Put in the Reps – Interview with John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire
July 28, 2021
By Matt Miner, MBA, CFP®
What 20% of activities drive 80% of your results? Today’s show with John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire helps you do the things that matter and spend your time crushing the vital few rather than playing whack-a-mole with the urgent many.
Get Out of Your Own Way
I focused my conversation with John on this topic because it’s an area where I want advice, and where John’s a world-class expert.
One of the most impressive things to me as I prepped for my conversation with JLD was that he runs his podcast interviews exactly the way he says he will.
John likes interviewing and being interviewed, and that comes through in the episode, and is demonstrated as he takes time to guest new shows like Work Pants Finance (though the show is growing!).
John calls his five work days each month his “Super Bowl Days”. He completes a couple dozen interviews back-to-back on 15 minute intervals. From my seat, all his scheduling and communication documents reinforce how efficient John wants to be with his time during the interview. I loved the alignment of values and actions.
Key-Takeaways from my Interview with John Lee Dumas
Our conversation is loaded with value. Here’s a taste:
First, spend more time working on the stuff you’re best at, that only you can do.
Second, success is a process. “It doesn’t come overnight, but it can come over time.”
Third, businesses go through multiple seasons and the success that’s visible is always the tip of the iceberg. John identifies the seasons he’s been through as:
Sole hustler and grinder
Having “something of a team”
Working with a real team
Everyone really knows what they’re doing
Fourth, the only way to get better is to put in the reps. The only way the team gets better is to put in the reps over years.
Fifth, Figure out the 20% of things that account the results. Then dump the 80% and only focus on the 20%. After a while, revisit what makes up the 20%.
Sixth, DON’T be a “pale, weak imitation of someone else”. Instead, be the real, authentic, genuine you. This will attract the people you want to attract and repel the ones you’re better off without. The people who win in business identify a real problem in a niche where they have both passion and skill, and then they’ll move heaven and earth to produce the number one solution for that niche. As Itir says, we need all of us!
Money Guide Quick Tip
Use time tracking to identify one area that takes at least an hour of your life each week and where you’re not in your zone of genius. You don’t enjoy it, and at least over time, someone else could do it as well or better. For example, can your kids do all the dishes – or at least unload the dishwasher? Can your assistant handle a task that’s a time-suck? Can one of your direct reports take over one of your projects? Can you hire a contract-resource you pay and free up your time? Then, transition the task, get out of the way, and monitor the results.
Resources & Content
The Common Path to Uncommon Success, by John Lee Dumas
Get a taste of JLD’s Podcast - I enjoy the Alex Banayan interview
John Lee Dumas
John Lee Dumas is founder and host of the wildly successful Entrepreneur on Fire podcast, a daily show with more than 3000 episodes and one hundred million listens, and author of The Common Path to Uncommon Success. John is based in Puerto Rico where he works five “Super Bowl days” each month.
TRANSCRIPT
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[00:00:01] Speaker 1: We've all got 20% of things that contribute 80% of our results. Success comes as we bring pinpoint focus to deploy our productive time making progress on the vital few, rather than the urgent many.
Hey, and welcome to the Work Pants Finance podcast, where I serve up hard-won wisdom about work, life, and money. I teach you how to kill debt, build wealth and avoid the wage-slave trap. My goal as a podcaster and advisor is to help you put your money to work so you own your career rather than it owning you.
I'm Matt Miner, your money guide and for the last dozen years, my family and I killed debt and built wealth, and then I started teaching other people how to do the same thing. In 2018, I stepped away from corporate work to serve clients full-time as a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor. Work Pants Finance is the show for MBAs, entrepreneurs, and other high-income professionals who want a financial plan that works as hard as they do.
One big theme in today's show is getting out of your own way. I focused my questions with John on this topic because it's an area where I struggle. I hold on to too many things for too long. To flush these time-sucks out I've implemented 100% time tracking in Google Sheets, where every time I switch tasks I record what I switched to, and then when I switch again, I record how much time I spent on that last task. Needless to say, it's been eye-opening.
Today's money guide quick tip is this, use time tracking to identify one area that takes at least an hour of your life each week, where you are not operating in your zone of genius. You don't enjoy it, and at least over time, someone else could do it as well or better. Can your kids do all the dishes or at least unload the dishwasher? Can your assistant handle a personal task that's a time suck? Can one of your direct reports take over one of your projects? Can you hire a contract resource that you pay in order to free up your time? Once you've identified that task, transition it, get out of the way and monitor the results.
My guest is John Lee Dumas, founder of the wildly successful Entrepreneur on Fire podcast, a daily show with more than 3000 episodes and 100 million listens. I enjoyed John's show for years and I've loved his new book, The common path to uncommon success. Today's show is Putting the Reps: Interview with John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire. Find more at workpants finance.com/37.
John Lee Dumas thank you for joining the Work Pants Finance podcast. You say you love to have amazing conversations with amazing people, and Work Pants Finance audience is an amazing group. My goal for today's conversation is to help my audience, and also help myself, spend more time working on the stuff that they're best at, the stuff that only they can do, and how to get out of their own way for everything else.
Recently, you told Dan Miller on the Business Made Simple podcast, “My goal from day one, and you say and I couldn't do this from day one was to look at my plate and think it's got 10 things on it but I'm only great at two, how can I get the eight off and just do the two things I'm great at?” I want to start by asking what was your aha moment or an early success story when you embrace the idea of letting other people do what they are best at so you can spend more time doing what you love and what only you can do?
[00:03:22] John Lee Dumas: Listen, back in 2012 when I launch Entrepreneurs on Fire, I wasn't good at anything. I wasn't good at interviewing, I wasn't good at conducting interviews, speaking like technical things with the audio, I wasn't good at WordPress, I wasn't good at social media. I was good at nothing. But then I had to step back and say, “Well, what are the things that I have to become good at? That I have to actually put in the reps to hone my skills?” And it was a pretty short list, thankfully, and it was interview, be interviewed, and work on honing my interview skills.
That was really the things I had to become great at if I wanted Entrepreneurs On Fire to be great and then everything else as Marie Forleo was saying was figure out of all. I could hire people, I could fire people, I could put the right team together and make the business run with me only really having to do the things that only I can and should be doing. That's kind of where I'm at now 10 years later.
Of course, when I launched back in 2012, I do wear a lot of hats like everybody does but as soon as I was able to, I would bring people on who had skills or who wanted to develop skills in the areas that weren't that very narrow focus of what I in myself only could do and allow them to take that off of my plate so I could focus on just becoming better at the things I needed to personally become better at.
It's been a process. I've gone through multiple seasons of my business. I actually consider myself right now in the fourth season of my business where I've really stepped back and said I'm only doing the things now that I specifically can do as far as the only I can do and this is my favorite part of the business right now. It doesn't come overnight but it can come over time.
[00:05:06] Matt: That's a great way to say it and leads in well to my second question. I wanted to ask was how, when and what kind of resources did you add in the early days of your fire, when I suspect adding anything was uncomfortable from a cash flow standpoint, and sort of what's the balance between waiting too long and wasting time versus running the risk of burning through your cash?
[00:05:25] John: I knew I needed to get my WordPress websites in order because that was something that I was getting a lot of people coming to the website. I wanted to collect those leads. I wanted to deliver a good user experience and there was a good on brand, where people would come and say, okay, this person has his stuff together. I think that he's somebody that I want to continue to follow and consume their content. That was one of the earlier hires was I brought on somebody in the retainer side of things who had some WordPress skills.
It wasn't like I hire them part-time or full time, was just like on an hourly basis as far as like, okay, I'm guaranteed 10 hours of this person's time per month for X number of dollars. It wasn't a huge outlay of expense but at the same time, it made sure that I had somebody who knew my websites, and it was familiar with my brand, could come in if something tragic happens and I needed some immediate help.
I wasn't just looking for anybody to come in and provide that and then secondarily, I brought on a virtual assistants from the Philippines and that individual's sole job was just to work on the social media side of things. Again, I take some of that bandwidth off of my plates, and train this individual to really speak in the brand's and in the voice that I wanted to project on social media, but not spend that much time on.
[00:06:46] Matt: Terrific. What was your journey to get out of your own way? Or how have you gotten better at that over time and do you have any go-to resources for getting better at that skill?
[00:06:57] John: The only way to get better at what you're doing, or to get better at what your team overall is doing is to get up every day and put in the reps; there's just no way to go around. There's no tool or there's no skill or there's no system, there's no automation that you can implement right day one that's going to take these things off of your plate, you really need to get in the trenches, get your hands dirty, and put in the reps.
The only way became a great podcast host was the podcast every single day for now 3000 days. I've over 3000 episodes. The other way that I become good at anything in my life is to put in the reps and the only way that my team has become good at anything, was having them put into reps. Like one person has been on my team for 12 years and other person seven another person six. They are unbelievably valuable for those reasons is that they put in the reps over the years for my team in my business, that kind of stuff is invaluable.
[00:07:50] Matt: What steps if any, you recommend entrepreneurs and professionals use to create their own plan to operate almost all the time in their zone of fire?
[00:07:59] John: You just need to sit down and really be clear, like what is the 80-20 rule for me and for my business? What are the 20% of things in my business that literally account for 80% of the revenue, of the lead generation, of the traffic, of fill in the blank everything. And then you literally dump it that other 80% that's not that top 20 and you only focus on that.
Then once you've got that unbelievably dialed in with that new refound focus, then you can sit back and say, okay, now what is the new 20% that really moves the needle, and that's going to accomplish more things at this point because your business will have grown and you do that process, again and again.
I've done this multiple times over the years because I now consider myself in the fourth season of my business and every time I shifted seasons of my business, season one just being the sole hustler and grinder. Season two, having brought on and built that a little bit more of a team where I'm not doing everything. Season three, really having a fully functioning team that I'm working consistently with on a very day-to-day basis to season four, my team knows what they're doing. There's no more micromanaging. There's no more macro managing. It's just letting my team do what they do, getting up every morning and do what I need to do and only what I need to do, and let the business continue to move forward in that direction. That's the process. It takes time, but it's very achievable.
[00:09:27] Matt: Thanks, John. Last one, how has podcasting sort of as an industry or medium changed from 2012 to now?
[00:09:35] John: You used to be able to just launch on a broad topic and say, you know what? I'm going to interview entrepreneurs about their struggles and that worked because it wasn't many people doing it. Now, everybody's doing it. Every celebrity, everybody that used to think that they were an expert in communications or a radio broadcast host everybody that thinks that they have an audience little bigger, small or just people who just want to get in this because they can do what I'm doing right now. Be in my spare bedroom with a microphone and just talking to whoever's listening, and because of that, it's a very saturated market. The people who fail are those who just become a pale, weak imitation of other people, and that's what most people do. They just say, "Oh, these people are successful. I want to become a pale, weak imitation of them,” which nobody wants.
People want the real authentic genuine you because you are special, unique. You can bring some specific value to the world. The people that win in 2021 are people that identify a real problem in a niche that they both have passion for and skills in and then they produce the number one solution to that problem. Those people win.
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[00:10:51] Matt: One of the most impressive things as I prep for my conversation with JLD was that he runs his podcast interview exactly the way he says he will. First, he says he likes interviewing and being interviewed and he takes time to guest even new shows like Work Pants Finance because he enjoys it, but he also calls days when he records shows like mine his Super Bowl days. He conducts a couple dozen interviews back to back on 15-minute intervals. All his scheduling and his communication documents reinforce how efficient John wants to be with his time during the interview. I loved the alignment of his values and his actions.
That's it. Until next week, this is Matt Miner, encouraging you to build a financial plan that works as hard as you do.
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[00:11:41] Speaker 3: Matt Miner is a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor and founder and CEO of Miner Wealth Management, a North Carolina registered investment advisor where Matt provides personalized unconflicted advice to clients for a fee. He's also my dad so please be nice when you talk to him. Matt is a certified financial planner professional and holds a Series 65 securities license.
He earned his bachelor's degree in finance from Arizona State University and his MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Work Pants Finances is Matt's financial media business where he talks about work entrepreneurship, kids and money, taxes, investing, and other personal finance topics.
Workpantsfinance.com exists to share wisdom and provide general financial information. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice. You're an individual and probably need personal advice for your specific situation. You should consider building relationships with helpful, caring, and competent professionals who understand your unique context and can provide advice that is tailored to your needs.
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