The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 040: John Lee Dumas – Building A Brand From Nothing To Becoming A Millionaire Podcaster

Episode Date: July 27, 2015

Episode 040: John Lee Dumas – Building A Brand From Nothing To Becoming A Millionaire Podcaster This was a fantastic episode with John Lee Dumas.  John is an inspiration to anyone who strives to create something from nothing and thrive.  He started his podcast in September of 2012 and in May he made $525,059 in revenue.  In addition to this, John coaches and mentors others to help them on their podcast journeys.  When I was starting my podcast, John was one of the first people I reached out to in order to learn the craft and get some much needed guidance. John Lee Dumas is the Founder and Host of EntrepreneurOnFire, an award winning Podcast revealing the journey of today's most inspiring Entrepreneurs 7-days a week. With over 1 million unique listens a month, and subscribers in 145 countries, thanks to compelling dialogue with interview sources such as Tim Ferris, Barbara Corcoran, Brian Tracy and Seth Godin, EntrepreneurOnFire generates over $450,000 a month in revenue. Episode 040: John Lee Dumas – Building A Brand From Nothing To Becoming A Millionaire Podcaster Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The Learning Leader Show “You are the 5 people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn Some Questions I Ask: What is your philosophy on developing your network? What do successful leaders have in common? You receive 1 million listens a month to your podcast. How? What made you share your exact income statements? What do you do with all of the profit? (Over $400K last month) What is your strategy for getting outside of your comfort zone? “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” – John Wooden In This Episode, You Will Learn: The importance of your five closest friends Why John thinks transparency is a great thing for a leader Understanding how John follows Warren Buffet’s strategy for investing The intense focus on helping others and how that fuels success The importance of consistency A learning leader is always an apprentice  “Make hay while the sun is shining.” Continue Learning Go to: Entrepreneur On Fire   Read the Fortune Story on John: How To Podcast For Profit    Follow John on Twitter: @johnleedumas You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 008: Pat Flynn - How To Create Passive Income... Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts Did you enjoy the podcast? I love learning from people who bring a new idea to the table… That is what Catriona has done.  Catriona is an extremely interesting person. Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show! Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell Bio From entrepreneuronfire.com   John Lee Dumas is the Founder and Host of EntrepreneurOnFire, an award winning Podcast revealing the journey of today's most inspiring Entrepreneurs 7-days a week. With over 1 million unique listens a month, and subscribers in 145 countries, thanks to compelling dialogue with interview sources such as Tim Ferris, Barbara Corcoran, Brian Tracy and Seth Godin, EntrepreneurOnFire generates over $450,000 a month in revenue.

I have always been a believer in the phrase, you know, make hay while the sun is shining. And the sun is shining right now, and I don't want to take my eyes off of that. I don't want to lose focus. I just want to continue to amplify what's working. And if it comes to a point where either it stops working or it stops being fun, you know, then maybe I'll turn an eye to the future. But until then, just stay in the course. Are leaders born or are they made?

Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other success. successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to the Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. And welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk, and we have a very special featured leader tonight. It's John Lee Dumas. John is the founder and host of Entrepreneur on Fire, an award-winning podcast revealing the journey of today's most inspiring entrepreneurs, and he does it seven days a week. Entrepreneur on Fire, Generator on Fire, Generator. rates over $500,000 a month in revenue.

Yes, that's a month. We'll talk a lot about that in our conversation tonight. But before then, John discusses those first nine months when he started this business. First nine months, his revenue zero. He made nothing. A lot of expenses, no revenue yet. But you fast forward a few years later, and now you see he's making 500 grand per month. It's incredible.

We dove really deep to learn about how he's doing that. Also, his I-L-T method, that is, invest in yourself, learn and teach others. Full disclosure, when I was preparing to start this podcast, I knew I needed a coach and I needed multiple mentors. And John was somebody I was willing to invest in. I was willing to pay to have him help coach me and get this podcast rolling. And I'm so indebted to him. The investment in that coach was more than, uh,

worth it. And I think this podcast and the response I've received from all you shows. So I'm very, very happy and excited for you guys to know, John Lee Dumas. All right, John, I'm excited to be here with you. I appreciate you coming on. I got a question and that's around success. And you are fortunate to have spoken with and met and been around a lot of very successful leaders, successful people. And I'm curious, what are one or two common characteristics those successful people share. Well, you nailed it with the question, Ryan, the fact that I've been around successful people. And that's what successful people do. They surround themselves with other successful

people. And it's that Jim Rohn quote that I love ending my episodes on. You know, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And frankly, there was a time in my life where I wasn't that impressed with my five. And I had to make that change. And it wasn't easy. But, you know, that was the sacrifice I was willing to make for success. That's what I see other successful entrepreneurs willing to do to be successful is focusing on surrounding themselves with the average of the five people that they want to be. I love that quote. I talk about it a lot. Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. Another John Wooden quote, which is very similar and it's great. Do you really, I think about

the number five though, you know, your network is broad, diverse. It's global, but do you really have five close people that would, that you would say that you could actually name Maybe it's a small mastermind group that are a part of that core group of friends and colleagues. Yeah, I do. I definitely have my five because I think the key words is, you know, that you spend the most time with. And so I have an incredibly large number of people whom I'm able to call friends, the people who I respect and know, like and trust and can reach out to them for advice. But, you know, my five, you know, is very distinct in my mind.

And that is the people that really do have the biggest influence on my life. Does it change or has it been a solid five since for years? It's evolved slightly, you know, as I've continued to up my game and up my success level. You know, those five people that I surround myself with have, you know, also been more successful as well. And, you know, I'm at the point now where my five are all really successful lifestyle, independent entrepreneurs. And it's, you know, an honor to call them friends. That's awesome, man. So I'd love to take one step back now, John.

And I love for you to give the quick bio for the few people listening that maybe haven't heard of you, I know that number is getting smaller every single day. But for those people, I'd love for you to give the quick bio bowels, you know, what you're all about and how you've gotten to this point. Yeah, quick bio is, you know, hey, I'm just this country boy from the state of Maine. You know, I spent the first 18 years of my life and that kind of wonder years type of environment, very small town. Graduated high school and went to college on an Army ROTC scholarship. So when I graduated college from Providence or Rhode Island, I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. U.S. Army, spent eight years, four active four in the reserves as an officer with a 13-month

tour of duty in Iraq, which was pretty intense for a 23, 24-year-old for sure. Then I got out of the active duty military at 26 and failed for the next six years. Tried law school, quit. Corporate finance, quit, commercial residential real estate, quit, and it was just six years of trying to kind of find myself and taking a lot of wrong paths until I was 32 years old. and I finally had kind of had enough, which following the traditional path and decided to strike out of my own in the entrepreneurship world. And that was in September of 2012. I launched entrepreneur on fire with just a lot of passion. It was a seven-day, a week podcast. Interviewing

successful and aspiring entrepreneurs is the only one of its kinds. And here we are at episode 1,031. I actually recorded this morning. And it's been a great journey, you know, almost three years now, over 18 million listens, averaging over a million listens a month at this point, having one best of iTunes, and generating over 250K a month in revenue. It's also been proven to be a pretty viable business model. I would say so. And one thing that you do that's unique is you share your monthly income statements. You're willing to simply put it all out there to say, here's exactly how much revenue comes in,

and here's what I spend, and here's what I net. And I'm curious about what made you originally start sharing that. And now it's so much money. It seems like for some people, they might even get uncomfortable because you're a millionaire now. And it's incredible to even say that. But it's pretty cool in the same sense because you started it from nothing. And so I'm curious as to your thought process behind sharing that really to some people, sensitive or private information and now that it's grown so much what it's like as of today.

Absolutely. And it did start from nothing. I mean, it was literally $0 in the door for the first nine months. And that's a really key part of the story. It took time to build entrepreneur on fire into what it is today. And it took a lot of no revenue, a lot of investing and a lot of white knuckling it, so to speak. But to answer your question specifically, you know, now a person who is in my top five, Pat Flynn, you know, who is a close friend and confidant here in San Diego. We're in a mastermind together. He was a person who I admired from afar for years, and he has been publishing income reports since 2008, and I was like, man, here's a guy who's doing it the right way, you know, who's inspiring, who's a nice guy, and he's being transparent and he's succeeding. And he's giving people like me inspiration that you can be a nice guy and that you can do the right thing and just add value and create a viable business around that. And that gave me faith and hope to create an entrepreneur and our fight. So I said to myself, when I get to the point when I am generating revenue, I want to be that

person for podcasters. I want to be that shining light. And I want to be able to share my monthly income report so that people can emulate the successful things that we're doing and just as importantly avoid the flops and the failures and the mistakes that we're making, which is happening every single month as well. So we really focus on both sides of that coin. And, you know, the only thing I regret about my income report is that I didn't start earlier. You know, I wish I had started from day one and had nine.

monthly income reports at $0.00 because I feel like that really would have, you know, shown people out there that, hey, this is the process. This is what happens when you start a business. It's not something that happens overnight. And, you know, we did publish belately, you know, like a launch to revenue income report, which is a big help and it's very detailed. And it shows that, you know, in the first year plus, you know, we generated like less than $40,000 in revenue. And that's not a tiny number, but it's a tiny number. But it's a tiny. number to what we do now, and it does show our journey. But those are some of the thoughts and the processes behind the income reports and why, yeah, I'm a big fan of them, and we make sure to bring on

our CPA every single month to, number one, verify all the income reports. And number two, to share some tax and accounting tips, which are so important because you can make money, but can you keep it? You know, can you actually do the right thing by paying quarterly taxes and by protecting yourself with an LLC and by investing in your future? These are all critical things. that frankly, if you listen to Entrepreneur on Fire, most of my guests got dead wrong at one point when they went broke, even though they were hugely successful generating revenue. And it's a really important lesson to learn. So let's look at May specifically.

Your gross income was $525,000. It's incredible. Expenses are 97K and you netted $427,000. One thing I think of when I read these every single month and I listen to the podcast, I'm saying, what are you doing with that net profit? Where is that money going? Are you just saving it? Are you investing it back in the business?

Are you, you know, buying great cars and houses? I mean, what is going on? What do you do with all of that profit? Yeah, anything we invest back in our business, we'll go under that expense category. I thought so. So that's why it's like, this is pure profit. Yeah, that net profit is actually dollars in the door above and beyond investing back into the business, which we do heavily every month.

That's why we spent almost 100K and one month on a business. That's a ton of money. But the reality is this is that, you know, I am a big believer and, you know, I'm playing, I'm in it for the long game. You know, this is a marathon, not a sprints. You know, I am a big finance guy, too. I was, you know, two years in corporate finance with John Hancock. I've read, you know, I'm a Warren Buffett disciple. I've read his books.

John Bogle of Vanguard. I love these guys. Tony Robbins's book, Money is money. I mean, it's an awesome book. And what I love about it is that it actually just reinforce all of my beliefs, which is you can't, beat the market. There's nothing better in the long term than just nice index fund investing in the total market. So that's me. I dollar cost average every single month with the funds that I brought into the business into index funds where I'm heavily invested into those. And I'm looking for

the long game in that. I have obviously a large, a large stock pile of cash as well that I'm sitting on, but investing on a dollar cost average every single month looking to that place where, hey, what happens if podcasting dies out in the next year, three years, five years, nobody knows. You know, what happens, you know, if tragedy strikes. You know, I want to make sure that I have that rainy day fund. And to be honest, my rainy day funds, you know, could probably withstands, you know, Noah's archetype weather. But it's something that I don't really kind of focus on anymore of like, what do I have to do with this money?

It's like, okay, what else can I do in this world now to add even more value that's worthy of even more revenue? So the people listening, my listener, I'm trying to put myself in their shoes. And I am in their shoes. You know, I'm just like them. And we're hearing you say this, the fact that you netted 427 grand in one month after expenses. And people say, wow, I don't know how I could do that. But you're an inspiration for a lot of people. I'm one of them, you know, for starting a podcast, getting it going for wanting to help others to learn more, to get better. But what's a actionable tip or a takeaway that any regular person listening could do as of right now to say, I have an idea or I want to do something. You know, these numbers are insane. They're so big. But you, like you said, we started at nothing for nine months.

But the key was getting started. So I'm curious if you have some things or tips that people could do right now to make them feel a little bit better like they could create. their journey towards what you've done. Absolutely. And I think the first thing where we have to start is just the reality that I am completely just a regular person. I mean, I started with an idea and cluelessness around that idea and complete inexperience and

no idea if it was going to go anywhere. And the number one question people asked me was how you ever going to monetize? And I said, I have no idea. And the reality is that because it's been a success and I have been able to grow an audience, what happens at that point is just everything just, just gets amplified. So, you know, the $4 that I made the first month, you know, was amplified into 40. And that same amplification, you know, at, you know, 10x, it turns into 400. And then you just kind of keep on that growth curve and everything just compounds above itself. So it doesn't even

feel like I'm doing much different or I'm working much harder than I was back when I was, you know, scrapping for a couple hundred bucks a month. But the reality is it's just the amplification is so much bigger that that's where you get these incredible numbers. Like when we publish 50K, you know, for one of the first months that we publish our income reports, which is about a year post-launch, you know, that number was insane to me. And then, you know, I'm looking at 10x in May of 2015, and that number is insane to me, but it's just a simple amplification of what we were doing because of how our audience is growing because of the free value of consistent content that we're giving. And I'm also a big believer, too, is that, you know, more.

money, it just kind of amplifies more of the person that you are. And I just come from, you know, very humble roots. You know, my father was a very successful lawyer in a very small town, and you wouldn't know that he was a multimillionaire, even though he was at a pretty young age. He just lived his life and he was frugal and, you know, he's going to have a great golden years because of it now. And I kind of had that same mentality. I mean, you know, we have one car that Kate and I share. It's a Mazda 3. It's $199 a month lease. And we're happy with it. gets us from point A to point B. I mean, I don't spend time in a car anyway, so why would I want to buy an expensive car? We do have a gorgeous place. You know, we live over the ocean in San Diego,

180-degree panoramic views, and I love it because I spend all my time here, and I record and I'm working, I can look up and see an amazing vista, and I love every second of it. But, you know, we rents, we didn't go buy some crazy house. You know, rent's not cheap. It's $3,100 a month, but it's, you know, within the realm of what we can afford, you know, by a long stretch. So That's just kind of my mentality on money and on life. And I'm excited for what that next chapter will bring, knowing that I will have the finances behind me to continue with the word that I value most, which is freedom. You know, freedom that I don't have to go back to some consulting or corporate job that I can say, you know what? I'm going to try a new passion, and I'm going to see what that takes me.

What do you think that is? I was going to ask that later on, but I'm curious right now. You brought it up. What's next? Are you determined to continue doing what you're doing? I mean, obviously nobody would blame you. It's going incredibly well and it's growing. It's amplifying as you said.

What do you see five years from now being your daily routine, what you're getting into? Yeah, it's a fair question. But I'm going to have to kind of point back to a point that you made during that question, which is, you know, I'm just keep my eyes on the prize. I mean, things are working right now. I'm loving it. We're building our business. We're creating a great empire. And I'm loving every second of it.

And that's where I'm focused right now because I have always been a believer in the phrase, you know, make hay while the sun is shining. And the sun is shining right now. And I don't want to take my eyes off of that. I don't want to lose focus. I just want to continue to amplify what's working. And if it comes to a point where either it stops working or it stops being fun, you know, then maybe I'll turn an eye to the future.

But until then, just stay in the course. So you also are fantastic at building a really, really high quality network as we talked about the beginning of this episode. Do you have a specific strategy around building that network, maintaining it, ensuring that those five people are big-time people who are going to help you grow? What is that strategy? The strategy is helping them grow at every opportunity and never looking inward. It's never about me and being able to grow. It's always about what value can I add to their lives? How can I improve their businesses? How can I improve their revenue, their cash flow, their exposure? And that will naturally come back to me.

I mean, you know, for a long time, you know, Amy Porterfield has been a great friend and we've just added value and we've helped her in any area that we can and that we think we can. And, you know, out of nowhere, she said, hey, I'd love for you to be on my podcast next week, which is going to be a huge opportunity for us. It's a massive podcast with a great audience who's passionate about her. And that's just kind of like her now looking to turn and give value back to me after us doing that for so long. You know, we've been on her radar. And that's just one of many examples where, you know, I can really point to where we just focus on the outward value giving. And, you know, if it comes back naturally to us, then we take it, but we don't force anything. You come across, John, as very confident, sure of yourself, and it's refreshing and it's comforting as a listener.

And I'm curious, what are the moments, or maybe you don't even have them, but I'm curious about self-doubt or moments in your life to where you thought, man, I don't. You know, this is probably earlier in your career, but where you thought, I'm like, I'm failing or it's not going well. And do you currently still ever have those moments, even though things are going so incredibly well? Every single day. Really? It's what I call being a human being. I mean, the day you stop having those thoughts and those fears is the day you start being a human and somehow you've become a cyborg because that's innate. We have this survivalist mentality.

You know, we have the imposter syndrome, this voice in our head that's always questioning, always doubting, always saying, you know, this is a flash in the pan, this is going to be over tomorrow, like, who are you, you know, to have built such wealth and to have built such a community? And it's just a reality. So, you know, that's why I always encourage people that are starting off and are hearing those voices saying, hey, get used to it and just embrace it, because it's never going away. So don't just think that there's people that are lucky ahead of you, that it's just all of a sudden that voice is shut up because it never will. So it just instead say, hey, that's just part of being a human being. I'm a human

being, so I'm going to accept it and move forward with it. And it's those people that are able to embrace it and actually use it in some ways to get them out of the comfort zone because that's where all the magic happens. Those are the people, you know, that are able to really rise above. And like, you definitely like use the word confident, you know, you use the word, you know, really sure of myself. And I'm definitely all of those things because I do understand, you know, number one, that I do have value to give because of the thousand interviews that I've done and all that I've learned by being a mentee and an apprentice in every single one of those interviews. I do now have value to share. You know, it's that ILT method where I've invested in

myself, time and money. I've learned for the L. And now I can turn around and teach and share my knowledge. And it's not going to be for everybody. And there's definitely people who don't resonate with entrepreneur fire and my message. And I applaud that because I definitely want to stand for something. And if you stand for something, then you are going to polarize yourself. There's going to be raving fans and huge detractors. And you can't, you know, really let either. You know, one of those get too much into your head because you just want to keep doing what you think you need to be doing going forward. And that continues to be my focus. You mentioned comfort zone, and this is a big topic that I talk about on this show a lot. And I think it's very important

to have an understanding of what it is and also ways to get out of it. What are specific tactics that you employ and that others could employ to leap far outside of that comfort zone? Because you're right, that's obviously where you grow. Are there certain specific things that people who are comfortable, being comfortable, how to help them get out of that zone? Well, the reality is this. Like, we know what's outside of our comfort zone. Because whenever we think about it or we picture ourselves doing it, we get nervous.

You know, we get a little uncomfortable. We get, you know, freak out. And for a lot of people that's public speaking, for a lot of people that's doing a webinar or a podcast or writing a blog post or whatever it might be, we all know what's outside of our comfort zone. We just have to, number one, face it, face the stuff that's outside of our comfort zone and realize that, you know, hey, this is outside of my comfort zone. And then number two, come up with a strategy and a structure to move in that direction. Because if you're not moving towards things that are making you scared and nervous, then you're not moving outside of your comfort zone.

And you're just going to be in the right lane of that highway of life. And cars are going to be whipping by you on the left. And, you know, those are people that are outside of their comfort zone making things happen. There's going to be massive car wrecks left and right on that left zone. But guess what? And the highway of life, none of those accidents are fatal. You know, they're just fender benders where people are having to kind of get up, shake themselves off and try again. And that is critical.

So, you know, we all know it deep down what those things are. We just need to move towards them. So the podcasting space has become very, very crowded, as you know. And you got in a little bit earlier when it probably wasn't quite as crowded, but you still needed to show value in order to be. successful. What do you think is the biggest difference between you and a lot of the others in the podcasting space who haven't had as much success? Consistency. It really comes down to consistency. That was the one thing that I saw was lacking in the podcasting space. And there's nothing that defines consistency more than a seven-day-a-week podcast. So I said, hey, why not to quote Gandhi,

you know, be that change that you want to see in the world. And that's what I wanted to see in the world. And a lot of people, you know, they've even termed it, pod fade, have podfaded. You know, that's the reality. And people get in, they get excited. They see success as some people have had. And, you know, they think it's going to be easy. But the reality is, this is a marathon. This is a long game. You know, it was a marathon for me from day one. It was a long road to monetization. It was a long road to a lot of things. But I stuck with it. I remained consistent. You know, I had a plan and I executed that plan. And those are the people that I'm seeing are successful. are ones that actually go into it with the right mentality of the marathon, with the right plan,

with the right discipline, and continue to execute. And actually, you know, from my thousandth episode, I had a lot of really incredible entrepreneurs have sent in clips congratulating me for episode 1000, which goes live on July 18th. And on one of those, it was Andrew Warner. And, you know, what he said really hit home because he's been podcasting since 2008. And he said, you know, John, like, when you first came to me, you know, I agreed to do the podcast interview. I do a lot of these podcast interviews. And frankly, you know, most of them go nowhere and nothing happens.

And he said, but you just kept doing it. He's like, I didn't think you were special when you interviewed me because you weren't. And I wasn't. He's like, but you just kept doing it. And you kept getting a little bit better. And here you are, a thousand episodes. And, you know, putting, you know, revenue wise, you know, me and most other podcasters, to shame. He's like, that is like your fire. And, you know, hearing that from Andrew Warner,

who is definitely one of like the two or three people who were my initial inspiration in podcasting was crazy to hear. But, you know, that's the reality that I made because of consistency, because of discipline. And that's what it takes. I love Andrew Warner and his show Mixergy. It's really, really good. So John, I know we're up against it. So I have one final question. So this show is all about my show is about learning. It's about leadership. It's about constantly striving to improve on a day-to-day basis, things that I know you're all about. So if you hear the phrase learning leader, how would you define a great learning leader? Somebody who is always an apprentice, always looking to learn from others who are in different

field, different industries, have different knowledge points and going to them hat and hand and saying, how can I add value to you so that I can learn from you? because you are where I want to be knowledge-wise. I'm coming at you as an apprentice, hat in hand. How can I do that? And to me, that's a learning leader, and it never stops. It's awesome, man. I really, really, I love it.

And I really appreciate you investing time with me and great listeners here at the Learning Leader Show. So thank you so much, John. I look forward to talking to you again soon. Thanks, Ryan. All right. Thanks, man. See you.

This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. head over to learningleadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again and we'll see you next time on the Learning Leader Show.