John Lee Dumas on building a 7-figure online business empire

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Today’s guest is legendary podcaster and entrepreneur John Lee Dumas, chief of the Fire Nation and host of the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast (#1 iTunes business and entrepreneur podcast).

JLD is the host of EOFire, an award winning Podcast where he interviews today’s most successful Entrepreneurs 7-days a week. JLD has grown EOFire into a multi-million dollar a year business with over 1500 interviews and 1.5 million monthly listens. He’s the author of The Freedom Journal and The Mastery Journal, two of the most funded publishing campaigns of all time on Kickstarter. All the magic happens at EOFire.com!

We talk…

  • Huge turning points early in his blog/podcast
  • The 2 character traits that makes JLD JLD
  • His dream house in Palmas del Mar (host me John! I’ll pay for my travel!)
  • How he DIDN’T quit every time he wanted to (and there were several…)

Listen to my episode with John Lee Dumas:

or listen on Apple Podcasts \ Google Podcasts \ Spotify

Show Notes

A small glimpse behind JLD’s superb productivity and content organization

John and his EoFire team publish a new podcast episode every single day of the week.

Aside from being a TON of content to release…it’s complicated even more by being an interview podcast. That means any given month, JLD is dealing with ~30 different entrepreneurs.

I think I just had a logistical nightmare.

When I booked John for this interview, I was uber impressed with the systems he has in place to deal with these logistics.

Let’s start with “batch processing.”

From Michael Hyatt:

“Batching is simply a form of time management that allows a person to maximize concentration and decrease distraction. As a result, it increases your productivity, creativity, and mental sharpness, while decreasing fatigue, procrastination, and stress. Batch processing is the grouping of similar tasks that require similar resources in order to streamline their completion.”

JLD batches his podcast recordings.

If he were dumb, his week would look like…

  1. Monday – record episode, answer emails, edit episode, edit show notes, publish content, promote and market
  2. Tuesday – record episode, answer emails, edit episode, edit show notes, publish content, promote and market
  3. Wednesday – – record episode, answer emails, edit episode, edit show notes, publish content, promote and market
  4. Etc

Each day contains a wide array of tasks.

Instead, batching would look like…

  1. Monday – record episode, record episode, record episode, record episode, record episode,
  2. Tuesday – Edit episode, Edit episode, Edit episode, Edit episode, Edit episode, Edit episode,
  3. Wednesday – show notes, show notes, show notes, show notes, show notes,
  4. Thursday – schedule content, schedule content, schedule content,
  5. Friday – market, market, market, market

JLD batch records on certain days at 15-minute intervals. On any given day, he could record anywhere from 5 to 15 podcast interviews.

This grouping of similar task is mandatory for optimal production.

JLD’s scheduling tool

JLD used ScheduleOnce (not an affiliate link).

If you hate back-and-forth emails for scheduling things (meetings, interviews, etc), it’s a must.

I personally use Calendly (not an affiliate link either), but only because they’re based in Atlanta, and hey, ATL shawty don’t dissspect it.

I won’t go too deep into these, because they’re easy to use…but it’s worth noting JLD uses these to collect information as well.

When I booked him, I submitted every bit of info JLD would need to conduct an interview with me. Site URL, name, email, questions, topics, etc.

This means that come interview time (which was PRECISELY set at 3:20pm), he’d have everything he needs and could jump right in (which we did).

So dang efficient.

The automated email reminders (sent 7 days prior to interview and 1 hour prior to interview), contained his complete bio and a link to the official press image.

To sum up,

JLD’s system is logistically smooth as butter.

It was fun to be a part of!

Also, wake up earlier.

When I asked John about his top traits (those things about him that set him apart from less-successful entrepreneurs like myself), he mentioned he gets more done in the early morning hours than most people do all day. 

He wakes up between 5:30-6:00am and cranks through work…and he’s not alone.

The offbeat hours (super early in the morning, or super late at night) tend to be our most creative hours, and are optimal for “deep work.”

Sarah Peterson (of Unsettle.org and Sumo.com) produces, on average, more than 10,000 words of published content a week. She’s one of the top content marketers in the world, and she only writes 2-3 hours a day.

And only early in the morning.

She is self-aware enough to realize these are her golden hours. Fewer distractions, fewer noises, fewer interruptions = more productivity.

What if I have kids, Pete?

Well, you’re screwed 😉

(joking. sorta.)

***

Hey loyal DYEB listener, what can we name our tribe?

John Lee Dumas has the “Fire Nation.” Mr. Money Mustache has “The Mustachians.”

What can we name our tribe?? Would love your suggestions in the comments 🙂

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