In this episode of The High Profit Event Show, I sit down with Sebastian Cruze, founder of Dream Team Network, to unpack a powerful new way to fill your events—not with ads or cold outreach, but through purpose-driven referrals that convert. If you're an event leader tired of chasing leads and ready to start attracting the right attendees, this episode is your playbook.

Sebastian shares how his own business transformed the moment he stopped "hunting" for clients and instead built a system where aligned referrals flowed to him naturally. He developed what he calls a “referral engine”—a three-part framework that helps event hosts fill their rooms with high-quality attendees who are excited, engaged, and primed to take action.

The first piece? Mission. Sebastian emphasizes the importance of crafting a one-liner mission statement that clearly communicates what you stand for. This mission isn’t buried on a website’s About page—it’s front and center, infused into every conversation and collaboration. When your mission is clear and visible, people naturally want to refer others who align with your message.

Next is Funnel. But not the kind you're thinking of. Instead of pushing people to a generic sales page, Sebastian suggests designing lightweight, curated experience-first funnels. Think mini mastermind nights, invite-only Zoom calls with breakout rooms, or exclusive preview events. These experiences allow prospects to get a feel for your event before they ever buy—and that trust-building step massively increases conversions.

Finally, we talk Scale. Rather than relying on one-off joint ventures, Sebastian recommends building long-term, values-aligned referral squads. These are relationships with businesses that serve the same audience in complementary ways. When trust is high and missions align, these collaborations create an ongoing stream of quality referrals that keep your events thriving.

Sebastian also shares how this referral engine works in action through his Dream Team Network, a curated community of six- and seven-figure coaches. He even extends a special invitation to listeners: apply for a Golden Ticket and experience one of his referral mastermind sessions firsthand by visiting dreamteamnetwork.ai/goldenticket.

If you're ready to stop grinding and start growing—on mission, with alignment, and through community—this is the episode for you.

Want to connect with Sebastian?

Apply for a Golden Ticket to attend as a guest on the Next Dream Team call for 6 & 7 figure coaches: https://dreamteamnetwork.ai/GoldenTicket

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastiancruze/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sebastiancruze15

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sebastiancruze/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SebastianCruze

All right. Welcome to today's episode. Today we have a special guest with us, Mr. Sebastian Cruze. Welcome, sir. Hello. I know you're hailing from Phoenix, Arizona, but behind you, if you're watching the video, you have a really cool image of, I think it's called Sugarloaf, right? That little mountain there in the top. That is not Phoenix. That is Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. We were having a nice little chat in the green room about our trips to Rio many years ago and who knows, maybe a possible trip to Carnival next year. We'll see. So, Sebastian, you and I met actually just recently at Alex Moscow's event in Austin, Event Profit Engine, and it turns out that we also have a mutual connection with our mutual acquaintance, friend, and even mentor, Yannik Silver, who's also been a guest on our show earlier in the previous season. I know any buddy that Yannik has his hand on is probably going to be a pretty cool human being. So, I was excited to invite you here to be a guest on our show today. You actually spoke at Alex's event as well, so you have a lot of really cool points to make. For our audience who may be the first time getting to meet you or hear about you, I'm going to share a couple points so that they can lean in a little bit. One, the CEO and creator of an amazing movement called The Dream Team, and you help people create a referral engine for their business. In this case, we'll talk about how to create a referral engine on how to fill live events. You've also been, you're on a mission. You're on a mission to help as many people in The United States to improve their health and as well as their wealth, and also raise their own consciousness. You believe that a rising tide raises all ships.

Regarding events, you've been running your own high ticket masterminds for about six years where you've been selling them, fulfilling on them, managing them, some pretty cool experiences. But not only that, through your referral engine process, you've actually been taking people to, using that to help people go to live events, taking people to live events and helping other people get more people to their live events. So again, really excited to hear what you have to share with us today around how to build a referral engine to get people to your live event.

Yes, absolutely. So that's the focus of today is filling your events with referrals so that you have people attending them, buying their tickets faster. Also, while people are there, more people saying yes to your offer. Would that be accurate, Rudy?

Absolutely. I mean, people want, well, we want to have the right people come to our events. We don't want the people that are a bad fit that are going to complain and not do the work, et cetera. We want the right people that come to events. Also, we want people to get the work, get the value and continue, come to our next event or join our program. So I do believe that referrals, just the general principle, tend to be the best way to find great clients that you want to work with and keep working with. I believe also that referrals tend to be a reflection of a service well provided. When we make somebody happy with the service we provide, they tend to want to refer business to us. So I'm super curious to hear what you're teaching us today on this subject, because I'm going to be over here taking notes.

So let's get into it. So creating a referral engine to fill your events faster, this all began for me a moment when my life changed, when I realized that I would no longer need to be hunting for ideal clients, no longer needing to hunt to fill events. I realized I had a constant flow of referrals every week into my inbox, even to a point where I had to pause referrals for a month and a half because I was like, my calendar is just getting all filled up. When I went through that change, I realized that all of a sudden it was like I had a knob or a dial where you can turn up the volume. I could turn up referrals when I wanted, and I can also turn them down when I want to chill out a bit. So kind of stumbling upon this referral engine method is what totally changed my life, totally brought more peace, relaxation, instead of feeling like I always had the hunt, instead feeling like everything was coming to me. That's what I want to share with you because on a personal level, like on a business level, of course, that's amazing. On a personal spiritual level, like that's, it's such an identity shift of going from someone out hunting to receiving. So within this, there's three parts of the referral engine method and we'll talk today specifically on how to tailor it for your own events. So with that being said, we can go into it. If that sounds good, Rudy.

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things I'll be very curious to hear is also how you've applied it, because I know you're applying it to also help bring people, not only for your own business that aligns with you, but also to bring people to events, which you brought me, you actually brought me to Alex's event. So yeah, I'd love to hear, give us the outline and the theory and also share with us the application and how it's working for you. I think that'd be very, very cool.

Yes. Sounds great. So for a bit of context, founder of the Dream Team Network. So it's a referral community of six and seven figure coaches and we're on a mission to help the USA be number one in wealth and health so that we can raise consciousness. Raising global consciousness has always been the goal, but that's really, really broad. So it's like, okay, let's start at home, fix the problems that we have and also do that little thing in leadership called leading by example, walking the talk instead of telling everybody else what to do, telling every other countries, what to do. Let's fill up our cup first and then from that overflowing abundance, help the innovation with the rest of the world. So with that focus, everybody who's aligned with that mission needs referrals. For me specifically, I kind of got burnt out doing on events. So, and this dream team network spring to life when I wanted to create a referral circle for myself. I had partnered up with Yannik Silver to co-produce a course and throughout that I had always wondered like, how does he get his amazing Maverick community to have so many referrals? I asked him, how much do you think you've generated through referrals in your career? He said, oh, you know, 20 million and then started talking about something else. I'm like, whoa, whoa, like wait wait, like for real, they said, yeah, and that's being conservative with. So that planted a seed, my mind, and that was all without commissions. That was just for people loving to share and have these unique experiences. So I thought, okay, well, if he can do it, maybe I can do it and at that point I thought also too, if that means I don't have to give any more money to Mark Zuckerberg, then that sounds good because at that point it was peak censorship on Facebook. I mean, everything, I was like, are we living in the book 1984?

Because so much was getting censored and so I was like, well, growing through referrals sounds great. Coincidentally, so I put together a referral circuit for myself and that exploded until we have the Dream Team Network here and one of the things is, as you mentioned too, that you believe in the power of referrals, referrals convert three to five times higher than any other marketing channel. What's been interesting since then, I didn't plan this. I just walked into it, is that with AI, well, a few things, trust is at an all time low. It just is. We've had so many government institutions, corporations, global organizations, all of a sudden reveal what a lot of us felt the whole time, which is corruption, ineptitude, so many things that are not for the people. So trust, boom, you throw in AI in there. That's getting better and better every day where it's like, whoa, wait a second. Like what is real? Boom, trust goes down. Everything sounds like the best thing since sliced bread. So that's a unique challenge, but also a unique opportunity. Cause what are people going back to? They're going back to like, just a friend of a friend. Like, hey, have you been at that event? Have you worked with that person? Like, what's your opinion on it? So that power of the referral, I believe is finally in our favor and I say our favor being the people who have the heart to serve, who love their clients, who want to give everything again, maybe sometimes to a fault, got to make sure it's a sustainable because creating that experience and then really with this method I'm going to go through, it allows you to receive the benefits of all the love you're giving to your because the right people can share it in the right ways and then fill your events faster. So I'll pause right there. How does that feel and sound for setting the stage for today?

Yes. Tell me more. I want more referrals that convert three to five times higher. Yes, that sounds great.

Let's go into referral engine method. Then there's three parts. The first part is the mission. This is in my own journey. Again, without commissions, without anything, once I got clear on my mission in a one-liner, I started getting referrals, I started getting referrals, started getting people just introducing their friends, not asking for anything, not saying like, Hey, do you have a JV program? Anything? Nope. It's just like, boom, get an email, getting a WhatsApp message, getting a text, a three-way introduction. That's a distinction I'd like to share too, that I found is that the distinction between a referral and an affiliate. A referral and affiliate, to me, an affiliate is where you send them to a link, a joint venture, you send them to this webinar, you send them to this thing, whatever it is, download this thing. To me, a referral is a three-way introduction, a three-way introduction, a transfer of trust of here's three-way introduction through email or Whatsapp or Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, text, whatever, or in-person, there's that transfer of trust, so important. So with this focusing on referrals, with the mission, getting it so clear in a one-liner, and so for me, I got it right away and the more I put it at the front, took me time, it took me way more time than I'd like to admit, but my mission used to be buried on the about page. Then it used to be buried at the end of the first page and as I've moved it more and more and more and more up to the conversation, as well as the website, more and more referrals have flowed. Now it's literally what I'm testing now and have been testing.

It's like, it's literally on the homepage, dreamteamnetwork.ai. So I think that my resistance for that is it's showing our heart. It's showing our heart. It's a spiritual process of getting clear of like, okay, why did I come here in this lifetime? How do we focus that on a clearly actionable, trackable direction? So showing your heart, what are you really here to do? Some people aren't going to resonate with that and that's okay. What I found to my surprise, which I believe for you to everybody listening is I feel like you'll be shocked with how many people resonate with it, how many people lean in, how many people come running, how many people give support just because they're aligned with the mission, how many people refer their friends. So the first thing out of those three part method mission is what is your one liner, what is your one liner mission that you're focused on? Could it be a little tough to dial that in? It could. My recommendation for you after being eight years as a mastermind leader is don't be a solo solver with this. That's my recommendation. I used to be a solo solver. I still catch myself in it from time to time. What's a solo solver? It's like, oh, here's this thing I need to figure out. Let me go off alone and do it. Let me be solo. Let me walk. I just figured it out instead of figuring it out through connection, finding the clarity through connection. So hit up your allies, hit up your friends, hit up the people that you resonate with and ask, hey, this is what I'm working. Get that refinement there.

So I'll pause there and I see a smile there. And that's, I guess I smile too. Cause that's been a hard pattern for me to just, instead of just always figuring out myself, go into community and now I'm surrounded with community. So you might think, oh, that's probably how we always operate. No, the times in my life, I realized recently that I've struggled the most oddly where I'm like, whoa, I usually figure things out what's going on. It's because I was out of community. With the wrong people and every time I look back and I realized when I had this epiphany, like, oh, the times that have been the most fun, simple, the fastest, the most growth, like the most where things were working, it was with being in community with the right. So that's my invitation to you is get something good. Talk to AI, go for a walk with AI, get your mission pretty clear and then share it with friends. Get that really dialed in and then once you do, in my experience, referrals start flowing directly with just that one point alone.

Right on. Get the one line clear. Make sure it's congruent as part of your mission and start sharing with friends and don't do it alone. Don't be a solo solver. Do it in a community. I love this thing. The tagline goes, if you want to go fast, you go alone and if you want to go far, you go with others, a team, a community of people, not as fast, but you go much further.

Yes, totally and like my, the version, a new version that I resonate with too, to tell myself is like, if I want to overthink it, go alone, if I want to have fun, go together.

Speaking of a mission and one-liners, would you mind sharing? I know maybe you've said it quickly before, but can you share with us here? So we're all clear on what that is for you.

Yes. So the mission for myself and Dream Team Network is to help the USA be number one in wealth and health so that we can raise consciousness.

Period. Beautiful. So I like how clear that is and how congruent and aligned that is for you and how you can clearly share that anywhere and everywhere you go. Thank you for giving, providing that example. For me, my mission, and I'm not sure if I share this with our audience before, so maybe this is the first time, but I'm on a mission to create a world where every human being who is seeking it, who desires it, who's willing to go for it, gets access to the education, coaching support they need to succeed in their businesses and in their lives. The way we do that as a company, there's this podcast, but also I have an agency called Wingman and we provide world-class sales support services. So we partner with reputable brands that have great programs, like coaching programs and mastermind programs, et cetera and we provide done-for-you sales service to help enroll people into their program. Kind of like you're helping refer people to events. I'm helping oftentimes at events, enroll people into higher level programs that could positively benefit their lives. So that's how I've connected my mission to also our business strategic aim and over the last 10 years, we supported over 10,000 people enrolling into a higher level coaching education or mastermind type program offering. So I want to share that here because I was like on point relevant. You good, good to kind of share that. Both of us share that and demonstrate the point here that you're making with the referral engine.

Yes. I love that and the gears are turning in my head because I got some thoughts that came to mind when you shared that before I shared them, one of the frames that's been so helpful for me and others in my community is really looking through the lens of would this be easy to refer or how would I refer this to a friend? That's one distinction too, why it's helpful to talk with the community because we can have something in our mind, but it's like, are people saying that what are people saying when they're like, oh, you got to meet Rudy because X, Y, Z. So as you were saying that, which was so great, I was thinking in my mind is naturally like, how would I refer you to a friend and off the cuff, it would go something like this of like, yeah, Rudy's on a mission to be the wingman for people who want to fly higher. He does that one-on-one as well as in his community of Wingmans, wing people, wing women and wing men. He does that because he's a previous pilot and he's flown on X amount of missions and he's helped 10,000 plus clients fly to higher heights because of this true wing man, wing woman relationship where we're on a mission together, we're very clear, I've got your back and we're in this together. That's what I feel with him is like, he's got the heart as well as the brain. Of like, Oh, strategic, connected mission, focus and accomplishment. So you got to talk to him.

Boom. Thanks for sharing that, man. Thank you. How does that resonate with you? We'll take it.

Please. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, man. It feels great. Resonates for sure. Beautiful. So I think we really hit that point on mission and how to share in a way that's meaningful, rememberable and congruent and has people coming to you. I know there's two more points in your referral engine formula. Would you like to cover the next one?

So now that we got mission, we'll go into funnel. So what I realized too, is that there's a certain type of referral funnel. Cause imagine I'm like talking to imagine if I'm gonna refer you Rudy and I'm talking to somebody in person or even your messenger or whatever it is, I really feel like you're a good fit for Rudy and his sales team. And yeah, I would love to meet him. I think that's what sounds good. That's what I'm looking for right now. Look for heart-centered purpose-driven and that's very effective. I go, okay, great. Here's his ebook. I just do the ebook slap, just slap them with your ebook link. It's like, is that really gonna maybe, but in my experience, no, it just becomes another thing for people to do and a see you later type thing. So then it's like, okay, how can you have that transfer of trust that I talked about before, three-way introduction. So level one of that is they have a one-on-one call with you. I'm totally fine. That works. It's a great way to start. To me, I got so many calls, booked my calendar that I had to pause and I'm a protector in human design. So it's like, I do not have the energy for like that many calls a day. So what I recommend here is specifically for people's events is give them the experience first, give them the experience. That's another thing in my life. I've made a shift to, it's like, I will never have a sales call without somebody experiencing it. I just won't. Cause then it's like, I realized before that I was always explaining what it might be, what it might look like instead of just try before you buy and then we can talk. So how can they try before they buy with your event? Now, a simple one is an in-person event.

If you do a lightweight meetup, it doesn't take a bunch of planning. It doesn't take a bunch of a lift for you. You have these pop-up type meetings or you speak at people's local events around like that can help as a strategy. People get to experience you. Another thing that you can do is have an online experience. Say you do have a mastermind night. This is what I've been seeing in the community work really, really well is, I mean, there's one community member doing today and his goal was to have five people on it. It exploded to 36 and counting through this very clear method. For a distinction as well, he tried to send people to a sales page before, didn't work, send it, tried to send them to an opt-in, didn't work. He did personal voice notes, boom, people signing up right away, signing up right away. So for everybody listening here, I would say the online version to your event is to give them experience, do a mini mastermind call of highly curated of who's exactly the people that is a good fit. Then you can leverage people who are already going because the better the cap, the higher the caliber of the people going, the better it is for everybody who's going right and give them an experience. One of the things that I feel like so few people are doing, that's been a huge unlock for us is breakout rooms. Simple as it is breakout rooms because who wants to go to an hour long monologue of one person talking? I don't, especially when literally the best information on the planet is for free on YouTube. So it's like, I better be hearing something that is like transcendent, my soul out of my body to take away from not just catching the recording, going for a walk and then listening there.

So, and even from a referral to, it's like, oh, hey, come to this 90 minute webinar where they talk about this stuff that it could have been a 20 minute video. It's like, that feels lame. Or if it's, hey, come to this experience. It's highly curated. You've got a special invites for this person. Here's our mission. Here's our vision. Here's our values. It's exactly the type of person is going to be in this room. Okay. Whoa. That's worth my time and that is potentially worth my time. You got me leaned in. Then it's like, okay, here's the objective of it for a community member. The objective is expand your capacity today or later today, because me and others like myself, like things are just booming business movement so fast, so many breakthroughs, so many doors open. Then it's like a bit overwhelming. I don't like using that word, but like, that's the truth. It's like, oh my God, hold on tight. Don't make it stop, but just expand capacity externally with more support and as well as internally deeper peace in the body with more energy flowing through. So having an experience night, I like it as a night rather than an event because it's lightweight. People can commit to it. It's not another lift or another ask, do breakout room style. So you can feel the power in the room. I like to do three in a 70 minute, 75 minute deal. I'd recommend putting 90 minutes in the calendar, go for 75. Have a lecture there. People will always book right up to whatever you set. So 90 minutes gives you a relaxed time, three rounds of breakup rooms in there, and you can get people prompted to talk and discuss. So that gives them an experience just like they would in an event where they go out in the hall and they talk with people and then the invitation is to, hey, if you like this and you got a ton of value from the 75 minutes, imagine what we can do over three days together.

So this is a funnel, very smooth and also it's very referable than finding, because imagine if I love your stuff and there's somebody who's never heard of you, but I'm like, I feel like you got to be there. Sending them to a sales page with just a link to buy is a big ask. Even if you are a top pro copywriter and it's gorgeous and everything, like it's a big ask. So how can they experience it first? Hey, I've got a few golden tickets to share to this highly curated, highly vetted mastermind night for the specific topic. Like come join. Okay. I three-way introduce them to you or email introduce and you said, hey, here's the link. You can sign up. I know I'm going really in the nitty gritty here. However, I like to use Calendly because I don't like sending them to a form. Everybody can just choose it easily. But then making sure in Calendly, the questions are very repellent to anybody who's not the right person for the group, and that's where we turn from having our marketer hat on, taking off the marketer hat on off and putting on the community leader hat, which is about protecting the energy and protecting the people within our community. So to summarize here, we've got the funnel referral funnel. Give them an experience first online or in person, make it easy. So people can share with their friends, book it in their calendar, and then give them a breakout room style experience and then the invitation to your event is after that.

Awesome, man. Thank you for that. I appreciate how you just talk to us step-by-step on your funnel and how to create an experience for them. Try before you buy. It's very detailed. You even mentioned a golden, giving them a golden ticket, speaking of golden tickets for the audience here. I know you are giving us a gift to our listeners, the opportunity to receive a golden ticket to experience one of your referral engine mastermind experience where they can come in and potentially get referrals for their business now, would you like to share with us in like 30 seconds or so a little bit about that and what they can expect when they, when they take advantage of that opportunity?

Yes. Perfect segue. So yes, you can get a golden ticket to join us on one of our next Dream Team Calls, get some referrals flowing your way, as well as see the model of the referral engine in action. It is application-based to protect the community. So it'll ask you a few questions at dreamteamnetwork.ai/goldenticket. I'm gonna ask you a few questions and make sure we're mission vision values aligned and if we are, then it will be accepted. If not, it won't just want to be super clear on that to protect the community and love to have you join dreamteamnetwork.ai/golden ticket for six and seven figure coaches.

Thank you for that, Sebastian. There's a link here somewhere around this audio or somewhere around this video in the show notes, you'll find a link to that golden ticket. So yes, go click the link below, send your application, go have an experience Sebastian, see what it's like to be part of his Dream Team Network. I know I was, I got to be part of that this past event and the support that you provided there was pretty cool to already land and be connected with others and the effort that you guys were putting in to make sure everybody had their referrals and what they were looking for, it was great. It was a great experience. So now I'm referring you. I guess so. That works out. Thank you, Sebastian, my friend. Now we're at the end of our show here, but just any final words you want to share with our audience as we wrap up?

Yes. So the method mission funnel scale, you just do these two things. You'll have more referrals and know what to do with based on my experience. The last scale part is finding power partners that really align with you and creating referral squad with a few different power partners that have complimentary businesses that are beyond just a JV one-time mailing transactional thing, it's a long-term journey with complimentary businesses that help your clients get better results. So mission funnel scale, and that's the referral engine. From my heart, I would say, I feel like the portal is open. Like all of us here who are here to raise consciousness, who have been on our leadership path or spiritual growth path. Now is the time that we've been preparing for. There's so much opportunity. There's so much need. There's so much momentum. So now more than ever is my. Couragement. My message from my heart to yours was go. Let's grow. Let's make the impact that each of us know in our soul that we came here to make.

There it is. Amen. Let's do it. Awesome. Thank you, sir.