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Transcription of interview with John Lee Dumas on February 10, 2014.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor
John Lee Dumas is a former 20-year veteran from the US Army.
He is the founder and inspiring host of a podcast called Entrepreneurs on Fire.
Douglas Goldstein, financial planner & investment advisor, interviewed Dumas on Arutz Sheva
Radio.
Douglas Goldstein: Tell us how you got started.
John Lee Dumas: For me, it was truly a start of passion.
I was one of those guys who is commuting to work every single day, stuck in traffic, loving
consuming podcasts but never having enough podcasts to consume.
So I had that “aha” moment, why isn’t there a seven day a week podcast that interview
inspiring successful entrepreneurs and that day I decided to create one.
Entrepreneur on Fire was born and 485 episodes later, we’re still running.
Douglas Goldstein: What is an entrepreneur?
Is it different from a businessman?
John Lee Dumas: For me, an entrepreneur is that person that has a passion and has a specialty
and is able to mold those together and work on their own timeframe, on their own mindset
and move forward and create a business.
For me a business owner is somebody that could be following corporate America which I did
in my previous careers and I had a lot of success doing that but I could never follow
my own course, my own passion but with Entrepreneur on Fire, I was always the captain of that
ship, stirring towards my own horizon.
That was the major difference between being just a business guy and an entrepreneur and
I’ve always veered towards that entrepreneurship and love that aspect of it.
Douglas Goldstein: Can someone in big business be an entrepreneur or it is more for startups?
John Lee Dumas: I think somebody in big business can definitely be an entrepreneur and I see
a lot of people in big business these days be an entrepreneur and that’s kind of a
new terms and a new phrase but they can go inside the business and become that entrepreneur
within and continue to innovate.
Whereas if you are more of the startup, you really have that freedom, that flexibility
to continue to innovate and to be flexible and agile in the directions you’re going
and that was the benefit to me from leaving that big business where I was forced to be
an entrepreneur and moving over to the startup phase where I could continue to be agile and
really stay cutting edge because this DNA age, we are facing so many different challenges
in the business world in general and being that young small startup allowed me to really
move with the currents whichever where they are flowing.
Douglas Goldstein: You didn’t one say that entrepreneurs are risk takers which is I think
what a lot of people think.
Is that one of the characteristics you found?
John Lee Dumas: I think that that whole mentality has flipped 180 degrees.
It is now risky not to be an entrepreneur.
Look at this DNA age, if you are in a “comfortable corporate job” you are at the whim, you
are the mercy of whatever corporation you’re working for or whatever stream that you’re
just going down in that current.
Whereas for me as an entrepreneur, I am just developing incredible skills, all of these
different knowledge and information and tactics and tools that I can apply to any different
number of things.
So if anything happens with Entrepreneur on Fire which I don’t foresee happening but
obviously is possible, I have no doubt that tomorrow, a fresh start is all that I need
to get going.
There is very little risk in what I feel that I am doing and a ton of risks in taking the
old traditional route which to me is risky indeed.
Douglas Goldstein: Let’s say you’re looking at someone who
takes over a small, medium or even a big company and is an entrepreneur.
How do you identify that person as opposed to someone from the all boys’ network who
just got placed there because he knows he is friends with the board of directors?
John Lee Dumas: What I am seeing right now is the entrepreneurs that are really making
[bus rides] in the different companies that they are creating and building or being injected
into are those that have really come from the bottom up, those who have learned as they
have gone for more that apprenticeship type of thing.
For me, I’ve got a mentor, I joined mastermind first and foremost and I learned through the
hard knocks and I went and I climbed the ladder the way the entrepreneurship ladder.
Whereas the people that you are mentioning with the all boys club, they just got inserted,
those people are being looked at as more as dead weight in this DNA age with these entrepreneurship
companies, these board of advisors, these directors.
I am seeing time and time again where they are now being shed because they are really
having no value to add.
Yes they are coming from the old world business and they are trying to bring some of those
old world philosophies, they just don’t apply to today’s business.
People like myself that are running today’s companies, the entrepreneurship companies
are looking for people who have actually climbed the ranks and that if you don’t have that
skills you have to bring.
People that have been there and done that in that field in that niche are really the
people that I’m seeing excel
in today’s entrepreneurship world.
Douglas Goldstein: Tell us more about the business of podcasting itself because I know
you coach people and encourage them to do it.
Is that really a good business for people?
John Lee Dumas: I think what it really drills down to this DNA age is “can you build an
audience?”
and if so, how are you going to build an audience?
For me, I had no online presence.
My prior careers where the US Military then I was corporate finance then I was in commercial
real estate.
I had no online presence whatsoever.
I had no audience so I tried to focus on a way that I could build one and for me, that
was podcasting by delivering incredibly valuable free content into a massive network which
is the world through iTunes, through Stitcher radio, through Sound Cloud, I was able to
build an audience where now Entrepreneur on Fire, the podcast is downloaded over 500,000
times every single month in over 145 countries.
Now because of that audience, I’m able to create products and services for my audience
which are really generated into the tune of over $100,000 every single month in the way
of masterminds, in the way of a book that I’ve written and the way podcastersparadise.com
which is a community for podcasters to create, grow and monetize their podcast.
I have an audience now and they tell me what they need, they tell me what they’re struggling
with.
I create products and services for them and then offer them those products and services
for a great value and the profit start rolling in.
Again for the months of October, November, December and now January, we’ve broken six
figures in profit following that model.
So this DNA age, build an audience, listen to that audience, serve that audience with
products and services that they need.
Douglas Goldstein: It sounds very practical to say “Let me look what the market needs
and let me supply what they want and hopefully they’ll pay me for it.”
On the other hand, you see very enginuitive companies and the example is Apple which is
they’ll come out with the new product that people didn’t even know they need but they
kind of figure out that it’s something that the world needs.
There are types of people.
You have the creative folks and you have the people who are incredibly practical and excellent
at identifying a market.
Do you think that there is a conflict or it’s just what’s right for some is not right
for others?
John Lee Dumas: It brings up a quote from somebody that I love which is Henry Ford who
said “If I listen to my customer, I would have built a faster horse.”
Why that’s a great quote is because obviously just like Apple who comes out with the iPhone
is somebody that nobody ever could have told them to make and just like Henry Ford comes
out with the model T that no customer ever could have told them to make, that is on one
hand of the spectrum which I think is a great model for the innovators.
Then you have myself in the other in the spectrum which I believe is also a great business model
and using to choose which one’s right for you.
For me, it was building a massive audience and listening to what they needed and then
creating it for them.
For Henry Ford and for Apple, it was creating what they knew the audience needed and then
handing it to them on a silver platter.
Both models can work in my mind one takes a lot of money and a lot of enginuity and
lot of creativity that Henry Ford, Apple side and the other just takes a lot of hard work
and effort which is building that massive audience which is what I was capable of doing.
Douglas Goldstein: Would you suggest that people who are either one of these characteristics
actually cut out of the normal corporate path and try their hand to becoming an entrepreneur?
John Lee Dumas: If you are staying in the corporate path, you are taking on massive
risk.
We talked about this at the beginning.
Today’s DNA age, everything is changed, the landscape is changed.
Look at 2000-2002, look at the 2008 economic meltdown.
This is going to continue to happen over and over again.
You want to sit there and be at the whim of what’s going to happen in the future or
do you want to develop skills that are going to allow you to navigate anything that can
come.
I can tell you no matter what happen in the next 30 years, I will be able to circumnavigate
this market, this economic whatever it may be the climate because of the skills that
I’m creating.
Focus, follow one course until success on something you’re passionate about, on dreams
that you want to aspire to and keep those blinders on and remain laser focused.
Douglas Goldstein: What’s the best way for people to follow your work?
John Lee Dumas: EOFire.com will get you to my website, my headquarters and that has it
all.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host
of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show (Monday nights at 7:00 PM on www.israelnationalradio.com.
He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S. and Israel.
Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA,
SIFMA.
Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
Member NYSE/SIPC, a Fidelity Investments company.
His book Building Wealth in Israel is available in bookstores, on the web, or can be ordered
at: www.profile-financial.com (02) 624-2788 or (03) 524-0942.
Disclaimer: This document is a transcription and/or an educational article.
While it is believed to be current and accurate, divergence from the original is to be expected.
The original podcast can be heard at https://sites.google.com/site/goldsteinradioshows/.
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sole basis for making financial decisions.
The opinions rendered herein are those of the guests, and not necessarily those of Douglas
Goldstein, Profile Investment Services, Ltd., or Israel National News.
Readers should consult with a professional financial advisor before making any financial
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Please see the complete disclaimer at https://sites.google.com/site/goldsteinradioshows/.