Episode 016 – Dustin Lien

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Richard Matthews  

Hello, and welcome back to The HERO Show.

 

My name is Richard Matthews. I’m here today with Dustin Lien.

 

Dustin. Are you there?

 

Dustin Lien  

I’m here.

 

Richard Matthews  

Awesome. Glad to have you here. So, Dustin does a number of things.

 

We were chatting a little bit before we got online.

 

He specializes–he’s got a podcast that specializes in

 

personal development for entrepreneurs.

 

What’s the name of that podcast, Dustin?

 

Dustin Lien  

That’s called Unleashed With Dustin Lien.

 

Richard Matthews  

Unleashed. So we’ll probably talk a little about that

 

you also run a marketing agency called a Jump Influence that focuses on

 

the E-commerce space. So we’ll probably talk a little bit about that today.

 

And you also mentioned you got a supplement company that

 

you just got off the ground. So lots of cool stuff that you do.

 

And also you said you preach on the weekends, which is cool.

 

Actually, we share that in common as well. I went to a Bible college.

 

I think that probably informs a lot of our marketing

 

and other things that we do so it’s pretty cool. So my first question for you, Dustin…

 

as you know, the show is called The HERO Show.

 

And we basically look at entrepreneurs in the light of being

 

modern-day heroes. And we’re looking to sort of pull back the mask

 

and take a look at your story. Sort of, your origin story.

 

So what I want to do is start off with what you’re known for today. Right?

 

So if someone is thinking of Dustin…Dustin Lien,

 

what is it that you’re known for that other people seek you out

 

to help them solve their problems. What do they come to Dustin for?

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah. Gosh, I would say

 

the people that know me most likely know me for my work in the marketing world.

 

As you mentioned, I own a marketing agency called Jump Influence.

 

And we do e-commerce marketing primarily in the health and fitness space.

 

And kind of before getting…before turning that into an agency,

 

I was doing more independent consulting. I was doing that for a couple of years for

 

for pretty big social media influencers in the fitness space. So I was helping them

 

to take their giant audiences and kind of figure out how do they build

 

a real business out of that, as opposed to just having people that

 

follow them on Instagram or YouTube or wherever.

 

And how do they take that audience and create a service or a product

 

that they can monetize and build a business out of?

 

So that’s probably where most people would know me from is that kind of phase.

 

And then, about midway through 2018, last year,

 

I pivoted into an actual agency. And now we’ve got you know,

 

a little team of four people right now.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, you’re still doing the same kind of thing where

 

you’re helping influencers either build products or sell products online

 

and you’re helping them do – I assume, sort of like whole kit and caboodle.

 

The development sales and marketing for their products?

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, so we have a we have kind of two arms of the business right now.

 

One arm is more for influencers that are getting their products

 

off the ground. And then the other arm is for health and fitness consumer products

 

that are already established. Like VC-funded startups or companies that have

 

are already pushing the seven-figure mark.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah.

 

Dustin Lien  

And we’ll work on building out their…

 

You know, we’ll do the email marketing, SEO, social media advertising,

 

all that kind of stuff, we kind of help them structure

 

and build out their marketing strategy,

 

and then we help them execute it almost like a almost like the role of a CMO.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, that makes sense. So do you guys have any of your own products?

 

Or are they all products from clients?

 

Dustin Lien  

Like you mean, like internal products that we launched?

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, like you’ve launched yourselves?

 

Dustin Lien  

No, not right now we have…

 

There are some courses and stuff we’ve done in the past.

 

But as far as like physical products, or anything like that,

 

we’re 100% focused on clients.

 

Richard Matthews  

Makes sense. Cool. Okay, so that’s what you’re doing.

 

Now, the next thing is basically I wanna go back to the beginning.

 

Your origin story, right? And I say everyone here, every hero has one.

 

And it’s where you started to realize that maybe you were different

 

that maybe you had what we call superpowers, right?

 

Maybe you could use them to help other people

 

where you started to develop or discover the value

 

that you can bring to the world, take us back to the beginning

 

and how you sort of got into this entrepreneur journey.

 

Dustin Lien  

Oh, boy, let’s see…

 

My story is very nonlinear, which probably most people’s story is,

 

I would imagine. But for me, the entrepreneurial thing started

 

probably in 2011, 2012,

 

right when I was graduating college,

 

I graduated in 2011 and I remember having this moment of like

 

I was standing in a DC shoes, because I was a supervisor to DC shoes during college.

 

And I remember standing in there. And it just kind of hit me that

 

was graduating in a couple of months.

 

And I had to like actually go do stuff like I had to go get a job.

 

And I had to go work for people and like, try hard and stuff.

 

I’m not against hard work, obviously. But it all hit me like school is pretty easy.

 

If you care minimally about the outcome of school, other than, like, like,

 

Richard Matthews  

there’s a lot of safety net there, you don’t have to really worry too much.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, and it’s funny how, like, people don’t really have that much expectation of you

 

when you’re in school. It’s like, like, “Oh, he’s in school, or she’s in school.”

 

And that’s just it. So you can kind of do whatever you want, as long as you’re in school.

 

But then all the expectations start flooding in, right when you graduate.

 

It’s like you get bombarded with the questions of like,

 

“Oh, are you applying for jobs? What career are you going into?”

 

“What are you going to do? Are you getting hired?”

 

Just all these things. And so I had this moment of like, “Oh, crap.”

 

Richard Matthews  

And if your parents or anything like mine, it’s like

 

“When are you getting married and having kids…”

 

“…and starting a family and buying a house…”

 

…and like all the other things that go along with it. You’re an adult now, like…

 

Dustin Lien  

Like 22, like, boom!

 

That’s it. Like, now you’re just, like, this path you’re supposed to follow.

 

And so I started realizing that entrepreneurship might be more what I’m built for.

 

And so a couple of buddies of mine, I met up at a dive bar after work one day,

 

and we just sat down and started talking like, what can we do?

 

What can we build together? And we started this T-Shirt company

 

where we made Xero T-Shirts and sold Xero T-Shirts.

 

Richard Matthews  

Oh, that’s a successful company right now. Right? Yep.

 

Dustin Lien  

We got–we fell in the trap of

 

the fun of building something creatively,

 

but we forgot about the execution part.

 

Richard Matthews  

To actually like deliver product.

 

Dustin Lien  

It’s the biggest trap for new entrepreneurs,

 

is getting excited about the logo, the website, the you know,

 

for us, the T shirt designs, the excitement of meeting together

 

and talking about our dreams. But we did so much of that

 

we burned ourselves out and forgot to execute.

 

And it killed it. And that was kind of my first business failure

 

was right out of college, trying to do this,

 

this thing I had big hopes for but realized that I wasn’t ready for

 

the actual work it takes to build a company.

 

And from there, one of the guys that was in that trio with me,

 

we kind of branched off and started doing some freelance work for clients,

 

because I was a graphic designer, and he was a marketer.

 

And so we kind of just started taking it slow,

 

I ended up taking a job and marketing at this magazine company

 

for about a little over a year. And I use that as time to just

 

hone my skills more actually learn how a company runs.

 

And then on the side on nights and weekends,

 

my friend and I were we had this kind of little freelance agency going,

 

where we started helping out some family friends

 

and anyone we could get our hands on to help with graphic design

 

and marketing that was kind of the origin of that.

 

It’s so just scrapes the surface of of the journey,

 

because that company ended up failing, too.

 

But that’s kind of how it all got started for me.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, so it was it was like a series of experiments

 

and like learning what to do. Yes, it’s interesting.

 

You mentioned before we got on the line…we have some parallels,

 

that’s kind of the way my stuff went, like I got started in college with

 

a network marketing company, and you realize, you know,

 

we sold a whole bunch of stuff through the network marketing company,

 

build a big team, and then realize that like, you know,

 

your entire success is dependent on someone else’s effort.

 

And you’re not in control of your own destiny. And like, lost all of that,

 

because other people didn’t want to do the work for it,

 

which I realized was a bad idea. So I started my own consulting firm

 

using all the stuff that we had done. And mine wasn’t a execution problem.

 

Mine was a confidence problem where I wasn’t asking enough money for

 

the services I was providing, and thus couldn’t both afford to service clients

 

and market for new ones. So I starved myself

 

I ended up having to I actually took a job at one point,

 

it’s a fun story we could get into later at some point…

 

but I took a job, got a C-level marketing position

 

and got to control a couple of hundred-thousand dollar per month

 

of marketing budget and 10 X to company over a couple of years.

 

I gave myself the confidence I needed to go back out there

 

and actually like crush it for people. But yeah, it’s interesting,

 

because you’re like, “I’m ready to be an entrepreneur”

 

and you go out and you dive in and like getting…

 

you’re throwing yourself in the deep end. And then you’re like,

 

“Oh crap, I forgot to learn how to swim first.”

 

Dustin Lien  

Exactly!

 

there’s like…I think there are some people who are pure-bred entrepreneurs

 

and configure like it just have it in their blood.

 

I don’t think that’s me. I think I love the idea of entrepreneurship.

 

But I jumped in before learning the skills I needed to actually succeed,

 

or even networking enough to succeed was a big one for me.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. And then you have to learn those skills as you go.

 

And you just have to accept the…Accept the failures as you move along.

 

I think one of the things that sets people who are successful as

 

entrepreneurs apart, though, is that ability to realize that,

 

“Hey, we’re failing here, learn something from it, get up and move on.”

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, yeah, I think there’s, there’s a lot of like, like,

 

starting starting a business is very emotional.

 

As you know, you have a lot emotions riding on it.

 

Especially when you’re, you know, you’re at a job you don’t want to be at

 

or you’re doing something you don’t want to be doing.

 

You put so much pressure on your entrepreneurial endeavor

 

making it because you’re like, people are trying to make sure that

 

they can pull themselves out of something they hate.

 

So they’re almost using, at least that’s what I did.

 

I was using my entrepreneurial future as a way to save me from

 

doing jobs I didn’t like, but I actually think that’s the wrong way to look at it.

 

And I think it was detrimental. For me. I think if you’re trying,

 

if your biggest reason for starting a business is to stop,

 

stop doing something you’re currently doing like a job.

 

There’s also other options, like go get a different job you like more.

 

Okay, I think it’s less work. It really is. It’s like,

 

I’m not sure I would have gone the same path had I known.

 

I think I would still be an entrepreneur,

 

but I don’t know if I would have gone the same path.

 

If I had known how much work it was going to take to actually get.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. And like, you know, hindsight 20/20… looking back on it.

 

My my reason was because I wanted to hit a certain income level

 

by the time I was 30. I missed it by three years. But I did hit it at like 33,

 

which is great. But that was the reason I was building a business.

 

And I realized along the way that it was the wrong reason to build a business.

 

The real reason to build a business is because

 

you have found or have developed a solution to a problem for people

 

and you want to actually help those people solve that problem.

 

And the money is a result of that.

 

It’s not the thing that you’re you’re building.

 

And the reason I missed my date was because I didn’t get that piece

 

for the wrong reasons. And once you sort of flip that switch,

 

it’s amazing how quickly you go from like,

 

like now I’m actually building a business the right way

 

and for the right reasons. So that’s super cool.

 

Dustin Lien  

That’s the difference between selfless ambition, for other people,

 

and selfish ambition. I think selfish ambition almost always loses.

 

Because you’re not thinking about the people you’re helping

 

you’re thinking about how you can get more for yourself.

 

And so you start making decisions based on how you can take more,

 

instead of how you can give more

 

flips the trajectory of how much money you’re actually bringing in because

 

the more people you help, the more money you bring in.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, and you can, you know, like one of the goals in my life was

 

to have more time freedom. And you realize when you’re like building the business,

 

that if you make the decisions on how can I serve these people at a higher level,

 

one of the things you have to do is pull yourself out of the processes.

 

And so the end result of that is you end up having more time to

 

put towards other things. Right? So it’s like when you actually change it from like,

 

I’m trying to not do as much work to I need to do the work the right way.

 

So that I’m, you know, hope that I get Yep.

 

The better results come when you think about the person you’re serving.

 

So that’s really powerful lesson that I hope people can pick up from this.

 

So next question, from your origin story is your superpower, right?

 

If you had to narrow down right, what is it that you do or build

 

or offer this world that helps solve problems for other people,

 

it’s the things that you do or things that you use to help slay your clients,

 

villains… “villains”, so to speak.

 

Dustin Lien  

I think

 

the biggest one for me is probably empathy.

 

At Jump Influence, like we’re, you know, we help consumer brands.

 

And if I oversimplify it, it seems like, you know,

 

any marketing agency is literally just doing client work, right,

 

you’re just doing work other people don’t know how to do or don’t want to do.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, I don’t have time to do it, I want to hire someone else to do that.

 

Dustin Lien  

Right. And so it’s kind of like the baseline and like what it is,

 

but when I think about why I started and why I work with

 

the type of clients I work with, and why I started the type of agency I did.

 

Really what I believe in is helping people scale their mission to

 

helping other business owners or, you know,

 

people who work in those businesses and believe in those missions,

 

I want to believe in that mission as strongly as they do.

 

So that I can help them scale.

 

Richard Matthews  

Really cool.

 

Dustin Lien  

Like we live in an era right now where like,

 

internet is literally fully up and running, or I guess here in America at least.

 

But that it gives us such an incredible opportunity to create unique careers

 

and businesses that we find actual purpose in.

 

And that we can help other people with. And it’s an amazing gift.

 

And something I’ve been getting pretty good at is,

 

I think it’s a natural thing for me,

 

but I’ve been working on it as well as just trying to understand

 

where other people are coming from, and attempting to feel what they feel.

 

And as an agency owner, I want to tap into that empathy,

 

and really feel what that company’s mission is,

 

so that I can embody it while working on their marketing strategy,

 

and actually help them fulfill their mission.

 

And that gives me a lot of purpose.

 

So I think now, empathy is really a superpower.

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s really cool. It’s actually it’s a common theme here in our discussion

 

at my agency where we work with expert brands.

 

The reason I do it is actually the same thing, right?

 

The words, I use are it’s “My ripple effect.” right?

 

Where I have a large amount of influential leverage,

 

because I have a handful of clients.

 

And my handful of clients reached thousands upon thousands,

 

with their message to improve their lives with stuff like that.

 

And one of the things that like, as I’ve gotten better and bigger

 

and stronger in my space, I get to be more choosy with my clients.

 

And one of my, I don’t know, the cannons,

 

right the things that I measure my clients by whether or not I’ll say

 

yes to them as if I believe in what they’re teaching and what they’re doing.

 

So anyways, that’s a

 

really, that’s a cool thing. Like,

 

Dustin Lien  

I think it’s so important to…

 

as marketers to pay attention to the type of work we’re doing.

 

Because marketing is a weapon,

 

and it can be used for good or bad. It You know, there’s a lot of…

 

a lot of companies that make a lot of money with zero integrity,

 

they’re hurting people, they’re scamming people.

 

Their products are, you know, the claims they make are false and fake.

 

They didn’t do enough due diligence with something to see

 

if it’s actually working or not. I mean,

 

we see these stories all the time with people getting scammed and

 

businesses that are claiming to be real but aren’t;

 

and taking people’s money. There’s all kinds of stuff and as marketers,

 

we can really, we can really mess up a lot of people’s

 

day to day lives if we’re not careful who we’re helping scale.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, and what I tell all of my clients that…

 

I tell my children regularly too…is that persuasion is a neutral tool.

 

And when you use persuasion, for the benefit of the other person,

 

we call that leadership. And if you use it for the benefit of yourself,

 

we call that manipulation.

 

Dustin Lien  

That’s  really good.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, so that’s my, that’s my rule of thumb.

 

And marketing is just a another name for persuasion. Right?

 

We’re using different mediums to affect persuasion in people’s lives.

 

And it’s such a such a powerful thing that we have to think about and,

 

you know, to our earlier points, when you’re building a business

 

that’s focused on the end consumer,

 

to make sure the thing that you’re actually selling

 

and delivering to them is as valuable as the message

 

and the marketing that you’re using to deliver it with.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yep, hundred percent.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. Cool. So other side of your superpower?

 

This one of my favorite questions is your fatal flaw. Right?

 

So Superman has his kryptonite, Batman’s not actually super. Right?

 

If you could narrow down what would you say you have is your fatal flaw?

 

And more importantly, what have you done over the course of your

 

entrepreneurial career to help sort of correct that or work with it?

 

Dustin Lien  

That’s a good question.

 

I think my kryptonite is probably my overactive brain.

 

That’s not a humble brag.

 

Not saying it’s smart. What I mean, is that,

 

very often I find myself becoming anxious about things in the future,

 

I’m thinking about or getting distracted by trying to solve problems

 

that aren’t even problems yet. I can get pulled off course,

 

really easily if I’m not careful.

 

Richard Matthews  

What do you do to help? What do you do to help sort of,

 

you know, mitigate that because I know that’s actually

 

a pretty common problem. I’ve talked to a number of people who will talk

 

and I actually deal with that myself to where it’s like,

 

you’re thinking about something and you’re like, oh, man,

 

I need to do this, that the other thing and you know,

 

you start making lists and plans, and then you’re like,

 

Wait a second, it’s not even something to thing yet.

 

Like, I still need to deliver over here.

 

Dustin Lien  

Right? Yeah, there’s so much, like,

 

will get trapped in like trying to be too proactive about

 

things that aren’t even happening. I think, like, as well,

 

honestly, it’s a big reason why I launched my new

 

supplement company earlier this year. We’re creating…

 

I know we were talking beforehand,

 

like we’re creating supplements to help people who consider themselves

 

high performers. And so really, to solve my own problem,

 

I created a product called Deep breath.

 

And it’s a supplement that supports this,

 

thank you took me a little while to get there.

 

Oh, that’s a really bad names in the beginning.

 

But you know, it helps… it supports anxiety, stress, mental energy.

 

And like short term focus.

 

So I literally just solved my problem with it by creating another product,

 

but I mean, it’s I’ve seen dramatic improvements already.

 

And just daily performance by kind of corralling my brain,

 

and being able to eliminate a lot of the distraction.

 

Yeah, but I like, even beyond supplements, like, just,

 

I struggle with it daily, still. But a lot of it for me is trying to be more organized,

 

and just be disciplined with myself. Like, you know,

 

when I make my calendar for the day,

 

I do my best to make sure that if I blocked something out, I do it.

 

When I said I was going to do it,

 

instead of like shuffling my “To do’s” all day long based on

 

how I’m feeling and what my emotions are.

 

So our emotions will lead us astray real quick.

 

Discipline will not fail you, you just have to remain disciplined.

 

So that’s been a big thing for me. I’m not naturally organized at all.

 

So just trying to get more organized,

 

and then stay disciplined to the organization.

 

Richard Matthews  

So two things that I wanted to bring up because

 

one of our other podcast guests mentioned something similar.

 

And her solution to it, I thought was really cool, you might benefit from it.

 

And she calls it… she gives herself what she calls a creative space.

 

And you know, you talked about blocking time in your calendar.

 

And she’ll actually take a two-hour chunk of her day a couple of times a week,

 

where what she’s doing is she’s just like, she just lets her brain run on those things,

 

and writes and takes notes and fills them all up

 

and just gets basically brain dumps all that stuff out.

 

Because once you’ve taken it out and put it somewhere,

 

then it’s not running around your head distracting you anymore.

 

Dustin Lien  

That’s really good.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, and she says a number of things for it, one,

 

it takes it out of your head, two,

 

some of her best creative ideas have come out of those times.

 

So you don’t necessarily want to cut off that sort of natural instinct

 

as an entrepreneur to think and plan and look at the future

 

and all sorts of things that are you know, not happening yet.

 

So give yourself permission to do that.

 

But restricted to a certain time and space that’s designed for it.

 

Dustin Lien  

I love that. I love that.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. And

 

I started doing that myself. I’ve got a got a tablet now

 

and a drawing pad. I’m taking notes and doing things on it just,

 

you know, taking myself out of my work environment and take some notes on it.

 

And you know, just let my brain dump a little bit.

 

And that’s been helping with my own thing on that.

 

The other thing I wanted to mention was I know, for another way,

 

the sort of like flaw shows up on entrepreneurs,

 

because I’ve discussed it a lot with a lot of people is the idea that

 

when you bring a product to market, there’s going to be people

 

who don’t like it, or it doesn’t fit for. Like, it’s that whole,

 

I don’t what you call it, that vacillation that people have, like,

 

“I’m going to put this out in the market.”

 

But like, people aren’t gonna like that I said this or they’re not going to,

 

you know, a certain segment of the market is not going to,

 

you know, ‘drive’ with it. Or, what about…

 

it was released–the supplement–for moms,

 

what about all the moms that don’t like supplements,

 

and one of the things I’ve had …

 

I’ve done a lot of coaching on this is like,

 

you have to realize that the people who don’t like it

 

and don’t like your thing, they’re not your market,

 

so you just need to take it out of your head and don’t worry about it.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, yep. Right. Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  

It’s like, that same type of thought where you’re vacillating

 

and worrying about things that aren’t actually problems. Right?

 

It’s not a problem that there’s a

 

whole bunch of people in the market that don’t like your product.

 

Yeah.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, I would, I would argue like,

 

if there there aren’t a lot of people who specifically don’t like it,

 

then you’re not doing a good enough job finding your target market,

 

or like marketing to your actual target because

 

we should have a pretty natural like,

 

it should be such a strong marketing push that the core people

 

you’re trying to reach love it. and everyone else doesn’t get it.

 

Richard Matthews  

And there’s like, maybe a friend on the side that hates you for having it,

 

like having developed it.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, you need to have some haters,

 

or you’re not trying hard enough.

 

Richard Matthews  

You’re not trying hard enough if you don’t have haters.

 

Anyways, that’s a I think that’s a good discussion

 

and hopefully helps some people who struggle with the same thing daily.

 

So, next question is your common enemy, right?

 

So every hero has a common enemy.

 

And the way I like to phrase this for my clients,

 

or the people I bring on the podcast here is,

 

if you could work with all of your clients,

 

and when you first met them just go in

 

and remove one thing from their life,

 

from their mindset from their thinking, that is holding them back.

 

That’s the sort of their enemy that you sort of you see all the time,

 

what would that be? And how would you remove it?

 

What would you change, I guess, about it?

 

Dustin Lien  

It would definitely be creative perfection.

 

And what I mean by that is being so caught up in unimportant details.

 

Things being creatively perfect or coming together so fluidly and perfectly.

 

Before, even before launching or even during launch of a product.

 

I think speed of implementation is really underrated.

 

And to me, that’s the most important thing

 

about getting a company off the ground or growing revenue of an existing company

 

is recognizing that speed will trump perfection every time.

 

Because when you execute quickly, you can learn a lot faster,

 

what’s working and what’s not working.

 

And I think I think people get in a fear based mindset thinking that

 

if they launch something that’s not perfect already,

 

that people are going to associate them with imperfection all the time,

 

or that like, you know, each consumer will give you one shot

 

and one shot only, which I don’t think is true.

 

So I think if I could remove anything, it would be the the need for things to be perfect.

 

Because that’s also subjective. What do you think is perfect,

 

someone else might really hate, so just getting things on the market

 

and iterating using actual data of what people are saying in the market,

 

as opposed to what you think they’re going to say

 

or what you think is correct, would solve a lot of people’s revenue problems.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, I’m like, I see that all the time, like, all the time,

 

from all sorts of different things where perfection will

 

get in the way of getting things done.

 

And it’s a problem I’ve struggled with for a number of years,

 

like I’ll spend, you know, four hours trying to get one pixel into the right spot

 

and realize that it’s not important, like, damn it,

 

I just wasted four hours doing that, like that small scale stuff.

 

But at the same time, like I’ve had a,

 

we got our supplement line launch and the first like,

 

thousand products at the wrong damn phone number on it. Right.

 

And it’s like, it doesn’t really affect anything.

 

Like, we just changed it on the next level got the order out,

 

like we don’t let perfection get in the way of delivery.

 

And I know, like one of the things that happens all the time is like,

 

we can’t send out the email until like 14 people have grammar checked it.

 

And it takes two weeks to get it checked.

 

You know, like all the time and I’m like,

 

if you have a grammar mistake,

 

send them another email that apologizes for it make another offer. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

 

Dustin Lien  

…by having a mistake,

 

Richard Matthews  

yeah. Yeah. And the clients I have that get that make more money. Right.

 

And,  they’re like, “I just can’t have the market think that I’m the kind of person

 

who would put out an email that has a grammar mistake in it.

 

Like, I can’t have that.” And I’m like, “Your audience doesn’t care.

 

Like you’re not solving a grammar problem for them.

 

Like that’s not what you sell. Right?”

 

And anyways, I totally get their creative perfection thing.

 

And if you have a solution to it, I’m totally open to hearing it.

 

Because we deal with it all the time.

 

Dustin Lien  

I think the only solution is forcing yourself to not do it.

 

Or even this might be a fun game. make a mistake on purpose,

 

and see if anyone calls you out on it or not.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. So, I have done a number of things in my own business

 

that were horribly wrong and have not ever even been noticed for

 

unless I apologize for them.

 

So like a lot of the things you think are problems really aren’t.

 

Which is interesting. And like, this is not in the same vein,

 

but a similar idea. Like, I was under the impression that

 

people didn’t care about what you wore.

 

And I didn’t like having a humongous wardrobe. Right?

 

I had like, at one point I had like 65 t shirts

 

and like 35 pair of pants cuz I was the same size from like, 16 to 30.

 

I never changed, right. So every pair of clothes I ever bought, they still fit.

 

And it bothered me that I had so many clothes

 

and had spent so much time doing laundry and all that stuff.

 

And I sat down once. I just pared my stuff down to like seven shirts

 

and seven pairs of pants and I performed a social experiment on

 

all of my people I was working with at that time…

 

Including family members. And every time I saw that person,

 

I wore the same outfit, right. And for months at a time.

 

And in six months, working with hundreds of people

 

I was working at a big company at the time,

 

I had one person notice. It was my step dad.

 

And my stepdad was like, because we had a Wednesday night dinner

 

at my mom’s house every week. And he’s like,

 

“I haven’t seen you wear a different shirt in like six months.”

 

He’s like, “Do you own another shirt?” And I was like,

 

“Actually, let me tell you about the experiment I’ve been running,

 

you’re the first person in six months even notice.”

 

So it’s not really a mistake thing. But if the idea is like,

 

people aren’t paying attention to you,

 

they’re paying attention to themselves and their own problems,

 

their own things. And the reason they’re buying from you is because

 

you’re helping them solve a problem in their life.

 

And if your message, regardless of its imperfections,

 

helps them solve that problem. That’s all they care about. Yep.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yep, that’s exactly right.

 

I love that experiment.

 

Richard Matthews  

You should totally try it. But to that point, now I have,

 

I have like three button up shirts, four t-shirts, two pairs of pants

 

and two pairs of shorts. And that’s it. It’s my entire wardrobe.

 

It fits in a backpack. I can travel the world with a backpack.

 

Dustin Lien  

That’s awesome.

 

Richard Matthews  

And I’ve been that way for years and nobody cares, right?

 

Dustin Lien  

Your life so much easier.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, it makes my life easier. Right?

 

I mean, that’s not really an entrepreneurial thing.

 

But it’s just, you know, it’s more of a minimalist thing.

 

But anyways, it’s good to point out that people don’t really care about you,

 

or your problems or your things, they care about themselves.

 

So they are the hero in their own story.

 

And your job as a marketer, and as a product developer is to be

 

their Obi-Wan; to be the one who’s coming alongside them

 

and helping them on their journey, right?

 

They’re the hero in their story and you’re the person who’s helping them.

 

If you approach your business that way, you’ll have much, much better results.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yep, yep, shine the light on them.

 

Richard Matthews  

Absolutely. Okay, so other side of the common enemy is your driving force, right?

 

So Spider-Man fights to save New York. Batman fights to save Gotham,

 

Google fights to index all of the world’s information.

 

What is your mission and tell us a little about it.

 

Dustin Lien  

I think kind of a life mission of mine.

 

And I try to weave this in with my businesses too,

 

is to help people live Unleashed. Hence the name of my podcast.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, that’s a good name too…

 

You got a trend going here of good names for your stuff.

 

Dustin Lien  

I appreciate it, I spend almost enough time thinking about them.

 

But I just think like, so many of us are bound by jobs

 

or careers we know aren’t serving us. We’re chained to poor health,

 

harmful relationships we just can’t break free from.

 

A lot of us know there’s so much more to life that we could be experiencing.

 

But we haven’t sorted through all the stuff going on in our heads,

 

and our mindset to release ourselves into those adventures that await.

 

So for me, the word Unleashed is kind of solving a few problems.

 

One is do work you love and find deep purpose.

 

And I think we all have the the opportunity to do that. And,

 

you know, whether it’s entrepreneurial or not,

 

you can find work you love to do or at least

 

you can love the work that you do.

 

And what I mean by that difference is…

 

Even if you’re not loving the actual work,

 

you can find ways to love it.

 

Whether it’s loving the people you work with,

 

loving the mission you’re standing behind,

 

even if you’re not doing the exact job function you want to be doing yet.

 

There’s ways to find love in the work that we do.

 

So that’s one thing for me that’s that’s big is loving the work that you do.

 

Richard Matthews  

Oh, go ahead.

 

I just want to say something about that real quick.

 

One of the things I’ve found that’s been really helpful for

 

just my own thinking on it. But also when I talk to clients,

 

everything is the idea that

 

passion is not generally a thing that you have to strive to find.

 

Passion is something that develops as you master things, right?

 

Yeah. So when you’re looking at the work that you’re doing

 

to your point, you can develop passion for the work you’re doing

 

by mastering the work that you’re doing.

 

Because I think mastery begets passion.

 

Dustin Lien  

I, a hundred percent agree. What’s that? What’s the book?

 

It’s Cal Newport book. Do you know what I’m talking about?

 

Richard Matthews  

I don’t

 

Dustin Lien  

not Deep Work. That’s a great book too…

 

I can’t remember (Don’t Follow Your Passion) it’s bothering me now.

 

But anyone who listened to just go look up Cal Newport.

 

He’s got a great book on the subject of what comes first: passion or expertise.

 

And that really kind of figured that lesson out.

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s cool. I didn’t know there’s a book on it. I’ll have to read it. Yeah.

 

What was the the other part of your thing before I so

 

Dustin Lien  

that’s good. Yeah. So there’s that and then

 

and then also is your, your health, taking care of your health

 

and being proactive about taking care of your health.

 

So for me that can mean your mental health, if you are dealing with depression or anxiety, or

 

just being overly stressed or overwhelmed all the time,

 

like things that need to be taken care of,

 

in order for you to be unchained from those things.

 

And that makes a big impact on business and also just life happiness in general.

 

And then, it can also mean physical health,

 

a big advocate of just daily movement,

 

you don’t have to be a bodybuilder

 

or you don’t have to go run marathons,

 

but do something multiple times a week,

 

that gets your heart rate elevated for at least 20 to 30 minutes,

 

and it makes a big difference on just hormonal release.

 

neurologically, it makes a big difference on how we think

 

and how creatively we think, and it’s a good chance to kind of renew

 

your body. Tony Robbins talks a lot like about changing your state.

 

So changing your state in order to change your mindset.

 

And so a lot of things start with the way that our body is activated.

 

So that’s a big one for me, too.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, one of the things that, you know, shameless plug here,

 

our supplement company, the pastor that’s behind it,

 

he talks about having like, you don’t have to get into, like,

 

a major workout system.

 

He’s like, what he recommends for people to do is have a,

 

like an exercise hobby, right?

 

Something that you enjoy doing, that’s fun to do.

 

Maybe it’s rock climbing at the rock climbing gym,

 

maybe it’s tennis, maybe it’s, you know, whatever it is,

 

maybe it’s riding bikes with your kids, it doesn’t have to be a…

 

“I spent 45 minutes from 5am to 5:45am in the gym, lifting weights every day.”

 

Like some people like that. But if that’s not you, it doesn’t matter.

 

Like that what matters more is the activity like actually doing something.

 

So do find a hobby, an active hobby that you can partake in and enjoy on a regular basis.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yep, hundred percent. It’s interesting, too, that they talked about,

 

like hobbies, because I think a lot more research is coming out now about

 

like, what one the discipline of being like living an active lifestyle.

 

It’s actually easier for people to remain in an active lifestyle,

 

if they are enjoying the activity, as opposed to just be in Hyperloop disciplined

 

and going to the gym, because like, of course, this one’s important,

 

but you don’t have to be that disciplined when you love doing it.

 

So if you love playing tennis,

 

and you can go do that once or twice a week,

 

you’re not gonna have to be that disciplined because you want to go do it.

 

So finding something that you enjoy that helps you be active is a more sustainable way

 

to live healthier.

 

Richard Matthews  

What’s your athletic hobby?

 

Dustin Lien  

What’s that?

 

Richard Matthews  

I said, What’s your athletic hobby?

 

Dustin Lien  

Athletic hobby? Um, mine will be basketball.

 

And then I actually do like lifting weights I’ve been doing those in high school.

 

Richard Matthews  

Min’es hiking.

 

Dustin Lien  

Ooh… Hiking is good.

 

kayaking, I’ve done a handful of times. I don’t have…

 

I don’t… Well, actually, I was about to say don’t live by water. Yes, I do.

 

Richard Matthews  

You live in LA.

 

Dustin Lien  

But it’s a lot harder to go kayaking in the ocean than

 

it is like in a marina or a lake or something.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah.

 

Dustin Lien  

I like kayaking. But I also live right next to…

 

because I live in Hollywood. I’m right next to Runyon Canyon,

 

which is a really popular hiking path. So

 

I’ll do that.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, we I said I mentioned earlier,

 

my family and I we travel the country in an RV.

 

And whenever we get a chance,

 

we like to go hike the places that we’re going to look at,

 

like, we were at the sand castle competition this week.

 

And I we walked ourselves to the point where our feet don’t…

 

like, I don’t want to walk for the next couple of days cuz I feel sore.

 

But so we do a lot of hiking,

 

where it’s not like we’re not actually hiking it that makes sense.

 

Like we didn’t go out to the day, but like, what I’m doing is I’m hiking.

 

Like, there’s things that you’re doing that you’re involved in,

 

but you’ll get, 2, 3, 4 miles of, you know of stuff going a day.

 

And it’s just part of part of life, which I think makes makes for

 

having an active lifestyle and keeping your mind sort of fresh

 

when you get back to work a lot easier.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yep, yep, totally.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah.

 

Dustin Lien  

RV life. That’s…

 

Richard Matthews  

super cool. So we’ll be in LA in a couple of like a month

 

and a half. I’d love to stop by and say “Hi.”, have coffee or something.

 

Dustin Lien  

Please, please let me know.

 

Richard Matthews  

So next question is your Hero’s tool belt, right?

 

Maybe have a big magical hammer like Thor or a bulletproof vest,

 

like our neighborhood police officer.

 

Or maybe you just really love how Evernote helps you organize your thoughts?

 

Or you know, how you build killer slides in Keynote or something?

 

Do you have any particular tools?

 

Be them digital tools or physical tools that you use

 

to make the work you do more effortless?

 

Dustin Lien  

Yes, it’s a great question. One for me is  Todoist.

 

It’s a project management tool. It’s very simple, though.

 

I’ve used a handful of different project management tools just for you know,

 

to keep track of tasks and stuff with the team and personally.

 

But Todoist, for me has been big, because I just like things simple.

 

And it doesn’t really have a lot of bells and whistles,

 

which I actually like. It forces me to simplify my process.

 

So that’s been a big one for me.

 

Google Docs, that’s probably a really common one.

 

But I think it’s worth mentioning because it’s so well…

 

It’s so like, largely used that people almost write it off as a given.

 

But that just attests to the fact that it’s a great tool.

 

Richard Matthews  

It’s so potent too… like, we do crazy stuff with

 

Google Docs like crazy, crazy stuff with it,

 

where it’s like, we have, you know,

 

we’ll create a shared client folder and when the client will create a video,

 

and we tell them that, you know, dropping into the shared video.

 

And we can build automated processes that like look for new files

 

and create tasks in our task management system

 

and automatically assign them out to individuals or other machines.

 

And like, Google Docs, or Google Drive is like the backbone of like,

 

robots that make our services happen.

 

Dustin Lien  

That’s so easy…

 

Richard Matthews  

yeah, like people write it off. But it’s like, it’s,

 

I don’t know what I would do in my business without it.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, it would just be like a string of random like Microsoft Word

 

and Excel sheets floating around emails, and it’d be a mess.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, yeah. And like for the price, they charge for it, I think, what is it?

 

We pay, like $6 a month per user? Yeah. So we’re a small team,

 

we’re talking like 20 bucks a month and best 20 bucks a month

 

we spend every month?

 

Dustin Lien  

It’s so good. Yeah, we like we use it pretty exclusively too.

 

Let’s see what else do I use? I use Zoom. It’s really good.

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s where we’re at now.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yep, I use it for all my team is 100% remote.

 

So we do all of our team meetings over zoom all client meetings,

 

are over zoom, I like to do face to face that way.

 

So that’s, that’s a huge one.

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s actually… it’s really amazing.

 

To me, that’s like one of the things that, you know,

 

we went and got on the road a couple of years ago

 

and started traveling, and I run an agency

 

and I have clients all over the country.

 

And it’s tools like Zoom that allow that to feel very natural. Right,

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  

I meet face to face with clients every day.

 

And all of my clients know that I travel.

 

So it’s cool, I can show them where we’re at and what we’re doing.

 

And it’s like we’re across the table from each other.

 

And they sort of get to enjoy our adventures.

 

I helped them build their businesses and stuff like that.

 

And it’s because of tools like Zoom that allows us to live the lifestyle that we live.

 

It also allows us to build this type of business.

 

And I don’t think we a lot of times will take stuff like that for granted.

 

ut realize that like they didn’t exist five years ago.

 

Dustin Lien  

Isn’t that crazy? I just like, like when I when I sit and think about it,

 

it blows my mind, how much free or cheap tools exist,

 

that you can literally run a business.

 

Like you can run an entire business for like 50 bucks a month.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah.

 

In like tools expenses, like you’re not counting how much you pay employees

 

and whatnot. But yeah, the, like, the the amount of money we spend on tools

 

on a monthly basis is just ridiculously small.

 

And it’s interesting because you can, and with freemium models,

 

and with, you know, things that scale as you grow, you know,

 

like we use Active Campaign a lot and Active Campaign for my clients,

 

it starts out at like, $9 a month. And so like, I’m telling, like,

 

you should get this tool, that tool, the other tool.

 

They’re like, “Oh, that sounds like a lot of stuff”. I’m like,

 

“Yeah, it comes up to like 30 bucks a month”. They’re like, “Oh”.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah.

 

Exactly.

 

Richard Matthews  

yeah. And then we’ll use tools like that

 

and grow a revenue stream to six or seven figures over the course of a year.

 

And you know, some of those tools… as you scale, they get more expensive.

 

But like, even still, like you’re spending a couple hundred bucks a month

 

at the highest end, or tools that are are sustaining a seven-figure business.

 

Which is just ridiculous for me?

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like, Yeah, I like a lot of the SAS companies how they do it,

 

where as you get more users or you know, for like an email list or something,

 

it scales how much you have to pay, but it’s also your business

 

and scaling at a more rapid rate. So I feel it’s just part of your business.

 

Richard Matthews  

it’s just part of your business. And what’s interesting about that is like,

 

I know, you know, cuz I’ve been doing this long enough to, you know,

 

where businesses didn’t do that, where it’s like,

 

“Man, I really need to have an automation system.”

 

And the automation system… it’s 1000 bucks, and you’re like,

 

“I can’t afford 1000 bucks, I don’t have any revenue, right?”

 

I can afford it for one month, plop it down, and then you’re like,

 

Okay, I didn’t make sales this month. That’s it businesses over …

 

you can afford for a while, skip a couple of coffees now

 

and then you can pay for your business and scale it up

 

and grow as you go. Anyway, I think that it’s really interesting that,

 

you know, a lot of these tools have just become so ubiquitous,

 

you know, like Google Drive and zoom and things like it.

 

Active Campaign… that you can grow a really big business

 

and a lot of spaces everything from like we run

 

information businesses all over the place.

 

We got a physical product brands in several different spaces.

 

You’ve got a physical product brand, the tool stack doesn’t really change.

 

Dustin Lien  

No, yeah. Yeah. Same stuff across everything.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, I was like, unless you’re getting into some more specialized stuff,

 

like if you’re selling food at a restaurant,

 

obviously need to kitchen but like, you know,

 

a lot of the stuff that we’re doing online,

 

the same tool stack will help you do pretty much whatever you want,

 

which I think is really fascinating.

 

Dustin Lien  

Pretty powerful. Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  

Okay, so moving on a little bit on our conversation,

 

your own personal heroes. So we talked about this earlier.

 

Frodo has Gandalf. Luke has Obi-Wan.

 

Robert Kiyosaki had his rich dad, who are some of your heroes?

 

Were they real-life mentors? Were they speakers or authors?

 

Were they peers that were just a few years ahead of you?

 

And how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far?

 

Dustin Lien  

there been a lot of people who have contributed to

 

helping me get where I am right now.

 

I’ll just highlight one that I think was

 

probably most influential for me.

 

He started off as just someone I was reading his stuff online

 

and watch and I was reading his blogs and his email list

 

and then watching him, do his business stuff

 

and then eventually randomly met him.

 

And now he’s been a friend and mentor for about four years.

 

But his his name is Noah. Noah Kagan,

 

he runs Sumo.com and AppSumo.

 

Richard Matthews  

Oh, yeah. And I know of him.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, he’s such a good guy. And he,

 

I credit him a lot with with getting getting me off the ground.

 

And for, you know, I think I said started following his work online, around 2013 or 2014,

 

something like that. And I just admired the way he did things

 

I admired the way he was so conversational.

 

And the way he talked to his audience and the way he you know,

 

when he’s building these software companies and stuff.

 

He really does a good job of including the customer on the features

 

and asking them what they actually want,

 

instead of trying to do everything himself,

 

and then force it on people hoping there are customers.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah.

 

Dustin Lien  

I learned a lot of lessons from him just from afar.

 

And then I had a random chance at meeting him a couple years

 

after I had been following him

 

and then tried to not be a total creeper after meeting him,

 

and fangirl over him too much, but.

 

And then we were friends for a couple years,

 

and then an opportunity came up to work together a little bit.

 

And we did that. And then he invested a little bit in

 

one of my first businesses and ever since then I’d,

 

still every every single Monday for

 

as long as I can remember, we have a little check in,

 

I just sent him I sent him an accountability list of what my goal is

 

for the month for revenue where we’re currently at

 

and what we’re working on, to get there every Monday,

 

and sometimes he’ll respond, sometimes he

 

gives me ideas, and sometimes it’s just a thumbs up to be accountable to somebody.

 

So he’s been a huge part of it. For me.

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s really awesome. And I think there’s actually some good points there

 

for other people who are looking for mentors that, you know,

 

mentors can provide accountability.

 

And then that sometimes, people who are I think,

 

I don’t know what the word is, but people who are…

 

that we look up to as being more successful than we are,

 

aren’t always they’re not unapproachable.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, right.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. It’s that, whole, what do you call it that, uh,

 

that like game theory… that you know,

 

the speed dating thing or whatever it is where you go out and like,

 

you learn to pick up chicks or something like that,

 

that 10 in the bar is the one who never gets approached

 

because everyone thinks she’s unapproachable.

 

A lot of people in business are like that,

 

he might be famous or be successful or something like that.

 

But he’s a normal guy, like, you were me, right?

 

He’s probably got a wife and a kids, he runs a business like it.

 

He’s a normal guy, he eats and sleeps and poops like everyone else.

 

And if you are a normal person to them, a lot of times,

 

they’re like, I’ve met a number of mentors that way

 

by just being normal to them and providing value or, you know…

 

and anyways, it’s just that my point is that not every, you know…

 

just because someone’s more successful than you

 

doesn’t mean they’re unapproachable.

 

And obviously things like that can turn into a long term,

 

mentoring relationships to help you grow your business.

 

So you know, don’t be afraid to reach out and talk to the people that you admire.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, I think that’s, that’s good advice. And it’s like, yeah,

 

I think a lot of times, people, I like your point about being normal to them.

 

That’s really important. Because there’s nothing weirder than

 

getting like an email from someone who’s like overly zealous or desperate.

 

Yeah, it’s like more than anything, you just get confused about what to do

 

or how to help them because it’s so like, like, frazzled.

 

But I don’t think I’m probably not in any position to be someone’s mentor.

 

But when people reach out to ask for help or advice on something,

 

if they just mentioned like, “Hey, I heard I listened to your podcast,

 

and I liked what you say about this.

 

Here’s my situation, do you have any ideas?

 

If not, that’s fine, too.” Just something as simple as that,

 

to where I know, they have some kind of buy-in to my work,

 

or they’re just being normal and nice,

 

it’s a lot easier for me to take 10 minutes

 

and write an email back and say, yeah,

 

I’ve been in that situation before, here’s what I recommend.

 

As opposed to someone overly like,

 

“You’re the best person I’ve ever seen in my life.

 

And I love you so much. And I’ve been stalking you for eight years.”

 

like those are like a little bit much,

 

but on someone can just be equally as approachable.

 

And just kind of make men to human,

 

no one’s better than anyone else kind of connection makes it a lot easier.

 

Richard Matthews  

But like, I know, one of the things that I’ve done pretty strategically

 

in my my business career is I’ve used that whole idea that

 

other people are just normal people.

 

And when you put work out to the world,

 

you appreciate when other people appreciate it.

 

So like I had a mentor of mine who had been, you know,

 

just like an online mentor for a number of years.

 

And I wanted to get to a point where you know,

 

he’d take my phone call at some point if I ever wanted it to.

 

So I started buying all of his products that he put out and,

 

you know, on the side, just implementing them

 

and getting results from them and just reporting back to his public groups,

 

like, hey, bought this product, did these things got these results did that for

 

a number of years, until he reached out to me and he’s like,

 

“You get results for everything I put out.” He’s like, “I’d like to talk to you.”

 

Right and fast forward. And I’m, yeah, fast forward a number of years.

 

He’s been a client of mine, I’ve been a client of his for a number of years.

 

If I picked up the phone and call him he would answer it. Right?

 

We’ve been out to dinner together, right?

 

He’s he’s met my family, that kind of thing.

 

Like, because he’s a normal person, he’s a normal guy, like you were me.

 

And, you know, that’s how you know, relationships are built.

 

So anyways, it’s an important thing to think about,

 

especially if you’re playing this entrepreneur game,

 

is having someone who’s farther down the line than you, right

 

is almost vital, right? Because it’s a whole, like, you have to surround yourself

 

with people who are going to push you a little bit.

 

And that’s not just going to happen, right?

 

You’re not just going to magically get surrounded by people who are

 

farther along than you, you have to actually try and put yourself out there

 

and attempt to build those relationships.

 

Because that’s what’s gonna help you grow your business.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yep, yep. And I think I think sometimes we can get lucky

 

and get free help. But a lot of times, the easiest way for access is to pay for it.

 

Like you said, like I buy the products and report back,

 

show a little bit of buy-in to get… it’s just natural.

 

You know, a lot of people… I’m sure it’s the same way for you.

 

When people reach out to you about about coaching them,

 

you probably get a lot of people asking for help a lot of inquiries like

 

there’s only so much time in a day

 

and so much attention you have for you to respond to someone who says,

 

“Hey, I bought this thing from you.” or

 

“Hey, I left the review on iTunes for your podcast.” yeah, whatever

 

something to where you can kind of give them like, it’s not even like,

 

though you have to earn it kind of thing.

 

It’s just literally supply and demand of getting in front of somebody.

 

And then being willing to like… it took me a long time to realize

 

the benefit of actually paying for a business coach.

 

And I wish I would have done it faster.

 

Because every time I’ve done it, I’ve gotten exponential results.

 

And it’s not always like… I feel like people a lot of times are

 

looking for a savior, when they hire a business coach,

 

and they’re looking for all their problems to be solved.

 

That’s not really how it works. It’s more, you’re getting perspective.

 

And you’re getting perspective from someone who has been where

 

you’re trying to get to, or, you know, they’ve been where you are now

 

and where you’re trying to get to.

 

And so being able to get that just a little nugget of perspective sometimes

 

is all it takes to really launch

 

Richard Matthews  

… and sometimes they’re like really little nuggets.

 

Like, one of my favorite stories. This point is actually…

 

it’s not a success story for me, like it’s sort of a success story.

 

But it’s kind of a success failure story, I had a client of mine,

 

who back when I was not as confident in my abilities.

 

So I didn’t ask for money like he asked me to help him with a webinar.

 

And I specialize in helping people write webinars that sell

 

and do a really good job with that.

 

And I charged him $500 to help him write his webinar

 

and host his webinar and put all the sales messages together

 

and sold $112,000 worth of information off of it.

 

and all that kind of stuff. And then we promptly went around

 

And we did it again six weeks later, and I charged him $500

 

and we made another $150,000 we did a quarter million dollars in sales in six weeks.

 

He paid me $1,000 for that, which I don’t have a problem with that.

 

That’s what I asked him for. And he paid it. Right.

 

Dustin Lien  

Right.

 

Richard Matthews  

But I realized pretty quickly that I was like I need to do something different.

 

And I went around, and I hired a business coach for six grand, right $6,000.

 

And I went It was like a six week training course with him.

 

But essentially, I learned one thing from it.

 

And the one thing I learned was like charge more.

 

And it wasn’t just a… you know, charge more because you should charge more.

 

It was charged more because you can deliver results

 

that are commiserate with the charging of more money

 

and you can deliver a better experience, right,

 

you can deliver faster, you can deliver a more

 

higher level of service to your customers,

 

if you charge more, and you’ll be able to have funds to continue growing as well.

 

And it was one of those, like, it was such a small lesson that like…

 

you feel like you’d be smart enough to pick up on that on your own.

 

But sometimes you just need to pay someone else to kick you in the ass

 

and be like, “Stop being stupid. You know the answer, just do it.”

 

Dustin Lien  

It’s literally sometimes I feel like

 

like I’ve been going through like

 

a marketing agency growth coach situation in the past like,

 

seven weeks now it’s like a 12 week program.

 

I’ve been going through this with someone who’s you know,

 

already built an agency far beyond my size.

 

And one of the simplest little tweaks of organizing my processes better

 

so that my employees can work faster. Even that one little thing we like,

 

we’re able to chop off some percentages.

 

And then we’re able to free up more time to pick up new clients.

 

And we doubled our monthly recurring within four weeks,

 

literally just based on like, “Hey, get your processes better.”

 

And it’s something that’s one of those things that like,

 

“Yeah, obviously I know that.” But like having someone say,

 

“Hey, do it. And I’m going to check with you next week if you did it.”

 

Yeah, having that little push makes a difference.

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s a crazy thing too. Like, there’s a lot of power in that.

 

Even just the the process bit, right. So like, I know a lot of businesses,

 

I struggled with this for a number of years.

 

I didn’t have processes anywhere except in here. And that was…

 

it was a major bottleneck and getting the processes out

 

and onto paper was and then getting them in front of other people to do

 

those processes did a whole bunch of things for our business when I was able

 

like, I’ve forex my business since I pulled process out of my head

 

and put them on paper. But every time when you do that,

 

and you put it in front of someone else, then they go through it.

 

And you know exactly where they’re falling down, right.

 

And you can update them and fix them.

 

And like sometimes small tweaks can change,

 

change how much time you’re spending to deliver something.

 

And it really helps with scale. So yeah, that’s,

 

I mean, that’s off the topic of mentors and whatnot.

 

But processes are so big. It’s so cool.

 

And it’s something I’ve been I’ve been spending

 

a lot of time in my business lately is building processes.

 

Dustin Lien  

It’s tedious, but it helps so much.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, I actually I have I have someone on staff now that’s,

 

that’s trained in process documentation.

 

So I make five minute videos,

 

and they make process documents where I’m going to show you

 

after we hop off, that’s super cool.

 

Dustin Lien  

That’s actually what I was biting my tongue for…

 

To try not to bring up anything more to get us more off topic,

 

but I’ll go down the rabbit hole there.

 

What I was going to say a good hack is just literally record

 

like screen-recording yourself… what you’re doing while you’re doing it,

 

and then send it to somebody else to type it up.

 

Richard Matthews  

…and then turn it into processes for you.

 

Absolutely changes the game completely. Okay, so back to the topic.

 

Well, on the the last question here that I ask everyone on the show is

 

your guiding principles, right? So what are the top one or two

 

principles or actions that you do every day today?

 

Or regularly, at least that have contributed to the success

 

nd influence that your businesses enjoy?

 

And you wish you had known about them when you started out?

 

Dustin Lien  

I can only pick one or two. Okay, I have a lot.

 

Richard Matthews  

Okay, top five, at least

 

Dustin Lien  

five? All right, okay, I can do top five.

 

Okay, one thing I do every day is I start the day off with some

 

with something difficult that I don’t want to do.

 

And so for me, that’s cold showers. And

 

Richard Matthews  

I was not expecting that answer. I was expecting,

 

like, make a list or something.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, no. It’s, it’s far simpler than that. I literally just…

 

I’ll take a normal shower. But then I have like, there’s kind of

 

a little routine I go through with like some breathing exercises,

 

but that’s kind of beside beside the main point, the last,

 

the last three minutes of the shower. So basically, once I’m done,

 

I flip it all the way cold, like painfully cold, literally as cold as it’ll go.

 

And then I focus my brain on not reacting to it.

 

So something I repeat to myself, I say this in my head to the cold water,

 

I say I acknowledge you, but I’m not going to react to you.

 

And the reason I say that, so the one thing I try to do is I actively try to think

 

like my instead of thinking my body is so cold, I need to get out,

 

I think I try to focus on the parts of my body that are not cold,

 

because there’s inevitably like an arm sticking out or something

 

I focus on like, I acknowledge you cold, but I’m not going to react to you,

 

I’m not going to focus on you.

 

And the reason I do that is to train my mind to not be afraid of

 

difficult situations, and when they come to not react negatively to them.

 

Richard Matthews  

…one of the other things that you may or may not know too is like,

 

the delay between stimulus and response is what makes people masters at things.

 

So if you can take a stimulus and the response…

 

and the response that you have naturally to that,

 

and you can separate that you can learn to master that decision-making process…

 

And when you master that decision-making process, you can bring those back together.

 

And that’s how people become world champions at anything.

 

They learn how to master the space between stimulus and response?

 

And it seems like you’re making that like a daily habit. You’re training that muscle?

 

Dustin Lien  

I guess so. That’s really interesting. Yeah, it’s funny you say that, like,

 

I think one thing I’ve been noticing is, I don’t even…

 

I almost need to find something harder now,

 

because it’s not hard for me anymore. To do the cold part,

 

because I already know, like, I’ve been through it hundreds of times.

 

So I know it’s not gonna bother me. But it’s…

 

Yeah, it’s something I try to just bake into my subconscious

 

that if there’s something difficult, I can acknowledge that it’s difficult,

 

but it doesn’t mean I have to react negatively to it,

 

I can focus on something else, or focus on how to actually solve it instead of panicking.

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s interesting. I don’t know if I have the guts to take a cold shower every day.

 

Dustin Lien  

And then that’s one, that’s one big one, I wish I would have known earlier…

 

not necessarily even the practice of the shower,

 

but just of paying attention to how I’m reacting to things.

 

And trying to kind of master my mindset over…

 

being able to handle difficult situations with ease,

 

I think is really powerful

 

Richard Matthews  

Cool. So that’s one.

 

Dustin Lien  

That’s one.

 

Number two is solve the problem that’s in front of you.

 

Something else to say to myself all day long…

 

this goes back to me like having an overactive brain

 

and thinking about 1000 things, when I catch myself doing it,

 

I try to bring myself back by saying focus on solving

 

the problem that’s in front of you. It’s just kind of a…

 

…a trigger to get back on track.

 

And that’s something I wish I would have focused on in the beginning too,

 

instead of trying to solve problems that are six months down the road,

 

just focus on the one that’s in front of me.

 

And then eventually all the problems will be solved.

 

And in the right order.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah.

 

Dustin Lien  

See, I’ll keep this to three. I’ll just pick another one.

 

…I’ll do two more two more. One is.

 

One is something that a mentor gave me…

 

it’s this advice one time and it’s just really good.

 

“Swim with the current instead of against it.”

 

I think a lot of times in entrepreneur land,

 

we try so hard to make something work that’s not working,

 

or that might even work for someone else.

 

But for whatever reason, in our exact unique situation,

 

it’s not working. And I’ve wasted a lot of time,

 

I’ve closed the businesses because of this one issue of trying to

 

swim against the current, instead of looking at what’s working,

 

and how can I go with the flow better?

 

How can I do more of what’s working instead of,

 

instead of fighting against that trying to make something work,

 

that’s not going going to work?

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s a huge thing too. Actually, I’ve run into that with clients before.

 

Like, I have a client that I have now that…

 

one of the things she told me before we got the client relationship was that,

 

like, I do all this direct response stuff that everyone tells me I need to do,

 

and then my market doesn’t respond. Right, like so we’ve, you know,

 

we do the webinars, we do the high pitch sales,

 

we do the pitch stacking, we do all this stuff, we do all these things,

 

and then the my market doesn’t respond.

 

And I was like, instead of taking the tactics that you’re doing,

 

let’s back it up a little bit and look at the psychology of

 

why we’re doing it doesn’t change,

 

maybe we just need a different approach. And we like rebuilt some ideas,

 

like how can we build some of the the idea of how we’re building

 

and know, and trust. And instead of using the tried and true, you know,

 

“add to webinar or add to book or add to whatever the thing is”,

 

let’s try something different with the same type of principles

 

and apply it in a different way. Instead of just in her case,

 

she was trying to fight the current and her current was not going the same way

 

that most markets do. And changed her business because of it.

 

That’s a really big, big thing to keep in mind.

 

Dustin Lien  

It’s hard when you see other people being successful with certain tactics.

 

And you start doubting yourself and your whole companies.

 

You’re like, “Why? It’s working for 99% of people…”

 

but for whatever reason, like, you can’t even solve it.

 

Sometimes you don’t even know why it’s not working.

 

But you’ll spend so much energy trying to fix something.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. That was the discussion we had. She’s like,

 

“I don’t know how to fix it.” I was like,

 

“Maybe we don’t fix it. Maybe we just change gears.”

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, what’s needed was a simple nugget of perspective.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, it changed everything.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yes, that’s a good one. Last one is, this is kind of more of a sentimental one.

 

But just do what feels right to you. Is a guiding principle for me.

 

Because I think a lot of times with there’s a lot of with entrepreneurship,

 

there’s a lot of FOMO. There’s a lot of like, Shiny Object Syndrome happening.

 

And sometimes we need to just take a step back and say like,

 

“Does this business I’m trying to launch…or does this marketing tactic

 

I’m trying to use or the sales process and thinking of implementing…

 

like, does it feel right?”

 

And just using – leaning into intuition a little bit.

 

Because we’re also unique, and we all have different life experiences

 

and life trajectories. To try to carbon copy everybody else never works.

 

Richard Matthews  

I try to take a gut check.

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah. I didn’t know this. I found this out recently that there are,

 

I think it’s 100 million neurons in our gut.

 

And so like, the that’s kind of where “listen to your gut”

 

came from it actually does affect the way that our brains work.

 

That’s also like a health thing. If you have an unhealthy

 

gut flora, it actually does, impact, your brain.

 

So what we eat literally affects the way that we think

 

which affects our performance. So that’s just another.

 

ut yeah, listening to your intuition, I think is a huge thing.

 

Richard Matthews  

Cool. Those are some good principles.

 

I’m glad we went on more than just one or two.

 

So last thing I do, we do this every time. It’s pretty simple.

 

I called the hero challenge and hero challenge is just this.

 

Do you have someone in your network that you think has a

 

really cool entrepreneurial story that we should invite on to the show?

 

And have them tell their story? Who is it?

 

And why do you think they should come on the show?

 

Dustin Lien  

That’s good. I know, a fair amount of people that I think have good

 

stories…

 

Richard Matthews  

He’s pulling up a list, I can tell

 

Dustin Lien  

One of the list because I want to make sure it’s the right fit.

 

Yeah, there are a lot of people.

 

A lot of people that I know who are successful entrepreneurs,

 

but I think, obviously as you know,

 

some people have more interesting stories than others.

 

I have a friend named Aaron Waters. And I think he has a very good story.

 

He’s the CEO of a company called Leadhub.

 

And he’s a good person, and I would love to connect you to him.

 

Richard Matthews  

What does he do? Why do you think he should come on the show?

 

Dustin Lien  

So he’s a CEO of a marketing agency.

 

But his entrepreneurial journey is very different from others that

 

I’ve heard in the sense that he never wanted to be an entrepreneur.

 

That was not something that he planned on doing.

 

And the way that his company got started

 

– without going too far into the story –

 

his wife now, his girlfriend at the time, basically introduced him to someone that

 

that was starting a marketing agency.

 

And they just had a random beer at a bar

 

and the guy offered him half the company on the spot.

 

And so started his journey of literally dropping in the middle of being the

 

CEO of this company, and growing it to a million dollar plus agency.

 

Richard Matthews  

Sounds like a cool story. Oh, well, that’s pretty much wraps up the the podcast.

 

So thank you so much for hopping on Dustin

 

and talking with us last little bit is where can people find you online.

 

And the second part of that is who would be a good fit, like,

 

if they’re looking if they’ve got problems that you can solve who,

 

you know, where should they go, what kind of what kind of people you’re looking for?

 

Dustin Lien  

Yeah, in general, easiest places to find me are my website,

 

which is just DustinLien.com, D U S T I N L I E N .com.

 

And there, you can sign up for the email list there

 

or hop in the podcasts if you like. Like the episodes.

 

Also on Instagram, I’m fairly fairly active.

 

If you search my name, you’ll find two different accounts.

 

One is an old one that has a lot more followers, but is totally dead.

 

Because I abandoned it, and the other one has less but is the real me.

 

So just a note there.

 

and as far as business wise, if you have a consumer-facing product,

 

your company’s making at least six figures.

 

That’s the type of clientele that my agency works with.

 

The consumer packaged goods in the health and fitness space,

 

at least doing six figures a year.

 

And for that, you can just go to JumpInfluence.com.

 

And that’s the easiest place to hook up there

 

and see some of our client results and stuff like that.

 

And then if you are someone who struggles currently with stress or anxiety,

 

and I’m not talking like clinical anxiety,

 

I’m talking generalized, like you feel anxious about things.

 

You can check out thecodalife.com.

 

That’s thecoda C O D A life.com.

 

We have a supplement called Deep Breath that I think will really help you.

 

Richard Matthews  

Awesome, thank you. This has been super fun to talk to you Dustin.

 

I think that just about wraps it up. Thank you for coming on.

 

Dustin Lien  

Awesome. Thanks Richard. I really enjoyed it.