you got NIL coming into the equation. I have a sports media company now. So now I'm, I like I said, I started doing my own highlights. Now I'm still doing that for kids, helping them get to college, helping them get to, you know, I got kids in the NBA and NFL now. I've been able to see since middle school, grow up, help them get to the next level, next level. Nice. And with NIL coming in, it's a business now. And like you said, people don't see that side of the fence. So there's a lot of people in my world, a lot of social media people, a lot of uh content creators that they don't understand the marketing, the affiliate world, the traffic side of things. So people, it's so brand new. And when I tell people what I do, they're like, huh? What? Like, what are you doing? I'm like, yeah. I'm like, you don't even know. There's so if you can connect the dots and see things from the other side of the fence, you could put together some crazy, crazy deals.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, bro. If you think about most successful businesses, especially ones that work in scale, are just wrappers of other things, like with your sauce, right? So for an example, Amazon. Everybody look at it as this big bohemis. Amazon took coastal delivery, a library, and people wanting books delivered to them without going to the library. Okay, those three things together, wrapped it in a company, and became Amazon. Now in 1999, that was revolutionary. But he seen three things that could solve a problem put together and he went and executed. Right. And so if you're able to look at a lens of where is the opportunity here, you're gonna see opportunity. You're gonna get what you focus on. If you focus on problems, if you focus on negative, if you focus on why things can't work or won't work, then it won't work. But if you focus on where's the opportunity here, where's the leverage here, where's the spread? And then to me, is the juice worth the squeeze? Is that risk, um, is that reward worth the risk that I'm willing to take on it? Because to me, risk is a number. So it's very defined, right? You only got a limited amount of time. You only got a limited amount of energy. So now I need to evaluate this opportunity once I see it to see is that worth my time, energy, effort, or resources? Uh-huh. Or is it worth me just putting my money to work? Or is it worth me actually going to do X, Y, and Z? And then I can run those comparative analyses and say, okay, now I can see the opportunity here, I can see the potential spread here, and I can see that this is worth my time, energy, effort, or resources. And then from there, you just got to execute. You know what I'm saying? And any of these things, it's what, two, three thousand people here today. If you can't find a person to connect with to do business, it's your fault.
SPEAKER_01:Message. Right? So we've talked more just now than we have. I mean, I just I literally met you an hour ago. We talked for five, 10 minutes, we walked around a little bit, and then I'm like, yo, you want to do a podcast today? So I learned so much about you now. I'm like, okay, how can maybe we do something else in the future? Or just, you know, how who can I connect him with? Who can I introduce you? Because I like, I like connecting people. You know, if I can't make money with you, I want to see you make money with someone else that I know. So that's love. Shake hands, meet people, talk to people. You never know what can, you know, you never know. Don't don't read a book by its cover. Don't judge. Don't, oh, he just does that. You don't know what he does. I I didn't know you did all this. I didn't know you played baseball. I didn't know we had sports in common. Yeah. Um, Dion, before we go, what what are you looking for? What what what value do you have? But I think more so like what? What do you want people reaching out to you and saying, hey, Dion, I'd like to break bread. I have this. You said you needed it.
SPEAKER_02:So my social media is just Dion Pouncil, very reachable, LinkedIn, Instagram, absolutely that stuff. Um, I run hybrid advisors, which is the public equity and private equity firm that launches uh ETFs from the New York Stock Exchange and buys uh financial service prices. So if you have an RAA, if you have a CPA, if you have an insurance firm or agency and you want to sell any of those, we will, we're actively looking and we will buy your firm. So we can talk about that. Um for the Lee Gen agency, um, the company we have is Capraise AI. So we help uh people who have funds and are raising capital. We help you get book calls uh to help you raise money. So if you are an affiliate and you want to drive traffic to us for capraiseai, capraise.ai or finance leads vault, you can drive us some traffic. We buy leads, we sell leads. My agency runs that. Um and then if you just want to build and connect, I'm always willing to learn, grow, and and help others. And then we got hybrid advisors, um, the app. So we have hybridapp.org. That's our financial education platform. You can go and learn how to trade, how to invest, how to do AI, how to do PPC, et cetera. Um, and it's all free. And you can download the app for free at hybridapp.org, TV, Apple TV, all of that. And um, and then there are courses in there that you could buy, but that's our 501c3 nonprofit. So that's our way of giving back. And we got over 30,000 students in that platform. So, you know, whether you want to get business, whether you want to do business, where do you want to learn, however, we can help you, let us know.
SPEAKER_01:It's amazing. Amazing. Hey, shout out to Affiliate World, shout out to KJ, thank you. They're always showing love. We'll always be there to support. Shout out to Newsbreak and Rainbar sponsors. Newsbreak matching up to$5,000 in cash right now on Ad Spend. Okay. So you wanna you wanna get your$5,000 match, you want to make$5,000,$10,000. Newsbreak, they're on the up and up. No money, no honey. LFG, Dion, thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Appreciate you, bro. Your network is your net worth. We got a fucking crazy network of people. I'm not talking about your average motherfucker. I'm talking about people doing$300,000,$400,000,$500,000 a day in ad spend. People have made billions of dollars in sales, people exit their companies for about a billion dollars. We hit a hundred episodes. Guess what? We're about to take shit to the next level. So you want to be part of it? Subscribe right now. Remember, no money, no honey. Fucking go.