TES 073 - The Three Simple Keys to John Lee Dumas’ Success and 1400 Podcasts

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey, everyone, this is Mel Abraham from the Entrepreneur Solution show. And welcome to this episode. And this episode for me is an absolute joy. It's kind of full circle for me because this show came about because of my guest this morning and getting a chance to have a chat with the John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire. Fire nation, you webinars on fire. It's podcaster's paradise. You name it.

John's got an amazing, amazing story. I guess we call him jld.

Here's a guy who one has served our country in a great way. Seven years in the army and doing tours in Iraq and leading a platoon. Leadership qualities. But then he came back here and he went through a struggle that many of us entrepreneurs go through. You know, it's kind of that search for meaning, that search for who we are, that search for what's meaningful and how we can have the greatest impact. And he'll tell you a little bit more about his journey, but he went from the service to law school to finance to real estate all around, until he landed on this concept of serving entrepreneurs and serving entrepreneurs in a great way. With Entrepreneurs on Fire, it's one of the best podcasts out there in the entrepreneur space and just in the podcast space in general, it talks about life and that type of thing. You look at it, he's on episode. Last time I checked, I think it's episode 1333. So this guy has been busy seven days a week. And some of the cool things that I like about him is that some of the concepts with this podcast is it was focused on valuable content and consistent content, which I think for content creators, thought leaders, entrepreneurs is something that we lack, is this concept of saying let's give value first and let's do it consistently, and then let's see where the chips fall. And John has done that. And we're going to get a chance to talk to him about a couple things that include, I want to talk to him about his Freedom Journal which is his newest endeavor and an amazing, amazing resource that he did on Kickstart. It was like number six on Kickstart campaign. So welcome. Welcome, John. Jld, it's just great to have you here and get a chance to spend some time with you.

Well, Mel, there is no place I'd rather be than right here right now, brother. And whether it's John or JLD or just Dumas, I'm all good with it, brother. Let's just rock the mic.

You got it. You got it, my friend. Hey, do me a favor. I kind of gave you my synopsis of your journey, but maybe you could give us your perspective and the key turning points, the things that were the aha's or the realizations that got you. Because sometimes we get pushed back on our heels and we're afraid to make those choices, but you step through them and you did them in a big way.

Think he did a great job. So maybe I'll just go through some of the highlights and lowlights. You know, I come from a very inauspicious background in the state of Maine. Spent the first 18 years of my life there. Great, great times. Then I went to college on an Army ROTC scholarship. So when I graduated, I spent eight years in the army, four active, four in the reserves. Did a little 13 month tour of duty in Iraq, which she mentions. Then when I got out of the military, I thought the world was my oyster. But then I spent the next six years struggling greatly and failing consistently. I tried law school. I quit after one semester. Corporate finance, dying a slow death in a cubicle. I quit after 18 months. And then I tried real estate for four years, commercial and residential, and, you know, had some successes there, some wins, but a lot of failures and struggles, and I just wasn't happy. So I was searching, searching for content. And luckily I stumbled upon podcasts, which are, you know, incredibly free, valuable and consistent content targeted on demand. All the things that I know that we love as human beings. And I found my podcast that I love and I'd be listening to them. But then I saw and heard that these podcasts were just, you know, coming out with one a week or two a month, you know, twice a month at the most. And I was like, man, I'm driving to work five days a week, I'm hitting the gym, like, there has to be a solution for people like myself. And I did more research. It didn't exist. I decided to follow that great Gandhi quote and be the change you wish to see in the world. And for me, that was to create a seven day a week podcast interviewing inspiring entrepreneurs. And was I good when I started? No. I was clueless. I was naive. I didn't know what I was getting into. But ignorance is bliss for entrepreneurs. I just woke up every single day, got a little bit better, learned a little bit more. Here we are. You know, I've now recorded over 1400 episodes. We've had over 30 million downloads to date. We're generating over a million listens per month, and our business is a seven figure a year business. So a lot of things have been going well and I'm just excited to continue to share inspiration with the world.

It's amazing that what you've done in what I think is a relatively short time, because the podcast started late, late 2012. So, I mean, you're talking about less than four years, 30 million downloads.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that's incredible. And I think it's a statement to a couple things. And this is maybe where we jump off is one, you focused on creating distinction, but distinction with excellence. And just curious where that came from for you.

Yeah. So one thing I do want to kind of point out first is, like, we hear a lot of these vanity metrics out there, and like, 30 million downloads is not a vanity metric. Like, that's a real number for sure. Like, that's a huge number of the podcasting world. But, you know, I know as myself, when I listen to other episodes and interviews, et cetera, like, I'm like, you know, what does that really mean? Like, okay, like, you know, you got, you know, 2,000 likes on your Instagram post. Like, is that really doing something positive for your business? And, you know, so I think what is important that we do that I'm really proud of here at Eofire is we do share our income reports every single month. You know, last year, EO Fire generated over four and a half million gross, and we did 2.6 million net revenue. So this is real money coming from a real business. So, you know, these numbers we can throw around all day long. And, you know, I caution everybody to take a lot of them with a grain of salt, but, you know, really search and strive for people that are actually bringing in real revenue for content that they're providing and for business that they're growing, because that's important. And not to get off onto a rant, Mel, but, you know, look at these, like, Inc. Top 100 lists. Every single year I go through the magazine and it's like, number 34. You know, this company that did $9 million in gross revenue with 218 employees. I'm like, there's no money there. Losing money every single year. So we need to be careful, like, who we look up to and who we admire and who we're following. We need to find people that are actually doing it the way that we want to be. And for me, an important thing, and this is a great book by Michael McCallow. It's profit first. I want to have money in the bank at the end of the. At the end of the day, at the end of the year. And, you know, that's important to me. So that's. The business that I'm building is a. Is a very net profit focused business. You know, 60 to 70, sometimes even up to 80% on, on what we do. But kind of getting to what you're saying about the distinction, I think it really is important to distinguish yourself and the ways that you're able to. Because a lot of people say, John, like, what are the best tactics to get more downloads and more listens or grow my audience? My answer is make better stuff. Like, be better at what you do. Create a better podcast episode. Do a better blog post. Like, create better content. Stop worrying about the latest hack that's going to get more people to your podcast episode. Because I don't care if you get a thousand people to your podcast episode when you used to get 100, if your podcast episode stinks, then that's just going to be 900 people being like, well, what is this crap? And they're never coming back. So work on your stuff. Distinguish yourself. And that doesn't mean you got to be awesome from day one, because you're not going to be. But just be as good as you can from day one and keep working hard every single day to get a little bit better. I mean, go back and listen to episode 100 of EO Fire. I wasn't good even after 100 episodes. Listen, episode 500, I was a little bit better. Episode 1000, I was really getting a lot better. And now here I am, you know, approaching my 1500th episode. Like, the quality is increasing because I'm working on it every single day.

Well, it becomes the. Your tools of the trade. And I love what you say. It's fun. I'll go back to your rant for a moment because I look at those Inc 100 lists and I do the math. So I look at the revenue per employee and I go, are you kidding me? I want nothing to do with this.

But I think that this is what.

Did you say they're working so hard, too?

Oh, my God, forget it. I had a staff of 30 at one point. I'm done.

So, yeah, high margin, high cash flow, high impact, high excellence. That's the way to go. And I think that the message that you take away from what you just said is we got to run the miles. It's not about, like you said, the hack, the technology, the recording, the music, the bumpers, any of that. We got to run the miles to get ourselves at a level that people take notice. And I honor you for that and I thank you for that because you basically told me the same thing in a 10 minute conversation. Said, you just got to go do it. And that's what we've done and we just keep doing it. I'm doing some daily videos, I'm doing weekly podcasts, and I can tell you and everyone out there that that regular pattern serves you. When I went into the studio to record my latest launch videos, it was totally different. And on live stages, it's totally different because you created and worked the muscle out in a great way. And it's perfect, you know, to do that.

You're doing a weekly podcast, like so many people are saying, like, John's doing a daily podcast. That must be the reason why he's successful. And the reason is no, like, I'm creating a daily podcast because I know that that's what I wanted as a listener. So I'm creating the solution for my avatar for my perfect listener. It is so much better that you're going to do one episode a week or one episode a month, that's an awesome podcast episode, than to just force out a daily podcast or more than you can really get out there in a quality way. Like, people want the quality, so work on the quality.

Yeah, absolutely.

Consistency, that is a key word.

What was that? Consistency. Yeah.

So when we look back on your journey and like you said, you've had your stumbles and falls, your stubbed toes and broken noses along the way, what do you think are the three habits that really drove your success? That may help some of the listeners to understand. Hmm. Because to me, habits are just rituals. They're things that we just do repeatedly, sometimes unconsciously, but sometimes we start them consciously, and they make a huge difference over time.

Yeah. So I'll talk about three ingredients that I believe are important to success, and then we can start to talk about some of my habits that I've implemented. But the thing about habits, for me, they're always changing, they're always adjusting. Because once I've formed a habit, like it's a habit now, and I move on to the next thing. So that's always evolving for me. I'm always pivoting and adjusting and kind of finding out new things about myself. But three ingredients that are so key, and you touched upon them a little bit in the intro, you touched upon two of them specifically. But for me, the three ingredients for success are creating free, valuable and consistent content. If you're able to take those three ingredients and do that on again, that third ingredient, consistent basis, you will win. It's just a matter of when. And you have to realize that we are on a Marathon. Like EO Fire did not turn on back in September of 2012 and become a cash generating machine. No, like the first year we did $26,000 in gross revenue. You know, like the second year we definitely did a lot more into the six figures. But it wasn't until year three and four that we started seeing our seven figure. You know, and not that we're approaching eight figures, but you know, we're getting closer to eight figures than we are to seven figures at this point, which is pretty exciting. And that took time. It took the marathon of us saying, you know what we're going to do? Free, valuable and consistent content around what our avatar wants. Because when we do that, then we're going to build an audience for of our avatars. And then we can say avatars, like what are you struggling with? What is your pain points, your obstacles? And then we can create the solution for them in the form of a product, a service, a community that starts generating revenue. That's called building the audience the right way so that they know, like and trust you. And then you engage them in a powerful, meaningful, caring way. And then you create the solution for their problems, for their pain points that they've shared with you. You hand it back to them on a silver platter. And maybe if the first few times, you do it for free as well. Like I did with free podcast course and our free webinar course. Like those were things that we put out there for free. But of course we do have opportunities for higher level for the premium like Podcasters paradise and Webinar on Fire and the Freedom Journal. So those are opportunities as well. So that to me are the three ingredients to success. And if you can implement that and make that a habit, that every day you're doing those three things, you'll win. It's just a matter of when making.

That the top of the list to make sure that when you get to that end of the day, you literally are just look at. You can look at yourself and say, did I? Can I check these things off? And if I can check these things off, I did. All right, that day. Cool, Cool. What do you think the biggest hurdle is that you had to overcome? Maybe that was a mindset hurdle. Maybe it was.

A thought process or maybe it was just knowledge that you had to overcome that really actually released you in that process. And what did you do to overcome it?

Yeah, I say the biggest thing by far was something that I call the imposter syndrome. And that is just that voice inside your head. Because, Mel, like, when I launched Eofire or I was actually right there in pre launch mode. Like, I had never interviewed anybody before. I had never done any kind of a podcast or a broadcast show. I had no online experience. I didn't have a Twitter account or a Facebook. I was starting from ground zero. And again, ignorance is bliss in a lot of ways. But it can also be scary at the same time too, because I didn't know exactly what I was getting into. So when it came time for me to launch, like, I was terrified. I was like, I can't press this publish button because who am I to, you know, have interviewed Tim Ferriss and Gary Vaynerchuk and Barbara Corcoran? Like, who am I to have interviewed these people? And it definitely terrified me. And I was actually paralyzed. And I pushed my launch date back five weeks because of that fear that I had surrounding my launch. I was ready in every way, shape and form, but the imposter syndrome stepped in. And the reality is this, because I've now personally mentored over 40 mentees. You know, there's over, you know, 2,800 people within podcasters Paradise. Like, there is an absolute reality that we're human beings and we're going to experience the imposter syndrome. It is innate within us. When we're born. Those who are successful are those who learn to embrace the imposter syndrome and rise above.

So true. I know that I struggled with it many times because you also even have the outside forces saying, who are you to do that? And if you listen to the voices inside and outside, it makes it even more challenging to deal with it.

It's cool that you brought that piece up because I think that we all struggle with it and we all need to find that way. And maybe it's an external person. The entrepreneur solution. The book didn't get out because I put it on a shelf, because I was Scared to put it out. Same thing. Until someone that was in my life looked at me and he was a mentor and a friend and he said, I will not support anything else you do until we put this book out in the world. And there we were, 16,000 books sold in two weeks.

It just funny you tell that story because for everybody, us, it was really interesting. I was delaying launching for five weeks and it was my mentor, Jamie Masters of the eventual Millionaire, who finally came to me and said, john, like I'm calling out your bs. If you don't launch your podcast today, I will fire you.

Wow. So you had the same experience.

You know, you're pissed off at the time, but thankful afterwards. You know, it was a great gift for him to do that for me. So we start to look towards. We've got, I know, a handful of minutes left, but as you start to look to the future, if you were looking out 5, 10 years based on what's going on tech wise, globally, economically, where would you say we need to focus our time, our energy, to have the greatest impact?

I think we need to focus our energy, our greatest impact on these specific avatars that we want to serve. I mean, so many people try to go abroad and look for the biggest numbers and try to resonate with everybody, and instead they resonate with nobody. I mean, just know who you are at your core, know exactly who you want to serve, and then just serve that person or those few, few people. Because believe me, those few people, even that one person will grow into a much bigger tribe. I mean, I started speaking to my avatar, Jimmy, and now EO Fire gets over a million listens per month. I mean, believe me, just by starting speaking to one vision into one avatar, like, it might seem limiting, but it's the exact opposite. It allows you to actually resonate with others in a deep way and make an impact and start that momentum to get going. So going into the future, there's just going to be a lot of noise, a lot of voices out there in the world, and you're just going to get drowned if you try to just sound like everybody else and try to appeal to everybody. Because you're going to say, you know, the 10 best entrepreneurial books to read in 2016. I mean, that can be written by anybody, but what can just be done by you? Like, what is that one thing that you want to serve? What's that one problem that you want to solve or that you can solve better than anybody else for any number of reasons and just really dial into that one thing Become known for it. And then you can, if you want to expand out and broaden out after you've gotten that initial momentum, or, or maybe you just stay there, making an incredibly valuable impact with a set number of people, and you have a great business, a great career, a great life.

So true. So many people think that the way to rise above all the noise is just to scream louder. And it's not. And this is kind of one of the things that I will typically say, I said it's about finding the right ear with the right message at the right time and just whispering and they'll go with you. And.

That'S really where you're going with this. And I think that our economy, though we're global now, we're going to be slivering it up in pieces so we can serve based in the slices that we can go out there. So I've got one more question for you, but before we do that, I want to make sure we get this in because I think it's such an incredible, incredible resource. You put out something. Well, I guess it was late 2015, late last year, early this year. It's still out there called the Freedom Journal. And that seems to me, just in seeing how you handled it and how you promoted that, that is a passion work, it seemed to me, and it's a tremendous resource. Do me a favor, Tell. Tell us about the Freedom Journal, how it came about and why it's so important, because I think it will transform people's lives.

Well, thank you for the stage to do so, Mel. It's definitely a passion project of mine, for sure. And, you know, it all started back when I started interviewing successful Entrepreneurs back in 2012. My listeners from day one would say, John, like, what is the secret to success? Like, why are these entrepreneurs successful? What's their magic bullet? And I never had a great answer, besides hard work, which will always be one of the answers. But, you know, giving us some more thought. Over the years, I've realized that successful entrepreneurs know how to set and accomplish goals, period. And unsuccessful entrepreneurs struggle with that very thing. So I said, how can I create the solution? How can I bridge that gap? And it really just came to me, like I wanted to create a physical product because I had the means to, because I wanted it to be different, unique, and not easily replicable. So I sat down and spent a year crafting what is now the Freedom Journal, which is a gorgeous faux leather, because I'm an animal lover gold embossed journal that will help you set your number one Goal, and then it will guide you in accomplishing that goal in 100 days. So it's a huge passion project of mine. It's something that we spent an entire year doing, creating, perfecting. And then In January of 2016, we launched the Freedom Journal via Kickstarter and we did a 33 day Kickstarter campaign. Over those 33 days, we raised over $453,000 in revenue, which made it the sixth most funded publishing campaign of all time on Kickstarter. And we did over 9,000 freedom journals sold. And again, this is a $39 journal. Yeah, again, going back to like, really making money, guys. Like, this isn't something where you hear, like authors say, like, oh yeah, like I sold all these books and like, they've made like 50 cents per book. You know, like, our profit margins on the freedom Journal are $26 per book. So I mean, like, it is significant because we're doing it, again, the right way of providing value, but then also, you know, doing this our way, not the traditional way. And so that was huge. You know, we also partnered with Pencils of Promise and the reason why. And because the Freedom Journal was so profitable to us, we were able to donate over $75,000 to Pencils of Promise from the profits to build schools in developing countries. Specifically three, because every $25,000 that we're able to donate builds a soup to nut school in a developing country. And to this day, we're now over 12,500 Freedom Journals soldiers. And we make sales every single day. And a portion of those sales go to Pencils of Promise to this day. So if you're sitting there right now thinking that you might want to have a guide, the guide, the ultimate guide to set and accomplish your number one goal in 100 days, check out the Freedom Journal dot com.

Dynamite. Dynamite. And I love it. Because what you're doing is you're doing good while doing well at the same time. And that is so cool to see. One last question and then we'll close out. But I could spend a lot of time chatting with you and just kind of picking your brain, my friend. So here's this. And this is kind of like going back and saying if you went back to yourself when you first started this journey, Maybe it was five years ago, maybe it was 10 years ago, and had a chance to whisper in your ear some words of wisdom about the potholes on the journey, what would it be?

Pretty simple. I say, jld, chill out, brother. Like, stop taking life so seriously. Like, you have a Long road ahead of you. There is going to be ups, there is going to be downs. Enjoy the moment, work hard and chill out.

Awesome. Awesome. Listen, jld, this to me is a blessing and honor to have you here. Full circle, getting a chance to have you on the show that would have never come up live if it wasn't for you, my friend. And so I thank you for taking your time. I know you've got an incredible, incredible busy schedule, but for all the entrepreneur listeners out there, the entrepreneur solution listeners out there, to me, this is a treat. Enjoy it, digest it. See what John is doing. John and Kate are amazing people. Look at nation because if you're looking to create a community, if you're looking to create something that is a movement, see what they've done because they love their people and their people love them back and it's tremendous to see how they created that. And I look forward to seeing you all in the next episode. John, thanks again, my friend. Cheers to you, brother.

Appreciate you. See ya.

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