Transcript

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Sigrun:
You’re listening to the Sigrun Show episode number 421. In this episode, I talked to John Lee Dumas about the common sense approach to success. Welcome to the Sigrun Show, I’m your host Sigrun, creator of SOMBA, the MBA program for online entrepreneurs. With each episode, I’ll share with you inspiring case studies and interviews to help you achieve your dreams and turn your passion into profits. Thank you for spending time with me today. Building an online business takes time, I share with you proven strategies to help you get there faster. You’ll also learn how to master your mindset, uplevel your marketing, and succeed with masterminds. Today, I speak with John Lee Dumas, he is the founder and host of the award-winning podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire, with over 1 million monthly listeners.
He’s interviewed over 3000 amazing entrepreneurs, including Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Tim Ferriss. JLD, as he is called, is about to release a new book for entrepreneurs called, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, and it’s available for pre-order right now. In this episode, we talk about the common sense approach to success. To pre-order John’s book and receive special pre-order bonuses, go to sigrun.com/421, and there you will also find the show notes of this episode. I am so excited and honored to have John Lee Dumas on the Sigrun Show. And I like to share how I got to know him, and maybe he doesn’t, probably doesn’t remember, but I went to Social Media Marketing World first time, 2015. And I went six years in a row.
But the first time I went, I left a little bit early and I thought, “Oh, I’ll just go to the bar and grab a glass of wine and dinner on my own.” And suddenly I see all the speakers there. So I had no clue about this pre-party that the speakers have before the conference starts. And then someone pointed out John Lee Dumas to me, and I’m like, I’m not sure who that is, but he must be famous. But I was intrigued and I went to your talk and you were talking about Jimmy. So tell us who is Jimmy?
John Lee Dumas:
Well, first off, thank you for the kind words, thank you for having me on your show, thank you for the color coordination of being all in red. Because I love oranges and blacks and all of those reasons, all those brand colors. So really cool story that does take me back in time, I actually spoke at Social Media Marketing World its first six years of existence. So I think we definitely crossed paths at many Social Media Marketing Worlds, for sure. And I’ll tell you, Jimmy has been with me for 3000 interviews. I have now been doing Entrepreneurs on Fire for a little bit under a decade, as we’re speaking right now. I’ve interviewed over 3000 people, I’ve gotten over a 100 million listens of the podcast total. I’m averaging, as you and I are speaking, 1.4 million listens every single month.
The business also generates revenue. I had just crossed my 90th month in a row of making over $100,000 of net profits. That’s minimum, usually much more. We detail all of that out within our income reports and we have been doing that for 90 a months in a row. And Sigrun, I attribute it all to Jimmy. I really, really attribute it all to Jimmy. And I think this is where a lot of entrepreneurs go wrong. And by the way, I did a ton of things wrong started, but one thing I did right was sit down and create my avatar, the perfect listener for my podcast. I sat down and just wrote hundreds and hundreds of words about this individual, whom I never met, but who I knew was the perfect listener for my podcast.
Jimmy, this 40 year olds with two kids, ages three and five. This individual who drove to work by himself every single day, to a job he didn’t like. I knew this person inside and out. I could go on and on and on about Jimmy, I know everything. His favorite color is blue. All the things there is know about him, I know. And now why do I attribute all of my success to Jimmy? Because every time I came to a fork in the road, Sigrun, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should go left or right. And that’s very common, most entrepreneurs have no idea what to do. But guess what? Jimmy was there for me. And I would just turn to my avatar, my perfect listener, my North star, and I would say, “WWJW? What would Jimmy want?” And then that was my answer.
Left, right, left, left. Every fork in the road, Jimmy gave me the right direction to go down. And it was quick, it was fast, it made every decision easy. And that’s why I was able to achieve the levels of success that I have, because I got real clear right at the beginning, Sigrun. Right at the beginning, who the perfect listener to my podcast was. And I created the show for that person, the best content I could for that person. And you can fill in that avatar as a perfect listener for whatever it is that you’re doing in your world. For your products, your services, your clients, your customers, whatever that might be. You need your avatar.
Sigrun:
Yeah. And that’s where a lot of entrepreneurs go wrong and that’s what you say in your upcoming book that I’ve had the pleasure to read already. So my question is, is the book written for Jimmy?
John Lee Dumas:
Listen, this book is for Jimmy. And this book is for my audience, Fire Nation. Because one thing that I’ve done now that I’ve launched, I’ve been able to engage with thousands and thousands of people in my audience. I’ve been able to engage with thousands of Jimmy’s and Julie’s and you fill in the blank. I mean, I’ve been able to engage with my audience at such a high level. I get essentially the same 10 questions asked me, in my inbox and my social media messages, every single day. By the hundreds, by the thousands, week over week, month over month. They’re essentially the same 10 questions.
And I can’t answer all these questions in the independently, individually. There’s no time that exists in this world to do that. So instead I said, “You know what? I’ve been doing this for a decade. I’ve interviewed 3000 successful entrepreneurs. I’ve learned from every single one of them. I know the path to success, let me teach others the common path to uncommon success. Let me create the 17 step revolutionary roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment.” That’s what this book is, Sigrun, this is what I poured my heart, my soul, my sweat into. Over 480 hours it took me to write this book, and man, I’m so excited for it.
Sigrun:
I am super excited, but I also noticed something reading your book, that you are really very particular about your calendar. Is that a part of your success too? Not just defining Jimmy and doing everything for Jimmy, but how you treat your calendar and your time.
John Lee Dumas:
All we have is time in this world. All we have is time. And so many people spend their time doing OPP, other people’s problems, other people’s questions, other people’s wants, other people’s desires. Listen, you’re going to spend some of your time doing those things, but man, I am so clear and I am so specific about how I spend my time, Sigrun. I spend my time doing what my business needs, producing the content that my podcast needs. I don’t get the 3000 episodes in just under a decade by getting into my email inbox first thing in the morning. By spending time on social media first thing in the morning. I have my calendar, my days, my themes, and I make sure that everything that is on my calendar needs to be there and is going to move my business forward. That’s how I win. So I am so overly protective of my calendar, and that is my Bible.
Sigrun:
And you do 15 minute meetings, not even 30 minutes, like many people are.
John Lee Dumas:
One-five.
Sigrun:
One-five, 15 minutes.
John Lee Dumas:
I do 15 minutes, back to back meetings, when I’m doing meetings. Because there’s no time to waste. When you have 30 minutes, there can be some chit chat, there can be some this and that at the beginning and da-da-da. And then it’s 30 minutes. But, hey, when you have 15 minutes, you get it done in 15 minutes. And that’s something that I’ve done forever, it’s called the Pomodoro method. I’m a big believer in setting time constraints, having a timer, watching it go down, then getting into business. Parkinson’s Law very clearly states, tasks will expand to the time allotted. So if we allot 30 minutes for a task, it’s going to take us 30 minutes for a task. If we allot 15 minutes, it’s going to take us 15 minutes. Parkinson’s Law.
Sigrun:
So how did you write your book? You must be very busy, how did you squeeze in book writing?
John Lee Dumas:
I made it a priority. The first two hours of every single day was blocked off in my calendar to write. For eight months I wrote for 480 hours, but never more than two hours a day. That was my limit, because those are my two best hours of the day. I was most fresh, I was clear, I knew exactly what had to happen. I made that happen for the first two hours of every day. Then I took care of the rest of my business, I did the other things I had to do; emails, social media, interviews, this, that. But the first two hours of my day for eight months were sacred. I had a timeline, I had my goals I had to meet to get to my certain word counts for each month, each couple months, each quarter. And then by the time it came for me to submit that final manuscript, I had it. Had it done, all complete.
Sigrun:
So this is your first book through a publishing house. You’ve written some books before, but this is a first, why different this time?
John Lee Dumas:
So I wrote a very, very short self-published book back in 2013. I sat down over the weekend, maybe 7,000 words, wrote it out, published it. It’s called Podcast Launch. It’s been a great book, it’s awesome, it’s out there. It’s for a couple bucks. And it’s always been a great lead generator into my community, Podcaster’s Paradise, and it’s just been helping people launch their podcast. Since then, I’ve actually self-published three journals, The Freedom Journal, The Mastery Journal, and The Podcast Journal. These are journals, you essentially figure out one page and then you repeat it 99 times. So it’s not like I had to write a whole book, this is self publishing, it’s a whole different beast. And I crushed it. I launched The Freedom Journal, it did $453,000 in 33 days. I launched The Mastery Journal, it did $280,000 in 33 days.
And The Podcast Journal we didn’t launch on Kickstarter, we just put it out there and it just flies off the shelves. We can’t keep it in stock. That’s self publishing, it’s in my comfort zone. And one thing that I preach, and I believe that you need to practice what you preach, is you got to get outside of your comfort zone. It’s in my comfort zone to self publish, I’ve crushed it three times. I know how to do it, it’s easy, it’s fun, it’s comfortable. But getting a big six figure, $350,000 advance, from a traditional publisher to write a book, it’s a little scary. It’s a little outside of my comfort zone. Having to work with a professional editor, with a professional publisher, with a professional marketing team. That’s a little scary. There’s some pressure there. I wanted that. I knew that for this book to be the best it could be, I couldn’t do it alone. I had to have a team.
Now I wrote every single word. This is 100% me, but the process of making this book what it is today; the cover, the interior, everything that’s inside there. It took a team and it took me out of my comfort zone. I pushed a lot harder than I otherwise would have pushed myself. It’s the same exact reason, Sigrun, why I have a virtual trainer. I have a gym right downstairs. I’ll go down there, I’ll throw some weights around and then I’ll leave, when I have a virtual trainer …
Sigrun:
Yeah, we have the same one.
John Lee Dumas:
We have the same trainer, his name’s Jeff, I get business done. And by the way, Jeff was just in Puerto Rico for the past four days, hanging out with me.
Sigrun:
So why did you have to write this book now? What’s the goal? You say there’s so many experts out there and lots of advice, but actually it’s quite common sense what you need to do.
John Lee Dumas:
It’s very common sense, but guess what, common sense is not common practice. People try to complicate things. They go overboard, they overthink things, they stress, they second guess themselves. Let me take all of that away. Let me just hand you, let me just gift to you, a 17 step roadmap that you just follow step by step by step to get to your version of financial freedom and fulfillment. Let’s take away the second guessing, let’s take away the doubts, the fears, the procrastination. Let’s take all of that away and let’s just execute. This is what this book is. It’s my gift to you, because guess what, you do need to invest in yourself. I’m not talking about the $25 for the hard cover, I’m talking about investing your time, which is valuable, into this book. This is what you need to do, because if you want to have the success that Sigrun’s had, that I’ve had, that other entrepreneurs have had, you got to put in the work. You’ve got to follow the process. And that’s what this book is, it’s gifting you that process.
Sigrun:
So give you an example on the 17 steps, I know Jimmy is one of the examples, but can we have some other ones?
John Lee Dumas:
Step three, chapter three, is creating your avatar. So I teach you exactly how to create your avatar. And frankly, it’s everything. It is so critical. It is so meaningful. But that is step three. Let’s jump forward to step seven. Sigrun, I wrote and wrote and wrote and I’m like, “How am I still on step seven? I’ve been writing this chapter for weeks now.” It’s 13,500 words, just this chapter. But when I stepped back and looked at it, I was like, “Ah, this is why we’ve made $100,000 at least every month for 90 months in a row. This is why I’ve been able to produce 3000 podcast episodes in over nine years. This is why I’ve been able to build the business I built.” My content production plan is fantastic. Most people that are listening to this right now, their content production plan sucks.
And I’m not trying to be mean, because mine sucked, mine used to suck and I paid for it. But over almost a decade of building this content production plan that we have now, it is flipping amazing. And I give you every single step in this book, in chapter seven, step seven, of how to create your content production plan. After reading that and applying that step, your content production plan will no longer suck. You will understand what it actually looks like to produce content the right way. Your head will pop off, you’ll be like, “I can’t believe I was doing it so incorrectly for so long. Thank God I now know how to do it right.” That’s what this book will do for you.
Sigrun:
You talk a lot about the revenue, you seem to have all the numbers clear, you talk about financial freedom. It’s one of the reasons you went into this business in the first place. You are one of the few that consistently share your income results, why did you start to do that?
John Lee Dumas:
So back in 2012, I was coming from a very traditional background. I was in the army, I went to law school, corporate finance. I thought to make money online you had to either be scammy or slimy. I thought that was the only ways you can make money online. I didn’t know any better. I was wrong, but I didn’t know any better. Then I came across this guy, Pat Flynn, Smart Passive Income, and this guy was publishing his monthly income reports. And I’m like, “Here’s a great, nice guy, family man, adding value to this world and making things happen. That’s awesome. I want to do what he’s doing in this world.” And I said to myself at that moment, “If I ever get to a place where I’m actually generating revenue in my business, I want to give the same hope and inspiration to other people that Pat gave me.”
And that inspiration really started 90 months ago when we finally started making money in our business. And now every single month we bring our lawyer on, shares a legal tip. Our accountant on, he shares a tax tip. And we make our income reports so valuable for people who are looking to learn how to create, how to grow, how to monetize their business. That’s the goal of the income journal, and plus I just love being transparent, I love being open and honest. I want people to see what’s working for us so they can emulate our success. And I want people to see what’s not working for us so they can avoid our failures. That’s what I want for people.
Sigrun:
You started with a daily podcast and then after 2000 episodes and five years of doing daily podcasts, you decided to change to a weekly. Did you get tired?
John Lee Dumas:
So I never actually changed to weekly. I initially bumped down to two days per week, which were Mondays and Thursdays, but I had much longer in-depth interviews. But then pretty quickly I was like, “This isn’t enough,” I went back up to three days per week. Now I’m actually back up to seven days per week. But after the book launch, I’ll probably peel it back down to three or four days per week. I think that that’s my sweet spot. So I did what I wanted to do, I did a daily podcast for over five years, and then I was ready to try something different with the podcast. And we have a lot longer, deeper conversations with my guests. And that’s why I did the two episodes per week that were much longer and deeper, but then I bumped it to three, then up to four, then five, now at seven. So who knows? I’ll be somewhere between three to five, sorry, three to seven podcasts per week going forward. Depending on what my mood is.
Sigrun:
I tried 100 episodes in 100 days, but I found it a bit exhausting.
John Lee Dumas:
It’s exhausting.
Sigrun:
Yeah, because my business is a bit different than yours, I’m doing coaching. You have decided to go more for affiliate marketing and monetize your podcast. So it’s a different business model.
John Lee Dumas:
It is.
Sigrun:
Most of my listeners are probably building a coaching business, so can you explain your business model, how you can make so much money and have such a good profit and not be totally exhausted.
John Lee Dumas:
So listen, you’ve got to be productive. Productive is producing the right content. So when I want to make some money with one of my affiliates, Click Funnels, I’ll bring their founder, Russell Brunson on. And we’ll talk about Funnels and then we’ll promote their latest offer. And then we’ll run it through my affiliate link and I’ll get a spike in affiliate sales. You’ve got to be strategic, you’ve got to always be asking your audience one very simple question, “What is your biggest struggle right now?” And then you listen to the answers and then you decide which solutions you want to create for which problems. You can be very specific and you can choose.
So you can choose the ones that are scalable, are leverageable, or you can choose the ones that are not so much. That are the one-on-one, that are the small group or mastermind kind of things. I think all of them are great, I’ve gone through all revenue streams, and I have a lot of different revenue streams. Some that take more time, some that take less time. But at the end of the day, if you ask your audience, “What’s your biggest struggle right now?” And you provide them the solution, you’re going to win financially.
Sigrun:
You did have a mastermind for three years, and then you closed it down. That was a great experience, but you close it down because it was too much work or …
John Lee Dumas:
No, so what happened was, actually, we launched Fire Nation back in 2013 and it was fantastic, but then we also, right to the side of it about six months later, launched Podcasters Paradise. Which was also a mastermind, which has also this group … We had a Facebook group, so we had daily interactions as well. And so now we essentially have two simultaneous running communities and then we actually launched a third called Webinar on Fire, which was a core/community. So now we have three consecutive communities and then we just said, “Hey, I think it’s time to consolidate these things.
Anybody that wants to maintain, to be still part of our mastermind, part of our community, join Podcaster’s Paradise. Myself and Kate are there every single day answering questions. And if you don’t have any interest in joining Podcaster’s Paradise, then best of luck in everything that you do.” And so a lot of people shifted over to Podcaster’s Paradise and we just consolidated it all into one. So we’ve always had a mastermind, we’ve always had this community, Podcaster’s Paradise going. We’ve never actually had a gap within that. So I love that part of our business.
Sigrun:
Yeah. Coming back to the book, what do you think is the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make?
John Lee Dumas:
The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is, they see Sigrun doing something successful, or they see me doing something successful, and they launch a pale, weak imitation of her or myself. And then they wonder why they’re not successful. Because they’re not living in their zone of fire. You need to identify your big idea, you need to be living in your zone of fire. Once you can identify that and live in that, you’re going to win at a high level. And most entrepreneurs never even understand that, or never even identify their big idea, they just see other people doing something and they copy that and they have bad results. So that’s why step one, chapter one, in this book, identify your big idea. Sigrun, most people are going to die. And I mean, they’re going to die without ever knowing what their big idea is. Without even understanding what their zone of fire is.
And that’s sad, it’s true, but it’s sad. Not that many people in your audience because they’re here for a reason, they get it, they’re on that search, if they haven’t already found it. But most people in this world are going to die without ever knowing what their big idea is and that’s sad. You’ve got to get there, you got to live in your zone of fire. When you’re coaching somebody, Sigrun, and you’re giving them breakthroughs and you’re doing this for them and that for them, you’re in your zone of fire. That’s the place that you want to be. And that’s what we need more of in this world, is people not just copying Sigrun or copying me, but finding what their zone of fire is. What their big idea is and crushing it there and being the best version of themselves there. That’s going to make this world better.
Sigrun:
So most of my listeners will know you for podcasting and they will be then, “Oh, I want to start a podcast.” Is it too late?
John Lee Dumas:
So listen, it is too late to launch a pale, weak imitation of other successful podcasts that you see out there. It will never be too late to do the following: identify a void that’s out there in the marketplace, become the best solution to that problem, and launch it as a podcast. As a coaching course. As a YouTube channel. As a fill in the blank. If you can identify a real problem that you can and want to create the best solution towards, and then you produce the content around that, whether it be a podcast or anything else, you’re going to win. But if you just jump into the fray, doing what everybody else is doing, you’re going to get lost in the crowd. It is a loud, chaotic, noisy world that we live in. If you want to be a little girl screaming into the wind, like so many people are, nobody’s going to hear you, nobody’s going to care. But if you can just put a stake in the sand and say, “I’m going to be the best solution to this problem,” you’ll win.
Sigrun:
Fabulous. I want to end this amazing interview by congratulations to your engagement.
John Lee Dumas:
I put a ring on that finger.
Sigrun:
Yes, Kate and you have been instrumental in me launching this podcast. Then I want to give the credit to you, but I actually have to give credit to her, because she made it sound so simple with a laptop and a microphone and reading blog posts. And I’m like, “I can do that.”
John Lee Dumas:
You can do that, Sigrun can do that.
Sigrun:
I can do that. Thank you for coming on the show, John, it’s been a pleasure.
John Lee Dumas:
Thank you so much.
Sigrun:
As we spoke about in the podcast, JLD is about to release a brand new book for entrepreneurs called, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, and it’s available for pre-order right now. To pre-order John’s book and receive special pre-order bonuses, go to sigrun.com/421, and there, you will also find the show notes of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Sigrun Show, did you enjoy this episode? Are you planning to pre-order John’s book? Take a screenshot of your book order, or of this episode, and tag me and John Lee Dumas on Instagram. I hope to see you in the next episode.