Why are some entrepreneurs successful while many others fail?
Since creating one of the most popular business podcasts of all time, Entrepreneurs on Fire, John Lee Dumas has interviewed more than 3,000 entrepreneurs and taken the time to decipher what has made them successful, culminating in the publication of his first book "The Common Path to Uncommon Success: A Roadmap to Financial Freedom and Fulfillment".
John shares some of his findings with us and teaches us the steps we need to take to find whatever uncommon success we are looking for.
Key Highlights
[01:26] Introduction of Podcast Guest, John Lee Dumas
[05:47] What is Entrepreneur on Fire?
[08:17] Why Some Entrepreneurs Succeed And Some Fail
[11:50] The Importance of Niching Down
[14:15] The Next Steps To Being A Successful Entrepreneur
[16:16] 17 Chronological Steps Roadmap to Financial Payments
[19:14] John's Favorite Step to Financial Payments
[22:05] The End Goal
[27:16] What Is The Common Path?
[29:25] How John Lee Came About Writing His Book
[35:59] Connect With John Lee
Notable Quotes
John Lee Dumas Links
Learn More:
Why are some entrepreneurs successful while many others fail?
Since creating one of the most popular business podcasts of all time, Entrepreneurs on Fire, John Lee Dumas has interviewed more than 3,000 entrepreneurs and taken the time to decipher what has made them successful, culminating in the publication of his first book "The Common Path to Uncommon Success: A Roadmap to Financial Freedom and Fulfillment".
John shares some of his findings with us and teaches us the steps we need to take to find whatever uncommon success we are looking for.
Key Highlights
[01:26] Introduction of Podcast Guest, John Lee Dumas
[05:47] What is Entrepreneur on Fire?
[08:17] Why Some Entrepreneurs Succeed And Some Fail
[11:50] The Importance of Niching Down
[14:15] The Next Steps To Being A Successful Entrepreneur
[16:16] 17 Chronological Steps Roadmap to Financial Payments
[19:14] John's Favorite Step to Financial Payments
[22:05] The End Goal
[27:16] What Is The Common Path?
[29:25] How John Lee Came About Writing His Book
[35:59] Connect With John Lee
Notable Quotes
John Lee Dumas Links
Learn More:
Why are some entrepreneurs successful, while others and mostly others fail? Our special guest today has interviewed over 3000 successful entrepreneurs, and he's going to share with you what he has learned from them. Welcome to the maximize your social influence podcast with Neal Schaffer, where I help marketers, entrepreneurs and business owners grow their businesses using innovative marketing techniques, leveraging the concept of digital influence throughout digital and social media. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode number 202 that it's Episode Number 202 of the maximize your social influence podcast. Normally, if you know how this podcast goes, I'd like to do a solo episode followed by an interview episode. But this interview that I did with today's special guests was so timely and you'll understand that as you hear the podcast timely not only because of what he is up to, but also of what I am up to on my own entrepreneurial journey looking to find my own uncommon success in the common path that others have followed. If you understand what that play on words are, it's actually the name of our special guest, john Lee Dumas his new book, The common path to uncommon success, but he's going to share some golden nuggets with us today. john was or jld, as he's popularly called, was on number episode number 166. The many ways to become an influencer today, john started out with podcasts. And really, he's gone above and beyond that. And as I share with john, as I launched my own community, that digital first group coaching membership community, which if you're still interested in, I am recruiting my first 30 founding members, and although there was a deadline, I've had a number of people reach out to me after that deadline. So that's one of you. Make sure you reach out to me, like literally in the next day or two after this publishes. But as I embark on that new journey, my first digital product actually, have you mainly served other businesses as a consultant, and a speaker. What advice john gave really resonated with myself as one I know it's going to resonate with you. I also want to give a shout out to Karla Johnson, who I interviewed in Episode Number 174. Because some of what we're going to talk about with john today comes that there's some similarities with what Carla was talking about, about rethinking innovation to grow your business. So you'll definitely want to listen to that after this episode, an episode number 166. And I'm such a big fan of jld. I actually interviewed him over on the School of influence podcast, the podcast that I co host with Amanda Russell. So if you can't get enough of that up this episode, you should already be subscribing to the school of influence anyway, but if not, go over there. And listen to episode number 10. our interview with john Lee Dumas sub let's get to the interview with the one and only j. l. d. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of The maximize your social influence podcast. And I'm really honored and excited to have on a special guest. This is actually his second appearance on this podcast. But when we think of influencers, and specifically in podcasts, he's way more than just podcasting. But this is a guy, his name comes up anywhere and everywhere. He's known by the initials jld. For those of you that may not be familiar with him, and not only is he just a sage, but he openly shares his experiences and his experiences with everybody. completely open. He's as nice of a guy, actually, you know, we've never met in person, but as nice of a guy on camera as you hear him on his podcast, and now he's entering the world of books, which is really going to allow all of us to experience his magic on a whole different scale. So john Lee Dumas. So welcome to the podcast.
John Lee Dumas:Neil, I am fired up to be here, brother, thanks for that kind introduction. And you know, if you ever leave your house, we might get to meet up Sunday.
Neal Schaffer:Exactly. Well, you know, it's funny, you reached out to me and I also had you recently on the School of influence podcast. So some of you may have listened to that episode. So john, actually the day we're recording this, and I don't like the date podcast, but in very soon, he'll be releasing this book. And it really comes at a time in not only my career, but I think there's a lot of you out there that are I call it digital and social media marketing, sell this engine, right. And sometimes we tinkle so much in the details that we forget about where we want to go. Or we forget about you know, the mindset that's going to take us where we need to go. And I'm sort of it's interesting, because I'm sort of faced that I just launching my first digital product, believe it or not, it took me it took me a while because I mainly work for corporations. So I'm actually feeling and I actually want to encourage the students that enter this, to do the same as me to treat it as an engine. Where do you want to take the engine? Who are the people you want to meet? How can you get there? And I think what what jld is going to share with us in this book, and today is going to help us with with that mindset, especially for all the entrepreneurs that I know are listening. And to me, you know, when I think about entrepreneurs and fire, I'm thinking, Man, I got a ton of things to do. But I got to push forward in serving people, I got to push forward in creating this community and helping people. And to me, when you created entrepreneurs on fire, I don't know, you know, maybe it was just entrepreneurs that were doing really good. But to me, the fire has that meaning of sustaining the energy of so why don't we start there? JOHN, I want to start with entrepreneurs on fire. I know that's obviously we're you made your name, the naming? What's the reasoning behind it? And the way I'm sensing? Is it the same way that you sense that when you created it,
John Lee Dumas:I'll tell you the real story. I was folding laundry, one nights, watching sports center. And I was just kind of throwing some podcast names around in my head. And this is back in 2012. And I say I know I want the word entrepreneurs in there because that's how I'm going to be interviewing and I just know that I want to convey a sense of excitement of enthusiasm. You know, people who are absolutely crushing it in the space. And that's when the announcer literally said his name is Stuart Scott. He was known for his catchphrases. He's he had the catchphrase cooler than the other side of the pillow, which everybody can resonate with. You know, at night you flip over the pillow, you put your your cheek on it, you're like, Oh, yeah, that feels good. cooler than the other side of the pillow. He goes, LeBron James cannot miss he is on fire. And I go, that's it. That is a universal term for people that are absolutely crushing it that they're in the zone. They're making it rain entrepreneurs on fire. And that was the name I ran to the computer and I was shaking. I was like, tell me this name is not taken in GoDaddy and I just typed enter and it was like, available and I'm like, the best$2.99 I ever spent.
Neal Schaffer:That is awesome. And the Bron James by the way and yourself 12 years later, are still on fire. It's pretty nice. I grew up I grew up a Laker and Dodger fan here in Los Angeles. We had chick Hearn and Vin Scully, two amazing broadcasters who had a lot of, I'm gonna have to use one of those. Well, I'm sure the domain names already taken. But anyway, let's get back to the subject at hand. So you are publishing a book that is already, this is not even out and I'm legit looking at Amazon, it is it is number one bestseller in business now. And it's not even on the market, the excitement for this my personal excitement waiting for it to come in the mail. But the common path to uncommon success, a roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment. Now, I don't want to just, you know, people are gonna have to read the book to get the fullest out of this. But I want to, obviously, the journey that brought you here, and especially entrepreneurs on fire, I know that a lot of the book comes from people, other entrepreneurs that you've interviewed, and, and really breaking down their successes. But let's start entrepreneurs, for every successful entrepreneur, there's got to be a ton of failures out there. And you've obviously interviewed some of the most successful but I'm sure that you've in the 12 years, you've talked with a lot of people that maybe are still trying to find that success. Why is it that some succeed and some fail? Let's start there.
John Lee Dumas:I have a very strong opinion about most things I like when people ask me questions to either give them like an answer all the way on this side or that side, I don't really like the gray area, so to speak. So like, to me, I'm gonna give you a very strong answer as to why believe entrepreneurs succeed and why everybody else fails. The entrepreneurs that I've interviewed over the last decade 3000 plus successful entrepreneurs. One thing they've all had in common is they have been able to provide the best solution to a real problem that exists in this world, all the entrepreneurs that I've seen, fail struggle never quite have it click or the number two solution to a real problem, or the number 10 solution to a real problem, or the number one solution to not that big of a deal of a problem. And that's why they're failing. That's why they're struggling because people kneel, they will beat a path down to the door of the number one solution to their real problems. And they will ignore the second best solution, the 10 best solution, the 400 best solution, they just won't care. And so if you are not willing to identify a big idea that you can have in this world, and then take the next step, which is the critical step, which is to discover the niche, uncover the void to find the problem that's not being solved within that big idea, or this being solved very poorly that you can immediately solve better and become the best solution to that problem. You are going to struggle and by the way, I've interviewed People who were on my show because they were doing that, but then they lost sight of that over the years, because I've been doing this for a decade now. So I've seen ebbs and flows of people that are in my past guests. And they lost sight of that, and they stopped being the best solution or they were overtaken, or they just kind of lost their grip or their way. And boom, they fail just that quickly. So that is, in a nutshell, been the essence of this book, become the best solution for a real problem.
Neal Schaffer:I think that a lot of people, especially in digital space, it's so easy to launch a website out a shopping cart and sell something, and they see everybody else doing it. So they figure there's got to be a way to make money at it. But they didn't get back to that core question that you bring up. And before the internet, you really had to do that, right? I mean, you can just easily crowdsource from China, what have you. So I think it's a really good reminder that you can't be doing something that someone else is doing, it really got to be thinking of that target audience. And ideally, then, john, I'm assuming that this has to be something that you some of the best entrepreneurs probably had this issue themselves, and therefore wanted to create a solution for it. And that's how they became successful as well. Right? Or is that just a minority of them?
John Lee Dumas:I think that is the majority is that people have their eyes open, their ears open, they were looking around at real problems that existed in the worlds and this is why I think it's the majority Neil's because they spotted 100 problems in the worlds, but then they were realistic and said, I don't want to solve 99 of those because I don't have any interest in solving 99 of those problems. But that one problem. Oh, that really resonates with me, because I just I know why that's a problem that needs to be solved. And that's actually my story. You know, I mean, my story was, I had a big idea. I want to launch a podcast, okay, well, I would have gone slaughtered like a little lamb had I just launched a podcast, cuz that's such a broad, vague idea. So I'd niche down, which is step two, into business podcast, which was still too broad is 300 or so business podcast. So I niche down a third time to business podcast, interviewing entrepreneurs. And I said, oh, there's seven nuts a lot more reasonable. But do I want to be the eighth best business podcast interviewing entrepreneurs? And the answer was no. So I sat back and I said, Well, of these seven podcasts that interview entrepreneurs, what's the problem? They're not solving? What's a void, that they're not filling? And I just asked myself personally, well, what actually don't I like about the shows? And frankly, there wasn't much I didn't like they were a great shows. But I didn't like the fact that they all published one episode per week, and I had to wait seven days for the next episode. I was like, I love these episodes, so much I want every single day. So when I'm going for a walk, I can listen and I'm going for a drive, I can listen working out. And I said, that's a void. That's a problem that I could fill. Because I guarantee you, there's at least a few other people out there that feel like I feel which they would love a daily podcast, interviewing entrepreneurs. And so I stepped into that void, Neil. And I created the first daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs, which by the way, made it entrepreneurs on fire the day that I launched the best solution to a real problem, because it was the best daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. Oh, by the way, it was also the worst. It was the only but it was the best solution to a real problem. And that's why I won.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, it's it's a it's an amazing story. A reminder, I'm going to give a shout out to Carla Johnson, who I can't ramble off episode numbers like other podcasters can, but Carla Johnson, we talked about innovation. And her one big advice for innovation is just as what Jael do say, Look around. And often you'll get inspired by things around you and new ideas. And some of those ideas may help your current business, some of them may propel a new business. So you also told me before this interview, that this is the big idea, right? capital B capital I, but just identifying that is not going to be enough for success. But I'm sure there are tons of stories of people who had the big idea, but it was the implementation. I mean, a lot of things can go wrong. So what is what's the next logical step after that, that's going to make you successful?
John Lee Dumas:what we just talked about, rather, you have to discover the niche within your big idea. You have to say what is the void? What is the problem that's not being solved? that's step number two, but let's keep going to step number three. Since we just talked about that. You have to then identify your avatar, you have to say okay, this person is the perfect listener of my podcast consumer of my contents, client, customer fill in that blank, you have to know who your perfect customer is. Your perfect avatar is from day one, even pre launch. So you have your North Star about what to create, how to create them when to create it and that will be your north star in Till you launch, which is by the way, Step nine, chapter nine when I bring Jeff Walker and Mr. Launch master himself to talk in great detail about this. And then step 10, is actually pinpointing your avatars biggest struggle, because now that you've launched, you have real avatars in the world. Now I teach you how to go out and talk to them, how to talk to them, what to ask them, What things you're looking for all of these things to implement into your business.
Neal Schaffer:I think that's where, from my perspective, I see a lot of people make a mistake, any like marketing coach, or if you're want to launch a product, or what have you, they always talk about avatars, right? Who is the perfect avatar? And really, if you're experiencing the problem, you must, or you should get to know other people that are experiencing that same problem, right? So I think sometimes we think esoterically, or like, conceptually, but these are real people, that you got to get to know real people out there. And maybe some of them already following you on social media, maybe they're already in your network. And I think that's where a lot of people fail. They just create an avatar, that it's fictional, it might come true. But if they mess that up, I assume that they're going to mess up this step. And I assume you you have a 17 step plan in your book, I believe, I believe with every step, you need to be successful in order to successfully move on to the next step. Correct.
John Lee Dumas:It is a 100%, chronological step by step roadmap to financial payments and settlements, don't, don't skip a step. Do not pass go do not collect $200 until you have successfully completed each step. And I don't care if you come in, you're like, looking at the table of contents, which has the 17 steps listed out and you say, Oh, I'm already on step 14. Wrong. You think you're on step 14. And you actually may be there in some sense of the word, but steps one through 13 needs some massive work. And not every step says what you're going to do is go through this step by step process from the beginning chapter one, step one, all the way through up to step 14, to catch up to where you're actually at. And three things are going to happen. Number one, you're going to say, Oh, I actually did crush this step, awesome validation, or number two, which is more likely, you're going to say, oh, wow, there's some really good points and ideas here from john and some other people that contributed to this chapter, like, I'm going to adjust, I'm going to pivot I'm going to tweak and I'm going to improve this step and shore it up and make it strong, where it was kind of weak before, or number three is like, clean the slate start over. We got to do this from scratch because I was doing this wrong. And then you get to step 14, you'd be like, okay, for the first time in my life. Now I have 14 strong or 13 strong foundational steps behind me. Now I can start with step 14, and go forward through step 17. Till the answer. That is the 17 step roadmap, it needs to be in a chronological order. It is Neil, the combination of the 3000 interviews that I've done with the world's most successful entrepreneurs identifying the 17 core foundational principles that they all have shared on their roadmap to uncommon success. That is part of this process.
Neal Schaffer:I want to share with you this is a future episode of the School of influence podcast. But just yesterday, we interviewed one of the co founders of peloton, and he's also founded the active network and many other pretty famous businesses. And we were saying what, you know, what, what's the secret behind finding the successful businesses and making them successful launches. And he said, it really comes down to there are patterns, there are patterns of success in business. And the more experience you have, the more you're able to decipher those patterns. And the more you're able to work through them, which is why he always wants to have an experienced board, hire experienced employees that are experiencing things that he's not in. And when you talk about it is very something very similar as that you've looked at 3000 plus interviews that listen to them. And you've been able to decipher those patterns, which the average person who might have listened all those but they may not get right. So in that I know that there's going to be intense value in the book. I also know it's not a book where you're going to read and it there's going to be a lot of work, right? And it's going to be some soul searching for some of us that might have done like you said, I've done Step three, you got to do it over and you might have done it wrong. Or you might have got 90% right, but you're missing that magical 10%. So, so this is your baby now, right? It's about to go into the world, these 17 steps based on all these different interviews of those 17 steps do you have like a favorite amongst them?
John Lee Dumas:Step seven, chapter seven. design your content production plan. Neil, this book is 71,000 words is 273 pages. It's a beast of a business book, but every chapter is reasonable. It's like three to 4000 words per chapter. Chapter seven is 13,500 words. Wow. A business book in and of itself. It is a
Neal Schaffer:beast and HarperCollins leadership. The editors approved that Hmm.
John Lee Dumas:they approve the chapter man, Nate, listen. I worked in a lot of lateral movements within my contracts.
Neal Schaffer:That shows the value of it, sir. So keep going.
John Lee Dumas:After I got done writing that chapter, I said, Wow, like I always knew I had a good content production plan. I mean, you don't produce 3000 episodes without a guess on 1000s of other episodes, do journals, courses, books, speaking, like all this content without having a good good content production plan. But after writing that chapter, I said, Oh, my goodness, like, we have a fantastic content production plan. It used to be terrible. But now it is fantastic. And that is a massive reason why we've had such financial success 91 months in a row of over $100,000 of net profits. Because of our content production plan, it is the majority of the reason. And if I'm being honest with everybody that's watching right now, specifically listening right now, your content production plans terrible, you need to hear from somebody, you're going to hear it from me, your content production plan is terrible. And that's okay. Because mine was till it took me a decade to become fantastic with my content production plan, it took me hiring the right team, because I never would have created it by myself. But now our content production plan is fantastic, thankfully, and we have the success to show for it. 100 million listeners of the podcast over a million listens every month of the show, over $20 million of revenue since we started. I mean, all because of our content production plan being spectacular ends in 13,500 words, I show you how to take your terrible content production plan and make it amazing, and it will blow your minds and it will change
Neal Schaffer:your life. It sounds like the book is worth it for that chapter alone.
John Lee Dumas:Is that chapter Aloma? Yes,
Neal Schaffer:that is awesome. Can't wait. So working with entrepreneurs and writing about them. What do you think that you know, an entrepreneur is not the final goal, the success is not the final goal. It's what comes after that. So you know, from all these interviews, and from writing the book, what do you think what what drives, you know, people to success? What What do you think people sort of want to achieve with the success that they get in their lifetime? what's what's, what's the end goal here?
John Lee Dumas:Well, at the surface level, Neil, like, we all want something different. And that's a good thing. Like, we all want different things like I'm looking behind you, and you want to believe about UFOs, you have passion about different things. And that's awesome. And you should and that's what makes this world go round. But at the core of who we are as human beings, we truly want three things. We want to be able to wake up every morning, and do what we want to do, when we want to do it with whom we want to do it with. If you are honestly waking up in the morning, and you're able to say I'm doing what I want to do today, where I want to do it, with whom I want to do it with what else what else is there? I mean, that is what you want to be doing where you want to be doing with whom you want to be doing it with like that is massive success. That is freedom. That is you achieving your version of uncommon success. But unfortunately, almost nobody ever really sits down and defines what uncommon success means to them. And what that's really going to look like on a day to day basis. And that's what this book changes.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, and I love the fact that it's the uncommon aspect, because it's gonna be different for everybody, right? what I want.
John Lee Dumas:That's why I always say, your version of uncommon success, your version of financial freedom and fulfillment, look at my version of financial freedom and fulfillment is different than a lot of like multi million slash billionaires that I know like, they would never be satisfied making a couple million dollars a year like I make. I haven't I haven't grown my revenue for eight years, because I have found out what enough is for me. And enough is working five days a month, bringing in seven figures a year. And being able to focus on the things that I want to focus on health, wellness, family travel, other things. And by the way, I built up to being able to only work five days per month, it was not from day one, like I put in the wraps in season one of my business Season Two of my business might have been like working 25 days a month. And season three might have been down to 15 days a month is really this fourth season of my of my business, that I've been able to get it down to five days per month. By the way, those five days. I am crushing it like my schedule is jams. I'm doing eight interviews on my show 20 and others I'm doing all the things. So those five days are intense about one day per week is what I average really working hard. And then the other days, I'm doing other things tending my organic garden, hanging out with friends playing pickleball in my plunge pool that only takes three minutes a day, by the way cuz that's cold. My infrared sauna, exercising and playing with my dog Gus, who's adorable. And that's my life. And guess what? I could work Neil 10 times harder and make two times the amount of money maybe three times the amount of money maybe five times the amount of Don't eat it kind of enough.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah. And I think, you know, the important message there is you got to first got to figure out what your end goal is. And I know obviously, in your book, you talked about financial freedom. I think that's what a lot of people want. But I think the freedom of time, is also really critical. I began my journey. When, uh, you know, I was a traveling salesperson, I traveled to Japan, or Asia, two weeks out of every two months. And my wife was living here in the States, she, we had a one year old, and we had it, we had another one on the way and, and she broke down crying one day say, Neil, what were you Can't you stop what you're doing for me. And that's when I realized that building the career was not the end goal here, right? It was happiness with with the people I loved. But it was also being able to make the choice to spend time watching my kids grow up. And that is what is fueled me. And part of it is, so I haven't created I don't have a lot of passive income, per se, it's active, some still trading time for money, but I'm getting to work with the companies I want to work with and doing the things I like to do, and getting paid very handsomely for it. So for me, that works, right? for other people they want to stay in, I enjoy I have my foot in corporate America, I love the teamwork, right? I love being around other people, and working with them and gaining success with them. But But you know, other people are different. And it's just a great reminder. So the common path to uncommon success, obviously, the name of the book, I assume it's going to be hard work. But I know a lot of people listening as well, it's a common path. And if the success is uncommon, I can make it anything I want. It's got to be easy, right?
John Lee Dumas:So I don't like when people put words in my mouth, I really want to disagree with you, but I can't. Because Listen, this book is called the common path to uncommon success. It's not called the complicated path, or the secret path or the hidden path. It is a common path, meaning it is something that the 1000s of entrepreneurs that I've interviewed have all trod upon, and is a very common and fundamental path that has 16 core principles, sorry, 17 core principles that all successful entrepreneurs share along this path. But do not mistake the word common for easy. The common path is hard work. It is hard work, Neal to grow my dream business. It was hard work, I put in hard work to grow my dream business. Every successful entrepreneur that I've interviewed has worked hard to get to the level of success that they have, they may be in cruise control. Now, maybe some of them aren't because they don't like cruise control. They love going full tilt, which is again, their version of uncommon success. But they worked hard to get to success. But you know, it also is hard, being broke, living paycheck to paycheck, waking up every morning doing something that you have to do not that you want to do looking in the mirror and kind of being a little disappointed because you're not fulfilling what you know, your own potential is. That's hard. And I'm speaking from experience there for six years, I lived that hard life of being broke. of unfulfilled potential, having to be honest to myself that I wasn't, you know, doing nearly the type of things that I could be doing. And so at 32 years old, when I was thinking about launching my business entrepreneurs on fire, I said that is going to be hard work, I knew is going to be hard work. But the other path was hard, too. And so I chose my heart. I chose the heart of growing a business and getting to my financial freedom and fulfillment and uncommon success. And everybody listening to my voice right now has that same opportunity to choose your heart.
Neal Schaffer:That's really inspiring words, Mr. JOHN Lee Dumas, I want you to finally share as a fellow author, and we've had others on this podcast talk about why you should write a book and and what have you is probably a lot of people that are are curious about writing a book and marketing it and I was really, I mean, I told you before we started, I was really impressed with your launch. Now john, originally, I said, this is gonna come out later, I'm actually gonna push this out as soon as possible, so that everybody listening has a chance to take advantage of your book launch. Because I took advantage of it. I want to share it with everybody. And there's only we're talking three or four days. So if you're listening to this, you better get on it fast. But can you share with us and you know, I'm with HarperCollins leadership as well, you probably have the conversation of how you do the book launch and how did you come about doing what you're doing? And what are you doing for those that don't know.
John Lee Dumas:So I want to go all out with the pre orders because with pre orders, it helps get the word out and it helps you know with the pre ranking so if you like actually go to Amazon right now you'll see that my book is already number one ranked book in business and all of Amazon it's a top like 1500 ranked book in Amazon and it's not even available yet. So I'm The book has had fantastic success with the amount of pre orders that I've been able to conjure up over a lot of hard work over the past three months, I can tell you that much for sure. And I will tell you that the most successful thing that I did was number one, you know, work on reciprocity, which was all the people that I've been able to interview over the past 10 years, the past decade, and elevate their message, their mission, their voice to the world, through my platform entrepreneurs on fire I went back to, and I created 300 personal videos. On my own time. Speaking of doing things that don't scale, this did not scale 300 personal videos, an average of four minutes per video, these were not copy and pasted videos. This was me for four minutes, giving a personal video to one individual those all my dreams 300. And I was very clear with what I was looking for that I was looking for three things. Number one, will you preorder three hardcover copies of my book, no wiggle room there, like I was very clear on that one directive, I figured three was a fair number, right one asked him for 10. Because that's a little maybe obnoxious. But I felt like three was a pretty reasonable request. And it was really going to help if a lot of people took action on that. And then I said, also, I'd love for you to look at my book offers which start at 12 books with a 1200, if any makes sense for your team for your audience, I'd love if you considered a bulk order. And then number three, you have a great platform, I would love to get on your platform to talk about the message of this book. And I was very clear with these three things that I was looking for. And I was bolts, I was direct. And you know, I was at the same time saying hey, if it's not the right time, or this doesn't make sense, no hard feelings. So I'm passionate about this book. And I would love your support, if you're able to give it and that those 300 emails went out I did another 2700 emails which had my virtual assistants email one by one by one. So the person actually his first name was there plus a link to their podcast episode. It wasn't a personalized, because I can only do 300 that was pretty much my cap. But they still got the same video and then with the same three messages and that is what's been allowed me to be everywhere beyond over 300 other podcasts over the past three months by busting my butt and being on these platforms and getting the word out in as many ways as I possibly could and plus to another level which you kind of alluded to a little bit. have amazing preorder bonuses where I literally am gifting every single person who pre orders my book all three of my journals. I am gifting an amazing live event that we're doing later this year with people that were featured in my book like a Jeff Walker's the Russell Brunson, the Remi CTS, the Pat Flynn's Amy Porterfield of the worlds we did a last content episode where Kate and I talked about the book publishing process, the pros and the cons. And some real details like you know, my advance as a first time author, we reveal that, you know, which was pretty unique for different reasons you'll be able to hear and some other awesome bonuses as well. And that has been the major reason why we've been able to kind of essentially be everywhere because we made it an absolute no brainer, because those bonuses disappear on launch day, if you don't have those, if you don't preorder the book. By launch day, you will get an amazing book, but you won't get any bonuses as well. So we kind of made it a no brainer for people who are hearing it, who otherwise known, you know, as being an author, it would be like, Oh, yeah, like, that book sounds great. But I mean, like, I don't need to commit to pre ordering now. Like, I'm just gonna order the book when it comes out. And then of course, life happens, they never think about it again in the book comes out, and they never preorder it. And so now day one, I'm getting 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of orders that will just Ching right on that day. That's going to springboard this book into continued higher rankings within Amazon. And you know, a lot of people just search amazon for the top rankings for books and they've never heard of me, but they'll see this book and that might intrigue them. And then that will continue to feed the monster so to speak to continue that cycle of awesomeness. And who knows where it's gonna go from here?
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, amen. Brother. That's awesome. Of all the we hear about launch pre launch campaigns, what jail did what the chaldee did was, was really amazing, because the bonuses were worth x times the book, right? And personally shipped out. I got mine the other day, that's not cheap. And as an author, I had someone the other day on Instagram, he's like, dude, you know, you got to do more. He was Indian. He's like, dude, you got to do more in India and stuff. And you know, you got to do some marketing here, and I can help you and it's like, well, the, for me the ROI. The book isn't the book sales, it's exposure you get from the book and the business that comes from that, right. I think every publisher will tell you the same thing. But obviously, the more exposure you get in the pre launch, which for a book is even more critical for all the reasons that john talked about here. It's going to be you know, critical to success. I'm really excited to see what happens for all of you listening, man, you gotta you got to act fast on this but act fast get x you're gonna want to the book anyway. What I'm curious Here's what's next when when I interview on this podcast a year from now, what are we going to be talking about God?
John Lee Dumas:Are we talking about the book brother? Listen, I've got a long vacation ahead of me after this book launch. And you know, I'm just going to be seeing what happens, seeing the feedback that I get, you know, seeing where the next opportunity arises. really asking that question again, what is the next problem that I want to solve? Like, that's going to be what I'm doing in a year from now.
Neal Schaffer:And I want to congratulate you the way you have the book. There are so many books out there business books to just have interviews. But you've gone above and beyond that, and created a framework and decipher the patterns and inputted where it makes sense to what area so I want to congratulate you on on a job well done. I'm still waiting to get my copy in the mail. I know it's coming soon. And I encourage you all to go out there and get a copy jld you know, going forward bookings will obviously be available on Amazon. Where else I know you have you have courses I mean, you got all sorts of stuff going on. Where can people find out all about you and all the greatness that you have out there?
John Lee Dumas:Yo fire calm is our headquarters. Entrepreneurs on fire is our podcast. So definitely listen to that show. It's fantastic. Neil's been a fantastic guest on that show, of course, and uncommon success book.com uncommon success book calm is where you can check out the book the first chapter for free to see if you like my writing style. Check it a video of me jumping in my pool in Puerto Rico and telling you more details about the book and see the bonuses are available. If I didn't say that already. The endorsements from Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel, Eric mandatory Clark, and preorder the book.
Neal Schaffer:Awesome. Thanks so much. Just the bestest success. I know you're gonna get it, but just want to say it anyway. It's really, really privileged to have you on today. Thank you so much.
John Lee Dumas:Thanks. Thanks now much. Appreciate it.
Neal Schaffer:All right. I hope you enjoyed the interview as much as I did. I want to remind you to stick around that, you know, I'm on that episode number 200. To hear jld and 3000. I gotta wait his to go. And I'm committed to the journey. I also want to thank as I usually do, I know that a lot of you out there in Canada, Germany, Sweden, Mikiko Ireland, I salute you. And I thank you for being fans of this podcast and helping this podcast rank in the marketing charts on Apple podcasts in those countries. So thank you so much. If you enjoyed this show, I really do hope that not only do you subscribe, so you don't miss future episodes. But you'll take a minute out of your day to write a review on whatever podcast player that you use. And it's really from your reviews, that I get a sense as to what content resonates with who right. It also is that energy that really fuels my passion. And that keeps me going. So if you if you got any value, I would really, really appreciate that. And once again, if you want to be part of this community, I'm building after listening that podcasts you want to, you want to get those digital marketing skills to help with your successes. jld said he has his full chapter on that content promotion, machine or, or infrastructure. And it's just so integral to building influence in the building digital business today in this digital world we live in, I hope to consider Gov Neal schaffer.com slash membership, and you'll be able to apply there. Otherwise, hey, wherever you are in the world, make it a great virtual. I know we're going to be open up soon, but we're not there yet. Make it a great virtual social day. We'll be back at you again next week. Bye bye everybody and SEO nada