237 | How He Built a 7-Figure Podcast (In Only 5 Hours/Week)

I have a daily podcast that makes millions of dollars a year, working five hours one day per week. That's John Lee Dumas, the trailblazer behind entrepreneurs on fire, one of the first daily podcasts ever created. Over the last decade, he's released more than 4,000 episodes, built multiple revenue streams, and now runs his entire podcast empire in less than a single day per week. I have one five hour block per week and I'm done. Today on Grow the Show, JLD joins us to share how he built his own seven figure podcast and the one thing you should focus on in order to do the same. You need to be able to look in the mirror and answer one simple question. So if your podcast is actually doing that, you are going to win. So if you want podcast growth advice from one of the greatest to ever do it, stick around. I'm Kev Michael, and this is Grow the Show. John, welcome to Grow the Show. I would love for you to kick us off by giving us a little insight. I know you are often asked a lot about what you would do differently if you were starting a podcast today as compared to 2012 when you originally launched. But what I'd love to start with is what would you do the same today if you were launching a podcast? So this is what I would do the same. I would get up every day and I would put in the reps. And that's why I did a daily show, brother, because I was a bad podcaster. I was a bad communicator, facilitator of conversations, all of those things. I was not good. And I was not going to get good at that thing doing it four days per month, which everybody was doing a weekly show. And I'm like, I'm never going to get good. And if I'm not good, the show is not going to get good. So I had to just put in the reps, wake up every day and work on my craft day in day out. That's what I would do the same. Listen, back in 2012, podcasting was kind of this little geeky thing that some people were starting to catch up on, like the iPhones were kind of starting to put them out there a little bit in the world. But you know, this is before cereal. This is before other shows kind of blew things up. There's just not many people doing the podcasting thing or consuming podcasting content on a consistent basis. So I was like, you know what? It's an interesting platform. Let's get ahead of the curve and let's see where this wave takes us. It might take us right into crashing into the rocks on the beach, or it might take us to this lovely paradise island called Puerto Rico, or I've been for seven years, and I will never leave period. That's awesome. So I know when some people hear that, they're going to think, oh, well, okay, I'm doing podcasting. It's not early anymore. And it's actually kind of saturated. So how can a podcaster today actually stand out and, you know, make their show work, given that it's not 2012 where things are kind of early and you can think around a little bit. Listen, there's pros and cons to everything. There's pros to back in 2012 because there wasn't that many people doing it. So it wasn't that saturated. So you could get an audience by making some mistakes and just kind of being okay. But the cons where there weren't that many people paying attention. So you couldn't have that big-line audience where in 2023, 2024 beyond, it's like, man, podcasting is everywhere in a good way. You know, people are podcasting and they're consuming the content and they're creating the content. So there's just a lot of talk around that. You're listening to any show, you know, on streaming and people are making, you know, cracks about podcasting and about this and that. I mean, it's just now part of the culture and there's, again, pros and cons to that. So it's just very critical to sit down and say this, if I'm going to succeed in this world, and this is for your listeners that are all about podcasting, which I know is the focus, but if it's going to be with a product or a service or content creation, which of course is what podcasting is, you need to be able to look in the mirror and answer one simple question. Am I creating the number one solution to a real problem in this world? 95% of people cannot say yes to that, and that's why they are failing and will fail, because people will beat a path to the door of the number one solution to a real problem that they will have and they will ignore all of the rest of the problems, the second best solutions on to eternity because they want the best solution to their real problem. So if your podcast, if your content, if your product or service is actually doing that is creating the number one solution to a real problem in this world, you are going to win. It's only a matter of time, and if you're not, you're never going to win the level that I know you want to win at. So become the number one solution, but how the heck do you know if your podcast is the number one solution? Because you look around, you do some actual research and you look at the other shows that are creating similar solutions and you say, can I be better than them from basically day one or very soon after that? The answer is no, think guess what? You're not nitched down enough. We'll get back to the show in one second, but real quick. If you're a business owner who launched a podcast, but you're not getting the downloads, views, subscribers, or sales that you hoped for, I want you to picture this. What if instead of publishing into the void every week and seeing the same flat audience numbers with no growth and no ROI? You got expert feedback on every single episode that you published, feedback that broke down exactly what you did right and exactly what you need to change in order to grow faster. And what if after just four weeks of getting that kind of feedback, your numbers actually started to go up? Well, that's exactly what happens inside the Grow the Show Accelerator. It's a 90 day program where you're going to get one-on-one guidance on the actual episodes you publish. You learn what it takes in order to grow a podcast in today's day and age and along the way, you get feedback from an expert that guides you as you grow, all of course, so that you can grow your audience, get more leads, and make more sales. So if you'd like to chat with us to see how this could work in your business, just click the link in the description and apply. All right, back to the show. You need to have a big idea in this world and then discover the niche within that big idea that is not being fulfilled, a void that needs solving and that's where you need to go. And if it takes you going down three or four or five niches until it really hurts because you're like, man, I'm really niche down. I mean, is there even a big enough audience? Then you've got something because you can either a, be the only solution to that problem day one or b, blow the other competitors out of the water because they're not focused on that niche or they're just not doing it that well. Right. How do you currently define the niche of ELF? So back in 2012, I was the first daily podcast interviewing the world's most successful entrepreneurs that meant that I was the best daily podcast interviewing the world's most successful entrepreneurs. I was the worst. I was the only. I was providing the number one solution out of one solution, but the number one solution to a real problem in this world, which were people like me before I created the show that wanted an episode of an entrepreneur that was talking about their successes and failures and struggles and opportunities every single day, seven days a week as they were driving to work, hitting the gym, doing any number of things that they were doing. I saw that problem. I filled a void that was not being previously filled. And I'm still doing it 11 years later, 4,164 episodes later. I'm still doing that thing. And I've had the first Movers advantage and I've never given it up. And if I was to hit the reset button, start over today, I would never launch entrepreneurs on fire to be a completely different show. Frankly, probably about, you know, something to do with sleep, which is the huge focus and passion of mine right now, but really niche down into a certain area of that or maybe breathing or something along those lines that's so much more niche that I could become so expert on one area of that that I would become the best solution to that real problem that plagues so many people in this world. Yeah, fascinating. Here at Grow the Show, we say that in order, basically in order to achieve what we're talking about achieving, you want to aim to have what we call a cat one premise, category of one, which kind of sounds like that's what you're saying. You want to put yourself in a category of one to where you're either the only one, so it's like you're the best on the worst or there's just truly very, very few competition. And we say, you want to, you have a cat one premise when it is truly unique, what your show does, who it does it for and how it goes about doing it. I'm curious, would you add or change anything about the way that we say that because I'll be honest, man, I mean, I speak with dozens of partners every single week and like, this is the thing that is so hard to grasp for folks to grasp because everybody wants to be like you and have the show that just, you know, interviews all kinds of entrepreneurs through all walks of life. So what do you think about that? Do you think that's a good way to describe that? Would you change anything about that? That's exactly what I'm saying because listen, nobody wants a pale week imitation of somebody else. Nobody wants a pale week imitation of entrepreneurs on fire, a water down imitation of grow the show. What people want is an authentic true version of the content and the value that you're providing into this world. If it is the number one solution to that real problem that they're experiencing on a day to day week to week basis. I recently heard you talk about this with Pat Flynn in an episode of SPI that released a few months ago. And one of the things that you both said was, you know, a lot of people look at what we're doing, but they forget to like work hard for 10 years part, right? So what I'd love to know looking back and from where you are now, can you talk about the longevity piece? Because I know as an entrepreneur, like, after three years, you're like, what else can I do? Like, you know, there's got to be something you kind of get, we have shiny objects syndrome. You get bored, but you've been crushing this show for 10 years now. You're getting compound returns. Have you felt any urge to do something else? Was it hard for you to stay doing one show for 10 years? And if so, how did you stay on track? I've just done a lot of things. I mean, I've launched podcasters paradise, which is the number one podcast in community in the world. I've, you know, created four journals written one, traditionally, published book, you know, like I speak on stage, and I travel the world. Like, I do a lot of different things that's not entrepreneurs on fire. I run masterminds. I coach people, like, I'm able to do a lot of really cool fun things that's not specifically entrepreneurs on fire because I have created the systems in the team and the processes where I have one day per week. And in that day, by the way, it's a five hour block, where I interview seven entrepreneurs and I'm done. Me, JLD, I am done for the week. Now, my team takes over from there and does the editing and uploads the sponsorships and adds it to the media host and it creates our show notes page and promotes to show and does all the things that looks like it's a lot of work because it is a lot of work. And over time, I was doing all of that work until I was able to build what I just shared to take that over. So I am able to do what I do, have a daily podcast that makes millions of dollars a year, living on a Caribbean island called Puerto Rico. So I'm only paying a total of four percent tax while I'm doing it, working five hours one day per week on this show. Like, that took 11 years. Like, that took 11 years to get to that point. It's the initial waking up in the morning back in 2012 and being like, oh my god, I'm so bad at podcasting, but I'm going to interview seven more people today and get a little bit better. And then I'm going to do all the editing myself and learn the systems, learn how how bad I was on certain things and make micro improvements. And then over time, hire one person, then two people, then three people and build this team out and train them correctly and do all the things. And all that takes time. But for me, I'm reaping the benefits 11 years in. And I've actually honestly been reaping the benefits, you know, for really seven, six, five years now because we've had all these systems in place for a really long time. And are we on cruise control in a way? Am I still trying to personally improve and try and taste new things in some ways? But in the day, like, we've hit our groove and we're really happy with that. And that can happen when you're willing to get up and put in the reps on that consistent basis. And again, I just took an early lead when it came to what I do. And I've never relinquished it. Have you systemized the growth and really maintenance of audience? Because with the podcast, you got to keep people coming back. You know, you have to, I would imagine at your size, work to get people who might have, they might have listened to EOF in 2016. You got to keep bringing them back into the fold, right? Like do you have systems for that? Yeah, you know, it's a process. And you know, that's why, you know, we integrate every part of our system, whether it be our email or social media, all the facets of what we've grown over the years, we try to continue to keep people excited about, you know, remaining listeners as well as grow and get new listeners to because people are always going to cycle and cycle out. And, you know, people are going to get a lot out of entrepreneurs on fire for a certain time frame of their life. And then maybe they've gone on to something more niche or they've graduated to another level or maybe they've gone back to something that's not entrepreneurship. So that's one of the reasons why I was a node brainer back in 2021, for us to join the HubSpot podcast network and, you know, join all these great podcasts like Jenna Koocher, Amy Porterfield, Donald Miller, John Jantz. And just be able to co-promote each other's shows because that's one of the things that we do in the HubSpot podcast network is I have pre-rolls every day that's promoting another show in the network telling my audience about their shows and their telling their audiences about my shows and that co-promotion is really cool to get involved in getting in front of other newer audiences because it is that. It's always looking to say, how can I just expand the brand, expand the reach if a thousand people can hear about the show, you know, maybe five, maybe 50 of those thousand people will give it a listen and maybe two, maybe 30 of those, you know, 50 are actually going to become subscribers and daily listeners, but it all adds up. The Grow the Show community across the board when I said, hey, friends, what do you want to hear from JLD? Like, what do you want to learn? I was a little surprised by this, but everybody wants to ask you about what you think about video. What I translate that to mean is that podcasters who aren't doing video right now are all asking themselves, should I be doing video? Do I need to do video? Like, is this something I have to do? So what is your take on that in the current state? I think video is fantastic. I think it's a great way to get on some incredibly meaningful platforms and to have a lot more visibility when it comes to YouTube, when it comes to LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, video, those are video platforms and there's a great audience on there that you're missing out if you're doing an audio only show. What I have been able to do 11 years and 4164 episodes if I was doing a video podcast, absolutely not. I would have burned out. I would not have been able to do it. It's just so much more energy in bandwidth to do a video show. If I was doing a show one day a week, two days a week, I would absolutely be doing video. And, you know, if I launch a second show and I'm actually thinking of some concepts right now, it will be a video show because it won't be a daily show. So it would be a video show because I would want to leverage those amazing platforms that I mentioned. So I love video. I think it's great. Not everybody's as good looking as you, but still we can do it. Haha, get out of here. So do you think that then somebody who decides I'm not doing video? Like, it sounds like you're saying they should consider doing daily. Is that what you're saying? I mean, listen, did Kobe Bryant practice basketball four days a month? No, people that became great at something got up every day and did that thing. They put in the reps. That's the only way that I got good at podcasting, good at communicating, good at speaking, good at facilitating conversations, was because I got up every day and put in the reps. So if you want to create a craft and become good at your craft, then you got to put in the work. I'm not saying you need to do a daily podcast, but you better be working at your craft every single day. Like for me, I'm trying to become better at cornhole. I don't go and play a cornhole game every single day, but I like to get out and throw some bags every single day to practice. So think about that. Awesome. John, thank you so much for joining us here on Greta show this rock. If you liked this episode with John Lee Dumas, then definitely check out my episode with Pat Flynn. Pat is another podcasting OG who has built a massive business around his show. And in our episode, he breaks down what you should do if you want your podcast to grow today. So check out that episode somewhere around here and of course, make sure you're subscribed to grow the show.