Full show notes for this episode can be found at https://podcast.jakehower.com/episode/connecting-with-influencers-in-your-market-with-john-lee-dumas

You're listening to the Multimedia Marketing Show.

This is episode 14.

In today's episode, we're speaking with John Dumas from Entrepreneur on Fire.

Now John's got an amazing story.

Started in about mid 2012, interviewing experts with a premise

to release a show every single day.

And he's rise to fame as being very swift.

He's now up to 150, 000 podcast downloads per month.

But one thing I wanted to get him on the show for is not really to tell his story.

He's told that to a number of other shows.

Today.

So I thought rather than focus on his story per se, let's take a look at how

he's connected with such influential guests that he's brought onto the show

today and try and break it down for you.

So you've got a framework.

You can follow along to get access to thought leaders and to authoritative

type figures in your own niche.

So let's get stuck straight into the show.

/John, how are you?

I'm doing great, Jake.

Thanks for having me on

now.

And thank you very much for taking the time to come on today.

My pleasure.

Okay.

So you've had a pretty rapid rise to fame with your podcast entrepreneur on fire.

And what I'd really love to delve into in this episode is I guess

focusing in on how you were able to connect with so many top influencers

early on in your show's episodes.

How does that sound?

Sounds great.

I'd love to.

All right.

For those listening to the show who may not know a little bit about you, John,

how about you delve into your background?

Yeah, I'll

give the real quick 30 to 60 second rundown.

I was born and raised in the state of Maine, which is about an hour and a half

North of Boston, Massachusetts, 18 years old, I accepted an ROTC scholarship

to go to college at Providence in Rhode Island and spend the next four

years training as a cadet and just.

being a student, living the student life.

And then at 22 and in 2002, I joined the army.

I was commissioned as a lieutenant, spent four years active, four

years in the reserves, highlighted by a 13 month tour duty in Iraq.

And then after my, uh, tour of duty in the army, I actually got out and

just traveled around the world, went to India, Nepal, Guatemala, different

countries, different continents.

And then I settled down.

Um, tried law school, tried corporate finance, tried real estate, tried

a tech startup, tried a bunch of different things, enjoyed it all to

some level, learned a lot, but never really found my niche until June of

2012, which was when I was 32 years old.

I just recently turned 33.

I decided to give my passions and.

Drive and desire fully into a new venture, which I called entrepreneur on fire.

And that's what I do.

100% of my time.

I launch a daily business podcast, right?

Interview inspiring and successful entrepreneurs five days a week.

Oh,

excellent.

That's fantastic.

And for any of the listeners want to hear a little bit more about you, I

think one of the best interviews is Dan Norris is on his web domination podcast.

So we'll include that in the show notes as well.

Yeah, Dan's a great guy.

I had a lot of fun with him.

Yeah, he's great.

Okay.

So we've heard a little bit about your background.

Let's, before we delve into how you've been able to successfully connect

with these influences, let's give the listeners a little bit of perspective.

So how about giving us some of the stats surrounding your podcast right now?

So our listeners have a context.

Well, right now, and we're talking in the middle of January, well,

the end of January, 2013 entrepreneur on fires currently being downloaded.

Over 5, 000 times every single day in over 100 countries.

So we're at, we're going at about a clip of about 150, 000,

uh, unique downloads per month.

And the great part is, is that that number truly is growing every

single day and the snowball effect.

And I can get more into.

Why that is happening, but it's been a great ride.

I started september 20th of 2012 was actually when I Launched the podcast.

I definitely started building the platform back in june, but I didn't

launch the actual podcast until september And so it's really been a

nice Steady organic growth since then.

Yeah, that's great

All right.

So early on, you're able to bring on some really big players in the space.

People like, uh, I believe Pat Flynn was your second episode.

Now these are hard people to get in touch with.

I'd love to hear from you how you're able to connect with these people so early on.

So it wasn't easy, Jake.

I mean, the decision that I truly made early on, which was a very

valuable one was to go in 100%.

So back in June of 2012, I left it all behind and I decided to put.

All of my efforts into entrepreneur on fire and really truly live my

favorite acronym, which is focus.

Follow one course until success.

So back in June, I decided to just throw myself into the mix.

I went down to blog world that was being hosted in New York city.

All of these people that you've been mentioning, the Pat Flynn, Derek

Halpern, David Risley, All of these early interviewees that I had, I

actually met down there and said, Hey guys, I really had just had to walk

up to him after their speech and say, Hey guys, I am looking to do this.

I love what you're doing online.

I'm looking to build a large audience by sharing this kind of journey,

these kinds of experiences on a daily level, every single day.

Nobody's.

feeling that niche out there.

I'm going to do that.

And they saw my passion.

They saw my genuine desire to make this happen.

And they said, Hey, sure, John, we'll, we'll give it a chance.

You know, shoot me an email.

Here's my, my direct email address when you get back.

And so over that summer, I reached out to these seven, eight, nine people

that I really connected with at this conference and ask them if they would be

my first interviewees and They said yes.

And so over that summer of 2012, I actually did 40 interviews because

once I started getting Pat Flynn in my back pocket and already having

that interview done and Derek Halpern and Michael Stelzner of Social Media

Examiner, I started being able to use those people as social proof.

So when I reached out to other people in the industry and they

saw that I'd already interviewed.

These names, they were much more willing to give me 20, 30 minutes

of their time to do the same.

So by the time I launched Jake in September of 2012, I had 40 interviews

complete with top names in the industry.

That's

amazing.

All right.

I really do want to get into the nitty gritty of connecting with these people.

So let's start off with the blog world expo.

You say you went up to these people and introduced yourself

after you heard them speak.

If you were to break that down.

Why do you think they're interested in what you had to say?

Well there's a specific reason, and this is something

that's really valuable for all entrepreneurs to know, and especially

people that are just starting out.

And that's the value of a mentor and or a coach.

For me, when I was just getting ready to start, I knew I was going to launch

into this venture, I started looking around in my local area for a coach or a

mentor that really would be able to take me to the next level quickly just with.

His or her skills and knowledge and connections and relationships.

And for me, that was a podcaster that I've been listening to for

a couple years at that point.

Her name was Jamie Tardy and she ran the podcast, or she runs the

podcast, The Eventual Millionaire.

And I had been listening to her just organically for a number of years,

knowing that she lived close to me in Maine, but never reaching out to her.

But when I decided to make that leap, I reached out to her.

She agreed to become my coach, my mentor.

And so we actually went down.

To blog world in New York City with a plan together where she knew these

people because she was actually speaking at this conference She was friends

with these people on a lot of levels.

She was in masterminds with them So she was really that first link that I had to

be able to say hey My name is John Dumas my mentor Jamie Tardy who's standing

right next to me Smiling and laughing and talking with other people, you know

Is somebody that's guiding me right now and this is exactly what I'm looking

to do, you know, with Jamie's help.

I'm going to do it the right way.

She's going to hold me accountable.

So people saw that it was probably worth their time to give me a chance

because somebody that they already trusted in new and liked was going

to be there guiding me along the way.

So that was extremely valuable for me.

Yeah, that's fantastic.

And I totally agree having that social proof of connecting with

somebody that they trust makes a massive difference right now.

That's a huge part of it.

I don't think it would be absolutely everything because

they've got to be delivering great content for their audiences.

So they're not going to share their time and their audiences cheaply or easily.

So do you think also the fact that you were coming out with something

relatively unique at that time was another reason that people.

I guess paid attention to what you were saying.

I

think it was a huge reason, Jake.

I mean, to give you a little more background, I was driving around

in my prior job in commercial real estate, spending a lot of time on

the road, really loving to consume podcasts just because of that

passionate targeted on demand content.

And I realized that I was just going through the current

podcast at such a rapid rate.

I mean, you brought up the name, Pat Flynn, who was one

of my first interviewees.

He has an amazing podcast, the smart passive income, but it

only airs once every two weeks.

And so I went through all of his 40 or 50 episodes that he did

over the course of two years.

And about one month and I was like, man, there has to be a niche that needs

to be filled for somebody like myself.

That's driving one, two, four hours a day, and then it's coming home

and hitting the gym or walking my dog and wanting to continue to

consume content while I'm doing that.

There's definitely people out there like myself who wants to have this fresh

podcast waiting for them with inspiring interview with an incredible entrepreneur.

And when I explained it to them in that manner.

They agreed that it was out there that that niche needed to be filled.

You know, Pat Flynn doesn't have the ability to do a daily

podcast cause he's so busy doing everything else that he's doing.

Although I will say something that's very exciting on that end.

He told me that I was his inspiration from moving from a once every two

week podcast to a once a week podcast.

Cause he said, man.

If John Lee Dumas can do it every single day, I can do it at least once a week.

So now smart passive income is going to be once a week.

So that's, that's great for all of his fans out there.

But they saw that I was delivering something unique and something different.

And I think they saw the potential and, and, you know, a lot of them were

like, man, I wish I could do that.

I wish I could dedicate myself to doing something every single day.

But you know, a lot of these people have prior commitments.

They have family, they have businesses they're running.

They just couldn't do that, which is the power.

of finding your niche, drilling down to the bare core of it, and

then just really crushing it.

Yeah,

absolutely.

And I think from our brief conversation so far, one of the other aspects

which I've picked up from that is the amount of planning that went into it.

You didn't just, uh, really nearly go to these people and say, Hey, I've got

this podcast that I want to release.

I'm thinking daily.

I'm going to interview entrepreneurs just like yourself.

How about we have an interview?

You've actually.

You've, uh, created a clear plane and a path for action and you've

been able to execute on it.

Absolutely.

I attribute a lot of that to my prior military training.

I mean, I just really knew that.

A lot of times tasks expands to the time allotted and I knew that if I could

just really focus on getting everything done at the time that I wanted to allot

that to that I would be able to do that.

So a lot of people look at me and say, John, how are you doing?

a daily podcast.

And the crazy part is, and this is the truth, I literally only work one day a

week on the actual podcast part of it.

I do eight podcast interviews every single Monday.

I edit all of them every single Monday, Tuesday through Friday and Saturday

and Sunday when I'm working on the weekends, I'm still busting my hump on

the business of Entrepreneur on Fire.

I work extremely hard and long hours, but that part of my business is done.

So, I mean, You know, the fact that people think that they don't have

enough time to do a weekly podcast or a monthly podcast or even a daily podcast.

I do it all in one day.

Yeah, definitely.

And this is something which come up in an early interview with Greg Rollett.

One thing that I've noticed with the multimedia marketing show is that the

amount of effort and time which goes into the actual podcast itself, the recording

and the production of it is probably 10%.

90% or the remainder of the time, the 90% is actually focused on

promotion and building an audience.

And I think that's also important for people or for our listeners to understand

is that if you're looking to get something like this out into the marketplace,

the majority of your time is going to be spent on the promotion of it.

Absolutely.

And for me, it's kind of like an assembly line.

If I do eight podcasts in one day, I can really knock them out with all the intros

and all the outros and all the editing.

So doing those eight in one day is much more efficient than doing

one podcast a day for seven days.

Definitely.

Okay, well, that sort of covers off the

first block of interviewees.

How are you finding it now?

Are you still chasing entrepreneurs?

Or are you finding that people are coming to you to wanting to be on the show?

I definitely am no, no longer chasing entrepreneurs.

When I first started, I was really looking to build a big list and

a big buffer of interviewees and interviews that I had completed.

So when I actually launched September 20th, as I previously noted, I did have 40

interviews complete and I've really kept that buffer from that point going forward.

So right now I just released episode 101 today, but I've actually completed 150.

So I'm about 54 odd ahead, which puts me almost two months ahead in

this kind of quote unquote buffer.

So I'm not in this rush to feel like I have to need to chase people or that

I really want to track people down and get these people lined up because

I've given myself that breathing room.

So I really just kind of find people as I'm reading entrepreneur magazine.

Inc fast company as i'm watching shark tank as i'm just being introduced to other

people just because of the relationships i'm forming with my current interviewees

that I have and I just got back from las vegas where I spoke at new media expo by

blog world on the state of podcasting and I met so many amazing people out there.

And so you just Kind of start to organically gain interviews naturally

without having to reach out to people or really chase people.

They just start to come to you.

And yeah, as your fact about other people coming to me, I'm getting

emails all the time from PR companies and different entrepreneurs and

business owners who are inquiring.

About the ability to be interviewed on entrepreneur on fire So i'm definitely

having to say no a lot and having to turn people away just because i'm at

the situation now Where it's really just kind of a natural growth that

entrepreneur on fire is doing and I can be very selective Yeah, definitely.

Okay.

Right.

So let's have a look at a specific guest then, which I think my

guesstimate would be that potentially he's PR companies contacted you.

Let's look at Seth Godin.

Now this is episode 43, so that would have been close to launch time.

I guess when you interviewed Seth potentially a little bit after that.

Can you tell me a little bit about how that particular interview came

to be?

That is an interesting story.

It's probably a lot easier than most people would realize.

I have a better one that I'll tell after this, but with Seth Godin, I knew that his

book, The Icarus Deception, was set to be coming out, um, in a short time period.

I had just been a part of his Kickstarter campaign.

Where I actually did donate to the cause to receive a digital copy.

And so I knew that he was coming out with a book and he was

probably looking to promote it.

So I went to him in a very straightforward manner.

His, his email address, I was able to acquire from another

interviewee that I had.

And I reached out to him and laid out exactly.

What entrepreneur fire was, what I would like to talk about and the fact

that it would only take about 20 to 25 minutes of his time over Skype.

And he literally emailed me back an hour later and just said,

Hey John, how about tomorrow?

And it was pretty funny because you know, normally I'm pretty strict because I

have my quote unquote studio time and I really like to fit people in to my Monday

block of schedules because it just makes.

My business and my effectiveness so much higher when I can have everybody on

one day So I really fit people in that and give give them a lot of options And

days to choose from as far as monday the first the seventh the 14th, whatever

and then a number of time periods throughout that But I really like to

try to funnel people into that system.

But with seth I was like Okay, absolutely.

Yeah, like you named the time you named the place like I will Be on Skype

calling you and and so we did and it was a very enjoyable interview a really

good story I'd like to share because this is just something that I think

listeners will find even more value in is how I got Barbara Corcoran So I'm

sitting around it's a Friday night.

It's like 8 30 p.

m And Shark Tank is on and I'm watching it on ABC and it's a great episode and

I'm sitting there with my girlfriend We're having a beverage because we're

about to head out and meet some friends And Barbara made a comment because a

guy in the Marines came in to pitch his product and she didn't actually

invest in him, but she did say, just want to say thank you for your service.

I really, you know, I really just honor the military and

what you guys provide for us.

And so, you know, I had a couple of drinks to me and I'm like, ah, you know what?

Kate, I'm going to go up and I'm going to email Barbara Corcoran and tell her that,

you know, I'm a veteran and if she really honors the military, she should come on

my show as a show of her appreciation and share her journey with my audience.

And it was half joking, half serious.

So I ran upstairs, Googled Barbara Corcoran and went to her contact me page,

composed this long email to her little contact me form, hit the send button.

And then lo and behold, I kind of forgot about it.

Monday morning, I have an email from her assistant, Gail, who was just

like, John, Barbara got your email.

She was very touched.

She'd love to be on your show.

When can she be on?

And it was really something like that easy where I made a connection with

Barbara, who I saw on the shark tank.

And she mentioned something and I was able to connect myself to that

thing that she felt endeared to and use that to ask her to come on

my show where I did prove to her.

With my download numbers and the fact that I had had other big name guests,

Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferriss, et cetera, that other people, that, that, that social

proof was all she needed to go forward and give me 20 minutes, which ended

up being almost 45 minutes of her time to share her journey with Fire Nation.

Yeah, that's incredible.

And, um, what comes out of that for me or what really resonated for me

is this, um, I guess the fact that you're approaching these people with

a message, which they're going to.

Connect with so for Seth, it was the fact that he had a book coming out.

So he was about to hit his circuit of promotions.

And with Barbara, it was something recent that she'd been talking about.

And it resonated with me because I've had Chris Brogan on the

show in an earlier episode.

And I think through dumb luck, um, essentially the same thing happened.

I sent him an email asking him to come on the show, uh, lo and behold,

he replied and said, yes, but what I.

Didn't realize until a couple of weeks later is that he had just relaunched his

own show, his own podcast and started appearing on all of these other podcasts.

So the same thing essentially was happening without me

actually knowing it at the time.

Absolutely.

You know, it's just really behooves anybody to keep their eyes and ears open.

And when these big names are coming out and they have a new product,

service, book, podcast that they're looking to promote and to get out

there into the universe, that's a great time to reach out to them.

And it's probably going to be worth 20 minutes of their time to, you

know, it's a very low barrier.

I mean, you know, I was sitting.

On the phone literally 30 minutes ago on Skype with Noah, the CEO of

Stitcher Radio, having my own interview with him and you know, 35 minutes

later I'm talking to you and I'm just here sitting in my studio and it's

not difficult for these people to give 20, 30 minutes of their time to

reach a potentially large audience.

Definitely.

Okay.

Well, let's look at a little bit about the actual process you're followed

when connecting with these people.

For myself, generally, I'm sending an email where possible.

I'm locating their exact email address from prior interviewees, or I'll use

some tools like LinkedIn and also like a reportive in Gmail, where you can actually

try and guess their email address.

And if you get the right one, it'll pop up all their social profiles.

You've mentioned that you contacted Barbara via her.

For our listeners out there, do you have any other suggestions with

how they should be connecting or trying to connect with these people?

For my audience especially and for the interviewees that I

generally go after, far and away the best place to connect with them is at

their headquarters, their website, and their About Me or their Contact Me page.

I have had by far my most success there.

I really even haven't tried other avenues that much because

I've had so much success there.

The most important thing is literally in the first two or three sentences, you

really need to establish social proof that you need to lay out what you're

looking to do and why it's a value to them because these people get so many emails.

From just adoring fans or inquiries of random sorts that if you can just really

Get it out there in the first couple sentences and i'll give you an example of

what entrepreneur fire does is basically my first two or three sentences are

Hi, this is John Lee Dumas, the founder and host of entrepreneur on fire, a

top ranked business podcast on iTunes, currently generating over 150, 000 unique

downloads a month in over 100 countries.

I've interviewed people such as Barbara Corcoran, Seth Godin, Gary

Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferris, etc, etc.

I would love the opportunity to have you come on my show and share

your journey with my audience.

20 minutes over Skype, audio only is all I ask.

Let me know if there's an opportunity to make this happen in your schedule.

What I'm doing right there is I'm initially establishing that it's

absolutely worth their time to talk to my extremely large listener base.

And I'm showing them that other people on their level and even

levels above them have come on my show and shared their journey.

And then I'm saying, Hey, and it's just 20 minutes.

Over Skype and it's audio only so you don't even have to shower.

So I just keep it really easy for him I keep the barriers low and a lot of times

the people that are reading them are going to be their assistants or their virtual

assistants and Nine times out of ten.

They're gonna look at this and say hey, this is something I need

to pass up the food chain Oh,

that's great.

And it sounds so simple that it shouldn't work, but it's amazing

to hear it work as it does Yeah.

It works.

Really great.

And that is also something which I'm finding with inviting

guests on my show as well.

It is the fact that all it takes is an email and really what's

holding people back from being able to do that themselves is probably

mindset.

It is mindset.

And I have one more story.

Do we have time for one more story?

Please, please.

Okay.

This is my favorite story thus far, although it is not yet.

Ended in a success, but i'm still on the journey.

So this is just to show you this You know, sometimes you

need to work a little harder.

So One of the people that I truly want to interview Extremely high on my number.

Maybe my number one interviewee that I would love to get on my show just

because i've always idolize what he's done as an entrepreneur is Mark Cuban.

And he has a lot of things going on.

He's the owner of the Dallas Mavericks.

He does Shark Tank.

He invests in a lot of people.

He's running these foundations.

So I was driving up to Sugarloaf, which is a ski mountain here in the

state of Maine, just this past weekend.

And I was reading this Inc.

magazine article, um, that was basically talking about patent trolls.

And I won't get into what patent trolls are, but they're just a really big pain

in the butt for a lot of small businesses.

And Mark Cuban was quoted in that magazine as, as his stance

against patent trolls as well.

So I really resonated with that.

And I had been emailing Mark Cuban for weeks and weeks and

weeks, just very consistent.

Um, basis.

He's really one of the only guys that I'm doing this with.

I'm really just getting out there and just trying to be very consistent in

reaching out to him, hoping that I'll get a response sometime, some way,

which I've had zero success with so far.

But I get up to Sugarloaf on a Friday night.

I compose this email really quickly.

And the title line was just patent trolls.

And I wrote Mark.

I just read this article, you got me fired up, I would love if you came on

Entrepreneur on Fire and just shared your journey with my 150, 000 plus

unique, uh, downloaders, what the issue is with these patent trolls, etc, etc,

and I just Ended it there, sent it off, 20 minutes later I had an email

back from him that said, John, you need to contact so and so and so and so.

Here's her email address, here's her website.

Get her on the show.

Lowercase m.

So he just wrote the lowercase letter m.

So I was like, oh my god, Mark Cuban just responded back to me.

So obviously, he'd been getting my previous emails and just

discarding them, like he probably discards a thousand emails a day.

But this one resonated with him, so I struck a chord.

So, since that point...

You know, I've reached back out to him and said, you know, thanks mark.

I'm going to reach out to julie Etc.

And so i've done that i've scheduled julie for the show.

She's going to come on we're going to talk And then i'm going to use that

leverage and the relationship i'm going to be building with julie Who is

the lawyer in charge of mark's little foundation that he has to hopefully?

Convince her to convince mark that it's worth him coming on for 20 minutes to

talk to my audience About how patent trolls are affecting small businesses

and entrepreneurs around the world So as you can see sometimes you do have to

work for it, but sometimes it's worth it

Yeah, definitely.

And I think that brings up a very interesting topic and you're right.

You do have to work at it often.

One thing that I've had success with previously is when I'm trying

to reach somebody, I've actually found that taking an indirect path

to them has worked in my favor.

So what I mean is rather than target that particular person, work out the

people who influence that person.

And generally, you would say they're usually a rung below in terms of

the popularity or their influence and connecting with these, I

guess, these periphery people will eventually get you in front of the

person you're trying to get hold off.

And that, for me, I've had a lot of success in just basically ticking

off their influences around them and then finally approaching the person

that that was my initial target.

Well, if you ever see Mark Cuban on Entrepreneur on Fire,

you will know that that system works.

Well, that's great, John.

Um, thanks very much for coming on the show today.

Uh, where can listeners find out a little bit more about you?

Well, my headquarters, Jake, is literally entrepreneuronfire.

com.

I, the word entrepreneur is so difficult to spell.

I still have a hard time doing it.

So I actually also have the website address that will get you

to the same point, which is...

E o fire dot com.

So both of those website addresses will get you to my headquarters

to entrepreneur on a fire That's where all my podcasts are.

I would love if people wanted to check me out on itunes subscribe It's just it's a

great podcast like we've mentioned before I interview One successful and inspiring

entrepreneur every single day and i've interviewed some great guys from all over

the world Um, including australia i've had will swain adam franklin Just a lot

of brendan sinclair was actually my number 100 Um, just a lot of great entrepreneurs

From your continent and just a lot of great people from around the world.

So it's a good podcast and I have a lot of fun doing it.

Yeah.

Thanks very much.

Listeners.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode, John.

Thank you very much for coming on.

I'm a loyal subscriber to the podcast and for everybody out there, uh, if you

haven't checked it out already, certainly do head across to iTunes and of course,

stitcher radio stream

it.

All right, John.

Thanks very much for coming on the show and we'll speak again.

I'm sure

in the future.

Definitely Jake.